The Egyptian Revolution, One Year On

[“The Egyptian Revolution, One Year On” conference poster. Photo courtesy of Reem Abou-El-Fadl] [“The Egyptian Revolution, One Year On” conference poster. Photo courtesy of Reem Abou-El-Fadl]

The Egyptian Revolution, One Year On

By : Reem Abou-El-Fadl

Having toppled a dictator of thirty years in the uprisings of January and February 2011, millions of Egyptians looked ahead to a future of comprehensive change. In May 2012, they faced the disturbing prospect of choosing a new president from a list that included Mubarak’s last prime minister, and foreign minister. When the former, Ahmad Shafik, was allowed to pass through to the second electoral round, waves of nationwide protest decried his candidacy. Over the past week, to the alarm of pro-revolution political forces, the High Constitutional Court dissolved parliament, and the ruling military council issued a constitutional declaration that concentrated executive and legislative power in its hands. Several prominent activists have slammed the entire transitional process, and have been protesting with fellow Egyptians to boycott a poll they dismiss as illegitimate and ridden with violations.

It was against this backdrop of tumult and defiance that the international conference entitled “The Egyptian Revolution, One Year On: Causes, Characteristics and Fortunes” began at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University, over 18-19 May 2012. It was co-sponsored by the Department and the John Fell OUP Research Fund at Oxford University, with the generous contribution of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College.

About a year in the making, the conference had been based on a Call for Papers that aimed to reflect rather than restrict, offering several diverse areas of potential inquiry. The intention was to occasion a “first anniversary history” of a broad and interdisciplinary nature. The themes that emerged from the call ranged over the preludes to Egypt’s January Revolution; its movements and mobilization; revolutionaries’ art and sense of humor; the impact it had on law and the state; negotiations of public space; and repercussions on the international scene.

The conference stressed the value of examining a revolution in progress, and of scrutinizing history as it unfolded. This was to reflect the responsibility of social scientists toward the peoples they study, and toward the budding revolution occasioned in the academic field since 2011. Looking specifically at Egypt, the conference was grounded in an understanding of the fortunes of the Egyptian revolution as critical for the other Arab uprisings, and a desire to burrow deep into the Egyptian case rather than offer macro-themes seemingly relevant across the region. The conference was held as a departmental event to affirm the importance of locating the political processes unfolding in Egypt within a context of comparative politics scholarship, while embracing the expertise and empirical rigour of area studies specialists.

The first panel on the “Preludes and Explanations” of the revolution sought to understand the outbreak of the first uprising of 25 January 2011 and to place it in the historical context of decades of anti-regime popular mobilization in Egypt. Speaking on the labor movement, Marie Duboc stressed the way in which disparate struggles forged empowering connections, in strikes and protests between 2004 and 2010. Amr Osman compared debates amongst Egyptian intellectuals, pointing to the erosion of the legitimacy of the 1952 Revolution under presidents Sadat and Mubarak, particularly since the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Adam Hanieh described the links between international and regional, specifically Gulf, capital in the imposition of neoliberal adjustment policies in Egypt. He recalled that Egypt had been lauded as a regional neoliberal reform model, and that international financial institutions are continuing with the privatization drive in Egypt today.

The second panel, “Movements and Mobilization,” asked, who are Egypt’s revolutionaries? What has characterized actors during and since January 2011? In what ways have some structures been reformed and remolded, and some alliances made and reconfigured? John Chalcraft argued that the Egyptian revolution was based upon networked forms of organization, horizontalist mobilization and deliberative democratic processes, without a conventional political program. Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid spoke of transitional dialogues, with reference to Latin American and Eastern European examples, and presented Tunisia as the most reminiscent amongst the Arab uprising cases. Robbert Woltering discussed Egyptian football supporters, the ‘ultras’, whose participation in the revolution emerged out of frustration with police violence and politicization over Palestine and the killing of Khaled Said.

The Egyptian revolution unlocked the potential of thousands of Egyptians for artistic expression, and its fortunes have since been captured in verse, song, dance, graffiti, video and oral testimony. The next panel, “The Language of Revolution,” explored these framings and recordings, and their evolution. Hebatallah Salem discussed the role of political jokes and satire during the past year in Egypt, drawing attention to the constant negotiation between subverting old regime figures and the new incumbents. Tahia Abdel Nasser discussed poetry as an archive of the revolution in Egypt, analyzing the works of Abd al-Rahman al-Abnoudi and Tamim al-Barghouti among others, and the ways in which they draw on poetic canons of the 1950s and 1970s. Randa Kaldas spoke on the oral history documentation project launched by the Economic and Business History Research Center at the American University in Cairo (AUC), discussing the range of participants interviewed, and challenges faced in the process.

