Juhood: Vol 3 Issue 2 by Juhood: Duke University's Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

Letter from the Editors

he Arab World today is in a period of transition as many countries redefine themselves as a result of the social movments of the Arab Spring. In Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen and many other countries people fought for their ideas and vision of a new Arab World. This stage of transition is similar to what anthropologists refer to as “liminality” or the period/space in between rituals. Victor Turner defined liminal individuals as “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony.” As having recently graduated from Duke University, it is from this period of liminality or transition that we write today. However, not only have we graduated and entered this liminal space open with opportunities, but as we depart we also transition the leadership of the journal to a new generation. Liminality also allows us a chance to disrupt the normal structure and go off script for it is that space that defies structure and categories. It is here that we want to thank our perseverant staff. Thank you for all your efforts and long days working on the journal. It is because of all of your work that the journal has been able to succeed and will continue to do so. Congratulations to Jonathan Hafferkamp the journal’s new editor-in-chief. Juhood itself is in a space of liminality as it continues to grow and develop. Four years ago, it began as a journal targeted solely towards the Duke community. Today, Juhood has extended its boundaries to more than 8 universities around the world. As a result, this issue of Juhood is not only the largest to date, but also mainly composed of submissions from students from other universities. Its topics range from all corners of what is understood to be the region of the Middle East and North Africa, while at the same time continuing to challenge these delineations—pointing towards the everlasting liminality of the region. The liminality of MENA region is a source of excitment and hope. It is what makes this area an intriguing subject of study. It allows us to envision new forms of being and of connecting. This liminality is not only the "realm of pure possiblity," but also the site for the creation of a new model of human conectedness, which is what Turner terms communitas. However, liminality also implies a teleology, a direction. Are we not always moving towards something else? As a result, liminality also marks the end of a period/ stage and the beginning of a new one. Let the new stage of Juhood continue its attempt to offer new perspective on the region. On behalf of the Editorial Board, we proud to present you with the fourth issue of Juhood, our last one as co-editors.

Fernando Revelo La Rotta, Co-Editor-in-Chief Sabrina Rubakovic, Co-Editor-in-Chief

Staff Co-Editors-in-Chief

Managing Editor Copy Editor Submissions Editor

Fernando Revelo La Rotta, '13 Sabrina Rubakovic, '13 Jonathan Hafferkamp, '13 Claire Coyne, '15 Ezgi Ustundag, '16

Layout Editor

Leena El-Sadek, '15

Outreach Coordinator

Sarah Elsheryie, '15

Advisory

Special Thanks

Cover Photo

Abdeslam Maghraoui

Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Political Science

Bruce Lawrence

Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor Emeritus, Religion

Kelly Jarrett

Associate Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center and the Duke University Middle East Studies Center

Mbaye Lo

Assistant Professor of the Practice, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

miriam cooke

Braxton Craven Professor of Arabic and Arab Cultures and Director of the Duke University Middle East Studies Center

The University Publications Board (UPB) John Spencer Bassett Fund Committee Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC) Duke University Middle Eastern Studies Center (DUMESC) Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar Taken by: Fernando Revelo La Rotta The information provided by our contributors is not independently verified by Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs, referred to hereafter as Juhood. The materials presented represent the personal opinions of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Juhood or the Duke University community. Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs Volume 3, Issue 2, Spring 2013 â&#x20AC;˘ Copyright ÂŠ 2013

Contents

BOUNDARIES OF ISLAMIC ART: Challenging the Concept of Distinct Civilizations

The 1979 Iranian revolution and modernity: The People's Modernity

PERFORMING OCCUPATION IN TAHRIR SQUARE: The Construction of a Revolutionary State

LET THERE BE LIGHT: For Syria

Introducing competition: The Challenges of and Policy Solutions to Egypt's Unemployment Crisis

Alexander Smith

Do they care? An Analysis of Jordanian Youth Political Opinion

Jonathan Hafferkamp

The murals of asilah: Rehabilitating A City

Cybercultures, online-arab-queers, and interface hackers: Locating Individuals, Identities, and Ideas in Cyberspaces

Laura Curlin Stephanie Sistare Maru Pabon Elise Alexander

Julijana Englander Fernando Revelo La Rotta

Boundaries of Islamic Art: Challenging the Concepts of Distinct Civilizations Laura Curlin

hough inaccurate, civilizations are consistenty percieved as discrete entities. One of the most troubling premises of Bernard Lewis’s “The Roots of Muslim Rage” is the idea that Islam constitutes an opposing civilization completely separate from Western civilization. Lewis accepts Samuel Huntington’s understanding of civilization as “the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species.”1 Islamic art represents just one aspect of Huntington’s idea of an Islamic civilization. Furthermore, Bernard Lewis views the conflict between civilizations as existing outside of time. He describes the clash of civilizations as the reaction of the Islamic world against the modern, secular expression of JudeoChristian power.2 As “ancient rivals,” Islam and the West have been opposed from their origins to the present in Lewis’ view. Besides presupposing a hostile relationship between civilizations, this essentialist view of civilizations is problematic because it does not take into consideration change over time, mutual influence of civilizations upon one another, or the many significant subdivisions within a civilization. Islamic art, as a particular aspect of Islamic civilization, serves as a point of entry for an investigation into the validity of Huntington’s framework for civilizations. It is defined as art produced in an area where “the majority of the population, or at least the ruling element profess the faith of Islam.”3 However, not all of the art produced in such circumstances fits neatly within a self-contained Islamic civilization. The political and geographic definition of Islamic art is not sufficient to explain the diversity and external influence observed within the medium. Several different phenomena exemplify these forces, such as the continuity of Buddhist Pakistani art, political posturing of Medieval Spanish art, diversity of figural forms in Iranian art, and colonial influence in Algerian art. These facets challenge the notion that Islamic art is a discrete category. Thus, Huntington and Lewis’s concept of civilizations is not an appropriate framework because “Islamic” art includes works that have little connection to the religion as well as substantial influences from other civilizations.

1. Huntington, Samuel, "The Clash of Civilizations," Foreign Affairs (1993): 24.

2. Lewis, Bernard, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," Atlantic Monthly, September 1990, 60.

3. Grabar, Oleg, The Formation of Islamic Arts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 2.

Pakistan’s Religious Art Although Pakistan is now officially known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the region is a historic home of Buddhism. This history is often ignored in the present age in favor of emphasizing the regions ties to the Mughal Empire. Asia Society’s exhibition, “The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara,” provided a notable exception to this trend. In the kingdom of Gandhara, in what is now northern Pakistan, Buddhist culture thrived in the first through fifth centuries under Kushan kings. Indian, Persian, and Hellenistic styles combined through successive invasions and trade to form a unique aesthetic. Although Gandhara was primarily Buddhist, there was tolerance for all religions. The classic Gandharan Buddha’s “facial features are symmetrical and crisply cut, and idealized.”4 Many art pieces featured Hindu deities stylized similar to Gandharan Buddhas, as well as motifs from Greco-Roman art.5 Depictions of Buddha also illustrate the cosmopolitanism of Gandharan society. In one carving (figure 1), a central Buddha instructs the bodhisattvas and followers that surround him. While the Buddha wears South Indian clothing, the surrounding figures wear a variety of dress, demonstrating the range of international influences present in Gandhara.6 The kingdom of Gandhara blended diverse international influences into a unique Buddhist art.

Boundaries of Islamic Art: Challenging the Concept of Distinct Civilizations 5

4. Cotter, Holland, "When East Met West under the Buddha’s Gaze," review of The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara, by Asia Society, New York Times, August 10, 2011, http://www.nytimes. com/2011/08/12/arts/design/ the-buddhist-heritage-of-pakistanart-of-gandhara-at-asia-society-review. html?pagewanted=all.

5. Asia Society, The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara, accessed May 4, 2012, http://sites.asiasociety.org/ gandhara/ 6. Asia Society, The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan.

7. "Pakistan's Historical Background," Information of Pakistan, accessed May 6, 2012, http://www.infopak.gov.pk/History. aspx. 8. Asia Society, The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan. 9. Department of Islamic Art, “The Art of the Mughals before 1600,” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http://www. metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mugh/ hd_mugh.htm. 10. Department of Islamic Art, “The Art of the Mughals before 1600.”

11. Ali, Attega, “Modern Art in West and East Pakistan,” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http://www.metmuseum. org/toah/hd/wepk/hd_wepk.htm. 12. “Sadequain: Calligraphy panel (Inst. 1980.3.2),” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http://www.metmuseum.org/ toah/works-of-art/Inst.1980.3.2.

13. Malik, Shabnam Bashar, "Sang-tarash: The Legendry Master Sculptors of the Ancient Buddhist Sculptural Art of Gandhara in Taxila," Asian Social Science, 7:10 (2011): 196.

Although Buddhist art in Gandhara began to decline after the 6th century due to the destruction of monasteries in Taxila by the White Huns, a revival of Hinduism in the region, and the arrival of Islam, it did not disappear. Buddha statues continued to be made after Islam was introduced to Pakistan by the general Muhammad bin Qasim in 711. A series of Muslim kingdoms, empires, and sultanates controlled all or parts of Pakistan, from the Ghaznavids (976-1148) to the Mughals (1526-1857).7 Although parts of southern Pakistan converted quickly, significant numbers of Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs remained in northern Pakistan, where the influence of Gandharan history was strongest.8 In the heart of the former kingdom of Gandhara, despite the growing prevalence of Islam, a tradition of Buddhist art continued. While Buddhist art still exists in Pakistan, Islamic art became politically important under Muslim rule. As part of the Mughal Empire, Pakistan contributed to a tradition of manuscript art. Akbar, the third Mughal emperor, conquered Pakistan as he greatly expanded the Mughal Empire.9 During his reign (1556 – 1605), Akbar commissioned many illustrated manuscripts from his royal atelier at Lahore, in modern day Pakistan. The city was his principal residence after 1585 and a cultural center of the empire.10 The type of illustrations developed under Akbar came to be known as the Mughal style. The manuscripts and their illustrations were closely tied to the regime – images showing victory in battle emphasized the power of the Mughals. The tradition of the art of the book connected the Mughal Empire to previous Islamic dynasties further emphasizing their power. Much of Pakistan’s modern art also includes Islamic motifs or Arabic calligraphy. Pakistani artists such as Zubeida Agha, Shakir Ali, and Anna Molka Ahmed are known for blending European training with their Pakistani heritage.11 Paintings by Sadequain often feature Arabic calligraphy within the figures portrayed. For example, figure 2 depicts three boats made up of inscriptions that read, “In the name of the memorable Qur’an. In the name of the glorious Qur’an. In the name of the pen [and anything it writes].”12 Such allusions to Pakistan’s Islamic identity manifest the artists’ own relationship to the religion. However, the exhibition still retains a political nature. Pieces with Islamic content are highly publicized for the political goal of developing of a national identity distinct from Hindu India. While Pakistan’s Islamic identity is usually showcased in modern art, traditional methods are still being used to sculpt Buddhas in Taxila. There, master sculptors continue to work despite pressure to conform to the interpretation of Islamic ideology as prohibitive of figural art. The artists often keep their work private for fear of being ostracized by their families or threatened by the local clergy.13 The market for Buddha statues is highly restricted to prevent the smuggling of antiques out of Pakistan, but permits for new sculptures are difficult to come by. While these sculptors have continued the use of traditional techniques for centuries, their livelihood is currently at risk due to government regulations meant to protect Pakistan’s antiquities.

Umayyad Spain In a way similar to Pakistan’s use of Islamic art to create its state identity, the Umayyad rulers of Medieval Spain used art and architecture to differentiate their kingdom from the Abbasid caliphate ruling the rest of the Islamic world. From 661 to 750, the Umayyad caliphate ruled over the entire Muslim world, including Spain, which was

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

known as Al-Andalus. However, the rise of the Abbasid dynasty split Spain from the rest of the Muslim world. When the Abbasids killed nearly all of the Umayyad family, one member, Abd al-Rahman, fled to Spain.14 There, he declared himself king and continued the Umayyad dynasty independent of the Abbasids. Although trade continued, exchange between Al-Andalus and the Abbasid caliphate declined. In 929, Abd al-Rahman III declared himself caliph. This was manifested in the art world by “a newly imperial attitude, which was symbolized by architectural construction.”15 New designs mixed local styles, such as the horseshoe arch used in Visigoth churches and allusions to the Syrian roots of the Umayyads, like using bands of different colored stone.16 Thus, architecture was used to reinforce the regime’s legitimacy by emphasizing its history while differentiating the kingdom from the rest of the Islamic world. Early Umayyad architecture carefully imitated Roman capitals and columns. Some Umayyad capitals from the ninth century have even been mistaken for older Roman work.17 Umayyad artists responded to existing Roman architecture by developing their own style that still managed to differentiate their kingdom from the rest of the Islamic world. Boxes carved from solid ivory were used to store jewelry and other precious objects. These caskets, such as shown in figure 3, were often given to women as marriage gifts and thus featured designs symbolic of fertility. The inscription implies that it was made for a daughter of ‘Abd al-Rahman, though it does not include her name, making a precise identification difficult. This casket’s silver work is also probably original and elegantly matches the carving on the walls. Whereas in other regions ivory was used as an inlay, the Umayyads in al-Andalus were able to use solid ivory because they had access to trade routes in North Africa.

14. Department of Islamic Art. “The Art of the Umayyad Period in Spain (711-1031),” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http://www.metmuseum. org/toah/hd/sumay/hd_sumay.htm (October 2001). 15. Rosser-Owen, Mariam, Islamic Arts from Spain (London: V&A Publishing, 2010), 20. 16. Ibid., 22. 17. Ibid., 23.

