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Tahrir Square: For the sake of the forsaken

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For ordinary Egyptians, Tahrir is now a terrifying black hole, but for its marginalised occupiers, it is a liberator from political and social tyranny.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Tahrir has become a black hole for ordinary Egyptians but a space of liberty for the marginalised. photo: ©Khaled Diab

“Do you like what’s happening in Tahrir?” taxi drivers ask me everyday on my way back from work, which is near the world-famous square. Fed up with this discussion and my inability to make any “acceptable” argument prompted me to consider moving somewhere that was within walking distance from my office.

For someone who has supported the revolution from the very beginning and throughout its different stages, and against the various counterrevolutionary forces – the remnants of the Mubarak regime, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood – this period has been the most difficult when it comes to trying to sell and promote the revolution.

Any frequent visitor to Tahrir will notice a change in its demographic composition. The face of this highly symbolic square and its surrounding area has changed beyond recognition over the past two years. Before the revolution erupted, Tahrir was a symbol of state might and prestige, with high-ranking police officers aggressively managing the traffic flow of cars and pedestrians through and around the capital’s most strategic spot.

Within a kilometre of Tahrir in every direction is the highest concentration of state institutions in the country. The monolithic symbol of state bureaucracy, the Mugama’a, the parliament with its two houses, a large number of ministries (including the monstrous Ministry of Interior) are all located on the different ends of the Tahrir square area. The neighbourhood is also home to some of Egypt’s oldest and most luxurious five-star hotels overlooking the Nile, not to mention the famous Egyptian museum, the Arab league building and the former ruling National Democratic Party’s headquarters.

How did this area of potent political power and tight state control descend into a state of lawlessness is beyond most people’s comprehension. Many Egyptians now choose to avoid the area altogether while others are curious about who occupies and controls it. The motivation behind the recent clashes with the police during the revolution’s second anniversary were unclear even to the most competent of political analysts and to opposition forces. It is a defining characteristic of a revolution for events to move faster than the ability of most people to grasp them.

Many of those who occupy and control Egypt’s most institution-laden area are the country’s forsaken: street vendors, homeless teenagers and street children. They have replaced the generals, the police informants and government politicians who used to be in control just two years ago.

Tahrir moved from being the establishment’s headquarters to an area that is becoming rife with anti-establishment behaviour. It attracts the homeless, including children, rebel female activists, homosexuals, street vendors, substance abusers, etc. The groups who were the most marginalised for different reasons have found a refuge in an area completely liberated from oppressive state and societal authority. The occupation of Egypt most strategic square kilometre is a reminder of a triumph of the oppressed over the oppressor. For the outsider, Tahrir might have turned into a frightening, dark, and dirty black hole but for its occupiers it’s a breeze of freedom manifested in the absence of unjust authority.

The changing demographic make-up of Tahrir Square has turned it into a different world. No longer does it relate to the outer world where the state is gradually reemerging and playing its typical role of trying to control and dominate the public sphere. While the revolution outside of Tahrir is mostly defined as its first 18 days, in Tahrir, it has no clear start or end. It’s an ongoing feud with the authorities, society and the state. It is the fight of the marginalised to claim, even to grab, their share of the public sphere.

The revolution is no longer a well-packaged commodity produced by the so-called “Facebook generation”. It’s no longer a unified movement of educated and politically aware young voices who are able to organise, brand, rebrand and promote the revolution as a “civilised”, acceptable and legitimate movement in a near-Utopian setting.

Some people’s dislike of the current Tahrir occupation, and their disquiet towards its occupants, is partly classist and partly practical, because of the inconvenience to the flow of traffic they cause for commuters on their way to work. However, for the marginalised of Tahrir, this negativity is a proof of life, an affirmation of the viability and effectiveness of their actions. Unlike the Facebook revolutionaries, Tahrir’s occupiers have no desire to please society or cater to its norms. Their struggle, in a way, is against the social order, and so upsetting polite society is something for them to aspire to.

The dominant and privileged classes of society have acknowledged these groups’ wretched existence for the first time. Finally, they are beginning to ask, Who are these people?. We denounce and disapprove of violence but did we listen to them when they were peaceful? Were they given any other option to be heard other than through the sound of their stones? Is this in a way not our violence echoed and thrown back at us?

For the “Facebook generation”, the revolution and the occupation of Tahrir was a means to an end that involved a vision for a freer society. An integral part of their strategy was to engage the wider community and convince it of the revolution and cater to its socially acceptable norms, which is why the social impact of the 18-day revolution was rather limited, despite its remarkable political impact.

On the other hand, for the marginalised of today’s Tahrir, who operate outside the societal framework, the revolution is the end, not a means. They for the most part lack the skills and the social acceptability to engage with and persuade the larger community of the rightness of their struggle. For that reason, they don’t aim for a better world, but just a tiny square of the world where they exercise a degree of control and enjoy a sense of ownership, even if it’s over a space that is frightening, dark and dirty to others.

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Tags: arab league, arab spring, children, egypt, egyptian revolution, facebook, feminism, freedom, homosexual, marginalised, mubarak, muslim brotherhood, national democratic party, nile, rebel, revolution, society, tahrir, tahrir square, teenagers

Ghost in the machine

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By Christian Nielsen

As we spent so much of our life online, what happens to our virtual selves when we die? Do they disappear too, or do we become ghosts in the machine?

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Last year, a journalist colleague-cum-friend stopped answering e-mails. At first, I thought he was miffed because a few of the stories he had written came back with critical comments and the client was breathing down my neck to take him off the job.

I knew he was having some kind of difficulty at home and perhaps even financial problems, so I persevered for his sake. A couple of weeks later, I gave the green light for another batch of stories from him.

No response to the e-mail on the first day. This was out of character for this guy because he usually picks up a new commission in a flash. Two, three, four days passed without word. I still thought he was smarting from the client’s rebuke so let it pass. But after two weeks or so something was clearly wrong.

First I tried to call him on his mobile. No answer. I tried his old number – his mother’s I believe. Again nothing. This was not the sort of guy to pass up work, I decided, and definitely not the type to sulk for weeks, so something was definitely going on. It was time to start investigating.

I checked his website, Facebook and LinkedIn. Nothing unusual there – some relatively recent activity. I then did the only other thing I could think of to nip a nagging worry in the bud … Yep, I Googled his name + ‘obituary’. I know it sounds morbid, but if I haven’t communicated the circumstances well enough here, take my word for it that this search was not done flippantly.

Sure enough, the first or second hit was a note in a local newspaper that my colleague-friend of five years had passed away. No mention of how, only that the family expressed its gratitude to a certain hospice which may or may not suggest he had been ill for some time. And when I think about the declining standard of his work, it would make sense.

