Now What?
"نحن أبناء الزمن الذي فقد فيه حتى الحزن 'جلاله' صار مملًا هو الآخر، مثل 'البرد' مثل 'الصداع'، والملل لا يصنع فنًا، فقط أناسًا مملين"
[I captured this photo in January of 2021. This mural was painted on the side of Kooky’s building - in the middle of Masakan Abu Ghazaleh - on January 28, 2011. Every time it faded, I’d turn up on a Friday (Kooky’s designated visiting day) and find it refreshed. The mural was painted over in January of 2023.]
NOTE: This is more stream of consciousness, an exercise meant to force my fingers to move across the keyboard in an expression (rather, expulsion) of my running thoughts and feelings. I will, eventually, reach a stable enough headspace to write a proper critique and possible action plan using very pretty (and big) words.
Today is Tuesday, October 31st. At around 4:30 PM, Israeli airstrikes targeted the Jabalia refugee camp, killing at least 400. I consumed the images and videos like a woman possessed. I always force myself to - to bear witness, to pay penance.
At 5:20 PM, I messaged Hossam (because who else?);
“فعليًا ومن غير ما ناس تانية تتحبس...ايه اللي محتاجين نعمله عشان يفتحوا أم المعبر؟ أكيد فيه آليات غير التظاهر”
He replied instantly (because of course):
“سوشيال ميديا”
I turned this over in my head for a while, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. My temper is legendary (no really, rage is as often associated with me as love), but over the years of pseudo-cyberactivism, I learned to not publish or post anything I wrote while angry. Or, at least, to pass it by the internal committee first (Rouha, Mahana, Foffa).
At 7:47 PM, I sent the following off to our group chat:
“Every Egyptian's hands are coated in Palestinian blood, our palms stained red. We're all accomplices.
It's been 25 days since the occupation forces have sought to raze a concentration camp holding people whose blood and life we share to the ground.
We have failed, for 25 days, to pass a bottle of water or a loaf of bread into Gaza. We have failed, for 25 days, to send an ounce of fuel or a medical convoy into Gaza. In fact, the one day we sent medical supplies, we did not send oxygen tanks or anesthetic, we sent shrouds.
The question is...have we failed at helping? Or have we chosen not to help at all?
I think we both know the answer.
Much like the illegitimate Zionist entity, we are active participants in Gaza's besiegement and genocide. And I do mean we, the people.
Those of us who got accustomed to the boot on our necks, who chose to forget about the atrocities committed against our own people [and they are so many I do not know where to begin], who turned a blind eye to the 60,000+ prisoners of conscience, to the hundreds of women murdered in broad day light with no justice in sight, to the billions of dollars wasted on needless 'infrastructure' projects (when a little rain still drowns most of our neighbourhoods), to the steady decline of our currency and terrifying spikes of inflation, to the systemic (and brutally bloody) erosion of political and social dissent.
We, the people, who have stood by and done nothing. We, the people, who have neither the guts nor the know how (anymore) to mobilise. We, the people, who no longer know what civil disobedience means. We, the people, who normalised the violence inflicted upon us - in the centre or the margin - every day...how can we not also normalise that committed against our brothers and sisters?
The boycott while an undeniably good step, is secondary to our real duty as Egyptians, as people who share borders - the only point of entry and exit, in fact - from besieged Gaza. Our number one priority should be a general digital (given the givens) strike, where we demand that the Rafah Crossing opens.”
Foffa’s concern, as always, was “it’s a direct jab at the government.” An instinctual response ingrained in nearly every Gen Z person I know. Fear’s bitter taste has been lodged in our throats for so long, that we’d rather choke on our own blood than let ourselves taste anything else.
Mahana, after I asked him about the likelihood of being abducted from my bed at dawn if I posted this, eventually said: “Hanefdal khayfeen tool 3omrena? You know the risk. Enty msh 3ayela so3’ayara.”
My conversation with Rouha, being my biggest critic and fan, went like this:
[I hold عمو حسام in too high a regard to send things I write - even if only for فضفضة without quadruple-checking myself. Also because الراجل زهق مني ومن سيرتي at this point.]
I told Rouha that it was not meant to be defeatist, rather, I’m so very tired of feeling defeated, I do not want to be accustomed to the vicious cycle of helplessness and terror anymore.
She continued, “I think if we are scared to walk in the streets and have to clear our phones and are used to lowering our voices in public and private, then yes, we will fail to be in solidarity. And I mean actual solidarity not appropriated solidarity that makes us feel any sense of agency (by performative boycotts packaged in nationalism).”