Although Spanish art under the Umayyad caliphs is generally included in studies of Islamic art, it was subject to unique influences and political pressures that differentiate it from the broader field of Islamic art. Andalusi art was influenced by prior Christian art in the Iberian Peninsula, the materials available to them, and the political need to appear distinct from the Abbasid caliphate. Umayyad art incorporated a variety of artistic traditions to create its own unique aesthetic. While the rest of the Muslim world was united under the Abbasid caliphate, Al-Andalus constituted a separate entity on the margins of Islamic culture.

Art and the Reconquista Later, the Reconquista brought Spain under Christian control through the gradual disintegration of Muslim hegemony and the growing strength of neighboring Christian kingdoms. For much of the Middle Ages, Spain was a patchwork of kingdoms, both Christian and Muslim, with factions made up according to the rulers’ interests rather than along religious lines. Gradually, power shifted to favor the Christian kingdoms, and growing anti-Muslim sentiment led to the expulsion of Muslims from their homes. With the fall of Granada in 1492, the entirety of Spain was ruled by Christians. While the military conquest is relatively well-known, a parallel cultural shift served to integrate Islamic art into Spanish culture even as Muslim artisans were expelled. Early in the Reconquista, Christian and Muslim cultures were similarly intertwined. The increasingly powerful Christian rulers appreciated the quality of Islamic art and adopted existing styles into their homes.18 Individual objects were repurposed by their new owners, often for use in explicitly Christian settings. Other objects were made to

Boundaries of Islamic Art: Challenging the Concept of Distinct Civilizations 7

18. Ibid., 74.

imitate the Islamic aesthetic and act as trophies from the Reconquista, emphasizing the new power dynamic in Spain and the Christians’ military victory. Later, still other objects were made without any attempt to fetishize Islamic art, but rather made use of techniques developed under Muslim rule. Even once Muslim artists had left Spain, their Christian students continued to work for new patrons. The Reconquista was thus played out in a more subtle way through the Christian appropriation of Islamic art and culture in Spain.

19. Ibid., 31.

20. "Plaque," Victoria and Albert Museum, accessed May 5, 2012, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/ O84532/plaque/. 21. Beech, George T., "The Eleanor of Aquitaine Vase, William IX of Aquitaine, and Muslim Spain," Gesta 32, no. 1 (1993): 5. 22. Muriel, Barbier, "Eleanor’ Crystal Vase," Louvre, accessed May 4, 2012, http://www.louvre.fr/en/ oeuvre-notices/eleanor-crystal-vase.

23. Rosser-Owen, Islamic Arts from Spain, 72-73.

24. Ibid., 73.

25. Ray, Anthony, "Dish," Victoria and Albert Museum, accessed May 5, 2012, http://collections.vam. ac.uk/item/O155420/dish-dish/.

26. Ibid.

During the relatively unsettled periods of the Taifa kings (in the 11th and 12th centuries), Islamic Spain was divided into small Muslim kingdoms and many art objects were transferred to Christian hands.19 Many, such as an ivory panel in the Victoria and Albert Museum (figure 4), were repurposed. What was once a panel in a casket became a cover for a cathedral’s book.20 Because of the political upheaval of the time, many pieces of portable Spanish Islamic art only survived in the treasuries of Christian monasteries and cathedrals. The “Eleanor” crystal vase was similarly changed as it passed between owners. The origin of the carved crystal is still mysterious, but it is possible it came to Spain via Fatimid Egypt, though it was not produced there. According to an inscription on the mounting, it was owned by “Mitadolus,” or Imad al-dawlaus, a Muslim king who fought alongside William IX, and presumably gave him the vase to curry favor.21 William IX was Eleanor of Aquitaine’s grandfather, and gave her the crystal. Eleanor then gave it to her husband Louis VII, who gave it to Sugar, abbot of Saint-Denis. The abbot had the crystal put into its current setting and recorded what we know of its ownership.22 That particular piece thus blends an exquisite Sassanian rock crystal, a French setting, and historically significant owners in one work of art. Other Spanish works may appear to be Islamic art, but were actually imitations produced by later Christians. For example, a sword buckle in the Victoria and Albert Museum (figure 5) allegedly belonged to the last Nasrid sultan, Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad XII, or Boabdil, and passed into the ownership of his captors at the Battle of Luecena in 1483.23 While this origin story is appealing, the sword’s decorations are made of fragile colored glass and would not have been appropriate for actual battle. Furthermore, the inscriptions on the sword buckle are not Arabic, but a garbled reproduction of Arabic by an artist who did not speak the language. The sword buckle was not made for battle, but rather as a trophy. Christian conquerors used such trophies to “show off to posterity the owners’ heroic involvement or desired involvement in the glorious battle.”24 Art memorializing victory served as proof of triumph and reinforcement of the new power dynamic in Spain. Other pieces made by Christian artists after the Reconquista used techniques developed under Muslim rule to create new works. Although Valencia had been part of the Christian kingdom of Aragon since 1238, a dish made for a member of the Buyl family (figure 6) exhibits tin-glaze and lustre techniques characteristic of Islamic art. Lustre painting was originally developed in Iraq and traveled to Spain through trade with earlier Muslim rulers of Spain.25 The abstract floral motif on the dish echoes Islamic art as well, though here it makes up the “Byrony flowers” pattern which was a popular export to Italy.26 Spanish ceramics were well-known for their craftsmanship under both Muslim and Christian rulers. Spanish artisans continued using Islamic techniques to create art for the new Christian patrons, adapting their knowledge to the new political environment.

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

Figure 1: Vision of a buddha’s paradise. Mohammed Nari, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 4th century CE, from Lahore Museum.

Figure 4: Plaque, by Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayyan, from Cuenca, made in mid 11th century and altered in 13th century. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Figure 5: Locket, from Granada, 1492-1550. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 2: Calligraphy Panel by Sadequain, 20th century, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

Figure 3: Casket, 961-965, from Madinat al-Zahra or Cordoba. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Figure 6: Dish, from Valencia, 1430-1470. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Boundaries of Islamic Art: Challenging the Concept of Distinct Civilizations 9

Portraiture Islamic art is often characterized as non-figural because of particular interpretations of Islamic ideology and the prohibition of figures in the decoration of mosques. However, a wealth of portraiture from Iran proves this characterization to be a misconception. From miniatures and manuscripts to royal portraits, images of people are an integral part of Persian art. Even though portraits would not be allowed in religious settings, many were produced in Muslim majority societies and under Muslim rulers, thus qualifying them as Islamic art in the framework of this analysis. Persian portraits are an integral part of Islamic art, even though these paintings generally have little to do with the religion itself. Brown’s Minassian Collection contains a wealth of Persian, Mughal, and Indian miniature portraits. One leaf from the collection (figure 7), includes a floral border which is a central characteristic of the art of the book. Although few specifics are known about this particular piece, there appears to be a Western influence. The dress of the picture’s subject is difficult to identify, but it does not match costumes portrayed in other contemporary Islamic manuscripts. The broad range of dates provided by the Collection complicates the matter, as styles of painting varied greatly within the Islamic world as well as in Europe during that period. The facial features of the portrait’s subject are also quite dissimilar to those shown in most manuscript illustrations from Iran and India. This leaf is a fascinating piece deserving of more research, as it does not fit neatly into the descriptors used for Islamic art.

27. Robinson, B.W., "Muhammadi and the Khurasan Style," Iran 30 (1992): 18-19, 28.

28. "Oriental Art: Islamic Art of the Countries of the Near EastPortrait of Fath Ali Shah Seated," The State Hermitage Museum, accessed April 29, 2012, http:// www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_ En/03/hm3_5_5f.html.

A painting by Muhammadi of Herat (figure 8) is a more typical contemporary to the Minassian leaf. The dress portrayed is less unusual, and a significant East Asian influence can be seen in the posture and form of the lady. However, this painting also stands out from most portraits from the period in that it is a single work, and does not appear to have been part of a manuscript. The seal above the figure belongs to Shah Abbas, of the Safavid dynasty. The painter is relatively well known, although not a member of a kitab-khana, and his simple aesthetic was highly influential in the development of the style of Khurasan manuscripts produced commercially.27 Although the portraits found in manuscripts and individual leaves do not fit within a non-figural religious aesthetic, they are a significant aspect of Islamic art. Later, the Qajar dynasty used royal portraits conveying the power of Iran as diplomatic gifts. A portrait of Fath Ali Shah (figure 9) blends several artistic styles. While the basic composition of the painting, a ruler sitting on a carpet with a pillow behind him, is a common portrayal of leaders in Islamic art, the State Hermitage Museum’s website calls this the “Turkish manner” of seating.28 Other paintings with similar compositions, however, generally have simpler backgrounds. The scene shown through a window was heavily influenced by Western landscapes and may even have been copied from a Western painting. The saber shown was a symbol for military power used by Qajar royalty. Fath Ali Shah sent his portraits to Napoleon, the tsar of Russia, and the English East India Company as diplomatic gifts, a common practice of the time. Royal portraits were meant to foster diplomatic relations with Europe while conveying the strength of Qajar Iran. Although Qajar portraits were created in an Islamic environment under Muslim rulers, the subject matter was far more political than religious.

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

Figure 7: Leaf from Brown’s Minassian Collection of Persian, Mughal, and Indian Miniature Paintings, 1450-1600.

Figure 9: Portrait of Fath Ali Shah Seated, Mihr Ali, 1813-1814 from the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. © State Hermitage Museum.

Figure 8: Portrait of a Lady Holding a Flower, Muhammadi of Herat, 1565-75. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Boundaries of Islamic Art: Challenging the Concept of Distinct Civilizations 11

Figure 10: Reconstruction from untitled studies of Jean-Charles Langlois, Panorama d’Alger, 1832.Watercolour on paper. Collection Dr Francois Bureau, Caen. Photographic assemblage made by John Zarobell with the help of Amy Walchy.

Colonial Art in Algeria Algeria today bears the evidence of years of French colonialism in its politics, economics, and art. After invading Algiers in 1830, France ruled Algeria until it gained independence in 1962. During these 132 years of colonial rule, Algeria was considered a part of France. Art was one form of Algeria’s colonization, for French depictions of Algeria were promoted to the status of fine art over local Algerian arts and crafts. For years, France exerted a colonizing influence on Algerian art. Today, Algeria’s artists synthesize their European and Islamic heritages.

29. Zarobell, John, "Jean-Charles Langlois’s Panorama of Algiers (1833) and the Prospective Colonial Landscape," Art History, 26:5 (2003), 640.

30. Ibid., 641.

When France invaded Algeria in 1830, Jean-Charles Langlois was charged with making images of the military conquest. Prior images of Algiers tended to show the city from sea, the perspective held by the European naval powers.29 Langlois’s panorama (figure 10) was a distinct departure, as it illustrates Algiers from the castle atop the city. In Paris, the panorama drew large crowds and created considerable interest in newly captured Algiers. The panoramic form particularly illustrates the power of images for colonial powers. In a panorama, “a single view comes to stand in for all of the territory in and around Algiers,” allowing the viewer to have command over a great deal of land without leaving Paris.30 Langlois brought Algiers into the center of Paris as part of the colonizing project.

Figure 11: Eugene Delacroix, Women of Algiers in their Apartment (1849). Image from WikiPaintings.

31. Meagher, Jennifer, “Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century Art”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http:// metmuseum.org/toah/hd/euor/ hd_euor.htm (October 2004).

Not long after the initial colonization, French painters began traveling to Algeria. Eugene Delacroix was one of many French Orientalist painters who created exoticized images of Algeria for European consumption. Women of Algiers in their Apartment (figure 11) portrays Algerian women lounging in a dimly lit room that a foreign, male artist would never have been allowed to enter. While Delacroix did travel to Algeria, this work is a better example of the harem genre of Orientalist art than of the real lives of Algerian women. Delacroix and other French Orientalist artists’ work served to help justify French imperialism by illustrating the barbarity and backwardness in Algeria, as perceived by the colonizing power.31 Paintings by Delacroix and other Europeans were

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

considered fine art, while works by native Algerians were disregarded as traditional arts and crafts. French art was favorably contrasted with local works, thus reinforcing the rationale behind imperialism. French colonists promoted the arts in Algeria by creating a national museum of fine art. The museum was filled with European art, however, and Mohammed Racim was the only Algerian artist included in the Musee national des beaux-arts d’Alger in 1930, the centennial anniversary of France’s rule of Algeria. Although his inclusion does represent an increasing respect for Algeria’s artists, it did little to increase the recognition given to other Algerian artists. As shown in Lendemain de marriage (figure 12), Racim worked with the tradition of Persian miniatures while exploring European styles. French critics believed his work was proof that “art was not dead in Muslim countries,” though it could be argued that they were merely becoming more aware of the art Muslim countries had to offer.32 Thus, while Racim gained recognition in Europe as an Islamic artist, he did so by conforming to the critics’ expectations rather than by developing a new style. By the early to mid-twentieth century, France sought to purify Algerian art. French art critics, such as George Marcais, believed that Algerian art was inferior even to other Islamic art “because of the extreme level of cultural contamination, which included the importation of “Oriental as well as European forms and products.”33 To remedy this, art schools were established to teach young Algerians traditional arts, such as weaving and metalworking. However, these schools served the additional purpose of introducing modern production methods to Algerian crafts in order to make goods for the European market. By establishing art schools, the French determined what would be seen as Algerian art and controlled its promotion and continuation. The French art schools sought to essentialize Algerian art. In 1962, independence brought an increased degree of freedom to Algerian art. Though contemporary Algerian artists are still working to develop their own styles and gain recognition, they “claim for themselves the aesthetics of a synthesis between their heritage of Arab-Moslem calligraphy and Western abstraction.”34 Algerian artists and members of the Algerian diaspora, including those born in France, are working to develop their own artistic identity while coming to terms with France’s colonial influence. Modern Algerian art cannot ignore the influence of colonialism, but rather responds to this legacy in the creation of a new Algerian art. Although Islamic civilization has been portrayed by Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis as a monolithic entity, an analysis of Islamic art reveals a more complex dynamic. Because Islamic art can include all works produced in a Muslim majority culture or under Muslim rulers, many works of art are included whose content is not primarily religious. As previously mentioned, Qajar portraits are politically motivated, and have little connection to Islam as a faith. The definition of Islamic art is also problematized by art that is produced in a different religious tradition within an Islamic society, such as the Pakistani Buddha statues. Even art with specifically Islamic content, like the architecture and decorations in Spanish Umayyad mosques, can be subject to political influences and motivations. Art has a far more nuanced connection to Islam than the essentialist civilizational perceptions.