But the way this happened, or at least the way his ‘virtual’ community (me and perhaps other colleagues and employers) had to learn of his death is what concerns me the most about relationships online. Concern that we build up friendships or professional closeness over the years without any physical foundations or recourse, if that is the right way to express it.

I didn’t know his family, or even if he had one. I had an old landline when he first started working for me but that was superseded by email/LinkedIn and so on. So, once his mobile phone apparently expired or the battery ran out, that was it. His mother, wife, son, or whoever was close to him probably didn’t know his PIN to open it again and answer the worried calls.

What’s more, they probably didn’t know his passwords and access codes to the various social networking tools he used. When I say ‘probably’ I’m just trying to be careful because the guy passed away nearly a year ago and just last week I got a ‘recent activity’ notification from him on LinkedIn.

It’s especially creepy because I still don’t know 100% that he’s dead. Sure, all the evidence indicates it, but with just 0.01% doubt, when you get a nudge from someone online, it makes you wonder. So much so that I had to see what the recent activity was. It appeared to be someone he had invited to join his network had finally got round to accepting it X months later.

Of course this is possible. I opened a LinkedIn account some 10 years ago and conscientiously ignored any and all invitations for nine years, until the system got so insistent that it became easier to accept them all than go through the rigmarole of rejecting and worrying that I’d offended someone (yes, I’m not a digital native … these things worry us ‘physical world’ people).

Post-game plans?

It also makes me wonder if we are overlooking our responsibilities to family and friends (virtual and physical) by not having a … well … post-game plan in case we get knocked over by a bus tomorrow. At least when we owned CDs and other real physical assets it was pretty simple, with or without a will and last testament, your stuff usually just went to the nearest and dearest. But with ‘digital assets’ we’re not even sure we own them, let alone whether we have a plan for how to pass them down to our family or friends.

Take the recent Bruce Willis and Apple story, which may have been false but that’s beside the point because it highlighted the issue of intellectual property rights and digital assets like music downloads, and that we may be only buying listening rights during our tenure on this world. How does that encourage legal downloading and the sustainability of the music/entertainment industry?

Perhaps the smart, discrete, respectful thing to do is to prepare your exit plan from the virtual world as much as you are primed to do so for the physical world. For example, write down the main platforms you engage in and how your family or friend can access them to take possession of any so-called digital assets bequeathed.

Make sure the executor or trusted person has instructions or enough information to shut down the online accounts which otherwise, very disturbingly, live on as ghosts in the machine. And, of course, put all this information somewhere safe from prying eyes, but not so safe that it won’t be found if that bus does have your number on it.

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Tags: death, entertainment, facebook, friends, friendships, ghosts in the machine, identity, linkedin, mobile phone, music, property, relationships, social networking, virtual selves

Social media and the end of nationalism as we know it

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By Osama Diab

As social media strip away the space and time separating like-minded people, is the notion of “nationalism” becoming too small for us?

Friday 8 June 2012

Not in the very distant past, the media and media platforms were mostly specific to individual countries, and the interactivity and communicativeness of traditional media was very minimal. Unlike social media, people from two ends of the world were unable to communicate directly and form communities using traditional media, such as radio or TV. The rise of social media has given rise to virtual spaces in which virtual communities can be formed and flourish. But what effect will this have on actual physical spaces and communities that are based on geographical proximity?

The idea of cosmopolitanism can be traced back thousands of years at least to the time of ancient Greek philosophy. However, historically, cosmopolitanism was confined to philosophy and was limited to haughty debate among philosophers, sociologists and academics. This might be changing now, and due to the renewed interest in globalisation, cosmopolitanism might find its way to the grassroots level. Ulrich Beck, the German sociologist argues that “[cosmopolitanism] has left the realm of philosophical castles in the air and has entered reality”.

Nationalism, based on geography, wouldn’t have been possible if it had not been for the mass media. Benedict Anderson, the Irish scholar, argues that print-capitalism laid the bases for national consciousness by creating “mechanically reproduced print-langauges capable of dissemination through the market”. Today, the world is becoming more compressed in terms of time and space, crushed by faster transportation and communication, and the closing of distances this involves. When we take into consideration the speed at which data travels, time and space actually almost completely collapse.

Will our unprecedented ability to communicate through time and space increase the scope of imagined “national” communities? If nationalism in essence is the ability to identify and belong to a people in a particular geographical area, what are the factors that determine the size and the scope of this area of community?

Benedict Anderson famously argues in his book Imagined Communities that speakers of the different variety of English, French, and Spanish who would often find it difficult to understand one another, became able to communicate and understand through print and paper. They then became aware of the other similar people in their ‘langauge-field’, forming the so-called imagined communities. Driven by the capitalists’ desire to enlarge markets, they pushed out the boundaries of their community to form larger communities.

Anderson links the emergence of nationalist ideologies with the emergence of print capitalism. According to Anderson’s theory, the limit of which people will imagine a community is, at least, partially dependent on the media they share and the interest of media owners (the capitalists) in unifying factors, such as language, in order to get a larger amount of people to consume their products. In this process, many minority languages and cultures might be suppressed, but nevertheless, bridges of understanding and empathy are arguably built. So what happens when the media cross national boundaries to cover the whole globe and the interests of capitalists becomes transnational?

In a similar manner to how profit-driven capitalism encouraged the “assembly”, or convergence, of vernaculars into a single language, enabling people identify with a larger community for the first time, the modern multinational corporation and global media encourages people to “learn” a global language. This phenomenon is like Anderson’s print-capitalism but on a much larger scale.

Kenichi Ohmae, the Japanese corporate strategist, states that global firms must share a common language and that mother country identity must give way to corporate identity. The emergence of English as a global lingua franca inevitably intensifies the level of communication and shared cultural experiences between people from different parts of the world at an unprecedented rate.

Ulf Hannerz, the Swedish social anthropologist, argues that in order for a transnational corporation to operate in a global world, it must not have ties with any particular location and develop a more decentralised approach by getting rid of the central headquarters mentality. The global forward-looking firms must create a system of values to be shared by company managers regardless of their backgrounds or whereabouts to replace “the glue nation-based orientation once provided”.

This is why in multinational or transnational corporations, who in some cases, are bigger, wealthier and more powerful than states, the role of the human resource management is to create a culture and identity for the company which will develop a feeling of loyalty similar to that citizens feel towards a state. In this model, the corporation an employee works for becomes part of their identity in what Hannerz calls the “transnational source of identity”. The same applies to social and political movements which share the same cause. The “we are the 99%” slogan is mostly associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement, but was used in many other Occupy camps around the world.