That is to say that most of our acts of solidarity have been/are performative. But have we been taught any differently?
Yesterday, Monday, October 30th, I went to visit Hanouna (if you’re new, Hanouna is Dr. Hanan Sabea) at university.
[The bulletin at the SEA (Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology) department.]
I was supposed to meet Hanouna ‘after 2PM’. I arrived on time at our designated meeting place - the balacona - only to find it deserted (the balacona is never empty). Upon asking around, I found out that Hanan was too busy at the mini-protest happening all the way across campus at the Four Palms near the BEC building.
When we finally met up and sat down (and god have I missed Hanouna’s hugs…no other embrace can make me feel as precious, like I’m someone worthy of life and love), we spoke about my current and future plans and she spoke to me about the students. “I am teaching nothing but Fanon and Benjamin. دول اللي اتبقوا لنا,” she said. “Also, the students’ mobilisation is not organised at all. The Student Union is all over the place. We keep having absentee funeral prayers and their chants are these repeated sonic sounds, why are we chanting ‘من القلب الجامعة الأمريكية فلسطين عربية’? Who cares about ‘الجامعة الأمريكية’? And why ‘خيبر خيبر يا يهود’?”
A while later, when Dr. Dina Makram Ebeid arrived (and it is crucial for me to acknowledge that Dr. Dina is the reason why I started paying attention to the revolution as a progression of complex events and factors and not just a movement born from the collective rage-grief triggered by Khaled Said’s brutal murder in police custody, and born through a viral Facebook group), and told us that she “asked a student why they didn’t have a megaphone and they told me that it was because it was against policy! What’s the point of a protest if not disruption? They should be closing the gates and striking or causing any sort of display of disagreement with the status quo!”
And therein lies the problem.
Well, multiple problems.
{Note: It’s Thursday, November 2nd. I’ve been struggling to phrase the problems in a way that doesn’t sound accusatory. At heart, I’m a person who leans heavily into rage and despair, and now especially, I find myself missing the numbness of depression that I fought - and still fight - so hard not to succumb to. I have written and rewritten the following text at least seven times, but an emotional outburst is not what we need right now. And so, I will endeavour, once again, to point things out “rationally”.}
After publishing my last blog post, following my generation’s first ever protests, I received multiple messages asking me about Maspero, Mohamed Mahmoud and Port Said. Messages from people like me, born between 2000 and 2005, with no idea what those words mean or entail.
As someone who graduated from AUC, I can tell you - confidently - that 9/10 students will not know why the HUSS & PVA gate is named Omar Mohsen.
I know this could be shocking to many who took part in the January 2011 revolution, but you have to remember that the revolution took place 13 years ago. I may be 23 now, but I was 10 then. Most of my loved ones are my age and younger. I think, as children of the revolution and not teenagers, our experience was different. What we remember is little (and those of us who remember more than a little spent much of our adolescence searching for more clues, more stories…proof that what we remember is not the mirage of a distant daydream but a very real and tangible series of very bloody events).
The Pipeline [& the Reign of Terror]
Most of the leftist activists I know (of) are the descendants of leftist activists. I remember sitting in Zizo’s class (Spring ‘21) the day after I found out that he was best friends with Hind’s dad, that they went to school together. That same day, Hadeer El Mahdawy tweeted about her grandfather, Ismail El Mahdawy. It was also when I stumbled into another realisation; that a friend’s mother, whom I now have a very strong relationship with, is the daughter of Farid Abdel Kareem.
Within a week or two, I made the startling (for me) discovery about Laila Soueif’s participation in the 1972 student movement and on a dig for resources, realised that her nephew, Omar Robert Hamilton, was one of the cofounders of Mosireen and by extension the 858 archive. Alaa’s family is an exception in the breadth of its political activism (it’s genetic, at this point) but it is par of the course for the Egyptian left contextually.Many of the ‘symbols’ of the January Revolution are the children of the 60s/70s generation of leftist activists.
Even if they were not, they were brought together, with other youth, following the Second Intifada. Through Kefaya (Bahaa Ezz El Arab, is, of course, Zizo’s son), 6th of April, or any of the other movements, collectives and initiatives born in the lead-up to the Revolution. Of course, Tahrir was a space where many coalesced [Rouha, you should ask Aida about Cinema Tahrir].