Boundaries of Islamic Art: Challenging the Concept of Distinct Civilizations 13

32. Zeynep, Celik, "‘Islamic’ Art and Architecture in French Colonial Discourse: Algeria, 1930," in The Experience of Islamic Art on the Margins of Islam, ed. Irene A. Bierman (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2005), 104-105.

33. Ibid., 94.

34. Bellido, Ramon Tio, "The Twentieth Century in Algerian Art," Nafas Art Magazine, last modified August 2003, http:// universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/ articles/2003/algerian_art.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution and Modernity: The People's Modernity Stephanie Sistare

he 1979 Iranian Revolution is a quintessential example of the Middle East’s reaction to Western modernity in the 20th century. Ayatollah Rulloah Khomeini and the Iranian people deposed the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1979, creating the Islamic Republic of Iran.1 The Republic of Iran instituted an isolationist policy, focusing exclusively on Sharia Law, the domestic economy, and barring most Western influences.2 This revolution spawned a religious counterculture that has spanned three decades, extending into the 21st century. Today, many people view the Islamic Republic of Iran as traditionalist, with a population composed predominantly of Islamic fundamentalists. The West maintains an Orientalist perspective through lenses of democracy, capitalism, and secularism, shrouding any trace of Iran’s achievement of modernity.3 However, in regional context, Khomeini’s revolution embodied modern perspectives on politics, the economy, religion, and culture. What is modernity? According to John F. Wilson, “The term modernity refers to the cultural conditions that set the terms for all thought and action in a particular culture.”4 Thus, modernity is regional, and can be clearly discerned in a multitude of different cultures. However, modernity is often mistaken for the definition of modernization, “a programmatic remaking of the political and economic aspects of society in support of the ‘new.’”5 The confusion between these two terms has led the global community to deem modernity as the achievement or practice of the “new,” depicted (in the last 200 years) as democratic, secular, and capitalistic. Therefore, in order to achieve modernity, a society must adapt to Western culture. Gustavo Benavides coins this phenomenon “Western modernity,” stating that it is “the exercise of reflexivity and the capacity to exercise power – in other words between modernity and modernization – that has led to the emergence of the peculiar configuration.”6 This confusion serves as a basis for the misconceptions about the Iranian Revolution and the Iranian people. Iran’s preference of maintaining its religion and culture in a globalized, Western influenced world is actually a modern concept. As Bruce B. Lawrence, a professor at Duke University states, Fundamentalists do relate to the public sphere. They do care about political power, economic justice, and social status. But they are above all religiously individuals, drawn together into ideologically structured groups, for the purpose of promoting a vision of divine restoration.7 The Iranian Revolution was an unprecedented movement, the first Islamic revolution to include more than 10 percent of the population, a larger constituency than that of the French Revolution and the USSR’s downfall combined.8 The 1979 Iranian Revolution, although religious, provided a counterculture to the West’s culture of modernization. By disregarding the West’s modernity, Iran embarked on its own path to modernity. An important element in dissecting modernity is considering the basis of culture: the population. Rather than being driven by the government, the revolution and resulting Islamic Republic was created by the people. Indeed, Charles Kurzman states, “cultural change, focus[es] on the ways in which we shape our culture. In this view, protest movements construct new cultures as they go along.”9 Kurzman places an emphasis on “we,” the people within a nation, denoting an orchestrated group or society. Iran’s population is predominantly Muslim: about 90 percent practice Shia Islam, establishing a common thread for most of the society.10 Iran’s formal religion is the foundation for what is deemed appropriate or ethical in the plurality of society. This theory is solidified through Émile Durkheim’s book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, which demonstrates an anthropological reason for why society and religion are irreversibly connected. He writes, “Besides, they [societies] are religious in themselves; the ideal society, then, presupposes religion rather than explains

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1. Kurzman, Charles. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 1. 2. Panah, Maryam. The Islamic Republic and the World: Global Dimensions of the Iranian Revolution (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 27. 3. Lawrence, Bruce B., Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age, 2nd ed. (South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), 6-7. 4. Wilson, John F., "Modernity," in Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2005), 9:6108.

5. Ibid.

6. Benavides, Gustavo, "Modernity," in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark C. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 188.

7. Lawrence, Defenders of God, 1.

8. Kurzman, Unthinkable Revolution, viii.

9. Ibid., 56.

10. Ibid., 53.

11. Durkheim, Émile, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Carol Cosman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 315.

12. Durkheim, Elementary Forms, 317.

13. Kurzman, Unthinkable Revolution, 9-10.

it.”11 Durkheim argues that religion and society are perpetually connected; one cannot exist without the other. This shows why the Iranian population supported the 1979 revolution, ultimately reframing its government to surround Islam. Durkheim states, “a society can neither create itself nor recreate itself without at the same time creating the ideal.”12 In 1979, the Islamic ideals that Iranians held as societal values were in jeopardy of being erased by Western influences and ties under the Shah. Therefore, when Rulloah Khomeini promoted Islamic values as governmental values and discredited the Shah’s attempt at Western modernization, people listened. The ideology that a republic could incorporate people’s values into a non-dictatorship was a modern idea.13 Lawrence agrees, stating, The likelihood that fundamentalists will succeed anywhere in the Muslim world beyond Iran is minimal… mean[ing] to be able to introduce an Islamic order that opposes Western cultural norms and curtails non-Muslim political interests.14

14. Lawrence, Defenders of God, 225-226.

By refusing to secularize their beliefs and values for a bureaucracy, the Iranians designed a modern form of government: a religious republic. Khomeini approached the westernization of Iran by foreign lands as the impending downfall of Islam, stating: This is an opportunity that must not be lost, and I am afraid that this little man, the shah, is bringing his accounts into harmony with them [the Americans]… This time is not like the previous times. This time will cause major damage to Islam.15

15. Kurzman, Unthinkable Revolution, 22.

16. Lawrence, Defenders of God, 82.

The revolution leaders thus incorporated Islamic beliefs, rituals, and morals into their platform for reform. Lawrence calls this transfer of religious values to the core pieces in the political ring “religious ideology.”16 He states, Religion is no longer separate from the modern world, as something to be linked to prescientific error, the opposite of rational truth…religious ideology suggests the varied forms of expressiveness that are available to institutional religion in the modern world.17

17. Ibid.

18. Wilson, “Modernity,” 6108.

Viewing religion not strictly as an opposition to secularism, but as an alternate form of political ideals, is a form of modernity.18 The modern nature of Iran’s religious ideology is illuminated through Khomeini’s 14-point resolution. This platform voiced the demands of Khomeini’s followers prior to the revolution, including: … the return of Khomeini from exile, the release of political prisoners…, the re-opening of religious and university institutions shut for their oppositional activity, the protection of freedom of speech, the banning of pornography, the right of women to wear hejab…, attention to the plight of the poor, economic independence from international capitalists, the ending of relations with Israel, and the return of the Islamic calendar…19

19. Kurzman, Unthinkable Revolution, 28-29.

20. Lawrence, Defenders of God, 198-199.

Many of these propositions, such as the right of opposition by the people, freedom of speech, the right to self-expression and an independent economic infrastructure, are taken for granted in a Western, secular society.20 This resolution combined Islamic values with new civic rights that were previously unstable or abused under the Shah. The Iranian revolution was calling for modernity in the context of Iran’s own society and culture.

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Another modern facet of the 1979 Revolution was the people’s demand for reconstruction of the economy and reversal of dependency on foreign capital. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s journey to Western modernity greatly affected the Iranian people.21 Domestic jobs and monetary capital were outsourced to foreign nations, leading the domestic population to suffer economically.22 The Shah’s agenda was vocalized, stating, Today we have far to go to catch up…It requires lively insight and imagination to transplant Western technology effectively to a country like Persia. As I have said much adaptation is necessary…in modernizing a nation.23 Also for the sake of modernization, Shah Pahlavi restricted local means of income through the bazaars, a staple of Iranian culture.24 Taxes, inspectors, and government involvement led to decreasing sales and a stain on places for public congregation.25 By importing Western culture and exporting Iranian money, the Iranian people were caught in tension between culture and capitalism. The Shah’s regime sought to sow seeds of capitalism in the religious realm as well. Maryam Panah states that even “religious institutions became the direct target of the state’s programmmes to bring them under control by appointing government bodies to administer mosques, religious areas, and pilgrimages to Mecca.”26 With the economy, bazaars, and mosques under fire from Western capitalism, the Iranian people listened to the person who sought to stop it, Rulloah Khomeini. An imam in Iran described Khomeini as, “The leader of the Muslims [who] taught us that if a tyrant rules despotically over the Muslims in any age, we must rise up against him and denounce him.”27 Although Iran’s revolution is tied to Islam, it still attempts to protect the economy, way of life, and culture from mutilation by an external force. Namik Kemal claimed, “every intelligent person realizes that as long as this tyrannical administration prevails in the state, foreign interventions cannot be stopped.”28 Therefore, Iran wanted to cultivate its economy for its people, not Westerners, a goal perfectly in line with modernity. These religious and economic limitations imposed on Iranians created a surge of nationalism. The Shah’s disregard for Iranian culture and domestic economy sparked a wave of nationalism that spread throughout Iran, creating a new Iranian identity.29 Panah states, “Iran’s pre-Islamic past and Islam have been blended during several centuries to form a unique Iranian and Islamic cultural identity.”30 After the Shah’s regime ended in 1979, Iran withdrew politically in order to rebuild its economy, and to safeguard its culture from global predators. This identity blossomed into political isolationism or “Iran Firstism.”31 Lawrence maintains that fundamentalism, although portrayed in the media as the antithesis of modernity, is actually closely related to modernity.32 He states, “In promoting individual autonomy and de facto relativism, the modernist paradigm claims to be universal.”33 This theory suggests that the achievement of modernity is a possibility to all, and can also be applied to Iran. Iran’s new political structure was based on strict nationalism and extrication of foreign influences, features of modernism. Although the support of the people, platform, and religious ideology incited modernity, the actions resulting from the 1979 Revolution were modern as well. Thoughts can demonstrate the yearning for modernity; however, the Iranian Revolution was unique in that it not only sought to preserve tradition and religion, but it created an entirely new culture. John F. Wilson concurs by stating, Modernity has proven to affect religion in heterogeneous ways, both explicit and implicit. The various explicit religious responses range

The 1979 Iranian Revolution and Modernity: The People's Modernity 17

21. Panah, Islamic Republic and World, 27.

22. Ibid., 27.

23. Ibid., 24-25.

24. Ibid., 31. 25. Ibid., 22.

26. Ibid., 31. 27. Kurzman, Unthinkable Revolution, 69.

28. Kurzman, Charles, "Introduction: The Modernist Islamic Movement," in Modernist Islam, 1840-1940: A Sourcebook, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 6. 29. Panah, Islamic Republic and World, 117. 30. Hunter, Shireen T., Iran after Khomeini (New York: Praeger, 1992), 140. 31. Ibid. 32. Lawrence, Defenders of God, 6-7. 33. Ibid.

from a strong and strident reassertion of traditions, frequently on a reduced basis, to outright and uncritical celebration of cultural change. In this the term modernity most usefully refers to the kind of intense social, and hence cultural, change.34

34. Wilson, “Modernity,” 6111.

35. Kurzman, Unthinkable Revolution, 56-57.

36. Ibid., 64. 37. Ibid.

Kurzman translates the effect of reinventing religion to coincide with a political platform and eventual government into achieving modernity.35 Although the Iranian people wanted a government that held Islamic beliefs instead of secular, Khomeini used religion for political purposes, thus reframing the spiritual as law. Kurzman states that “Khomeini insisted on concentrating ultimate Islamic authority in a single individual. This represented a significant break from Shi’i scholarly tradition.”36 Here, religious ideology evolved, for it was not just a plug for religious ideals in the political arena. The Islamic Republic created a political leader that also served as a religious one.37 Iran took the invasion of secularism and capitalism seriously; therefore, Shia Islam was infused into the government, making it a nonnegotiable factor domestically and internationally. Kurzman states that The Islamist movement of 1977-1979 broke from precedent… it turned to novel forms: politicized mourning rituals, as well as politicized Ramadan observance and a new theory of religious authority. To the extent that the revolutionary movement constructed its own culture.38

38. Ibid., 57-58.

The Iranian Revolution sought modernity by calling for the reinforcement of Islam, and achieved it through the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

39. Benavides, “Modernity,” 189.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution exemplified modernity. It was an uprising of the Iranian people claiming their rights and demonstrating their dissatisfaction with Western influence in Iran. According to John F. Wilson, they set their own terms for their culture, and through that process reframed Islam as a religious ideology. In addition, the Iranians repossessed their economy and focused on the public sector, rather than exporting their monetary capital. Many of these characteristics are forms of modernism also exhibited through nationalism, seeking to focus internally, rather than externally. As a result of the people’s quest for modernity, Iran reframed their government and culture into the Islamic Republic of Iran, a unique form of religious authority exercised through an Ayatollah and Sharia law. As Iran found in 1979, modernity is a mode of self-reflection and change that can only be achieved internally.39

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Performing Occupation in Tahrir Square: The Construction of a Revolutionary Stage Maru Pabon

1. AlSayyad, Nezar, “A History of Tahrir Square,” Midan Masr, December 18, 2012. http://www. midanmasr.com/en/printerfriendly. aspx?ArticleID=140.