Paradoxically, the very regime that created and was the engine behind globalised free trade is now being fought and criticised using the tools and weapons it created. If we take Occupy activists from two different countries as an example, they would probably communicate and coordinate in English using Google Mail, Facebook or Skype and transfer money through an HSBC account and they might even book a conference hall in the Hilton for their annual meeting. This makes the anti-globalisation movement quite globalised and highly reliant on transnational corporate brands to express its anti-corporate sentiments.

It seems inevitable that we, and more certainly future generations, will be less likely to identify ourselves primarily in terms of a narrow geographical areas, and more likely to associate along more cosmopolitan lines, according to political or cultural identity, for example. This will require a new approach to studying these phenomena such as Beck’s “cosmopolitan sociology”.

It might be useful here to draw on Raymond Williams theory of the three cultural moments: dominant, emergent and residual. In the age of global de-territorialised media, we could perhaps define cosmopolitanism as the emergent, nationalism as the dominant and tribalism as the residual. Just as the spread of nationalism didn’t completely stamp out tribalism, the collapse of national psychological barriers and the rise of cosmopolitanism will also not abolish nationalism overnight.

Cosmopolitanism is no longer a naïve and rosy vision that the world will become more pacifistic and a better place to live, but rather a perception of the self where national borders play a less significant role in the modern person’s identity, or rather multiple identities. It is also useful not to view cosmopolitanism and nationalism as conflicting and mutually exclusive. Human beings are capable of ‘hosting’ multiple identities. Therefore, the growth in cosmopolitanism doesn’t instantly suggest a decline in nationalism, but would just add a new layer of empathy which is the ‘cosmo’, or the globe, that wasn’t commonplace before due to the relative limitation in means of transport and communication.

It is likely that divisions, conflicts, and differences will remain but they will gradually become less along national lines and more across lines which are political, religious, ideological, etc. Empathy, accordingly, might become less based on geographical proximity but rather on ideological proximity. An Egyptian Marxist might be able to identify more with an Italian Marxist than with a ‘fellow’ Egyptian Islamist. Amid the increasing importance and impact of virtual places, geographic spaces will begin to face some serious competition. Sharing your concerns with someone thousands miles away from you while thinking of your next door neighbour as a stranger might be an increasing phenomenon in the near future.

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Tags: benedict anderson, citizen, cosmopolitanism, culture, facebook, future, globalisation, national consciousness, nationalism, philosophy, social media, travel, virtual communities, virtual spaces

Is Facebook sinking or swimming?

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By Ray O’Reilly

Like an ocean predator, if Facebook is not moving forward, it is dying. So is this big fish drowning or can it continue to swim with the tide?

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Thanks for everything, Zuckers! Photo: Guillaume Paumier, http://www.gpaumier.org/

Some shark species have to keep moving to wash fresh water over their gills to stay alive. So, too, the common Facebook shark which has preyed on the world’s online waders for nearly a decade now. But like many shark populations, Facebook shark may also soon find itself on the red list of endangered species. Reasons?

I’d love to be able to carry on the simile further and simply say it’s down to … ahem … ‘over-phishing’ but strictly speaking that isn’t Facebook’s typical modus operandi… at least not yet. Alas, there are a few mitigating factors, and I’m pleased to say none are related to climate change, unless you count the recent so-so debut on the stock market as a sign of global cooling towards this online colossus.

No, there are other factors which portend the ultimate demise of this ‘big fish’. To date, the social media giant has fed on its denizens – their data and privacy at least – with all the table manners you’d expect of a cold-blooded killer. So it’s perhaps only a matter of time before Facebook gets ugly once its lifeblood, you and I, realise the social media wave pool is more like a fish farm dominated by corporate ‘story tellers’ – or is it advertisers? – feeding you meal made from other fish.

Think about it!

And don’t get me started on the FB Timeline – a new way for you to document the milestones of your life for millions of others to see. Timeline’s creators achieved something quite remarkable with this new data-gathering tool, somehow stripping the ‘logical’ part from what should be a straight-forward reverse chronological display of your life.

Since Timeline’s introduction earlier this year the fanfare has garnered no fans in my world. Now the haters in your FB community are given prominence for evermore and without the simple ‘Wall’, the all-so-important conversations are stilted and lack cogency because no one can fathom where the hell the conversation starts and stops.

Meanwhile, the new prominence of ads – sorry, I mean stories – crowd out the people, casting a glaring spotlight on this most recent of Facebook’s cynical commercial ploys to monetise your data.

So, if the forecast for Facebook is gradual ‘MySpace’ decline with a chance of total ‘Yahoo!’ collapse as shareholders head for the lifeboats, the big question is what’s next? You could well imagine a big buyout by the likes of Amazon who’d love to get their hands on FB’s ‘intelligence’, which is basically your data that you’re increasingly signing over. This could be followed by a raft of embarrassing moves to justify the sale price… new stuff and apps but nothing substantial … in fact, more of the same.

Real people will defriend Facebook real fast and the corporations will carry on for a while until they realise there’s something else better out there that real people are into and where the commercial potential has been built-in rather than clumsily tacked on over the years. Pinterest comes to mind here.

Pinterest is being pitched as the hottest company on the web right now, “what Google+ should be”, according to PCMag.com. It’s a modern and refreshingly simple (compared to Facebook nowadays) feed of images and catchy news headlines.

“What makes Pinterest the most interesting of the social networking sites is that it is actually oriented around the merchants. The pins [like a pin-up board] are mostly links to cool products that the person likes. It’s meant for this almost exclusively,” says PCMags’ John Dvorak.

Biggest problem for most people who want to migrate out of Facebook’s dragnet will be extricating their virtual lives – photos, friends, ‘stories’ – out of this platform and into whatever new medium is topping the ‘social media’ charts in five or so years’ time.

Actually, maybe Timeline will come in handy by documenting your hasty exit, which could go something like:

Andy read EU introduces new law on the “right to be forgotten online”

Andy just read How to export data from Facebook to XXX

And the trending story of 5 January 201X:

Andy commented ten times on story Thanks for everything Zuckers!

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The Arab media paradox

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By Khaled Diab

Despite the general Arab decline in the press freedom rankings, the region’s media have, in many ways, actually become freer.

Monday 13 February 2012

Since the Arab quest for freedom from authoritarian rule rippled out across the Middle East and even beyond from the unlikely epicentre of Tunisia, the region’s hopes and aspirations for freedom and dignity have never been higher, at least since the end of colonial rule.

Against this backdrop, Reporters Without Borders’ latest Press Freedom Index (PFI) makes for a depressing and demoralising reality check – at least at first sight.

“The Arab world was the motor of history in 2011 but the Arab uprisings have had contrasting political outcomes so far,” the independent media watchdog said. “Most of the region’s countries have fallen in the index because of the measures taken in a bid to impose a news blackout on a crackdown”

The highest ranking Arab country is Lebanon (93), which is just behind regional leader Israel (92). This means that, given all the tied positions, around 100 countries have, according to the PFI, freer media.