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                                   [Conference participants posing for a group photo. Photo by Mariya Petkova]

A Special Session entitled “‘The Revolution Continues’: A Conversation,” aimed, as host Mezna Qato put it, to learn “how movements think.” It featured Heba Raouf Ezzat, a scholar, activist and adviser of many youth groups over recent years and since 2011. She reflected on the ongoing search for scholarly concepts with explanatory value in the new political and social contexts created by the revolution. Amr Salah described his role as member of the Executive Board of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, which was critical to organization, mobilization, and relaying demands in early 2011 and since. Amr emphasized shared goals, during years of activism in anti-Mubarak organizations such as “Kifaya”, as key to unity of ranks in 2011. Marwa Sharafeldin, Oxford graduate and board member of the Musawah International Movement, described how her experience as a women’s activist has changed since January 2011. She emphasized the initially equal, indistinguishable struggle of women and men, when “the mores of the square,” (akhlaq al-midan), were established. She then described the unfolding particular quest for women’s rights in the wake of the military council’s repression and political exclusion of Egyptian women.

The next panel, “Old State, New Rules,” addressed the ways in which the popular demands of early 2011 have transformed institutional and legal frameworks and, as a result, the Egyptian state. Paul Amar discussed subaltern forms of sovereignty emerging in revolutionary Egypt, critiquing the authorities’ use of discourses of thuggishness to discredit new “anarchic” forms of youth and community self-organization. Alex Kazamias discussed the notion of praetorian parliamentarism as replacing the praetorian populism of the mid-twentieth century Egyptian state. He conceptualized the Egyptian revolution as an incomplete process of socio-political transformation, having so far only partially changed the postcolonial Egyptian state. Nicola Pratt discussed the competing wars of position being waged against the hegemonic system of authoritarianism in post-Mubarak Egypt, focusing on the realm of gender and women’s rights.

During the first months of popular protest in 2011, and as counter-revolutionary processes gained momentum later on, Tahrir Square acquired iconic status and became a field of contestation among different political groups and the state. According to all three panelists in “Competing Visions of Tahrir,: the revolution had inaugurated a phase of liminality, in which the usual points of social and political orientation are called into question. Aya Nassar discussed the implications of membership of public spaces such as Tahrir Square in comparison with others in Egypt’s past. Mark Peterson examined meaning construction in successive ‘iterations’ of Tahrir Square gatherings, through contested metacommentaries on Tahrir’s ‘real’ significance each time. Walter Armbrust, in his examination of talkshow host Taufiq ‘Ukasha, argued that in moments of liminality, “tricksters” like Ukasha thrive, producing perverted forms of social knowledge, in this case, becoming key to the organization of counterrevolutionary provocations.

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[“The Egyptian Revolution, One Year On” conference poster. Photo courtesy of Reem Abou-El-Fadl]

The final panel, “Beyond Egypt,” examined post-Mubarak Egyptian foreign policy goals and visions, as well as the perceptions and reverberations of Egypt’s popular revolution beyond Egypt. Fred Lawson examined the reconfiguration of Egyptian foreign policy since the revolution, particularly with respect to relations with Iran and Ethiopia. Andrea Teti critiqued European discourses on democracy promotion in Egypt and their alienation of Egyptian pro-democracy opposition groups. Kerem Öktem deconstructed attitudes to the Arab world in Turkey, by presenting a critical reading of Turkish public debates and the potentially counterrevolutionary policies of the ruling party in Turkey on the Egyptian revolution. Miriyam Aouragh discussed the useful and useless roles of the Internet in the Arab revolutions by revisiting mainstream narratives on its role, and satirizing the surprise voiced by some observers at Arabs’ use of social media.

The conference sessions have all been placed online, in both audio and video format, at the University of Oxford Podcasts page, as well as on iTunes. They provide an exciting snapshot of the state of our scholarly and political engagement with the Egyptian revolutionary process at this moment in time. The rich and animated discussions we had with audience members during each panel underlined the need for further meetings, and generated further questions. We look forward to continuing these conversations soon.

[Links to the program, abstracts, and conference sessions’ recordings are available at the conference website, which was designed by Alaa Hamouda, Ayman Shaltoni and Marwa al-Hayek of WebPlanet in Gaza, Palestine.]

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412