2. Hussein, Murtaza, "Painting Over History in Tahrir Square." Aljazeera, May 30, 2012, Opinion section, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ inion/2012/05/201252784914722 422.html.

3. Soueif, Ahdaf. "In times of crisis, fiction has to take a back seat." Guardian, August 17, 2012, http:// www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/ aug/17/ahdaf-soueif-politics-fiction.

4. AlSayyad, Nezar, “A History of Tahrir Square.”

5. Robinson Chavez, Michael. "Behind the stage at Tahrir Square in Cairo." Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2011, Framework section, http://framework.latimes. com/2011/03/02/behind-the-stageat-tahrir-square-in-cairo/.

ahrir Square was “born as a green field.”1 Based on this terse description, it may seem like a difficult task to compare Tahrir Square, one of the most iconic spaces of the Arab Spring, with a continuous and inert part of nature stripped of any political and civic meaning. Now, almost two full years after the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, Tahrir has become the revolutionary hub of the Middle East. The many cultural performances that operated within the physical limits of Tahrir Square have altered the physical structure of the square; in particular, street artists have ensured that “the history of the 2011 revolution is literally drawn on the walls.”2 The square’s transition from being a purely architectural accomplishment to a source of political discourse is undeniable, as the space is now tied to a collective historical consciousness-the properly Egyptian experience of animating Tahrir as a microcosm of democracy.

When Egyptians and foreign commentators wrote about cultural production during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, they examined mere representations of the revolution through their respective political and aesthetic lenses. Many writers, such as prominent Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif, have commented on the bind in which the artist that finds himself or herself: simultaneously responsible for immersive revolutionary activism and writing about the revolution from a distance. In an article titled, “In times of crisis, fiction has to take a back seat,” Soueif expresses skepticism at the possibility of a citizen being simultaneously responsible for his/her civic duty and art production.3 What Soueif and others fail to take into consideration is the performative value of the Tahrir Square movement. The occupation should be examined as a performative act because it created a state of affairs within which a new Egyptian identity was constructed and projected to the international audience. Moreover, the occupation of Tahrir was cultural performance with inherently dramatic properties, constructing a stage that brought together Egyptians from every social position to assert a collective civic duty. From graffiti art to poetry readings to political chants, every performance on the grand stage of Tahrir was meant for an audience. In many ways, those who scripted the revolution made choices that projected a community of viewers into the future. Thus, though Soueif attempts to divide and prioritize the responsibilities of Egyptian citizens, it becomes clear that the civic and the performative worked in conjunction to address the need for collective historical consciousness. Ismail Pasha, who served as Khedive of Egypt and Sudan under the rule of the British Empire, built Tahrir Square 140 years ago.4 Before Ismail Pasha’s architectural vision was constructed, the space was just a part of the dried banks of the Nile, a continuation of the desert landscape. It is much more difficult to envision Tahrir Square as an inert part of nature than as a 19th century architectural project, particularly because its early structural foundations remain mostly in place and comprise the image with which international public has become familiar. That is, the widely circulated shots of Tahrir Square occupied by Egyptians show them operating in the same architectural marvel constructed over a century ago. For that reason, when scholars and everyday Egyptians write about the 18 days of occupation, they reference how citizens took the stage, platform and/or mise en scène. Of course, there were actual physical stages erected, makeshift structures on which, as Los Angeles Times photojournalist Michael Robinson Chavez described, “former opposition leaders, average citizens and grass-roots organized…to speak to the masses via a scratchy public system…an art lost for the last three decades of authoritarian rule.”5 However, what Robinson’s statement fails to address is that the lost art during authoritarian rule was not limited to channeling civic concerns into mediums such as

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spoken word and music. Moreover, what the international community has neglected to examine is that the pre-revolutionary Tahrir Square resembled the 500 acres of bare land more than the occupied square during those 18 days in January. The public space as a source of national identification did not exist in the first two cases; it came into existence through the appearance of Egyptians in the square, constructing a new collective identity by way of performing it. The work of Nasser Rabat, professor of Islamic Architecture at MIT, clearly elucidates how Tahrir’s primordial architectural structure was not welcoming to the self-reflection associated with citizenry. Rabat explains that, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, colonial authorities mandated the construction of plazas and squares so as to both assert European ideals of aesthetics and consolidate the colonial nature of the city.6 According to Rabat, “the authorities were also enacting a system of spatial control with wide, straight boulevards radiating from the squares that enabled surveillance, military movement, and crowd control.”7 Tahrir Square, and the 23 streets leading to it, thus operated only to exclude the expression of civilians by constructing them as others against the inherent imperialism of Europe. The project of building Tahrir Square was meant to shape the identity of civilians as colonial subjects by evoking facets of European modernity, but the important difference was that Tahrir “had not been shaped by a political struggle similar to the one that marked the evolution of the square or the city center in pre-modern European cities.”8 In this way, Tahrir Square had no ties to an independent national consciousness, and its architectural composition as a plaza was not enough to make it a public space. In this way, though Ismail Pasha had physically altered the space into a formal congregation space, the square held as much civic significance for Egyptians as the untouched acres of arid land. The “lost art” to which Michael Robinson Chavez refers in his piece should instead signify the reclamation of public space, a performance that created the framework for further cultural manifestations to be transmitted and remediated to the entire world. In his book Performative Revolution in Egypt, sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander examines the particularities of the occupation of Tahrir during the Arab Spring.9 As he explains early on, he does not explore the causes of the “25 January Revolution,” but instead looks at its methodological foundation—the “hows” of creating collective historical consciousness.10 In analyzing the method of the revolution, Alexander emphasizes two major questions that are of concern to my project: why the occupation was so effective in bringing together all kinds of Egyptians, and why it drew so much international attention. The answer, Alexander explains, lies in the structure of the revolution as a performance—an organized drama that represented political and cultural resentments through symbols meant to be translated and remediated.11 However, in referring to Tahrir as the mise en scène of the revolution, Alexander presupposes that the space, even when grounded in the colonial framework, was always public—that it was there for the taking. He states, “from the beginning of the 25 January Revolution, protestors were able to seize the public stage, and they broadcast an alternative symbolic classification.”12 But the successful projection of symbols, which will be examined further on, began with and depended on a first and foundational performance of re-appropriating Tahrir Square as a civic space. As Judith Butler argues, the prior existence of pavements and street are not synonymous to a public space if they are not tied to a collective consciousness.13 In explaining that “we miss something of the point of public demonstrations if we fail to see that the very public character of the space is being disputed and even fought over when these crowds gather,”

Performing Occupation in Tahrir Square: The Construction of a Revolutionary Stage 21

6. Rabat, Nasser, "The Arab Revolution Takes Back the Public Space." Humanities and Social Sciences Online, January 31, 2012, http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/ logbrowse.pl?trx=v&xlist=Hart&month=1201&week=e&msg=/ pm4fcmvnGKHW2jDM6b9vQ. 7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Alexander, Jeffrey C., Performative Revolution in Egypt. (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011).

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid., 17.

13. Butler, Judith, "Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street," European Institute for Progressive Politics, http://www.eipcp. net/transversal/1011/butler/en.

14. Ibid. 15. Shadid, Anthony. “In Crowd’s Euphoria, No Clear Leadership Emerges.” New York Times, January 31, 2011, http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/ world/middleeast/01square. html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 16. El-Naggar, Mona. “The Legacy of 18 Days in Tahrir Square.” New York Times, February 19, 2011, http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/ weekinreview/20tahrir. html?pagewanted=all.

17. Alexander, Performative Revolution in Egypt, x.

18. Ibid., 15.

19. Ghannoushi, Soumaya, “Comment: A Quagmire of Tyranny: Arabs Are Rebelling not Just against Decrepit Autocrats but the Foreign Backers Who Kept Them in Power,” Guardian, 29 January 2011; Mona El-Naggar and Michael Slackman, “Egypt’s Leader Used Old Tricks to Defy New Demands,” New York Times, 28 January 2011; Ahdaf Soueif, “Fittingly, It’s the Young of the Country Who Are Leading Us,” Guardian, 28 January 2011.

20. Butler, "Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street.”

21. Nezar AlSayyad, “A History of Tahrir Square.”

Butler elucidates how the contestation of Tahrir Square between Egyptians as a collective actor and the government was a performative exercise that attached a civic significance to the space.14 When thousands of bodies began flooding the square, Egyptians simultaneously constructed and performed their collective identity as democratic agents. Egyptian citizens such as Selma al-Tarzi exclaimed, “For the first time, people feel like they belong to this place.”15 Others, like Abdel Reheem, went so far as to state that it was not until he became part of the Tahrir occupation that he began to think of himself as a citizen, claiming “I am Egyptian again, not marginalized, not without value or dignity.”16 Thus, it becomes clear that Tahrir became a stage when the Egyptian public tied the space to the collective experience of creating a microcosm of democracy, which was achieved through the performance of bodies appearing together. In his book, Alexander creates a parallel between the development of the occupation and the staging of a play. Though he fails to acknowledge how the creation of the stage was a performance in and of itself, the logic of his argument serves to affirm this very idea. As Alexander concludes, the Egyptian Revolution was a drama that relied on a projection of symbols through plot-driven performances and the construction of Egyptians as protagonist against the antagonistic force of the government.17 During the beginnings of the 25th of January movement, Alexander explains that the Mubarak government attempted to assert the legitimacy of its authority by applying a binary code of moral signifiers that othered the demonstrators as “instigators,” “troublemakers” and “spies,” not true “Egyptians.”18 While Alexander attributes the success of the movement to poetry, music and street art projected a reversal of these signifiers, as did the construction of the public space through occupation. The aerial image of the thousands of bodies animating the square was one of the most transmitted shots during the 18 days of the occupation, and headlines attached to the image or to descriptions of the act of occupation included “Arabs Are Rebelling not Just against Decrepit Autocracy but the Foreign Backers Who Kept Them in Power,” “Egypt’s Leader Used Old Tricks to Defy New Demands,” and “Fittingly, It’s the Young of the Country Who Are Leading Us.”19 By virtue of coming together regardless of class and social standing to create collective consciousness, the Egyptians performing the occupation of Tahrir became a symbol of dynamism, youth and hope against the stagnated, old and corrupt antagonist of Mubarak. And when this shot of the square was remediated and presented in articles and news shows, it was never referred to as an inert thing, it was animated and dramatic. Thus, the cultural performances that functioned on the stage of Tahrir were not the only successful projections of the reversal of dramatic and engaging signifiers: the construction of the stage itself was the most powerful symbol. As Butler argues in her essay, “Simply put, the bodies on the street redeploy the space of appearance in order to contest and negate the existing forms of political legitimacy... remaking a history in the midst of its most concrete and sedimented artifices.”20 The re-appropriation of Tahrir as a public space removed the square from its colonial framework by tying it to a collective Egyptian reality. However, it must be noted that the colonial history of this architecture did not hinder this performative exercise, but instead supplemented and encouraged it. Asked in an interview why, from a design perspective, Tahrir Square was such a successful point of protest, Nezar AlSayyad elucidates, “There isn't one big boulevard that you can block off...It's also the case that all of downtown Cairo…has a big street that leads to [one] side or another of Tahrir Square.”21 These structural choices were made to serve a much different purpose—that of controlling

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and repressing the colonial subjects—but the demonstrators relied on the architecture so as to revert the position of power. This reanimation of the physical limits of the square parallels the reversal of moral signifiers that succeeded in projecting Mubarak’s illegitimacy. Before the 2011 Revolution, the Mubarak government had considered Tahrir Square “an ill-defined space…and in a sense no one really paid attention to it.”22 The colonial purposes of the square still remained the core of its historicity, but for that very reason the Mubarak government did not feel the need to assert its legitimacy as a space embedded in power relations. The Egyptian public, as a collective actor, seized the opportunity to challenge what Mubarak believed to be an unchanging system of spatial control. It follows that once these mechanisms of spatial control were reclaimed as part of the performance of occupation, “the Mubarak regime’s signifying efforts were made to seem deeply hypocritical…and its final layer of legitimacy peeled off like old house paint in the hot summer sun.”23 In the context of the Arab Spring movement, the occupation of Tahrir Square is particularly interesting because the protestors’ art forms both fomented and resulted from the construction of the square as a public space. When journalists spoke about “the consciousness that is reflected in the streets,” they referenced the works of street art by the likes of El Teneen and Ganzeer, as well as re-appropriated classic Arabic songs and poems.24 These types of cultural performances reiterated the construction of Tahrir as a public space, as a living and breathing microcosm of a civil sphere, “but they were successful in communicating to the international community because they stemmed from the performance of occupation.25 Soueif asks an extremely relevant question that seems to privilege civic duties over artistic creation, but the inherently dramatic structure of the 18 days of occupation shows that the relationship between these two binaries is unstable. The grouping of bodies in Tahrir Square marked all citizens as performers and all performers as citizens, and thus the construction of the public space was itself a symbol of political and cultural resentments meant to be translated and remediated. Through a thorough examination of Egyptian narratives, theoretical texts and other journalistic accounts, it becomes evident that the 2011 Egyptian Revolution started and continued to depend on multiple layers of performances, ones that succeeded because the civic was not separated from the performative. The first cultural performance, the construction of the square as a public space through the appearance of bodies acting together, served to re-signify the purpose of the square and reanimate its architecture. Tahrir Square could not have been constructed as a public space without the performance of bodies appearing together. And, in turn, this new historical consciousness could not have been asserted without the artistic movements working within the public space in order to propel the revolution and communicate it to an international audience. The definition of “lost art” must be expanded to include the grouping together of bodies. If not, the vibrant and powerful creativity of Egyptians as both individuals and a collective agent is not fully—and necessarily—acknowledged.

Performing Occupation in Tahrir Square: The Construction of a Revolutionary Stage 23

22.Ibid.

23. Alexander, Performative Revolution in Egypt, 51.

24. Fawsi al-Bushra, “Egyptian Revolution,” Al Jazeera (Arabic), 28 January 2011, http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=JYuxjgU6yeE&feature =channel_video_title.

