In early December, Cairo’s bustling 6th of October and Obour neighborhoods, where the Syrian diaspora in Egypt is clustered, resounded with whistles and the honks of vehicles’ horns. Syrians gathered spontaneously to celebrate the news of the end of Bashar al-Assad’s dynasty. Egyptians were clapping along and shooting videos of the celebrations.
Yet as people were basking in the fleeting moment of ecstasy in northwest Cairo, security forces dispersed the gatherings. Thirty Syrians were arrested and deportation orders were issued against three of them, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent human rights organization.
Egypt hosts a sprawling Syrian community that arrived after the 2011 revolution in Syria and the ensuing civil war. While some 153,000 Syrians in the country were registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) by the end of 2023, Egypt’s total estimated Syrian population has grown to 1.5 million. Although this figure is uncertain due to the lack of an official tally, what is certain is that most Syrians have integrated into Egyptian society.
Rassem al-Attasi, the former head of the Syrian Community Association in Egypt, told New Lines that Syrians deliberately avoid enrolling with the UNHCR because Egypt is like home, and Egyptians have long been strong sympathizers with Syrians.
Aleppo natives Mohammed and Anas, who asked that only their first names be used for this article, were hard at work at a shawarma stand, packaging food orders for a Syrian restaurant in a suburban neighborhood of Cairo’s southern area. Neither had been politically engaged back in Syria, but they were ecstatic at the news of Assad’s ouster.
“All my Egyptian friends congratulated me. This is the first time I have seen Egyptians interacting with news coming from Syria. They, like everybody, got used to the atrocities we have been subjected to. I do not blame them,” Mohammed said.
Anas, who looks much younger than Mohammed, agreed. “Egyptians would never support [Assad], who destroyed the lives of Syrians.”
If Egyptians felt strongly about the news of Assad’s downfall on Dec. 8, their sentiments were muted due to a general atmosphere of fear, which leaves Egyptian streets devoid of any traces of political expression. The online sphere, however, was a different story.
The days that followed Assad’s ouster were busy for Egyptians on social media and talk shows, and also vastly polarized. The chatter was mostly joyful that Syrians had been liberated from Assad’s rule, if skeptical that the country’s new rulers could chart a new course. But the louder voices were those of Egyptian authorities and their media mouthpieces, warning of potential chaos and cautioning Egyptians about possible foreign conspiracies.
Political science professor Mostafa Kamel al-Sayyed told New Lines: “The reactions in Egypt were dictated by three factors — sentiments toward the Muslim Brotherhood group, the stance from [President Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi’s administration and fear that similar events may occur in Egypt.”
In response to the fall of Assad, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt released a statement congratulating the Syrian people for overthrowing “a treacherous regime.”
Multiple statements from the Islamist group surfaced online. Although their authenticity has been questioned by analysts, they were seized on by Sisi loyalists, including media mouthpieces.
“This regime will not leave except through a revolution, and our prisoners in Egyptian prisons will not be liberated except through a real revolution that uproots the tyranny. This revolution will not be achieved by any humiliating negotiations with a regime that knows nothing but oppression and injustice,” one of the statements that surfaced online read.
The Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt in 2012, following parliamentary and presidential elections, and stayed in power for one year, during which they shunned the secular opposition. In 2013, former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was overthrown and replaced by Sisi, who designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization and cracked down on all its prominent figures. Occasionally, the group calls for protests, but they rarely materialize.
Despite the lack of popular reaction to Assad’s fall on Egypt’s streets, the congratulatory statements appear to have provoked the ire of Sisi’s supporters, who came to the government’s preemptive defense.
Talk show hosts were quick to vehemently criticize the rise of Islamists in Syria and their de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led the offensive that toppled Assad. The criticism was consistent with the persistently anti-Islamist rhetoric in Egyptian media over the past decade, which often blames the Muslim Brotherhood for all shortcomings of the Sisi government.
A few days after Assad’s ouster, loyalist Egyptian TV anchor Ahmed Moussa advocated for the execution of political opponents in Egypt’s prisons who have death sentences issued against them. “We have to implement [a number] of these executions so that people know we are not walking back our decisions,” Moussa said in a televised segment of his talk show, referring to Muslim Brotherhood members in Egyptian prisons.
Other media figures, including TV anchor and parliamentarian Mostafa Bakry, warned of a possible civil war in Syria and questioned the stories of torture coming out of Sednaya prison — a facility that was operated by Assad’s regime and was known as a “human slaughterhouse.”
“What happened in Syria was a pretext for media figures and authorities in Egypt to revive fears in Egyptians of foreign conspiracies. They instill these fears in favor of the current administration,” journalist and analyst Abdel Azeem Hammad told New Lines.
Arab and foreign diplomats from several countries have held high-profile meetings with al-Sharaa, but no Egyptian officials have met him yet.
A few days after Assad fled Syria journalists and media representatives listened to Sisi carefully as he delivered his first televised speech, encircling him in a semiformal setting. “Two things I have not done: My hands are not stained with blood, and I have not taken anything that is not mine,” Sisi told the journalists, who rarely — if ever — oppose him, in the melancholic tone that often characterizes his speeches.