On a relatively successful note, Tunisia, which provided the spark of hope which fired up the so-called Arab Spring and has since managed a fairly smooth transition to greater democracy, has risen 30 positions from 164th to 134th.

In contrast, my native Egypt – which captivated the world with its “Tahrir” spirit – has plummeted 39 positions to stand near the bottom of the global league at 166, sandwiched between Laos and Cuba.

Reporters Without Borders puts this down to “attempts by Hosni Mubarak’s government and then the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF] to rein in the revolution’s successive phases”. These tactics included the arrests and convictions of Egyptian journalists and bloggers, not to mention the harassment of foreign journalists.

And at a certain level this relegation is justified. “The Egyptian media grew inside the dictatorship system, which shaped its values, principles, views and its performance, so we shouldn’t expect to see serious change in media performance [so quickly],” argues Gihan Abou Zeid, an Egyptian activist and columnist. “The window to our freedom of expression is sadly still narrow.”

“Abuses against the freedom of the press have increased significantly,” says Wael Eskandar, a young Egyptian journalist based in Cairo who has been closely following the revolution. “In every paper, there is a military censor… Reporters and media personnel are targeted during their coverage of important events on the streets.”

Eskandar sites as an example how talk show host Reem Maged and her guest activist and journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy were summoned by SCAF due to on-air accusationsthat the military, which has tried to portray itself as the protector of the revolution, had attacked protesters.

That said, Eskandar feels that his profession has become “more meaningful”. “Politics is now at the forefront of people’s thoughts and the opposition is real,” he reflects. He also admits to feeling freer, despite the obvious dangers of harassment and even prosecution by a military court. “At times like these, it’s worth the risk,” he says.

For all its strengths, the PFI is imperfect and incomplete because it is based on the subjective scoring assigned by various observers, which means that countries with a more critical culture could score more poorly than countries which are less critical.

It also does not take into account qualitative criteria, such as the actual content, as well as the plurality, accuracy and scope of the reporting and commentary in the media. Reporters Without Borders admits as much. “The index should in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of the media in the countries concerned,” the watchdog notes in its methodology.

What this boils down to is that the index can provide a misleading impression about the nature of the media in a given country. For example, someone who is unaware of the nature of the media in the region could easily conclude that Saudi Arabia (158th) enjoys greater media freedom than Egypt because it is eight positions higher in the index.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth. In many ways, it piles on insult to the injury already experienced by the dynamic segments of the Egyptian media which first faced down Mubarak’s state security apparatus and then SCAF’s military crackdowns, epitomised by the likes of dentist-turned-novelist-and-revolutionary-columnist Alaa al-Aswany whom Foreign Policy named its top global thinker for 2011. In contrast, most of their Saudi colleagues refused or have failed to rock the boat in the kingdom’s stagnant and closely controlled media.

Moreover, just because the regime hounds and intimidates journalists and tries to curb their freedom, that does not mean that it has been particularly successful in its endeavour. Sure, most of the state-owned media remains the loyal lapdog of whoever runs the show, whether it’s a pre-revolution dictatorship or a post-revolution junta.

But, in Egypt, it is really a tale of two media, with the independent media breaking significant new ground, not only since the revolution but also in the years running up to it.

Although self-censorship remains something of a problem even in the independent media, as demonstrated by the controversy over the shelving of an entire print run of Egypt Independent, the revolution has galvanised legions of journalists and media personalities to take on SCAF as they did Mubarak.

Many Egyptian journalists and media personalities express a newfound pride in their vocation and an irrepressible determination to carry on exposing the truth. For instance, late last year, al-Tahrir TV’s talk show host, the hard-talking Doaa Sultan, dedicated a special episode of her talk show to mount a scathing if melodramatic attack on the Egyptian military and the media and political forces, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which it has co-opted as a fig leaf for its rule.

Moreover, there is a third pillar to Egypt’s media landscape that has overshadowed even the independent media, the social and citizen media, which spearheaded the revolution and refuses to be put down. A good example of this is the defiant blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad who, despite having spent more than 300 days behind bars (including at least 80 on hunger strike), was not cowed into silence. On his release, he said: “We have one enemy, the military regime and its political dictatorship … It is imperative that we bring [it] down.”

And that sense of defiance is Egypt’s greatest hope for the future.

This article was published in The Guardian‘s Comment is Free section on 9 February 2012. Read the related discussion.

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Tags: alaa al-aswany, arab spring, arab world, censorship, democracy, dictatorship, egypt, egyptian media, facebook, freedom of expression, hosni mubarak, independent media, middle east, press freedom, press freedom index

Revolution@1: The Egyptian revolution as a historical event

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By Osama Diab

In the social media age, revolutions will no longer be followed by the constructing of a national identity based on just one “universal” truth.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Recognising the importance of producing a grassroots, street-level media by the people and for the people, a group called Kazeboon (Liars) was founded following the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution to record the human rights violations committed by the security forces. They use simple citizen journalism tools, such as camera phones, and equipped with a projector, they roam the streets of the nation to screen the films they make in order to, in their own words, “keep the balance of truth”.

As a counter move, a group called Sadiqoon (Honest) was founded to project a positive image of the military police and try to prove by film that violence was carried out by protesters.

These two rival projects reflect divisive sentiments and narratives that are common in Egypt and are splitting the population. But which of these narratives, and many more, will actually make it into the history books remains the interesting question.

Michel Foucault, the French philosopher and sociologist, argues that the winners in any social or political struggle use their newly acquired political power to suppress the defeated’s alternative account of events. But do governments still have the luxury to suppress opposing narratives in the age of social media?

The historiographical approach to documenting major social and political transformations and the introduction of a new order differ quite considerably from one time to another, and from place to place. Pierre Nora, the French historian, explains that one approach is constructing a unified standard version of “what happened” in order to promote a unified national identity and social cohesion where the nation usually end up having a standard language, national holidays, etc. This approach was mainly predominant in the UK and France. However, in the United States, a large country with various traditions, the approach to writing history allows for more diversity and a wide range of narratives to emerge.

The construction of a unified national identity which Nora refers to requires the existence of a centralised media apparatus, usually government-owned, which sends a standard message to all the citizens of a nation. However, this is a fading phenomenon all over the world due to globalisation and the emergence of decentralised media. This means that it is getting increasingly hard for any government to have total control over the means of producing media and culture.

In the United States, some of the history and even the visual culture that emerged from the Civil War, was written by the defeated (the Southerners). Popular Hollywood box office hits, such as Cold Mountain and Gone with the Wind all tell the story of the civil war from a Southern perspective. In addition, even though the USA didn’t ‘win’ the Vietnam war, most films about Vietnam are American.

