Category Archives: Egypt

On the current misleading western media discourse on Egyptian politics

Posted on by
Reply

Recent western analysis and media depictions of the current state of affairs in Egypt have falsely framed the latest clashes between anti-Morsi protesters and pro-Morsi rallies as a result of an unholy alliance of upper class “elites”, liberals who are bitter due to successive losses at the ballots, and Mubarak-era holdovers grasping at any straws of hope for toppling a democratically elected Islamist president. Such facile characterization completely overlooks the key issues at the core of the current state of extreme polarization in Egyptian politics, misses the main reasons why people are pouring out onto the streets of Egypt again, and sets the current protests in a simplistic as well as fallacious mold of a clash between secularism and Islamism.


This misrepresentative narrative about the reasons behind the resurgence of mass popular dissent is not only a result of a flippant set of assumptions about what the current struggle in Egypt is fundamentally about, but is also rooted in long-standing and intellectually primeval presuppositions in the western psyche about the notions of freedom, rights and modalities of claiming both in Arab and predominantly Islamic societies. Far too many western pundits cast the ongoing sociopolitical chaos in post-revolution Egypt into preset idea-constructs about the Arab World. The term “Arab Spring” itself is steeped in such Orientalist patterns of thought, amalgamating the “Arabs” into a big, ideologically homogeneous mass based on which analysis that reek of patronizing overtones exist in a parallel moral universe, far away from the humanist traditions that western democracies pride their development on.


In making these errors in framing the politics of post-Mubarak Egypt, western media constructs stylized topologies of contention that fit the aforementioned Orientalist imagination, as well as reproduce – albeit indirectly – the fundamentally exclusionist yet ostensibly “authentic” narratives of post-revolution sociopolitical development, as preached stentorian by the Islamist ideologues from the mount of the hegemonic state apparatus which they inherited from those who were unseated in January 2011. What we are presented with, in effect, is a perverse confluence of western misanalysis of what is essentially a continuation of popular struggle against durable authoritarianism, and western discourse on freedom, human rights and inclusiveness.


What is taking place in Egypt right now is, simply, a continuation of mass dissidence against oppression under a different ideological heading. The Muslim Brotherhood is replicating the structures of tyranny of the past six decades. The revolution’s demands of “bread, freedom, and social justice” are being misappropriated by the neo-hegemons to pass an exclusionary constitution that undermines civil liberties and cements the structures of oppression and coercion deeper, as opposed to uprooting autocracy and reestablishing a social contract that prioritizes freedom, equality and justice as demanded by Egyptians who unseated Mubarak in early 2011.

Twitt

Technology, identity, and citizen-driven politics: Emerging new media ecologies and the shifting paradigms of social change

Posted on by
Reply


A little more than a year and a half after the unforeseen waves of mass uprisings in the Arab world, and the term ‘Arab Spring’ is starting to quickly lose its glamour in the media. Current indicators in the countries that witnessed the protests are not conducive to optimism, with authoritarianism generally persisting, and the post Arab Spring political arenas largely dominated by Islamist parties seeking to implement their ultra-conservative politico-religious agendas. In Egypt, for example, Islamists who have managed to capture both a parliamentary majority and the presidency are now seeking to write a Shariah-based constitution, refusing to acknowledge ideological and religious diversity and disregarding any input from other political entities and voices in the civil society calling for an open, inclusive dialogue on a the constitution that will define rights, political participation, governance and accountability in post-Mubarak Egypt.


I deliberately chose to use the term ‘post-Mubarak’ not ‘post-revolution’ Egypt in the last paragraph to stress the point that has become almost axiomatic of the current state of political activism in Egypt: the Egyptian revolution is still very much in flux. Activists keep emphasizing that “Al Thawra Mostamera” (meaning: the revolution continues). For many Egyptians, the main result of the January 25th 2011 uprising is replacing one form of a dictator with another. Oppression and exclusion continue to define the relationship between citizens and the state, albeit under different ideological veneers.