An argument could be made that you do not need to have been raised in such an environment to become involved. I agree. And yet, it has been up to those who have had the privilege (and curse) of being handed the keys to do something. Yes, they were handed the keys. They were welcomed into pre-existing spaces that have had a history of fighting oppression. They were given the tools - books, films, music - through which to expand their thinking and encourage their knowledge (re)production. [Yes, these tools were paid for in blood, but I think it’s important to point out that they were there.]
I was telling someone the other day about how terrified I was when the girls went to the protest at the steps of the Journalists Syndicate, and they remarked, “I can’t believe we’ve gone back to the steps, where it all began.” Well, I can’t believe my friends actually chanted for Palestine outside our campus walls, in front of armed security forces, and did not get arrested. I can’t believe we ‘found’ a physical IRL space where we can protest or engage in political discussions and have the luxury of going home afterwards.
In Rouha’s words, “I was scared because of the magnitude of this as someone who grew up in a period where taking a stance in the streets meant (and means) suicide.”
This was also the case during the Mubarak era, especially in the 80s and 90s, but you’ve had a road paved through which to break the fear barrier. We have yet to experience that moment, those who could have done so have either been murdered, imprisoned or exiled.
Every generation has had its mentors, our generation has yet to find theirs.
So how do you expect them to know your chants? To sing your songs? To watch your films? To read your reports? To engage with your ‘independent’ newspapers and magazines? How do you expect them - us - to mobilise in a way that is organised? How do you expect them to be eloquent or loud when they’ve spent their entire lives brutalised into submission, when their childhoods and teen years were ripe with loss, too? How do you expect them to stand face to face against even the university administration, when you’ve not empowered them to do so? Make it make sense.
One of the coup’s main objectives was to cut the umbilical cord, severing the pipeline between the January generation and all the younger ones, preventing a repeat of 2011 for at least a few decades.
What the regime didn’t count on, however, is the fact that oppression has been the most powerful radicalising force since time immemorial. We’re not just an oppressed generation, but an actively terrorised one.
[A small part of me wants to blame the activists of that generation, to point fingers and tell them that they let it happen, that they chose to play into the state’s hand and take an active part in the erasure of the revolution. They returned to their margins and locked themselves in, leaving us out. But that’s cruel and unfair and lacking in context, given the shitshow they have (had) to endure.]
So, we’re here. It’s 2023. The revolution lives on in those who still engage in cyberactivism (and those who are now starting to find them) and in long-forgotten pockets of the internet. That is to say, the experience has not been entirely passed down. The tools to recreate it similarly so.
[ADD ON:] What I didn’t want to say, originally, is that I’m terrified. I know my friends are terrified. I also feel helpless, and often alone. Sometimes, it feels like we’re batshit and no one else cares about how uncertain the future is. Our only certainty is uncertainty. It is so fucking lonely.
The Ivory Tower
Youth, students especially, have always been forces of mass mobilisation. Over the past decade, however, students in Egypt have been taught the state-mandated discourse on the revolution. And even in the hallowed halls of private universities, there is little said about the status quo.
I keep drawing from my experience because it is all I have to fall back on. During the years spent at university, most of our education on revolution came in the form of open discussions about how it could be explained and what resistance meant. I cannot recall any conversations about how people mobilised, what organisations existed or the baby steps that eventually amalgamated into the Arab Spring, not just in Egypt, but across the region. We also spoke very little about pan-Arabism, and even less about the Arab Spring as a collective revolution that transcended geopolitical borders. It wasn’t until my senior year that Dr. Nadine Abdalla reworked our sociology course syllabus to include Tunisia, and with it came the awareness of the UGTT and Al-Nahda, and parallels were drawn between the Tunisian revolution and ours. [It was also Dr. Nadine Abdalla who taught us about the IMF and the World Bank and gave us a steady rundown of the relationship between these organisations’ neoliberal policies, our regimes’ corruption and the revolution.]
For all the courses I sat through on revolution and violence, we never spoke of prison outside of discussions on Foucault and Primo Levi. In hindsight, I think we should’ve been introduced to, at the very least, Gendy’s prison letters (or his work, in general), passed through steel bars and into Lina Attalah’s hands to be published on Mada. As budding anthropologists, we should’ve been taught more about our (living) history, instead of spending hours dissecting readings by Butler and Sartre. We should not have tried to see where Western ideology or thought proved compatible with our uprisings but sought to understand how ideology metamorphosed into movement, catapulting our revolutions.
To think that we’ve not once had a discussion on the ultras, for example, fucks with my head.
For the life of me though, I cannot blame any of the brilliant academics who’ve dedicated their lives to teaching younger generations. But there has to be a shift in course materials, if not a more hands-on approach to student associations.
