CAIRO: What are the differences between protests today and the protests of the 6os and 70s? How has the political and social reality in Egypt changed and what are the manifestations of these changes? Is there a feminist movement in Egypt? What about protest music? What makes Egypt’s Copts take to the streets? To answer these intriguing questions, a group of scholars came together on Saturday for a one-day symposuim to mark the 30th anniversary of the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) social science publication, Cairo Papers in Social Science.
Entitled “30 Years of Political and Social Protest in Egypt , the symposium was organized by AUC Political Science Professor Iman Hamdy and gathered a host of international scholars as well as AUC and Cairo University professors.
London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies Professor Robert Springborg gave the keynote speech, “Protest in a Recalcitrant Polity: Purposes and Reactions.
Springborg began by pointing out that the 1977 protests against price hikes (known as the bread riots) were the last of the great violent spontaneous upheavals.
He then defined the type of state Egypt is, describing it as a hybrid state – what he calls a “liberalizing authoritarian state stuck somewhere between authoritarianism and liberal democracy.
“It is the type of state that allows a relative freedom of expression, but not freedom of action, said Springborg.
The impact of this on political behavior is to lead to apathy, cynicism and dissociation or to violence but the middle-ground “behavior of choice is conspicuously missing.
He then outlined three types of protest behavior – spontaneous, policy-focused and voice about choice – pointing out that the third type, which aims to impact the rules of the political game, is the most important.
But is the hybrid state durable or transitional?
Springborg said that “schizophrenic regimes , where behavior counts but not thoughts, contain the seeds of their own destruction.
The discontinuity between words and action is so profound that this type of state cannot continue indefinitely because counter-culture will generate more powerful behavior.
During the first panel session, Cairo University’s Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid, who is also a Kefaya member, attempted to assess the movement’s performance.
He pointed to its success in having expanded the public space, bringing together ideologically different members, and disregarding taboos vis-à-vis the regime by, for instance, flouting restrictions on freedom of assembly.
But, he questioned, has Kefaya failed and how will the movement survive and transform itself to an all-inclusive movement not the niche movement it has become?
Historian Joel Beinin followed Al-Sayyid and spoke about resistance in the wider Arab context.
After presenting a chronology of Arab victories and defeats since 1948, he asks why victory has turned to defeat in Egypt, Algeria and Palestine.
He criticized how some of the rhetoric of Arab resistance carries a romanticized notion of history and seems to ignore the events of the past 30 years, stressing the need to find an alternative approach to simply unifying to fight Zionism and the US.
He proposed a move from “resistance identity to “project identity which will breed historical and political subjects as they come together against the tyranny of the market.
When one of the attendees later pointed out to Beinin that the situation in Palestine and Israel is unique, he disagreed, saying that settler colonialism doesn’t have to be defeated and that it is possible that Palestinians can become like native Americans, even though that is not the ideal scenario.
“Let’s face it, he said, “armed struggle in Palestine has failed . we are no longer in an era of national liberation.
A rather controversial paper by researcher Sameh Naguib dealt with political Islam since the 1970s.
He postulated that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is the main force against the regime because, unlike the left, which was confused, the Islamic movement was clear and made no concessions winning it a larger audience.
He attributed its growth to the failure of the secular nationalists and socialists to meet the hopes of the people. The mosque also emerged as the only public space that escaped the authority of the state.
“Cultural erosion , he added, led to “nativism to reaffirm identity with vigor.
He concluded by saying that the MB is not anti-modernist and that it is the backbone of the middle class movement. But the current crisis of the Brotherhood is that it cannot mobilize without transforming itself into a political party, which it also cannot do because it will not accept accommodations forced upon it. Yet it cannot go into a full frontal confrontation with the regime.
In the question and answer session that followed, AUC Professor Samer Soliman challenged Naguib about what he meant when he described the MB as a reformist movement and asked him to classify it in terms of right and left wing.
Arguing against such simplistic divisions, Naguib responded that the MB is a very special kind of right wing organization that has taken up much of the space of the secular left, explaining that the MB is reformist, not revolutionary, because it cannot make changes through the existing legal structures, unlike militant Islamic groups.
The second session opened with a talk about Coptic protests by Samer Soliman.
After attempting to define “Copt , Soliman said that the earliest Coptic protests had nothing to do with religion but were against taxation and included both Muslims and Christians.
He said that 1972 was a key date when Pope Shenouda headed a protest against the burning of several Coptic churches by Muslim fanatics.
He explained that the 2004 protests over Wafaa Constatin, who converted to Islam to get a divorce, were a mobilization against the personal status law and gender issues, concluding that the Copts merely demanded that Wafaa return to the fold, in effect asking the state to exercise more inhibitions, rather than give more freedom for people to choose their faith.
In her discussion of feminism in Egypt, AUC Professor Raba El Mahdi spoke next, arguing that there is no feminist movement in Egypt.
She distinguished between a “women’s movement, where women play a role, and a feminist movement, which, according to her definition, must include the integral idea of equality in its agenda. Otherwise it misses the point of being a feminist movement.
She pondered the notion of Islamic feminism, but asked the question: “Do we use the human rights approach [to women’s issues], or the cultural relevance and revisionary approach of reinterpreting religious texts?
Next came Professor Ray Bush from the University of Leeds in the UK, who argued that there is much to be learnt in the urban struggle for politicization from the rural resistance to commoditization.
He spoke about how the dispossession of land to which the peasants were subjected to had accelerated social inequality and started a process of rural impoverishment, noting that the land struggle is the site for class struggle, especially since the laws were partial to landowners.
“We are in the dark ages. It’s not a happy moment in history .[but] we need to see the notion of resistance as processes, he said, pointing out that when it comes to political mobilization, we must forge and develop opportunities.
Following a talk by Francoise Clement from Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Economiques (Centre of Studies & Economic Documents) about the history of workers’ strikes and trade union activities, the symposium ended with a grand finale by the University of Illinois’ Marilyn Booth.
Booth spoke about the songs of Ahmed Fouad Negm and Sheikh Imam, whose topically charged and satirical poetry gave a broad critique of official rhetoric in the 1970s.
She noted that both Imam’s music and Negm’s words had a powerful presence in public politics. Their underground concerts proved the power of their compositions to crystallize an
alliance between students.
“They sustained the student movement, she said, “galvanizing the power of song.
Their vernacular resistance poetry and the synergy of their work evoked a collective emotion that was politically explosive. “Simply the presence of Negm and Imam was conducive to a demonstration.
The interactive aesthetics of their compositions defied all attempts to silence them. “They were an unsanctioned living text which demonstrated the strength of poetry and song to incite political action which, says Booth, is why groups of young activists today are returning to the poems of Imam and Negm.
Booth wound up with a live recording of Sheikh Imam singing his strong “Guevara Maat (Guevara Died) with its funereal march beat that still managed to be inspirational and forward-looking.