Revolutions, uprisings and other acts of mass popular political iconoclasm are episodic, explosive events. That is, the revolutionary ‘momentum’, as strong as it can be (in Egypt’s case toppling a dictator in 18 days) can only be effectively sustained for a relatively short time. This is due to various reasons, including – and perhaps most importantly – the ability of a coercive regime to deploy armed violence against the protestors (take, for example, the situation in Syria at the time of this writing, and the Libyan uprising a few months ago). The ideological homogeneity that exists within the temporal (e.g the 18 days it took to oust Mubarak) or spatial (e.g. Tahrir Square) boundaries of a mass popular uprising is not sustainable beyond the euphoric moment that defines the success of an act of mass political dissidence (a dictator stepping down, a coercive regime ousted, etc). In the case of the Egyptian revolution, the revolutionary drive which has come into focus in Tahrir Square in January 2011– one which has been described as ‘leaderless’ – was devoid of ideological, sectarian and other divisive factors, focusing all protest energy on specific, clear demands. That does not mean that these factors will not force their way to the surface and forefront of the sociopolitical arena beyond milestones that define incidents of forceful mass dissent. The dynamics that affect social interactions and relations within the aforementioned boundaries of a short revolutionary period are very different from those that take place in a post-revolution sociopolitical environment. Faced with a common, much more able foe (the strongly entrenched regime) social identities coalesce and ideological divides are diminished temporarily during an act of popular uprising. The exact opposite happened in the months that followed the Egyptian revolution. A society in which open political participation and self-expression was largely stifled for more than 30 years has suddenly gained a level of freedom that made people hyper-aware of their perceived self-identities. Consequently, ideological affiliations became much more pronounced, and binary identification with certain political ideologies or factions became a way for most people to find and assert these identities.


Attempting to understand the prospects for genuine, desirable democratic transformation in Egypt after the 2011 revolution (as well in other recently manifested contexts of popular dissidence) necessitates an analysis that is not confined to the conventional frameworks of institutional politics and citizen-state relationships. It could be argued that any far-sighted analyses that aims to assess the extent to which grassroots drives for change can endure against continued opression must have, at their core, a thorough consideration of how societies are making use of the networked world to bring voices previously stifled or unheard to the foreground of politics. Sociopolitical change is a historical inevitability, and the reasons behind why people protest and revolt are globally universal (coercion, inequality, oppression and tyranny). Nonetheless, the modalities and processes of how such change takes place are undergoing profound changes, largely due to the exponentially advancing technologies shaping people communicate, share information and create knowledge requisite to bring about the transformations they collectively seek. Within the context of a society in the process of home-grown democratic reform following a popular uprising, the question I pose is: How effective are technologically-empowered forms of citizen mobilization in contributing to democracy building and continued grassroots activism against what could be seen as a continuation of authoritarianism.

Twitt

Egypt and the Law of Conservation of Authoritarianism

Posted on by
3


In a recent social event on the campus of the University of Sussex (where I am currently working on a PhD), a student from the Physics department – on learning that I am Egyptian – asked me about the current state of affairs in Egypt. Instead of reeling off the usual condensed spiel spanning key events since January 25th 2011 to the current presidential election run-off, and not wanting to start talking about ‘durable authoritarianism’ and ‘resilient regimes’, I decided to analogically and succinctly describe the current situation in Egypt in a way that a physics student could instantly understand. I explained the Egyptian political environment in terms of the First Law of Thermodynamics.

I call it the Law of Conservation of (Egyptian) Authoritarianism. It states that…

(Egyptian) authoritarian regimes are neither elected nor ousted, they merely change from one form to another.

The physics student nodded knowingly, and that’s when I knew that paying a little attention in my Physics 201 class ten years ago was not in vain.

Twitt

Can Egypt drop its ‘odius debt’?

Posted on by
Reply


The Gaurdian reports that Britian is demanding the repayment of GBP 100m lent to the Mubarak regime for arms deals.

Incidentally, IMF officials are currently in Cairo trying to talk Egypt’s interim government into a $3 billion loan.

With these two news items in mind, it does not become too difficult to connect a few dots and understand the timeliness of Britian’s claim for repayment of loans made to the ousted regime. It is highly doubdtful that the Egyptian people will actually benefit from such a loan, for most of it will probably go towards repayment of part of Egypt’s foreign debt, including what we owe Britain for arms bought by Mubarak. The question is: should the Egyptian people bear the burden of debt they had no say in , borne in their name by a dictator? Is such debt what could be considered ‘odius debt‘?