He also warned repeatedly of “dormant cells” that might bring about chaos in Egypt. “Those against the [Muslim Brotherhood] group, they are fearful of the news coming from Syria because, once again, political Islam reemerges in the region, and this could lead to increased resistance from Islamists in Egypt,” al-Sayyed said.
Right after the fall of Assad, Egypt introduced new travel measures for Syrians who hold residency permits from the Gulf, Europe or the U.S. Previously, they paid $25 upon arrival to enter Egypt, but this policy was immediately revoked. Now, they have to obtain security approval from Egyptian embassies, according to al-Attasi. Syrians who maintain residency in Egypt have to apply for permits to be able to travel and reenter the country.
Analysts believe that Egypt was quick to introduce the new policies, which hinder Syrians’ entry to the country, due to fear of potential infiltration by radicals among them.
But defenders of the Egyptian administration are not alone in fearing the rise of Islamists in Syria. Political analyst Maged Mandour told New Lines that the success of the Islamists in Syria is raising some soul-searching questions among the secular opposition. The support for toppling Morsi in Egypt came from the idea that the Islamists would turn Egypt into a new Afghanistan and lay the groundwork for religious fascism.
“If Islamists in Syria show moderation and introduce inclusive governments, this may not bode well for the so-called secular opposition in Egypt. The divide between the opposition and the Islamists continues to be a stranglehold that very few people can transcend in Egypt,” Mandour explained.
In 2013, a delegation from the Egyptian Nasserist Party stirred controversy when they visited Assad in Syria to support him. Co-founder of the party Farouk El-Eshry told state-owned media at the time that the intention behind supporting Assad was to augment resistance against U.S. and Israeli plans. El-Eshry described Assad as the “last line of defense” for pan-Arabism, which is the crux of nationalist and Nasserist ideology.
Eleven years on, some Egyptian Nasserists and nationalists find themselves heavily censured for grieving Assad’s departure. “Oh, beloved Syria. A deep stab in the heart of Arabism, but Arabism will not die,” former presidential candidate and prominent Nasserist figure Hamdeen Sabahi wrote on X shortly after Assad fled Syria.
Egyptian activists were among those who quickly criticized Sabahi’s support for Assad. “Will Arabism not survive except on the corpses of people murdered by tyrants and criminals, who are also supported by Iran and Russia? What is this shameful Arabism?” rights lawyer Mahienour al-Massry wrote in response to Sabahi’s post.
Hammad said that some people who subscribe to nationalist ideology and other similar worldviews suffer “political hallucinations.”
“They think as long as he [Assad] said that he was against Israel, then he had to be supported and be deemed a nationalist,” Hammad said, adding that some nationalists and leftists are resolute in their support of anyone who is against the United States and Israel regardless of what they do.
The pan-Arabist ideology and movement in Egypt, however, is much more varied than Sabahi’s statement would suggest.
Nasserist journalist Hossam Mones told New Lines that Nasserists in Egypt are not a monolith, and their reaction to the news of Assad’s ouster is complex.
“Even if indirectly, some Nasserists view Syria, to an extent, as a party that eased logistics, arming or training resistance movements, be it in Palestine or Lebanon,” Mones added, justifying the support among some nationalists of Assad.
Conversely, Mones, who views Assad as a criminal, believes that generational differences among the nationalist movement exist. “Some Nasserists are more sensitive to topics including human rights and democracy, and they viewed Bashar as a criminal.”
Professor al-Sayyed said that the government and other analysts fear what happened in Syria because al-Sharaa appeared in a photo with Mahmoud Fathy, an Egyptian Islamist leader with close ties to former Islamist presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a few days after Assad’s departure.
“This photo may have fueled annoyance because it alludes to a desire to mimic what happened in Syria,” al-Sayyed remarked. “However, the Syrian regime was in shambles, unlike the Egyptian one. It largely depended on foreign support and perhaps that was why it collapsed quickly.”
Egypt is a different case, according to al-Sayyed. There is no foreign intervention or armed group that controls lands. Despite grievances in Egypt, people fear a potential revolution because they deem it a mess and will leave the country facing an uncertain future.
“It is a groundless fear,” al-Sayyed added.
Egyptians have been reeling from difficult economic conditions, with the country suffering a protracted shortage of foreign currency and ballooning inflation rates that have eaten away at their savings.
Still, the differences between the Syrian and Egyptian contexts are stark.
“In Syria, the opposition had an experience in leadership even if it was over small parts of the country — well-organized and disciplined. But in Egypt, the opposition is divided, weak, and the split between Islamists and secular opposition is still very dominant,” Mandour explained.
He added that Egyptians are also not in the mood for protests. “People fear for their safety, and in case of any demonstrations breaking out, they will be met with nothing but acute violence.”
Mandour also excludes the possibility of any mobilization because “the narrative of the regime still has currency, the country will collapse and there will be a mess and I [Sisi] am the only one warding off a full-fledged mess.”
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