The openness and freedom of the American media, along with its diverse tradition, is probably what allows it more than other nations to present different and sometimes conflicting narratives and accounts without awakening the fear that this might affect national identity or social cohesion.

The Egyptian revolution is one of the first major political and historical transformations to be driven by online activism, but most importantly, this online activism still cast its shadow on how people want their revolution to be remembered, and there seems to be no consensus on the matter.

The so-called Arab Spring in general and the Egyptian revolution in particular are perfect examples of when diverse interpretations become inevitable in the age of digital media and open access to information. Arab countries are a good example because they have always been under authoritarian rule, with the media, culture and history traditionally under tight government control. Even though the new media and the information era have been covered quite intensively as the driving force behind the Arab revolutions, little has been said about the way it might affect how these revolutions, important historical events in their own right, might be remembered by future generations.

Even governmental attempts to document and archive the revolution are very wary of the sensitivity surrounding official accounts of what happened. The National Archive of Egypt appointed the head of the history department at the American Univeristy in Cairo, Khaled Fahmy, to take charge of its project to document and archive the revolution.

Fahmy is well aware of the challenge he faces. He pointed out in an interview with The Guardian newspaper that Egyptians are highly sensitive about official attempts to write history and create state-sponsored narratives about historical events. “When Hosni Mubarak was vice-president in the 1970s he was himself on a government committee tasked with writing – or rather rewriting – the history of the 1952 revolution to suit the political purposes of the elite at that time,” said Fahmy.

Fahmy, therefore, is attempting to only collect as much primary data as possible without trying to impose a certain narrative and leave it to the people, especially future generations, to construct their own narratives about the revolution and its period. Fahmy also makes it clear that, since the revolution was leaderless and decentralised, this should also be our approach to writing its history and accessing it. There are also a few other organised non-governmental attempts to document and archive the revolution by the Bibliotheca Alexandria, American University in Cairo students and alumni, and others.

The fact that the revolution was leaderless makes it a politically sensitive topic. Many factions seem to be fighting to claim ownership of the revolution and attempt to emphasise and stretch their role in it.

A power struggle has emerged in post-revolutionary Egypt to try and fill this power vacuum. Claiming ownership of the revolution and fighting the old regime is central to this power struggle. This dispute is expected to cast its shadow over the writing of the revolution’s history and help further diversify the narratives and interpretations of the events which are taking place.

The media play an important role in constructing national identity to the extent that some argue that nationalism as we know it did not exist before the invention of the printing press, which enabled the emergence of the first mass media. Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined Communities argues that the emergence of print led to the emergence of nationalism because it helped members of a nation ‘imagine’ and identify with a wider community with which they shared no direct contact.

Referred to sometimes as history’s first Facebook revolution, tthe role of social media continues even after the revolution and is causing fragmentation in society, as well as difficulties for the new political leadership to construct a new and unified national identity. More importantly, it is causing a diversity of historical narratives to emerge, not just about the recent revolution but also abut older historical events in which certain narratives were suppressed and swept under the carpet.

However, over time, it might be proven that nationalism and social cohesion are not necessarily linked to having only one version of the ‘truth’ while suppressing all the other versions. Future generations are likely to grow up surrounded by a whole range of historical and political narratives thanks to the decentralisation of media production. On the bright side, this phenomenon might promote tolerance and enhance people’s ability to coexist and accept difference.

This article is part of a special Chronikler series to mark the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.

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Tags: arab spring, citizen journalism, egypt, egyptian revolution, facebook, globalisation, historiographical approach, history, hosni mubarak, journalism, michel foucault, narratives, nationalism, online activism, pierre nora, revolution@1, uk, united states, usa

Egypt’s middle-class cyberheroes

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By Osama Diab

Social networking and blogging voices the dreams and aspirations of the young and middle-class in Egypt, leaving other underrepresented groups as marginalised as ever.

Friday 25 November 2011

News of the prominent and outspoken Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy’s arrest and assault, which left her with two broken wrists, spread around the twittersphere at something approaching the speed of light, and then was picked up and covered by most major news outlets. Of course, this level of attention is unsurprising as Eltahawy is not only a brave journalist and campaigner, she is also well-known and admired both among Arab secularists and among liberals in the West.

When Alaa Abdel-Fattah, the Egyptian political activist and blogger, was arrested, my Facebook newsfeed, in a matter of minutes, was dominated by posts condemning his arrest. Profile pictures were changed to a Guevara-style silhouette version of his picture in solidarity with the young activist. He was quickly portrayed as the ultimate freedom fighter and the symbol of resistance. He indeed is. Abdel-Fattah comes from a family of political activists and has been an active force of resistance against Mubarak’s tyrannical rule for nearly a decade. He extensively blogged and participated in numerous protests against the ousted and the current regimes.

Despite my empathy with Alaa Abdel-Fattah as a fellow blogger who fell victim to his opinions, he is neither the only nor the most vulnerable victim of Egypt’s successive ruthless regimes, including the current transitional military junta. Khaled Said, Mina Daniel, Maikel Nabil Sanad, and now Abdel-Fatah, have all caused online uproars following their arrest or killing. They are most definitely and without doubt victims, but so are tens of thousands of others whose cases go unreported because Egypt’s middle-class, educated online activists fail to identify with them.

Egypt’s internet demographics explain the selectivity of victims, heroes and symbolic figures in the country’s online struggle for democracy. The internet penetration rate is still a low 20%, which means that if you are a member of Egypt’s online population, you are most likely a member of an educated middle-class in a big metropolis, mainly Cairo and Alexandria.

There is also about a 65% chance that you’re a male, and about a 90% chance you’re aged between 13 and 34. In order to be an active contributor in cyberspace, you also require a certain level of technological expertise, such as video-editing and blog-managing skills, which again would probably be higher among educated, male and young users.

Even among active internet users, there are still different levels and shades of contribution – not everyone contributes equally or has the same impact. In 2006, a study carried out by Forrestry Survey found that only 13% of internet users are active creators or users generating, rather than just viewing, content, while the majority of users were described as ‘passive spectators’ (33%) and ‘inactive’ users (52%). In other words, the majority of internet users are there to view content with a very minimal contribution of opinion, information, etc.

What this means is that people who play an active role online are a tiny percentage, not just of the population at large but even of internet users. They are mainly young, middle-class, urban and predominantly male. Looking at these figures, it is no surprise that the revolution’s cyberheroes match the profile of the typical Egyptian Facebook user.

The background of the majority of social networkers dictates the narratives and views you find in Egyptian cyberspace. This explains why it is very hard to find accounts of other victims from different backgrounds in Egypt’s shanty towns and rural areas. Age, gender, residence and social status are all factors that confine online participation and lobbying power to certain groups.