The ‘Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt’ certainly believes so, calling for a comprehensive audit for all of Egypt’s forign debt, and aiming “to facilitate Egypt’s economic independence from the many forms of exploitation, subordination and resource misappropriation that were imposed upon the people of Egypt during the past decades by the regime of the ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak and his collaborators abroad.”

Can Egypt do what Ecuador did in 2006?

Twitt

On the Maspero incidents: Sectarianism as a counter-revolutionary tool

Posted on by
Reply

The violence that erupted in Maspero yesterday signals an acutely dangerous turn in the already murky atmosphere of Egypt’s post-revolutionary transition.

I say acutely dangerous because what started out as a peaceful demonstration by Christians, joined by a few Muslims, calling for passing a law that regulates building places of worship, has not only turned into a violent clash with the army for reasons that are still open to speculation, but also because such clash carries what is quite possibly the most explicit sectarian violence associations witnessed since the fall of the Mubark regime, and the starkest undertones of religious tension in recent memory.

I say acutely dangerous because of the shockingly inflammatory rhetoric of misinformation deployed by the Egyptian state media, invoking unwelcome reminders of the Mubarak propaganda machine fielded in full strength during the 18 days that preceded his ouster. The vocabulary used and incendiary undertones implied are confirmations that all talk of state media reform has been nothing but hot air, and that SCAF – heralded as the “Guardian of the Revolution” – is nothing but an annexe of the toppled regime and a disguised tool of continued oppression.

I say acutely dangerous because, as readily evinced to any observer of the Egyptian social and political scene right now, what happened yesterday in Maspero is akin to pouring buckets of kerosene on a field of smouldering coals. Given the vagueness of most reports on what ignited the violence and the mounting dissatisfaction with SCAF’s actions (or often, non-actions) once cannot help but feel that something ominous is brewing.

With the dismal implications of these incidents casting a menacing shadow over the unfolding consequences of Egypt’s revolution, we have to remember that post-January 25th Egyptians are much more flinty-eyed and aware that the SCAF is going to have a very rough time playing divide-and-conquer, if such is indeed the game they choose to play now.

Twitt

Abdel Muti Hihajzi gets it: On Revolutions, False Miracles and Social media

Posted on by
Reply

Ahmed Abdel Muiti Hijazi is one of my favorite Egyptian progressives. Hijazi is not only one of the most prominent Egyptian modern poets, he is also a staunch secularist and sharp social commentator.

In an article (perhaps sarcastically) titled “This Miracle, how is it to be explained?” published in the Egyptian Al-Ahram daily newspaper, Hijazi warns of the perils of thinking of the Revolution as an impulsive popular action or an “inexplicable miracle”:

Note: (I will try provide a correct translation, as opposed to metaphrase, of the bits I quote from Hijazi’s article, in order not to risk loss of intended meaning)

We would be making a grave mistake if we relied on [what we see on] television and shallow journalistic commentary in evaluating the [results of] the Egyptian Revolution, and considered it merely an impetuous revolt, or an inexplicable miracle and reduced it to the [herosim of] youth who used modern communication technologies, the potential threat of which was unfathomable to and unchecked by the security of the ousted regime,  to come together  in Tahrir Square and call for change.

Such is a severely naïve and deficient rationalization [of the Egyptian Revolution], because it stops at the tool that the youth of January 25th used to rally around their cause, but it does not elucidate the strong motivations that provided those youth with vision, resolve and the requisite bravery to face a regime of which its brutality and viciousness they are certain, and inspired them to put the tools, technologies and networks at their disposal to use in this stand-off. The same tools, it could be argued, could be used by others to create a surrogate world that isolates them from their problem-ridden society and provides a self-exemption from their responsibilities towards that society.