25. Alexander, Performative Revolution in Egypt, 56.

Let There Be Light: For Syria Elise Alexander

n the spring of 2011, from January to mid-April, I lived in Aleppo, Syria, as part of an undergraduate study abroad program. I came to know Syria and its people as friends, who would take a linguistically-inept foreigner and make her into a valued guest. One of the hardest parts of following the current conflict in Syria for me is reconciling the beautiful memories I have of Syria with the bloody, dusty images that I see now in the news, trying to be honest with myself and others about the situation now without losing sight of the real beauty and light that were found before. Through the innumerable occasions I have pored over them, my photographs from that time have become almost like icons for me.

Introducing Competition: The Challenges of and Policy Solutions to Egypt's Unemployment Crisis Alexander Smith

gypt was the second country to fall to the mass protests of the Arab Spring. Heralded as a revolution of the youth seeking democracy and basic liberties, the success of the movement focused the world’s attention on the authoritarianism and lack of freedoms that characterized much of the Middle East. While this view of the protests’ motivation is accurate, it fails to understand the economic underpinnings to Egypt’s revolution. Indeed, the revolution was motivated by a desire for political rights. However, it cannot be divorced from Egypt’s degrading economic condition and growing unemployment. Egypt’s current challenges of employing excess youth and former expatriates resulted from established industrial and educational systems that hindered the emergence of a wellqualified labor force and a diversified private sector. Egypt’s future economic policy must attempt to create jobs by diminishing the size of the public sector and spurring the growth of the private sector through foreign direct investment and a business-friendly climate. This article specifies Egypt’s current unemployment challenges. Then it examines the historical economic factors that precipitated these challenges. Finally, this article recommends and analyzes policies that will help Egypt combat its current unemployment crisis.

According to the December 2011 Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) country report on Egypt, unemployment in Egypt for 2011 was estimated to be 12.2%.1 This represents a substantial rise over the previous year’s estimate of 9.0%.2 A comparison of the EIU unemployment rate for 2011 with unemployment data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) reveals that the current unemployment rate is Egypt’s highest in more than ten years.3 The ILO classifies a person as unemployed if the person meets three criteria: 1) “without work,” 2) “currently available for work,” and 3) “seeking work.”4 The rate of unemployment is the number of persons unemployed divided by the sum of all persons both employed and unemployed. Egypt’s current unemployment rate is a result of deficient-demand (not enough jobs) and structural mismatch (workers not having the right skills for the current job openings). Egypt’s burgeoning youth population, combined with the return of former expatriates, has led to an oversupply of workers in the labor market. An expansive public sector and poor education system have failed to prepare these workers for a crippled private sector. Egypt’s extremely large youth population is a significant economic challenge because it represents a large number of Egyptians entering the labor market at the same time. This is a particularly significant problem for Egypt because its youth population represents not only a current challenge but also a future strain on the labor market. The current proportion of the Egyptian population under the age of 15 is estimated to be 30% and to continue to constitute a disproportionately large portion of the Egyptian population up to twenty years from now.5 In addition, data from the ILO reveals that in 2007 those between the ages of 20 and 24 made up 47% of the unemployed.6 A large unemployed youth population represents a considerable amount of wasted human capital. Youth human capital is comprised of skills, knowledge, and entrepreneurship. When such a large portion of the youth population is unemployed, these valuables resources go untapped and unused. In addition to facing the challenge of incorporating a large youth population, the return of former Egyptian expatriates further strains the already struggling labor market. Historically, Egypt has had higher rates of emigration than immigration. Egyptian expatriates primarily work abroad in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.7 Many send remittances to their relatives in Egypt, but with the growing unrest in the Middle East, these expats are returning to their homeland. EIU estimates that one million Egyptians

Introducing Competition: The Challenges of and Policy Solutions to Egypt's Unemployment Crisis 29

1. “Country Report: Egypt,” Economist Intelligence Unit, London (2011), 19. 2. Ibid. 3. “Egypt: Unemployment General Level,” International Labor Organization Online Database, (2011). ILO does not report unemployment rates for Egypt after 2008. 4. Main Statistics (Annual) – Unemployment, International Labor Organization, http://laborsta.ilo.org/ applv8/data/c3e.html.

5. Peeters, Marga, “Egypt's Demographic Pressure - Where and How to Create Jobs?” VOX (2011). 6. “Egypt: Unemployment by Age Group,” International Labor Organization Online Database, (2011).

7. Peeters, Marga, “Modelling Unemployment in the Presence of Excess Labour Supply: An Application to Egypt,” Journal of Economics and Econometrics vol 54, no. 2 (2011): 67.

8. “Egypt Risk: Labour Market Risk,” Economist Intelligence Unit, 15 November 2011. 9. “Egypt Risk: Alert – Economic Costs of the Revolution Prove Less than Feared,” Economist Intelligence Unit, 13 September 2011.

10. Ibid.

11. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Competitiveness and Private Sector Development: Egypt 2010, (France: OECD Publishing), 42. 12. Peeters, Marga “Modelling Unemployment in the Presence of Excess Labour Supply: An Application to Egypt,” 68. 13. Hassan, Mohamed and Cyrus Sassanpour, “Labor Market Pressures in Egypt: Why is the Unemployment Rate Stubbornly High?” Arab Planning Institute, Cairo (2008): 6. 14. Ibid.

15. El-Koussy, Abdel Aziz and Mohy Khairy Harby, “Mis-Education and its Supposed Remedies” in Unemployment, Schooling and Training in Developing Countries, ed. M.D. Leonor (London: Croom Helm, International Labour Organisation, 1985), 81,88.

16. In this context, competitive advantage is Egypt’s ability to find its economic niche, the economic sector which gives it greater returns than any other sector.

resided in Libya prior to the political uprising there. Since the security situation in Libya has deteriorated, EIU believes that “tens of thousands [of Egyptian expatriates] have since returned to Egypt, placing a double burden on the economy owing to a significant loss of remittances and higher unemployment.”8 The Egyptian citizens who work abroad play a duel role in helping the Egyptian economy. First, they remove a large proportion of the excess labor force by finding jobs outside of the country. Second, the remittances they send back to Egypt help spur the economy and may contribute to more job creation. In a different report, EIU found that the year 2011 brought a significant increase in remittances, a rise from US$9.6 billion to US$12.4 billion.9 However, EIU suspects that this increase in remittances may be the result of Egyptian expatriates fleeing the degenerating security situation in Libya.10 In other words, Egyptians working in Libya have fled Libya and returned to Egypt with their savings. This phenomenon has produced a large increase in calculated remittances. However, this rise in remittances is a short-term gain for the Egyptian economy because these expatriates are no longer working in Libya to send back future money. Instead, these expatriates have returned to Egypt where they have entered the labor supply and thereby increased unemployment. The large youth and former expatriate populations create deficient demand unemployment because there simply are not enough jobs for this immense supply of workers. Furthermore, the education system creates structural mismatch unemployment. In 2010, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a study on the Egyptian business climate. In this study, the OECD found that Egypt’s “education system [was] unable to cater to the needs of the private sector.”11 Instead, Egypt’s college graduates are only equipped for administrative work in the ever-expanding Egyptian bureaucracy. Already, 30-40% of Egypt’s employed are working in the public sector.12 Such an excessively large public sector is inefficient and costly for the government. It also is a poor policy for job creation because there is a limit to how large the government bureaucracy can grow. As a result of this dysfunctional education system, unemployment is higher for those with university degrees than for those without education. In 2005, Egyptians with University degrees had an 18.1% unemployment rate.13 Compared to those who had a below intermediate education (1.2%) and those who had an above intermediate but below university education (16.0%), educated Egyptians had a significantly higher unemployment rate.14 The Egyptian educational system has produced a large number of graduates with advanced degrees. The large discrepancy in unemployment rate between educated and uneducated Egyptians reveals that educated Egyptians are not taking certain jobs as they wait for employment within the public sector. This failing education system is the result of an economic legacy begun by the British and unwittingly exacerbated by Nasser. In 1882, the British occupied Egypt and took control of the education system. They instituted three “streams” of education: 1) a foreign stream that prepared students for work in foreign trade and banking, 2) a modern stream that prepared students for government service, and 3) a traditional stream that prepared students for low-skill and manual work.15 The schools of engineering, science, or even serious study of the humanities are notably absent. The educational system imposed by the British prepared graduates for service in foreign bureaucracies, the domestic public sector bureaucracy, or manual labor. It did not prepare Egyptians with the entrepreneurship, innovation, or critical thinking skills necessary for creating an economy with its own competitive advantage.16

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Lord Cromer, the British colonial administrator of Egypt, actively worked to disadvantage the Egyptian education system. Cromer cut the budget for education and instituted tuition fees for all public schools. Additionally, he attempted to direct Egyptians into two fields: civil service or vocational training.17 He did not want a rigorous education system that might create an Egyptian intellectual class that would resist the British.18 Cromer established an economic legacy that disenfranchised Egyptians from a wide variety of educational opportunities that would make Egypt globally competitive. His education reforms were designed to keep the country dependent on the British Empire and best serve the empire’s financial interests. The British colonial legacy lasted for more than 70 years and left a decrepit education system that funneled Egyptian graduates solely into public service or vocational work.

17. Cleveland, William L. and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 2009),105. 18. Ibid., 106.

When Nasser removed the British from Egypt in 1952, he sought to overturn this colonial legacy by empowering Egyptians through education. He instituted a policy that guaranteed a government job to every college graduate. Although designed to encourage the pursuit of higher education, the problems of this policy became evident fairly quickly. In fact, a study of Egyptian unemployment completed around the year 1970 found that there existed a disequilibrium between supply and demand in certain non-manual occupations, the seeking of young people in large numbers to enter certain already overcrowded clerical and other occupations mainly in the government service, while simultaneous labour shortages existed in certain scientific and technical fields.19 From 1961-1976, there was an estimated 40% overstaffing in the government.20 Given that Egyptian students were guaranteed a government job upon graduation, there was no incentive to pursue their academic passions or pursue degrees that were needed in the private sector. Rather than compete academically, Egyptian students simply needed to graduate and therefore could take the easiest path through college. This led to a shortage of qualified labor in non-clerical and government related occupations and a trend of an excessively large public sector that has continued to the present day. At the same time, non-government jobs are in short supply because of a legacy of failed government policies. Egypt’s implementation of an import-substitution-industrialization (ISI) policy, coupled with rampant corruption in the Egyptian government, has hindered the development of a robust private sector. In a series of socialist decrees in 1961, the Egyptian government took control of “most large-scale industry, all banking, insurance, and foreign trade, all utilities, marine transport, and airlines, and many hotels and department stores.”21 In taking over these industries, the government’s unwieldy control made the industries inefficient and uncompetitive. The utter failure of this unbridled socialism was probably best represented by the country’s first ISI five-year plan. Egypt attempted to protect its emerging industries by imposing high tariffs on foreign products and subsidizing its domestic industries.22 The intention of ISI was to create Egypt as an industrialized economy with “economic diversification and reduced dependency on volatile external markets.”23 The failure of this policy became apparent when Egypt’s industries did not have “the economies of scale and basic operating efficiency” to compete globally.24 In other words, Egyptian products from its ISI protected industries were not competitive in a global market because Egypt did not focus on developing a comparative advantage in any one industry. By protecting most industries, the Egyptian government removed the incentives to maximize profits and minimize costs. Eventually, Egypt did

Introducing Competition: The Challenges of and Policy Solutions to Egypt's Unemployment Crisis 31

19. I.H. Abdel-Rahman, "Preface," Research Project on Employment, Institute of National Planning for the United Arab Republic (January 1963).

20. Ibid., 58.

21. Richards, Alan and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 2008), 189.

22. Ibid., 189. 23. Ibid., 24. 24. Ibid., 189.

abandon many of its ISI policies, but in most economic sectors the country failed to embrace trade liberalization.

25. Grimaldi , James V. and Robert O’Harrow Jr., “In Egypt, Corruption Cases Had an American Root” The Washington Post, 19 October 2011.

Under pressure from international actors, Egypt slowly began a process of privatization. The United States, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other foreign donors began to require greater privatization for access to further funds. The goal of this project was to increase the power of the Egyptian private sector by removing certain industries from under government control. However, this policy was only successful on the surface. Due to rampant government corruption, the problem continued to fester. Many of the newly privatized industries were placed under the control of the President’s son and relatives.25 Private companies and foreign investors were not the main beneficiaries of Egypt’s privatization. Instead, the President’s relatives were able to gain control of this private sector; the same people who controlled the government controlled Egypt’s leading industries. The Egyptian labor market never developed a wide variety of jobs because the private sector was stunted by a legacy of government corruption and poorly managed socialism. Egypt’s economic legacy was based on the government’s creation of an artificial environment that sought to reduce competition. Under a policy of ISI and Arab socialism, the Egyptian government created industries under the control of the public sector, while limiting competition from foreign firms. Similarly, the state created an artificial environment of noncompetition in the educational system by guaranteeing every college graduate a government job. In essence, Egypt’s past economic structures contributed to the country’s current unemployment crisis.

26. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 138.

27. “Country Report: Egypt,” Economist Intelligence Unit, 5.