Online activism did undoubtedly play a big role in educating, raising awareness and mobilising people in the build-up to the Arab revolts of earlier this year. But if we have more men than women, urban than rural people, young than old online, then these groups are better-positioned than others to mobilise, express their opinion and lobby policy-makers, even if young people have yet to make it in large numbers into mainstream politics. This poses a challenge to the whole idea that new social media are more empowering compared to traditional media outlets.

If empowerment is restricted to certain groups of people, then social media kind of loses its perceived altruistic nature. Even the very idea of media empowerment was also introduced in cyberspace by those very people empowered by the media. This participatory media was utilised by educated online communities to make up for the lack of democracy in the real world. Being unable to vote or affect public policy for decades has made the internet a haven for those who long for political rights and desire to play an active part in shaping their own future and the public policy of their country. Therefore, an old, illiterate farmer’s wife in a Nile Delta village will probably be a lot more sceptical about how Facebook can empower her.

In a way, this is reminiscent to when only white male Protestants were allowed to vote in the United States – a strategy employed to shape public policy in favour of a certain privileged group. Even though it is logistically and practically impossible to connect every Egyptian to the internet and get them to participate equally, especially when the illiteracy rate is still as high as 30% and nearly half the population lives below the poverty line. However, we can still find some consolation in the fact that more and more people are coming online every day. The number of internet users is expected to rise exponentially by 2012, which will enable more people to learn some of the 21st century’s tricks of grassroots, bottom-up campaigning.

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The sacred right to ‘insult’

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By Khaled Diab

Jailing Egyptians for insulting religion and the military goes against the revolution’s spirit, and violates people’s secular and sacred rights.

Monday 31 October 2011

The revolution seems to have made the Egyptian regime very quick to take offence from all those ungrateful pesky Egyptians. In April, the courageous blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad was jailed for three years on the ludicrous charge of “insulting the military” – which is an offence only to our intelligence. The posts that got him in trouble include one in which he contends that “the army and people were never a single hand” and another that accuses the interim regime of “recycling the same old shit” but this time on a china plate – not to mention his view that the Coptic Pope Shenouda III has a “long history of hypocrisy with [Egypt’s] leadership”.

In protest against his sentencing, Sanad began a long hunger strike in jail which has placed his health at serious risk. Now reports are emerging that he has been moved to a psychiatric hospital, drawing severe condemnation from Egypt’s mental health community. An interesting blog containing Sanad’s determinedly outspoken writings from prison has been set up by his friends.

Human rights activists cautioned at the time of Sanad’s imprisonment that it set a “dangerous precedent”, and their warning seems to have been sound. Since the revolution began in January, an estimated 12,000 civilians have stood in the dock before military courts, which is more than the total number of cases during the Mubarak era. This is despite the fact that one of the key demands of the revolution was to abolish the emergency laws that make it possible for the regime to execute such summary “justice”.

Now Egypt’s civilian courts have joined the fray of Egyptian institutions making offenders out of bloggers who cause offence. Ayman Youssef Mansour also received three years, but this time not for offending the demigods of the military but rather for “insulting” Islam, “promoting extremist ideas” and “inciting sectarianism” on Facebook.

Unfortunately, the court gave absolutely no details about what exactly Mansour had written and my repeated attempts to dig up his writings online only led me to the empty shell of his Facebook page. But judging from other online content, which has riled pious Egyptians, I suspect that, though Mansour’s page may have caused offence, especially if it was atheistic, it probably did not incite sectarianism or fitna.

Although atheism can be just as oppressive as any other belief system if it becomes the official ‘religion’ of a repressive state, as the Soviet Union amply demonstrated, I’ve never heard of any member of Egypt’s marginalised, unrecognised and forgotten atheist minority ever calling for a ‘jihad’ or ‘crusade’ against believers.

For instance, many Egyptians have been campaigning for the removal of a controversial satirical Facebook page, which mocks religion mercilessly. The content of the page ranges from juvenile and absurdist humour – “If a prophet comes who declare ‘Aha‘ ['Oh Shit'] I shall believe in him” – to biting political satire and social commentary, but it is all rather harmless.

One post, citing God’s various haughty titles such as “King of Kings”, asks whether “God suffers from megalomania or is just the Muammar Gaddafi of the heavens”. Another post, mocking Mubarak’s attempts to hold on to power by ostensibly delegating his authority to his intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, reports: “God has declared … that he does not intend to run for a second godly term and that he is handing over all his powers to the angel Gabriel.”

Though each of these posts gets dozens of likes, indicating that many Egyptians and Arabs approve of this brand of humour, they also elicit hundreds of comments, many of them condemnations and childish insults by believers, many of which are, ironically, blasphemous in nature.

Of course, I can see why, in a largely religious society, the mocking or deriding of the most fundamental beliefs people hold dear can cause anger. But trying to shut down such debate or jail those who hold contrary views goes against the spirit of freedom embodied in the Egyptian revolution. And even for those Muslims who do not believe in modern secularism, Islam itself has traditionally guaranteed freedom of belief for all. This is spelt out, for example, in the constitution of Medina and the long tradition Muslim societies have had of tolerating criticism and the ridiculing of Islam.

More pragmatically, it is in every Egyptian’s interest to scrap the vague legislation that outlaws the “ridiculing or insulting” of any of the Abrahamic faiths. Though the law appears to accord all Egyptians equal rights, this is only the case if we assume that all Egyptians are Muslims, Christians or Jews – but there are those who belong to other religions or none. Then there are those with alternative, more liberal interpretations of their faith, such as academics, novelists and film-makers who have had cases brought against them by Islamists. And not only is this vague law a gift to ultra-conservative Islamists, it was also thoroughly exploited by the former regime to silence its critics.

And far from preventing the fitna the law is apparently designed to do, it may actually stoke the fires of sectarianism and division by creating a new battleground in the courts. This can be seen in how some conservative Christians have taken the Islamists’ lead and are, too, bringing cases to the courts against those they perceive as having defamed their faith.

And who is to determine what’s defamatory? In some ways the very existence of Islam and Christianity can be seen, at one level, as being mutually insulting to each other. After all, regardless of the respect Muslims hold for Christians and their faith, Islam ultimately emerged as a ‘corrective’ for the deviations that Christianity had apparently taken from the ‘true faith’, and challenges some fundamental Christian beliefs. Could that not be interpreted as insulting?

Similarly, Christianity still exists because Christians do not accept that Muhammad is a true prophet, regardless of how much many Christians admire and respect him as a man, leader and visionary. So, it is best for everyone just to live and let live.

The new Egypt must uphold the rights of everyone to believe in what they want and speak freely about their beliefs. It must also protect its minorities, not only Christians and Baha’is but also the officially voiceless but significant nonbelieving minority.