What Hijazi is talking about, I believe, is the importance of not forgetting that digitally-empowered social activism stems from, is robustly entrenched in and preceded by a vibrant social discourse and a continuous grassroots-level ideological debate. The outbreak of a popular uprising is the culmination of the collective desire for tangible change; reinforced, accelerated and made more sustainable by the use of social media. Is this not what Malcolm Gladwell meant when he said that “high risk” social activism requires deep roots and strong ties” ? But (as I have previously discussed) he strangely dismissed the catalytic  effect of social media on further cultivating such ties . It is important to keep in mind, as Hijazi explains, that those ties are already there (the common, innate human desire for freedom and general evolution of political systems into modern democracies, enmeshed with local social and political givens). What we are witnessing is the effect of new communication technologies on the pace and trajectories of activism rooted in those ties.

(In the rest of the article, Hijazi emphasizes the importance of preserving one of the most important gains of the revolution, which is putting freedom of speech and secularism (including relevant constitutional amendments) at the forefront of popular debate in a society long plagued with intellectual terrorism in the name of “religious taboos”.)

Twitt

From clicktivism to activism: How shutting down the Internet helped fuel the Egyptian uprising

Posted on by
2

Image credit: @carloslatuff

Picking up where I left off...

As previously noted, it is surely naive to assume that all of those who blogged, tweeted and facebooked about the protests were on the street in any/all of those protests. The opposite also holds true. A cursory look at Egyptian demographic data on education and internet penetration neither makes this a surprising observation nor vindicates the arguments of “cyber-skeptics”. In fact, it makes the whole “slacktivism vs activism” argument weaker from a cause-effect standpoint.

When the Egyptian government pulled the plug on Internet access in a foolish assumption that those unruly kids on the streets will go home if you take away their virtual toys, the regime erroneously thought that the use of social media is merely one of planning, organizing and mobilizing protests, entirely oblivious to the build-up of a revitalized collective conscience over the course of the past several years, in which social media played a key role. The effect of this error in judgment on the regime’s part was akin to trying to slow down a speeding 18-wheeler but accidentally stepping on the gas instead of the brakes. When Egypt went offline, many “slacktivists” turned into “activists”, and joined the protests on the streets.  Traditional media, even if non-state controlled, could no longer fill the void of the distributed truth engine (I just made that term up!) made possible by online social networks. Without access to the relative trustworthiness of virtual space, you had to go see for yourself. What the government thought of as move to defuse the masses was, in fact, an incendiary act that started the countdown for Mubarak’s ousting.

As a supporting anecdote, here is a quote by one of my friends (Egyptian, female, 20something, graduate degree) reflecting on the events in the early days of the protests:


Jan. 25. I listened to the shouting crowds from my balcony yesterday, as groups of protesters were heading to Tahrir square. I wished I could join but fear held me back. Fear of being harassed or harmed by the forces of the National Security, fear that going through pain and humiliation would make me more and more hateful of our circumstances, and thus lose my stamina towards carrying on my efforts in making things better on the long term without any political confrontation.

Media manipulation and Twitter blocking changed my stance; it got on my nerves so much that I could not stay in. A minute long phone call from a friend got me out of the house, together we went to Tahrir square.

Yesterday was a firm answer putting an end to all the allegations and brainwashing that claimed that the current system is better than all other options in front of us; it was also a good revision to all that I have learned through my Political Science courses. And because I believe in what I’ve learned, I see a ray of light. If change doesn’t happen now, it’s coming nonetheless. We have changed, and we have proven that we want and deserve to change.

This brings to mind the error many pundits are making when debating this issue: they focus a little too much on the “digital” in “digital activism”, generally demoting the use of social networks in inciting real change to the face value of online interactions (blog posts, tweets, e-vites, etc…), and creating a false dichotomy between social interactions in virtual space and popular confrontational action in real space.

Twitt

The Virtualization of Dissent: Social Media as a Catalyst for Social Change (Part two: From Reanimating the Social Discourse on Reform to a Grassroots Revolt for Change)

Posted on by
2


Cartoon by Patrick Chapatte


One of any coercive regime’s worst fears is a rich, open public dialogue on change and reform. When people start candidly discussing and debating their concerns, hopes and dreams, they begin to be aware of their true priorities and rights, and what must be done to reclaim those rights. Walls of fear begin to crumble. The regime’s cautionary myth of trading security and stability for freedom shatters.