The current economic situation is not sustainable. Egypt must find creative solutions to employing its youth and former expatriate populations. To combat its unemployment crisis, Egypt must design economic policies that diminish the role of the public sector, increase foreign direct investment, and create a business-friendly climate. Egypt’s expansive public sector has hindered the emergence of a flourishing private sector that could produce much-needed jobs. A comparison of the growth of the public and private sectors reveals that when Egypt held employment in the public sector constant from 1998 to 2008, the private sector grew dramatically and the share of public sector employment dropped. A large public sector may hinder the growth of the private sector because wages and employment in the public sector do not have to be set competitively. Therefore, the government can increase wages beyond competitive levels. It has been suggested that the current large pay differential between jobs in the public sector and the private sector creates little incentive for Egyptians to enter the private sector.26 The success of a policy of diminishing the size of the public sector largely relies on the growth of the private sector. Because of a history of government expansion, the Egyptian people expect job creation in the public sector. Therefore, a policy of diminishing the size of the public sector will only be successful if the government can encourage the formation of a thriving private sector that will replace the lost government jobs. This private sector would need to provide jobs for the currently unemployed Egyptians that are at least comparable in salary and benefits to government jobs. One concrete way of expanding the private sector is to institute a policy of build-operatetransfer (BOT). One of the current Egyptian parties, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), has advocated this BOT model.27 BOT policy requires the government to give private companies the license to build and operate some government infrastructure. The private company collects all revenue from this infrastructure over a certain time period, but

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then transfers the infrastructure to the government. This policy would allow the new Egyptian government to create important infrastructure, but at the same time create jobs in the private sector. A fair bidding system for these BOT infrastructures would ensure that competent firms build the Egyptian government infrastructure. In the short-term, the infrastructure is under private management. This private management hires its own workers and operates the infrastructure as a private business, growing the private sector. However, the BOT model is not a long-term solution because the return of the infrastructure to the government eventually enlarges the public sector. To encourage growth in the private sector, the Egyptian government must institute a series of policies designed to spur investment and grow GDP. In Egypt, unemployment is strongly negatively correlated with GDP.28 As GDP increases, unemployment declines and as GDP decreases, unemployment rises. This relationship reveals that Egypt must focus on growing its economy in order to promote job creation. One concrete way of increasing GDP and thereby spurring job growth is to encourage foreign investment, which has been sharply declining since 2008. EIU’s September 2011 risk briefing claims that foreign direct investment has fallen to US$2.2 billion.29 In order to increase foreign direct investment, Egypt must introduce a policy of trade liberalization. This will reduce tariffs and other barriers to imports and exports. Such a policy will increase Egypt’s presence in the global market. Specifically, Egypt could better integrate with Europe. In April 2009, the European Union-Egypt Association Council agreed to a “deepening of relations.”30 Deepening its economic connections with Europe will give Egyptian products a wider market and increase competition and foreign investment within Egypt. Trade liberalization would spur foreign investment and also increase GDP, which is tied to employment. In fact, a German Marshall Fund study found that trade liberalization with Europe would result in efficiency gains that could produce “1 percentage point of additional output growth per year.”31 This additional growth in GDP from increased trade would help create more jobs in the Egyptian economy’s private sector.

28. Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin and Ismihan N. Kilicarslan, “An Analysis of the Unemployment in Selected MENA Countries and Turkey,” Journal of Third World Studies, 25:2 (2008): 198.

29. “Egypt Risk: Alert – Economic Costs of the Revolution Prove Less than Feared,” Economist Intelligence Unit.

30. Zallio, Franco, “Egypt After the Crisis: Resilience and New Challenges,” The German Marshall Fund of the United States (5 May 2010): 5. 31. Ibid.

The success of such policies would require that a fair and balanced relationship exist between Egypt and the European Union. The agreement should not only reduce Egypt’s trade barriers to European Union goods, but should also decrease European Union trade barriers to Egyptian goods. Success would rely on both parties instituting trade liberalization policies. In addition, the Egyptian government might encounter significant resistance from its domestic industry leaders. Because many Egyptian industries continue to have such strong trade protections, business leaders from these industries may not support the idea of opening the market to foreign competition. These industries may never have had to compete globally before and could fail since larger international firms benefit from economies of scale and a history of minimizing cost and maximizing efficiency. These domestic firms that go out of business will probably escalate unemployment in the short-term. However, the increase in investment and economic activity from trade liberalization should lead to the creation of new Egyptian industries that have a global comparative advantage. In addition to encouraging foreign investment, Egypt should establish a policy of encouraging domestic business development. Currently, Egypt ranks 94th out of 183 countries in terms of “ease of doing business,” according to the World Bank’s Doing Business report.32 Egyptian domestic policy should create an open and transparent business climate. Under Mubarak, Egypt initiated a policy that began to address this concern. Egypt transformed the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) into “an investment

Introducing Competition: The Challenges of and Policy Solutions to Egypt's Unemployment Crisis 33

32. Peeters, “Egypt's Demographic Pressure—Where and How to Create Jobs?” June 2, 2011, http:// www.voxeu.org/article/egypt-sdemographic-pressure-where-andhow-create-jobs

33. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Competitiveness and Private Sector Development: Egypt 2010, 34.

34. Islam, Iyanatul and Suahasil Nazara, “Estimating Employment Elasticity for the Indonesian Economy,” International Labour Office, Geneva (2000). 35. Peeters, “Modelling Unemployment in the Presence of Excess Labour Supply: An Application to Egypt,” 86. 36. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 88.

37. Ibid.

38. “Egypt: Unemployment General Level,” International Labor Organization Online Database.

39. Ibid.

40. Nassar, Heba, “Egypt: Structural Adjustment and Women's Employment,” in Women and Globalization in the Arab Middle East, ed. Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Marsha Pripstein Posusney (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 106.

promoter and facilitator for new businesses.”33 Egypt should continue this policy and expand GAFI to encourage more Egyptian entrepreneurs to create businesses domestically. Because these new Egyptian businesses will have to compete with foreign companies because of trade liberalization measures, only the most efficient and productive will succeed. Increasing Egyptian domestic production will produce more jobs because of Egypt’s employment elasticity. Employment elasticity is the measurement of percentage change in employment resulting from percentage change in GDP.34 In other words, employment elasticity measures how the change economic production affects employment. Egypt’s employment elasticity is estimated to be at 0.92, which means “the private sector creates additional jobs in response to demand shocks.”35 Increasing production and demand will not simply cause the same amount of workers to produce more. Rather, firms will employ more workers. Egypt’s large youth population is a significant challenge to the labor market. However, the young population can also be a blessing. A large youth population means that there is a decreasing “dependency ratio,” the proportion of people in the age range of 15 to 65 to the proportion of people under 15 and above 65.36 A decreasing dependency ratio means that people have more savings and are not supporting as many other people. Therefore, they have the opportunity to invest their savings.37 Egypt’s large youth population has the opportunity to create significant domestic investment on the condition that there exists good domestic investment opportunities. These opportunities will arise only if Egypt implements policies to decrease the size of the public sector, increase trade liberalization and foreign investment, and construct a business-friendly climate. In addition to the aforementioned keys to success or failure specific to each policy, general factors of the Middle East may strongly influence how Egypt deals with unemployment. Foreign investment in Egypt depends not only on Egypt’s domestic stability but also on the stability of Egypt’s neighbors. The Middle East has a long history of political instability and war. Egypt must successfully convince foreign firms that Egypt is stable and unaffected by the changes occurring in the rest of the region. This stability will encourage foreign firms to invest in Egypt and spur job growth. Another of Egypt’s key challenges that will determine the success or failure of Egypt’s struggle against unemployment is the role of women. According the ILO, unemployment rates for women are drastically higher than those for men. In fact, in the past ten years, women were three to four times more likely to be unemployed than men.38 In 2008, the most recent year for which the ILO has data, women faced an unemployment rate of 19.3%, while men’s unemployment rate was only 5.6%.39 An Egyptian labor market that fails to utilize the important contributions and human capital of women will not become competitive in the global market. Egypt’s policies will only be successful if they can fully incorporate women into the labor force. Women make up an exceedingly large portion of the public sector. 39.4% of the female labor force works in the public sector, as opposed to only 23.9% of the male labor force.40 Government reduction will result in massive job losses for women. Therefore, foreign investment and domestic business growth will only be successful if they effectively absorb the large quantity of newly unemployed women. There is no doubt that Egypt faces significant unemployment challenges. It must simultaneously improve its labor force and its private sector opportunities. A noncompetitive education system has resulted in Egyptian students all graduating with the common expectation of a government job. At the same time, a large public sector and a history of protectionist policies have resulted in a private sector unable to create needed jobs.

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Egyptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success will only occur by incorporating competition in both the educational system and industrial market. This will require significant sacrifices. The comfort of guaranteed government jobs must be addressed and formerly protected businesses will have to compete with more experienced and better-developed global firms. However, Egyptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current system of excessive protection is clearly failing. Egypt has the human capital, geostrategic position, and potential for economic success. Only competition will help Egypt actualize this potential.

Introducing Competition: The Challenges of and Policy Solutions to Egypt's Unemployment Crisis 35

Do They Care? Analysis of Jordanian Youth Political Opinion Jonathan Hafferkamp

“The incentive that you give your youth is going to be the make-or-break future of the country” —His Royal Highness King Abdullah II (Official Website)

he Arab Spring took the Middle East by storm.1 A series of pro-democracy uprisings swept across the Middle East and North Africa, from Egypt and Tunisia to Lebanon and Syria. Conflict is continuing even now. Countries that were able to sustain a sense of stability have been affected to the point of no return, for the region has been unalterably changed. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan appears to have weathered the storm, and with a King constantly calling for peace and democracy, the country seems to be moving in the right direction, or at least the direction envisioned by the protestors of the Arab Spring. However, with excessive tax hikes and the alarming price rise of oil, as well as government corruption and angered demonstrations in the streets, all is not picture perfect. Jordan may be a prime location for another uprising in the Arab world. A recent article posted on the website Gerard Direct paints a bleak picture, asking “is Jordan the next victim of the Arab Spring?” The article even goes so far as to describe a possible coup against the King, led by the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although the answer to this article’s question is rather difficult to ascertain, there is one thing that is certain: the youth will decide the future of Jordan. As H.R.H. King Abdullah II of Jordan surmises in the preceding quote, the future of his country depends entirely on the youth and their response to government incentive or lack thereof. Over seventy percent of the Jordanian population is under the age of thirty-five and with upcoming national assembly elections, political tension is high, particularly between the Jordanian government and the main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood.2 Understanding the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Government, and the youth of Jordan is important for advancing political stability and democracy in the country as well as peace in the region. However, few studies have been conducted recently on Jordanian youth opinion. Jordan is located in between Israel and Iraq with scarce natural resources. Half of this small country’s exports and a quarter of its imports come from trade with its neighbors, making Jordan susceptible to the smallest geopolitical shifts and regional changes.3 Due to the almost constant conflicts in the region, hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to Jordan from Palestine, Iraq, and now Syria. This in turn has caused massive population growth: the number of its inhabitants has increased fivefold.4 The situation of its youth is also quite dire, as illustrated by the 2012 International Youth Foundation (IYF) report. Youth Work Jordan states, “almost one third of Jordanian youth are unemployed. In some areas, more than half drop out before completing school. Some have given up hope of a better life.”5 The economy is a major youth concern, and as a result of Jordan’s highly educated youth (only 13% of females and 14% of boys have not completed less than a basic education), significant youth political involvement would be logical.6 However, this perspective is not commonly accepted, especially among older generations of Jordanians. The following study attempts to examine and hopefully comprehend the political views and opinions of young Jordanians. This research will prove significant to not only the government of Jordan and the King, but also political parties (Muslim Brotherhood) and even the youth themselves. The country’s youth hold the power to change the country’s future through elections and politics due to its sheer size, and their opinions will affect the whole region in the coming months. Through a series surveys, this study analyzes the attitudes and thoughts of students, young political activists, and high-ranking officials from the Jordanian Government and the Muslim Brotherhood. In total, 8 individuals were interviewed regarding the relationship between youth

Do They Care? An Analysis of Jordanian Youth Political Opinion

1. This article is a selection taken from research done for the SIT Jordan: Modernization and Social Change program.

2. Amer, Mona, “The School-toWork Transition of Jordanian Youth,” Economic Research Forum, 2012, 2.

3. Gorak-Sosnowska, Katarzyna, “Studies on Youth Policies in the Mediterranean Partner Countries,” EuroMed Youth III Program, 2005, 12.

4. Ibid.

5. International Youth Foundation: Jordan, “Youth Work Jordan Brochure,” 2011. 6. National Youth Strategy for Jordan, Jordan Higher Council for Youth, 2005, 5.

and politics. In response to the observations of friends, teachers, and colleagues near the start of the research, the study was conducted under the hypothesis that young Jordanians are indeed apathetic politically. Preliminary research showed that the youth were indifferent towards politics, a problem the government was desperately trying to change. However, after the interviews were analyzed, the findings challenged the original hypothesis. Thus, a different theory must be applied to explain this phenomenon: the criticism versus apathy theory of researcher Anita Harris. For many, if not most of the Jordanian youth, the complex ideas and motivations of these young people in terms of politics cannot be deemed as apathy. Rather, Jordanian youth are cynical.

LITERATURE REVIEW

7. ndi.org, “In Jordan, Al-Hayat Addresses Youth Apathy in Political Process,” 19 Aug 2010.

8. Al-Hayat Center for Civil Society Development, “Opinion Poll: Jordanian Youth 2011 Aspirations for Constitutional Reform” 2011, Nov 2012, 2.