This article first appeared in The Guardian’s Comment is Free section on 27 October 2011. Read the related discussion.

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Hungary for a better future?

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By Swaan van Iterson

Faced with soaring unemployment and the lack of prospects, many educated young Hungarians are being drawn to the radical right. But will it give them the better future they seek?

Friday 5 August 2011

The Turul bird is the national symbol of Hungary. Jobbik voters often wear it on T-shirts, necklaces, bracelets and other accessories. Photo: Swaan van Iterson

Until last year, the international media paid little attention to Hungary. This changed when the nationalist and conservative Fidesz party, under the leadership of Viktor Orbán, won a two-thirds majority in the elections of April 2010, thereby gaining the power to push through radical changes.

Orbán moved quickly to nationalise private pension funds. In addition, he pushed through a controversial media law, which stipulates that a government-appointed media authority should monitor whether journalists provide “moral” and “objective” reporting.

More recently, in July of this year, his government passed a new church law, which officially recognises only 14 religions, and hence strips the others of the right to receive state subsidies. The Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP) called the legislation the “worst religion law in Europe”.

And Orbán and his party are not finished yet. His latest idea is to allow secondary school children to study “basic military science” starting from the coming academic year.

But it is not just the Fidesz party that is making news in Hungary. Further to the right on the political spectrum the radical Jobbik party, which won 16.7% of the vote in the 2010 elections to become the third largest party in Hungary, is drawing attention. The Movement for a Better Hungary’s (A Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom) manifesto is mainly based on, among other things, nationalism and the combating of so-called “gypsy criminality” (cigánybűnözés). Many believe that the party was closely linked to the Magyar Gárda (the Hungarian Guard that is now dissolved, but still active under different names), which was established to protect the population against this “gypsy crime”.

Jobbik’s main support base is not only found in the ranks of the poor and poorly educated workers in the northeast of the country, but increasingly amongst the urban young. In early 2010, some 15% of under-25s said they would vote for Jobbik – the party was particularly popular among university students specialising in the humanities or history.

This raises the question of why Jobbik is attractive to more highly educated students in Budapest. Most narratives paint a picture of a faceless crowd of “societal losers” who vote for the radical right. Can the same terminology be used to describe these students? I travelled to Budapest to find out. During a month of extensively interviewing students and hearing their story, while trying not to judge and to remain objective, I learned that radical right voters can be far from being the indistinguishable mass of victims they are often taken to be.

Of multinationals and gypsies

A Jobbik student attends class with pen and bracelet in the colours of the Hungarian flag. Photo: Swaan van Iterson.

Farkas Gergely (25), a recent graduate in economics and sociology, is a Jobbik member and one of the youngest members of parliament. According to Gergely, the lack of prospects many students face leads them to vote for his party: “Many students in Hungary cannot find work once they graduate… For 20 years, no party stood up for young people and so they looked for something new. We have filled that gap.”

A lot of the students I have spoken to indicate that having a university degree in Hungary is no guarantee for a secure future. According to Marcell, a 25-year-old public administration student, the bad socio-economic situation is a result of, amongst other things, foreign interference: “Multinationals, transnational companies and foreign banks have come to the country in droves since 1989. They were able to operate here without paying any taxes while local firms had to pick up the tab – they got no special perks,” he says. “The result is that the multinationals have devoured our economy. They became the rulers of our homeland. Every Hungarian government over the past 20 years has been their unquestioning servant.”

Szuszanna (21), a medical student in Budapest, believes that it is mainly Jewish enterprises that have received this beneficial treatment: “We’re not happy with the Israeli companies which buy up everything here – they ruin everything. They take a lot of money out of the country and invest very little,” she argues.

In Szuszanna’s view, the trouble is that if you want to do something about the situation, you’re immediately labelled as an anti-Semite. According to her, the same problem arises around the “gypsy question”. The Jobbik introduced the term “gypsy criminality” into Hungary’s political discourse, which finally made it, in Szuszanna’s view, possible to talk about the situation - something that is very urgent, she believes: “During communist times, everybody was obliged to work, but that changed with the advent of capitalism,” Szuszanna tells. “Now that you can get benefits, a lot of gypsies don’t work anymore. They spend their benefits on alcohol and cigarettes and when this runs out, they often steal.”

Radical change

Student supporters of Jobbik greet one another by saying “Szebb Jövőt”, meaning “A better future”. They would like to see change not only in the socio-economic conditions but also in the political situation. János (26), who studies IT, believes that students vote for Jobbik because they want radical change. According to him, Hungary never underwent a change of the regime (rendszerváltás). He thinks that many communists continue to be in power under the guise of socialism and that communism actually never went away in Hungary. Moreover, like János, a lot of students view the socialists as being corrupt.

For a lot of the students, 2006 was the time they decided to join the Jobbik party. That year, an audio recording surfaced from a closed-door meeting, featuring the then socialist president Ferenc Gyurcsány. On the recording, Gyurcsány admitted that “we have been lying for the last one and a half to two years” about the economic situation in Hungary. The leak led to public outrage and mass demonstrations, including the occupation of the state television building by football hooligans and radical-right students.

Many of the Jobbik supporters believe that socialist “indoctrination” does not only occur in the political sphere, but also in the education system. Jószef, a PhD student in political science who is researching euroscepticism, would like to build an academic career but, in his view, it is very difficult to earn money as an independent political scientist in Hungary: “You need to have a political colour, otherwise you’ll get nowhere in this field,” he says. “Personally I have had no problems but I have heard others say that it is difficult to get a good position if you’re not a socialist.”

And it’s not just academia. In Katalin’s opinion the media is also dominated by “liberal leftists” (referring to the socialists). The “simplistic and oversexualised” American programming on television annoys her: “The Hungarian media is extremely prejudiced and, above all, extremely liberal,” she complains. “People watch MTV, use drugs, find it normal to be gay and encourage others to become so too. That’s just ridiculous.”

The “bias” of the Hungarian media does not stop Jobbik from reaching the public, János stresses. He says that the party bypasses the mainstream media by being very active on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, this helps the party to connect better with young people.

Eszter, a master’s student in public administration, thinks that Jobbik is a party for the young generation in a country where there is an intergenerational divide in politics: “Older people lived through communism and miss the security and stability of those times. In those days, there was still work for everyone. This means that older people vote more frequently for the socialists. Young people don’t have the same experiences and sympathies.”

Hungary’s Young Turks?

Badges worn by a Jobbik supporter. Photo: Swaan van Iterson.

Péter is a university lecturer at both ELTE and Corvinus University. He says that students who vote for Jobbik regularly voice their political views in their essays and assignments. According to him, history students in particular are drawn to the party – a phenomenon that does not surprise him in the least: “Hungarians have a history of lost wars and lost independence. This gives you a reason to become nationalistic. Young people are convinced that, given all they’ve lost, Hungarians can only count on themselves.”