That’s why authoritarian governments have silly things like Ministries of Information. That’s why open public debate on reform was stifled and state-terrorized not only throughout the Mubarakian era, but since the days of Nasser. The fake freedom of the press given by Mubarak was but a bone thrown to obsolete pseudo-intellectuals-slash-regime-brown-nosers and seemingly-dissenting yet unfocused traditional media. As long as it is contained within the conventional realm of information dissemination, it could be controlled at will. Regime-defined lines will not be crossed. A truly Orwellian nightmare for reformists.

What social media has created is a sort of an alternate space for reviving a dormant public consciousness into a sentient, dynamic social discourse. The assumption that social media’s largest influence was during or shortly before the 18 days in which Mubarak’s regime was brought down is very naive. This has been simmering under the surface of the Egyptian political scene for a while, particularly since the Presidential “elections” of 2005. The boiling point was reached on January 25th 2011. What I refer to here as the virtualization of dissent is what happened when the popular desire for change was shifted (by whom? I’ll get to that shortly) from real space, where it was in long somnolence, and cultivated it in a space that the Patriarchs do not understand: virtual space. Faced with something they could not yet comprehend neither the workings nor the effects of, the best the regime could do was detain and intimidate, and ultimately completely shut down the medium when the revolution broke out (a move which only betrayed how weak they have become and added fuel to the fire). They never really attempted to understand this medium and instigate their own countermeasures in “virtual space”, much to their own peril.

A key thing to understanding all of this is that the instigators of this phase changing resistance (from real space to virtual space, then back to real space in the form of strong confrontational popular action) are not particularly representative of the vast majority of Egyptians. To understand what this means, take a quick look at the demographics of a random sample of Egyptian “net activists”: young, educated, tech-savvy middle/upper-middle class (as compared to a country with a 42% illiteracy rate, for instance). In other words, those are not the truly oppressed masses, especially from an economic sense. This minority, however, spoke for all of Egypt. By taking the war for reform to their virtual turf, away from the regimes clamp down on political action in real space, then funnelling it all back out to real space in the form of a mighty wave of revolt, they have  reclaimed Egypt.

Twitt

The Virtualization of Dissent: Social Media as a Catalyst for Social Change (Part one: Why Gladwell is Wrong)

Posted on by
4


Guerrilla Social Media Ops from Tahrir Square (click for picture credits)

I previously wrote about  the role of social media in empowering tangible political and social action, citing social movements in Egypt and Iran that seemed to be driven, at least partially, by “digital activism”. My argument was that using social media as a tool for inspiring political action is not merely a cathartic outlet for the oppressed yet digitally-empowered masses, but rather an effective device for invoking widespread and effective popular action. The most readily observable value of such use is making an otherwise impossible (or at least greatly stifled) popular political discourse (due to regime coercion and crackdown on activists, and state-controlled traditional mass media) possible in “virtual space”, as well as making use of the vast possibilities in community organizing and rallying disparate efforts for deployment of “real” political action.

Then the Tunisian uprising and Egyptian January 25th Revolution came and BAM! We have rock solid empirical evidence for a significant positive correlation between the use of social media and progressive political action in the form of major, powerful grassroots tsunamis of rebellion overthrowing coercive regimes in surprisingly short time spans. As strong as such evidence is, it has surprisingly fuelled the debate in the blogosphere on this topic even further, mainly relating to the significance of observed causality (between social media and “real”  social or political change).

Several opinions going against the popular grain on this topic (which generally holds that social media drives and catalyzes tangible political action) have understandable merit when regarded from certain perspectives. For instance, where does the use of social media play a larger, more significant and observable role? Is it about amplifying the dissenting voices and calling media attention to what is downplayed by state-controlled traditional media as insignificant, foreign interest driven and isolated action by rouge factions? Or is the real value in the community organizing efforts and the planning and coordination tools made possible by using digital activism? What is a fact, however, is that the overwhelming evidence provided by the current wave of popular protests and revolutions in the Middle East makes it exceedingly difficult for many dismissive views to hold any water.  The debate itself is nothing surprising, what is baffling, though, is that one of such dismissive opinions comes from a guy like Malcolm Gladwell, author of books like The Tipping Point and Blink.