9. Youth Strategy, 12.

Surprisingly enough, few studies have been conducted on youth political opinion in Jordan recently, possibly due to the dangers of the Arab Spring or the elections coming in January 2013. Though there remains a wealth of information and data on youth from around and before 2010, little seems to be known since then about the youth’s views that are so essential to Jordan’s future. Even less academic work has been written on the subject, though a multitude of short articles, blog posts, and even a few polls do relate to youth apathy. In 2010, the Al-Hayat Center for Civil Society Development conducted a survey of 2,100 young Jordanians to “uncover young people’s attitudes toward political involvement and specifically their experiences in the previous election in 2007. For this year’s elections, respondents expressed a continued lack of confidence in parliament.”7 In general, the study found young Jordanians to be apathetic towards politics and the elections. Following this research, the center conducted a similar poll in 2011. An opinion poll of Jordanian youth on aspirations for constitutional reform surveyed just over 900 young Jordanians on the subject matter. The analysis of the data indicated that “only 35.5% of those surveyed had taken part in at least one form or another of the activities calling for reform that were held over the past nine months,” while a vast majority (over 75%) were aware of the constitutional issues at hand.8 Almost half (48%) of the young Jordanians surveyed were not satisfied with the committee’s changes. These numbers imply a lack of youth involvement or care in regards to political development, for even though they appear to understand and dislike the implications and issues of recent Jordanian politics, they choose not to participate in “reform activities.” The Jordanian Government has responded to this perceived apathy, attempting to address the issues with a series of policies and initiatives. Such as the 2005-2009 National Youth Strategy, in which the first objective is “youth and participation.” As described in the strategy, “This theme focuses on the creation of a safe and conducive environment for young women and men to participate fully in all the fields of national activities.”9 It goes on to list the operational steps, such as supporting greater youth participation in political parties, parliamentary elections, councils of civil institutions (student councils at universities and schools), etc. Though no explicit solutions are offered, the strategy itself is a document attempting to solve this apathy issue. Obviously, when considering the above polls and statistics, the articles and posts, and the government strategy, it is clear that there is an issue with youth political participation in the country. However, is the source or nature of this problem really “apathy,” or something altogether different? Political apathy is defined as nonparticipation or lack of interest, but the results of the Al-Hayat studies and information in the other articles do not

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describe an uncaring, nonparticipating population of young Jordanians. In fact, young people seem angry with the entire governmental/social system, and are ready to act. They choose to not participate as a form of political engagement, rather than simple political indifference. The recent multitude of protests and demonstrations due to oil price hikes, as well as student political involvement on university campuses, such as the “Political Team,” attest to youth political participation.10 International studies and other academic work on youth political apathy can be applied to analyze young people in Jordan. For example, researcher Anita Harris analyzes the generalization of young people who are not engaged as apathetic. Instead of accepting the oversimplification, she questions whether this lack of political engagement could be a result of an attitude of cynicism. Harris argues that cynicism, rather than apathy, implies some sense of political critique and informed opinion, and therefore some level of engagement, even if the young person decides to not participate further by the conventional means of voting. This implies that choosing to be disengaged can be a political act and that cynicism “may even act as an impetus for political activity.”11 According to Harris, this form of ‘active disengagement’ may be observed in young people who choose not to get involved because of “deep suspicion of the formal political process. They feel excluded, that their issues are not taken seriously.”12 Although Harris did not research young people in the Middle East, this theory remains incredibly relevant to young Jordanians. Her concept of political engagement and participation almost exactly describes the attitudes and ideals of Jordanian youth, and their reactions to the government and elections of Jordan. Young Jordanians are engaged and participate, although cynically, and thereby in a form possibly missed by many politicians or studies with incomplete definitions or understandings of the term “apathetic.” The following study attempts, through numerous interviews, to provide concrete evidence for a cynicism-based youth political engagement. However, the following interviews do not fully represent the complete spectrum of youth perspectives on political engagement.

10. This team is described by Dana El-Emam of the Jordan Times: “a group of students at the University of Jordan’s faculty of international studies have formed a group to increase political awareness among students so they can better participate in the Kingdom’s democratic process.” (Dana Al Emam, “University Students Launch Initiative to Encourage Political Involvement,” Jordan Times, 28 Nov 2012.)

11. Bhavnani, K., Talking Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 13

12. Harris, A. and C. Bulbeck, “Gender, Youth, and Contemporary Political Engagements,” Journal of Social Issues.

Youth Description / Participation Opinions of interviewees on youth participation in politics, elections, and street demonstrations are divided into two sides.13 One side states that youth are participating and care, at least for the most part, since the Arab Spring. Participants such as Muslim Brotherhood student supporters Mohammad and Khalid, youth liberal blogger Rani, and student political leader Amer described Jordanian youth as “educated”, while Muslim Brotherhood official Ahmed labeled young Jordanians as “open-minded” and “more mature on the real status of the country.” These more positive participants did not believe young people are apathetic, though some did admit it might have been the case prior to the Arab Spring. As Rani, creator of the political blog Jordanoholic. com stated, “Many young people used to not care at all, but since the Arab Spring, many more are involved or at least informed about politics.”14 This is supported by the observation of the Muslim Brotherhood party member: “The youth are not apathetic. They may have been previously, say two years ago, but now there is much more involvement. I am surprised actually. At a recent demonstration, 60-70% of the people present must have been under the age of 25.”15 Some interviewees described a more hopeful, involved population of young Jordanians, but there are those who disagreed.

Do They Care? An Analysis of Jordanian Youth Political Opinion

13. The majority of Interviewee names are pseudonyms in order to protect identity.

14. Rani (political blogger), interview by Jonathan Hafferkamp, 23 Nov 2012.

15. Ahmed (Muslim Brotherhood Representative), interview by J Hafferkamp, 21 Nov 2012.

16. Ferris (Jordanian College Student), interview by J Hafferkamp, 19 Nov 2012.

17. Hamza (Jordanian College Student), interview by J Hafferkamp, 19 Nov 2012.

18. Basam Hadadin (Jordanian Minister of Political Development), interview by J Hafferkamp, 18 Nov 2012.

The other perspective offers a more cynical view of Jordanian youth political opinion and involvement. Jordanian students Ferris and Hamza described young Jordanians as “misinformed” and “lost,” both arguing that youth today may not be completely apathetic, but they are definitely not meaningfully politically informed either. As a self-proclaimed politically apathetic student at the University of Jordan, Ferris cynically depicted his fellow young Jordanians with the following remark: “They think they think they know about politics, but they don’t know the difference between realistic expectations and political ideals.”16 Hamza, reiterating Ferris’ perspective, stated “there is some enthusiasm towards politics lately, but it’s really a process of finding themselves. Most are loyal to the King and general government, but often switch parties because they simply don’t know who to choose.”17 Though they may be involved to some degree, some youth argued their involvement is not significant or for the right reason. Even the Minster of Political Development believed Jordanian youth are partially apathetic in some sense, though he argued their political lack of involvement is the fault of organization and political parties. He stated that “Yes, young Jordanians are apathetic to a certain degree, possibly because they don’t understand the importance of politics in their daily lives. However, they are the same as young people anywhere else in the world… blame should not be placed on the youth, but on the system and political parties.”18 All of the above opinions point towards a sense of youth political cynicism, a general mistrust of the organization of politics and especially politicians. Even the Muslim Brotherhood official described youth as more involved in demonstrations, and the Minister of Political Development, though keen to mention the system’s shortcomings, believed youth involvement is growing. Young Jordanian students are participating in politics, although sometimes not through the conventional means of voting. Rather, such young Jordanians attend discussions and political demonstrations, or choose not to vote to protest what they see as an unfair, unjust system that fails to address youth concerns. And, there are still many Jordanian youth who choose to vote, showing that regardless of casting ballots or not, young people are still participating in politics to some degree despite appearances or generalizations of apathy.

Government / Elections Surprisingly enough, opinions on the government are almost uniformly negative, though with varying degrees of criticism or attempted neutrality. Only Amer, a student from the University of Jordan who is heavily involved in student political groups, remains completely positive in regards to the government’s policies (he has met before with H.R.H. Abdullah II to discuss youth political issues, and has also travelled with His Highness to the United States to meet with U.S. President Barak Obama). He said, “the government is doing well despite the challenges of Egypt, Israel, Syria, and the economy.”19 Other interviewees remain more neutral to even undeniably critical, critiquing the government on issues of economics, organization/structure, censorship/ laws, implementation/corruption, and productive policy. As a Muslim Brotherhood member, Ahmed fervently claimed, “we are still living in the Middle Ages here in Jordan.”20 This statement is a not so subtle, pointed criticism of the King, a subject that all other interviewees avoided. Ferris, the politically apathetic student, even qualifies his criticism of the government with the comment, “the King is infallible, not corrupt whatsoever.”21 Such a high opinion of the King is said to be the dominant view among most Jordanians, and this research suggests the same.

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

Because Jordanians criticize the government on so many levels, it follows that there would be a general sense of mistrust for the election process. Although most youth did not answer the questions as negatively as the MB representative, they were careful to separate the King from the Jordanian administration; their nuanced opinions do not imply apathy. In fact, students are remarkably forthcoming and frank in their analysis, with little hesitancy. They obviously care, and though there may remain a hodgepodge of reasons for the government failing in each participant’s eyes, at the very least it implies interest on the surface. The above findings imply intense cynicism, not indifference.

19. Amer (Student Political Activist), interview by J Hafferkamp, 25 Nov 2012. 20. Ahmed (Muslim Brotherhood Representative), interview by J Hafferkamp, 21 Nov 2012. 21. Ferris (Jordanian College Student), interview by J Hafferkamp, 19 Nov 2012.

In terms of elections and the plans to vote, answers are rather varied and at times seemingly unsubstantiated by actual reasons or political motivations. For those planning to vote, motivations include civic duty and family. Reasons for interviewees not participating in elections are system corruption and “it has no effect.” In total, more participants plan to vote in the upcoming January elections despite previous negative sentiments towards the government. However, only two participants seem to have actual political motivations or in-depth thought about the matter, whereas the other two students are only voting because their families expect it and even dictate whom to elect. But, some have profound and thought-provoking answers. As political youth blogger Rani (who was once part of a youth forum with H.R.H. King Abdullah II) eloquently put it, he votes because “I have a chance to participate that I don’t want to miss. I need to fill my place. I will never stop participating because I believe in gradual change—elect the best of the worst until you get the best of the best.”22 Astonishingly, students who are choosing not to vote (a commonly perceived “requirement” of political engagement) seem more involved or informed than some of those who participate in elections. Some of the young people planning to vote believe they are fulfilling their civic duty, and others are participating due to familial pressure. Though they are choosing to contribute to the political process, they actually seem more politically “apathetic” than some skipping the polls on account of intense personal ideals or government/system criticism. And, in general, all participants were cynical on the matter, though that cynicism manifested itself in different forms of political engagement.

Political Parties / Muslim Brotherhood During the interviews, most participants did not support any political party. In fact, most were incredibly skeptical on this topic, such as Hamza, who answered “I don’t support any political parties because the powerful ones have few ideals, and the parties with ideals have no sway in the government. Parties don’t care about young people— proposals for change by youth just get shot down…young Jordanians have lost faith in anyone over 30 years old.”23 This is similar to Ferris’ opinion as well; both students argued that political parties could not care less about youth interests, and that such organizations are often corrupt. In a similar way, Rani pointed out the lack of power or organization in most political parties (except the Muslim Brotherhood, whom he does not support), stating “there is no mature political party that I can fully support.” Amer, who is actively looking for a party to support on campus at the University of Jordan, also is not quite sure whom he will support because of this lack of power to affect political policy or change. The only students who seemed certain on political parties were the two Muslim

Do They Care? An Analysis of Jordanian Youth Political Opinion

22. Rani (political blogger), interview by Jonathan Hafferkamp, 23 Nov 2012.

23. Hamza (Jordanian College Student), interview by J Hafferkamp, 19 Nov 2012.

24. Khalid (Jordanian College Student), interview by J Hafferkamp, 7 Nov 2012. 25. Hamza (Jordanian College Student), interview by J Hafferkamp, 19 Nov 2012. 26. Ferris (Jordanian College Student), interview by J Hafferkamp, 19 Nov 2012. 27. Amer (Student Political Activist), interview by J Hafferkamp, 25 Nov 2012. 28. Basam Hadadin (Jordanian Minister of Political Development), interview by J Hafferkamp, 18 Nov 2012.

29. Ahmed (Muslim Brotherhood Representative), interview by J Hafferkamp, 21 Nov 2012.

Brotherhood students, Mohammed and Khalid. Though Mohammed said he tends to be politically moderate, he believes he will continue to support the MB. And Khalid, an avid activist for the MB on campus, insisted that he will also continue to back the Muslim Brotherhood. Interestingly enough, though all the other participants besides these two argue against the MB based on its political views and as an organization, Mohammed and Khalid remain the only students who answered the political party question concretely. This suggests that though many Jordanian youth may not support the Muslim Brotherhood, they have yet to become organized or significantly involved in opposition parties due to their cynicism, which adds to these parties’ deficit in effectiveness and power when compared to the MB. Opinions on opposition parties are also rather negative, even from Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Participants described the political opposition as “weak,” “ineffective,” and “easily influenced” by more powerful parties with outside agendas. This attitude appears to carry over in regards to opinions on the Muslim Brotherhood as well. Though Mohammed and Khalid were of course steadfast in their more positive outlooks of the MB, even these students’ responses seemed moderate. Mohammed believes the Brotherhood is usually beneficial as a whole, but Khalid presented a more subdued response, saying they are “so-so, sometimes good, sometimes bad.”24 Other students maintained a similar neutral stance, although leaning towards the negative side, such as political cynic Hamza who stated, “the Muslim Brotherhood wants to emulate what happened in Egypt, but they are not quite popular enough to cause real change.”25 Some participants at the University of Jordan are more critical, for as Ferris’ stated, “they are popular, and have a hidden agenda while appearing to be open minded. Also, their work in non-profits is basically like buying votes through debt. We are a culture based on debt, so it’s a very clever move by them.”26 Youth blogger Rani described the MB as “sneaky,” while political activist Amer said “they are just seeking power and authority, and ultimately want to take it from the King.”27 Again, young Jordanians are left with no middle ground, no other option for support besides what many see as an extremist or opportunist party. Although some students still choose to participate in elections, it is easy to understand why many youth would decide not to cast their ballots. The statements of the Political Development Minister on the Muslim Brotherhood were slightly oblique: “Islamic parties often use religion to attract young people.”28 However, the MB representative defended against most of these critiques, arguing “the media’s propaganda is keeping the youth from fully trusting the Muslim Brotherhood, and preventing us from getting more support. They villainize us.”29 He went on to state, “there are also many who don’t support or encourage the Muslim Brotherhood but will support or vote for its members because of personality.”30 Lastly, the MB member also argued that no votes are ‘bought’ through their civic services. As he describes it, “the government is not caring, so we have to care.”31 Most of these statements directly address students’ criticisms. The question is, are young Jordanians convinced by the arguments of the MB? Based on eight interviews alone, coming to an answer is quite difficult. Fully understanding the political opinions and motivations of young Jordanians at such an important time in this nation’s history is no simple task. Ultimately, the findings of this research cannot truly be complete or final, but the study does significantly investigate the views of Jordanian youth, who will probably be a politically powerful force in the near future. After analyzing the research, three