Many of the students I spoke to integrate their political views not only into their studies but also their plans for the future. Ákos (21) describes knowledge as his “weapon” with which he can build his future and change the world. Towards that end, he is studying history and Turkish. He believes that Hungarians must have more control over their country, and the only way to achieve this is to become more independent from the West.

Surprisingly for all those right-wing Europeans who oppose Turkish membership of the EU because of the supposed civilisational differences, Ákos wishes to strengthen ties between Hungary and Turkey, as he believes the two countries share a common history: “Most people believe that the Hungarians are descendants of the Finno-Ugric tribes, but this is untrue. The Turks and Hungarians are brothers and there is a lot of research which shows that Hungarians are related to tribes in Kazakhstan.”

For other students, Jobbik is more a part of their daily reality than their future dreams. Barnabás (20), also a history student, wears black jeans and a leather jacket bearing Hungarian nationalist iconography, as well as an armband in the colours of the Hungarian flag. His interest in the Hungarista subculture began when he turned 16 and started listening to nationalist rock bands like Kárpátia and Romantikus Erőszak, whose songs include 100% Magyar (100% Hungarian) and Lesz még Erdély (Transylvania will be ours).

“It is very, very important for me to be part of the Jobbik movement. It is an integral part of my Hungarian identity,” Barnabás admits. “You really get the feeling that you belong to a group. Jobbik helps people who feel out of place but have a strong bond with Hungary to find a community. Before I joined Jobbik, I often felt alone, like I didn’t belong anywhere.”

According to Ákos, this sense of loneliness is common among young Hungarians who have few extracurricular activities to engage in or groups to join. For him, Jobbik is almost more like a family than a party: “At Jobbik, you feel that you’re at home. You are surrounded by people who think just like you and who want to reach the same goals.” He ended our conversation with the following words: “We’re there for each other. We fight for each other. Also for you, a better future!”

The students I talked to are trying to change their future through the Jobbik party. The way they actively engage their political ideas in their daily activities, studies and career plans, and use modern utilities like social media, makes it impossible to label them as ‘losers of the modern world’ or the modernisation process. But despite the solidarity and belonging that Jobbik inspires in its young members, the question is whether the radical right path they are treading is the way to achieve their dreams of independence, pride and well-being.

This article is part of a special Chronikler series on far-right extremism. It is published here with the author’s consent. ©Swaan van Iterson.

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Diversity without adversity

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By Khaled Diab

Can Israelis and Palestinians learn something about building bridges between divided communities from the Egyptian revolution?

Wednesday 22 June 2011

It was not a good start to 2011. The massive explosion during midnight mass that tore through the al-Qidiseen church in Alexandria, killing 21 worshippers and injuring dozens, marked a turn for the worse in the situation surrounding Egypt’s Coptic minority.

However, my despair was replaced with measured hope when a massive solidarity campaign was born online soon after the attacks and quickly spread to the real world. Drawing on an old symbol of national unity, many even changed their Facebook profile pictures to the crescent and cross banner of the 1919 revolution.

I recently moved to Jerusalem and the question, “Can Israelis and Palestinians draw lessons about building bridges between divided communities from the Egyptian experience?” is one that I have pondered, despite the fact that the divisions here are much starker and more bitter than in Egypt.

In Egypt, the virtual solidarity and activism between Muslims and Copts kick-started an even more impressive real-world equivalent when thousands of Muslims volunteered to form human shields around churches to protect worshippers celebrating the Coptic Christmas on the eve of 6-7 January, under the slogan: “We either live together or we die together.”

This was a small foretaste of the rebirth of national unity that would accompany the Egyptian revolution later that same month during which tens of millions of Muslims and Christians stood shoulder to shoulder to brave the wrath and brutality of the dying monstrosity of the Mubarak regime.

Although Egypt is not yet out of the woods in terms of intercommunal relations, as demonstrated by the recent burning down of a Cairo church and the clashes it provoked, I and many other Egyptians are hopeful that a more democratic Egypt will be a better Egypt, for all Egyptians.

By contrast, in the Israeli-Palestinian context, although people on both sides may live in close physical proximity to one another, there is very little contact between them, at least of the positive variety. This situation creates, reinforces and perpetuates the mutual fear and distrust which fuel the conflict.

Deprived of venues where they could meet physically and agitate for change, Arab youth, especially in Tunisia and Egypt, used the power of social media to meet virtually before taking their actions to the streets. Likewise, new technologies offer a virtual and non-threatening world in which to meet, and are being used accordingly by some young Palestinians and Israelis (albeit on a small scale so far), where they can discover common causes and even organise for collective action.

On a personal level, I have experienced the potential of new technologies to bridge divides. Before I visited here, Israelis and Palestinians I met online helped deepen my understanding of the essential human aspect of the conflict.

But despite the unprecedented reach of today’s communication technologies, nothing beats direct human contact, as I learnt during my first visit to Jerusalem in 2007.

Older people recall a time, despite some tensions, when national identities had not yet hardened and when Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side as friends and neighbours, as two octogenarians – a Palestinian and an Israeli – I met recounted.

The Israeli is a member of what is known as the ‘pioneer’ generation of left-wing kibbutzniks. He remembers the cordial ties his kibbutz enjoyed with the local Palestinian community and, as a teacher, he has taught thousands of Jewish and Arab children over the years.

The Palestinian, a sharp and lucid great-grandmother from a prominent Jerusalem family, reminisces fondly of a time in her former home in what is now Jewish West Jerusalem when they counted Jews not only as neighbours but also as good family friends.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have their own proud history of successful integration to draw upon.

For centuries, Palestine was a small land where a broad array of different religious and ethnic communities – Arabs, Jews, Turks, Europeans, Armenians, Persians, Assyrians and even Africans – lived together in relative tolerance, amid a dominant Islamic culture.

Long before Zionism ever reached Palestine, its status as the Holy Land attracted – with the encouragement of the Ottomans and some earlier rulers – Muslim, Christian and Jewish migrants of all stripes and colours into its melting pot of myriad sects and communities.

Israel has also been successful, despite the dominance of Ashkenazi culture, in integrating Jews from around the globe, as well as granting Palestinian Israelis equal legal and civil rights, at least in theory.

It is only one short logical step, albeit one giant leap of faith, to extend Palestinian and Israeli traditions of acceptance to the other side in this bitter conflict.

Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs should dare to gaze across ”enemy lines”, both online and, more importantly, in the real world and look towards an alternative future in which everyone living on this land can do so in dignity, equality and freedom.

This article was written for The Common Ground News Service. It was originally published on 21 June 2011.

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