In a very short post titled “Does Egypt need Twitter?” on the New Yorker’s blogsite, Newsdesk, Gladwell argues that social media is not necessary for revolutions. Popular uprisings happened long before there was Internet. The means by which social change happens is, according to Gladwell, “less interesting” than the core causes that spark it. Gladwell writes:

“When Mao famously said that power springs from the barrel of a gun, it was assumed that he was talking about guns. There wasn’t much interest at the time in how he chose to communicate that sentiment: whether he said it in a speech, say, or whispered it to a friend, or wrote it in his diary or published it in a book. That would never happen today, of course. We now believe that the “how” of a communicative act is of huge importance. We would say that Mao posted that power comes from the barrel of a gun on his Facebook page, or we would say that he blogged about gun barrels on Tumblr—and eventually, as the apostles of new media wrestled with the implications of his comments, the verb would come to completely overcome the noun, the part about the gun would be forgotten, and the the big takeaway would be: Whoa. Did you see what Mao just tweeted?”

Bizzare example to use in this context, if you ask me. Are we talking about the effect of the modes of message transmission on its symantics, or about the how the wide-spread adoption of social tools is used to incite and organize popular protests?

Gladwell goes on to say that…

“People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented. They did it before the Internet came along. Barely anyone in East Germany in the nineteen-eighties had a phone—and they ended up with hundreds of thousands of people in central Leipzig and brought down a regime that we all thought would last another hundred years—and in the French Revolution the crowd in the streets spoke to one another with that strange, today largely unknown instrument known as the human voice”

But of course they did! Revolt is a natural consequence of injustice and modern social media is not an ingredient to rebellion against coercion, but Gladwell seems to be answering the wrong question (Is social media necessary for popular uprising?) and missing the more important inquiry: Is digital activism a true catalyst for social change?

Indeed, the revolt of the oppressed is inevitable, notwithstanding the availability of social media tools, but it is not a question of necessity, but one of effect.

In other words, perhaps it could be argued that the current wave of uprisings and protests  in the Middle East would have eventually happened given the aging, coercive non-democratic patriarchal regimes that dominate the region. Nonetheless, to use a Gladwellian term, the “tipping point” of this dominos effect (Tunisia, Egypt, now Algeria, Bahrain  and Jordan in progress) would have been much further down the road. These uprisings would have been disconnected and far between if social media tools were to be taken out of the equation. Strangely, Gladwell posits that social activism requires “strong ties“, then dismisses the role of social media in fostering and enriching such ties not only within nations, but across borders as is the case with the Middle East right now.

Addendum, February 16th 2011: Another thing Gladwell said in this blog post is rather perplexing (the way I read it):

People with a grievance will always find ways to communicate with each other. How they choose to do it is less interesting, in the end, than why they were driven to do it in the first place.

Maybe I could understand this statement if made by a political scientist or historian, but it is such a strange remark coming from an astute observer on dynamic social phenomena such as Gladwell. The general culprit of popular dissidence is pretty much universal throughout modern history: the desire for freedom, equality, and democracy. The way people go about claiming those rights, however, is dynamic and evolving. It is, in fact, very interesting from a modern multidisciplinary observation standpoint.

Twitt

How to Remove a Dictator (in 18 days): an Anti-Coercion Manual

Posted on by
1 


(Photo credits: Mostapha El Shafey)

February 11, 2011. 21:06, Cairo, Egypt

We did it.

I have an outpouring of thoughts in my head related to what happened in Egypt over the past two weeks that I would love to get out all at once right now, if only to attempt to clear my head by writing things down. Alas, doing so will be at the expense of coherence. Here is what I want to say right now...

To my mind, the most beautiful thing about the January 25th Revolution is not only the triumph of freedom and justice over tyranny and injustice, it is also – arguably equally important – in how it all happened; this was a “textbook revolution” if there is ever such a thing: (mostly) peaceful and relatively bloodless, grassroots-driven and leaderless, completely inclusive and uniting of disparate social classes and political factions, technologically-catalyzed and a model in community organizing, self-expression and humor.

We should write a reference book by the title of this post.

Another thing: I am of the opinion that the revolution has just begun. The ousting of the dictator is but the first step. I can confidently and optimistically say this is an opinion shared by many Egyptians now. More on that later.

Twitt