[Perhaps it’s time that, as alumni, we go back and start integrating into our associations.]
But again, this ivory tower is such a privileged space and I don’t just speak of academia in general but the AUC, too. Whatever we do has to travel beyond Omar Mohsen. Much like the conversations happening - because they are, in fact, taking place - at other universities need to bypass their gates. I wonder if an Egyptian student union exists, or once existed and can be revived, somehow.
Memoricide
None of the above would’ve been an actual problem had it not been for this fuckery.
‘Memoricide’ is a term Rouha stumbled upon some three weeks ago while compiling a list of documentary photographers in Gaza, it goes hand in hand with ethnic cleansing and was coined in relation to the Nakba.
The term is pretty self-explanatory; it’s the killing of memory.
On October 4th, 2021, Jadaliyya published an article titled ‘An Archive of Forgetting: Egypt, 2011-2021’. I’ve cited it more times than I care to count. Pascale Ghazaleh writes, “In a sense, we can narrate revolution and counterrevolution through archival access and archival practice. […] The state sealing of the archives has closed the possibility of thinking historically. A regime suspicious of historians is one that recognizes the threat of alternative pasts, of silenced voices, of secrets and surprises hiding in the archive. It recognizes the power of maps, deeds of ownership, and police informers’ reports. It knows that state security records were the blueprint for the structure of government that the army has confiscated over the past seven years. Archives in the hands of private individuals threatened to derail the Tiran and Sanafir deal with Saudi Arabia. They allow us to remember events that the current regime seeks to absorb and dissolve into an inexorable present. School textbooks can be rewritten to magically expunge inconvenient histories, people can be jailed and silenced, the records of defeats and executions can be locked away.”
In fact, I think much of what I have to say about this can be found in one of my previous reflections.
The graffiti has long since been painted over. The videos on YouTube taken down. Movements’ websites blocked. Documentaries banned. Books burned.
The digital archives, what is left of them, are extremely difficult to sift through.
The burning question, as always, is
Now What?
I actually don’t know. BUT. There are three things.
ONE: The only leftist movement that has survived the 2013 purge is the Revolutionary Socialists (of course, you need a VPN). They’re the only movement that has continued to take solid stances against all the absurd decisions the government has been making. They’re organised, responsive and their website (it’s reminiscent of most websites born in the 00s and 10s, which should encourage you to knock on their door and do something about that godawful font) has a plethora of accessible resources in English and Arabic. They’ve also been doing this shit since 1990, which means that they offer a very viable way to mend the pipeline.
Which, if you need a crash course on the history of the Egyptian Left, here and here. Don’t thank me, thank عمو حسام.
TWO: We need to unlearn and relearn. Education at this stage is paramount. Now is the time to study. I feel like I’m constantly trying to catch up to all the parallels people are drawing between Egypt, Palestine, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam, Cuba, Bolivia…I feel like I’ve missed a century of very important events (and I have). Our education fell short of covering anything of actual value. It’s now up to us, on an individual and maybe collective level, to go back and start somewhere.
(My first and only attempt at a reading group failed, but this only means that I need to find a smarter and more effective method.)
[We cannot rely JUST on reading, though. For all that I wish I could hole myself up with books, it’s highly counterintuitive.]
THREE: I mean, again, عمو حسام kind of offered up an answer way up at the beginning of this post. Social Media.
One of the main reasons why I started reading on the Syrian Revolution is Omar El Shogre, whom I only know about due to his strong social media presence, and the Syrian Revolution Archive page on Instagram will not let me forget about it. There is much we can do, from launching independent magazines to creating pages on TikTok, Instagram and X through which to bombard people with visuals and text, with memories, of not just the revolution, but proof of our people’s longstanding history of standing against their oppressors (the 1920s are a good starting point, I think). Collecting oral histories would also be great. Asking activists and artists here and abroad to record themselves telling a part of their experience - what radicalised them? what was their first protest? why did they join (or abstain from joining) a particular camp? etc - and posting them as reels or tiktoks. I can think of many things to do off the top of my head, we just need to bridge the gap (were we to mobilise) between those of us in the diaspora and here, for safety’s sake also.
It all sounds very silly. This whole post now seems pointless. I could take a nap and wake up and find that I disagree with most of this. But it was all weighing on my chest and I’ve now learned that my silence is a burden that manifests in half my face becoming paralysed for a month, at least. So, here I am.
I do not have answers, but I need to try.
Wrung out but slightly hopeful,
Banouta Men Masr