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

conclusions can be made. First, the term “apathetic” fails to adequately describe young people, for the data suggests not only that young people care but that they also participate, though not necessarily through the more common means of voting. Although not exclusively, young Jordanians often utilize “not voting” as a means of expressing their own opinions rather than out of laziness or indifference to the political process, as showcased by many interviews. The theory of cynicism versus apathy, originally discussed by professor Harris, rightly questions the nature of political engagement, for as this research suggests, participation is not synonymous with voting, as some academics claim. Participation can be choosing to not go to the polls as well. Second, a large population of young people (especially students) does not support the Muslim Brotherhood. Even among Brotherhood “supporters,” many are hesitant or moderate in their agreement with the MB. This is not only contrary to reports or generalizations from the MB itself, but also contradicts assumptions made by many Jordanians. These suppositions of the Brotherhood’s power and influence among youth in Jordan, though not completely inaccurate, are grossly overblown according to this study’s findings and analysis. The MB is not as influential among Jordanian youth as news articles or academia may think. Third and last, this research suggests that one institute in particular must improve its organization or risk alienating the single most important population in Jordan for the politics of the future: the Jordanian government. From the survey data, to the interview opinions, to even the views of some government officials and supporters, the system itself is at fault, at least in some sense. As the Minister of Political Development surmises, “even though youth involvement has improved since His Highness King Abdullah, many parties (especially conservative) are against youth participation in government. I presented a constitutional amendment to change the age of parliament candidates from 30 to 25, but it was immediately shut down.”32 This must change in the future to continue political development and keep moving towards the democracy H.R.H. King Abdullah II envisions. Consolidating political parties, improving the elections procedure, emphasizing youth involvement, and simply addressing youth political interests meaningfully are vital to restoring young Jordanians’ confidence in their country’s governmental system. The youth also have a pivotal role in this improvement process.

30. Ibid. 31. Ibid.

32. Basam Hadadin (Jordanian Minister of Political Development), interview by J Hafferkamp, 18 Nov 2012.

The following quote by the King of Jordan at the 2011 Jordan Youth Forum perfectly illustrates the situation, and the changes that must come in the next few years at such a critical moment for Jordan’s future: “Your job as youth is incomplete without effective participation in public life…The future is yours young men and women, so shape it, not just through participation, but also through pioneering and steering the process of reform and change and build the envisioned future for you and the generations to come… This is your responsibility, and I trust that you are up to it… I assure you… your voice is heard, your say is important and your role in the present and the future is pivotal and the country needs it.”33

Do They Care? An Analysis of Jordanian Youth Political Opinion

33. Official Website of King Abdullah II, Verbatim, “Youth,” http://kingabdullah.jo/index.php/ en_US/quotes/view/cid/25.html.

The Murals of Asilah: Rehabilitating a City Julijana Englander

very August, thousands of people flood into Asilah, a city situated on the northwestern tip of Morocco, for the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual Cultural Moussem of Asilah. This cultural festival, established in 1978, was created to fund the rehabilitation of the deteriorating town and to generate a platform for cultural dialogue, exchange and solidarity between various nations. Each year, artists from around the globe are invited to paint murals on the white walls of the medina houses during the festival. The murals stay up throughout the year and, over time, have become hallmarks of not only the Cultural Moussem of Asilah, but also of the city itself. This photo essay is a compilation of photographs of different murals and travelers throughout Asilahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s medina, taken during the summer of 2011.

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

Cybercultures, Online-Arab-Queers, and Interface Hackers: Locating Individuals, Identities, and Ideas in Cyberspaces Fernando Revelo La Rotta

“W

hat do you think about him?” asked Mahmoud as he passed his phone around the group.1 Akram, Mohammed and Ahmed all replied with enthusiasm, encouraging him to “go for it” as the phone circulated around the group in a qahwa2 in Mohandeseen, Ahmed handed me the phone and on the screen was an internet profile from a website called Manjam.com. The user shikoo lives in Alexandria, is 26 years old, identifies as gay, HIV-, and bottom only. His pictures showed him wearing a tight green shirt taking a picture in front of a mirror with his cellphone. “What about him?” said Mahmoud after I had return him his phone. The second profile was magic51, a 19-year-old also living in Alexandria. The picture showed a half-naked man in extremely tight black and white briefs. The description underneath it read: ‫[ انا سالب بنويت مش مشعر و البس قميص نوم و رشاب حريم‬I am a feminine bottom, not hairy and I wear a night shirt and panty hose]. I did not know what to say, and Mahmoud noticed my confusion, “I am trying to set up my schedule for our time in Alexandria next week.” He was asking me to rate the attractiveness of the men he was planning on sleeping with during our trip to Alexandria the following week. Mahmoud approached me and showed me the website beginning with his profile: jamguy. The profile was composed of three main parts: pictures, two free response sections (myprofile and mydesire), and a list of responses from a drop down menu. The main picture on his profile was of his bare back as he flexed his muscles. According to his profile, Mahmoud was 24 years old, athletic, bisexual, Muslim, top only and with an extra-large “endowment.” Mahmoud explained to me how due to the exclusionary nature of the “society,”3 it was difficult to meet new people and had become rather incestuous. As a result, Manjam.com serves as a prosthetic extension of their lived reality. It allows the opportunity for all types of men who desire to have sex with other men to become part of the “society” and participate in the circulation of pleasure. Mahmoud continued to show me the different men that he had met online, and the “status” of their relationship. Fot this ethnographic project, I have logged (and literally written myself) into one of the many online dating/sex cruising websites that expands the boundaries of the material world for queer4 Egyptian men. My main object of study concerns the social interactions mediated through the website Manjam.com which is self-described as “a gay social network for dating, work and travel,” and how information is produced, coded, translated, and transformed in this specific cyberspace.5 As I participated in this online world, I explored how the identities became transposed online and the role played by technology as accomplice to global imperialist forces—advancing the colonialist project of the International LGBT human rights organizations6 by imposing Western7 identities, ideas, and concepts on “otherized”8 communities. I also discovered how these men inscribe themselves into the virtual utilize the tools of the technological system to resist the limiting structure of the website.

Cyberspaces: Transposing Sex and Bodies Online The cyberspace or virtual world of Manjam.com is a crucial platform for the establishment of networks amongst young men who have sex with other men in Cairo, but how does one perform an ethnography in an online space? The main challenge of the anthropology of cyberspaces is the definition of its object. Cyberspaces breed their own

Cybercultures, Online-Arab-Queers, and Interface Hackers: Locating Individuals, Identities and Ideas in Cyberspaces

1. This article is a chapter of an undergraduate senior thesis titled "Are You Gay?": A Queer Ethnography of Sex and Sexuality in Cairo. 2. A qahwa [coffee] is an Egyptian Café. They come in all shapes and sizes catering to different economic classes. Even though they are called qahwa or coffee the ubiquitous drink is shai or tea. The most prominent aspect that differentiates it from an American café is that shisha [hookah] is served. 3. The men that I interacted with used the English word "society" to refer to the community of men in Cairo that have sex with other men.

4. I invoke queer theory and the term queer specifically because they capture the sexual fluidity and the difficulty of naming and establishing universal identities that problematize binarial conceptualizations of sexuality and assist me in understanding the complexity of the subjects I call queer in Egypt.

5. Manjam.com—Gay Social Network & Gay Dating, HubJet, 2008, Web.

6. This is what Joseph Massad terms the Gay International or the discursive and missionary tasks represented by international LGBT organizations, who deliberately planned "to influence Arab concepts of sexual desire and practice. Massad, Joseph, Desiring Arabs, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 160

7. The adjective Western refers to the socio-political location of the Western World established through the process of colonialism leading to the construction of the binary between the East as “traditional,” “underdeveloped” and “religious” and the West as “modern,” “developed” and “secular.” Within this dichotomy, the fragmented identities of the “Middle East” become delineated as a category by the imagined and real geopolitical boundaries that discursively categorize it as a group.

9. Nelson, “Maya Hackers and the Cyberspatialized Nation-State: Modernity, Ethnostalgia, and a Lizard Queen in Guatemala,” Cultural Anthropology, 11:3 (1996), 296.

10. Kolko, Beth, Lisa Nakamura, and Gilbert Rodman, “An Introduction” in Race in Cyberspace, ed. Beth Kolko, Lisa Nakamura and Gilbert Rodman, (New York: Routledge, 2000), 3.

11. Rodriguez, Juana Maria, Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces, (New York: New York University Press), 128.

12. Stone, Alluquere Rosanne, The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995). 66-81. 13. Ibid., 77.

14. Ibid., 180-181.

15. Ibid., 78.

community and practices that emerge within the virtual or “networked” space—the cyberspace—sustained by the use of modern technology, mainly the internet. These spaces are diverse and take different forms: blogs, social networks, cybersex, e-commerce, games, chats, etc. All of these forms, however, rely on the foundational aspect of the internet—a perpetual exchange of data packets across a network of networks created by conglomerate of devices (computers, cellphones, etc), which serve as end points. Cyberspaces only exist in between these endpoints; they are constructed of interactions of data transferred between them. They are the virtual manifestation of networks and relations—places of connection and links. Cyberspaces are where active creation and translation occurs, usually simultaneously and goal-oriented. Just as cyberspaces exist at the space in between, they also stem from a specific social reality. Thus, cyberspaces are the gridding and programming of a network of interactions in accordance with contextual and situational power relations.9 As a result, there are no singular cybercultures and cyberspaces. They are all interrelated and dependent. The online student-professor email based communications are closely related to the sexual relationships performed online through dating and sex cruising websites. My own relationship with cyberspaces has included throughout my life many professional exchanges with professors, alternate lives as characters in role playing games, a virtual representation of my graces and disgraces on Facebook, constant updates from family members and friends worldwide and anonymous sexual and emotional encounters with users across the globe. When a person enters multiple-user environments online such as social networking sites (Facebook) or online dating sites (OkCupid), the first thing they must do is choose a (screen)name for their online representation. One does not already exist in cyberspace; one must write and perform one’s self. Cyberspaces are romantically described as “semi-blank slate upon which users write” their identities and selves.10 They are perceived as a blank web page where there are no rules or boundaries, where one can represent oneself as one desires. They are a “Global Stage” or an international theatre where one can transgress the bodily restrictions of identity—gender, race, and sexuality.11 The internet has been acclaimed as the Great Equalizer, where one’s body and identity seem to lack importance. Cyberspaces, theoretically, allow for individuals to transgress their bodily boundaries and play with their identities since it is a space constructed on anonymity, right? No one really knows who is at the other end of the chatroom. In the book The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age, Allucquere Rosanne Stone presents and deconstructs the story of how a male psychologist, Sanford Lewis, created an online identity of a disabled woman named Julie Graham in a textbased chat room.12 The two identities were completely different: Julie was a confirmed atheist, who drank, smoked pot, and was a passionate cyber-sexer. Sanford, on the other hand, was a conservative Jew, scared of drugs and alcohol, and a hopeless sexual klutz.13 Under the screen name of Julie, Sanford developed intimate relationships with other women in a chat room of CompuServe. Some of the encounters were also of a sexual nature including (cyber)sex. Emotions, feelings and (figurative) sexual fluids became transposed into textual script and transgressed the spatial distance between the different online users. However, Julie’s identity was gradually breached, for the male and able body of the psychologist would unintentionally enter into the chat rooms establishing a transgendered virtual embodiment that is the norm of cyberspaces.14 Eventually, “true” disabled women began to challenge the identity of Julie Graham and the psychologist’s “true” identity was revealed. Many of the women he had interacted with claimed to have suffered from rape-like experiences due to the “deception” they had undergone.15

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

The internet and its related (cyber)spaces allows us to construct a virtual representation of oneself that can drastically differ from one’s lived reality. These representations bring into question what is real and what is not. For the women who shared emotional experiences with Julie, she was real (even though she might have lacked a physical body). Virtual identities exist in the in between planes of cyberspaces, and just like the spaces they inhabit, they become real at the point of interaction, at the link between two or more points. The possibility of creating authentic and real identities in cyberspaces leads us to believe that we are able to leave our bodies behind in the “real” world, that our “real” embodied identity can be entirely rewritten online. However, the body never really disappears in cyberspaces. It is always present there. It is exchanged, rewritten, redesigned, becoming a “discursive fetish.”16 Juana Maria Rodriguez recounts a virtual encounter in which she is “passing as a man, owning a dick” and engaging in cyber-sex (a textual exchange of bodies) with Gloria—a female gendered virtual subject. As they engage in cyber-foreplay, Rodriguez types, “estoy tan mojado pensando en tu hoyo [I am so wet thinking about your hole].”17 At this moment, her gendered body (or at least gendered fluids) poured out onto the screen. This slip of the tongue marks the limitations of the endless possibilities of representations in cyberspace. No matter how hard you try, you cannot escape your body. One key aspect of cyberspaces is the creation of human-computer interfaces which are the points of interaction between humans (bodies) and technologies instead of the wires and circuits themselves.18 We, the users, meet technology at the interface. The interface regulates our interactions in cyberspace, and is responsible for setting up the structure and framework for the construction of our online experiences, our virtual realities and personas.19 Like the myths and stories that construct our social realities and interactions, interfaces serve as the basic building blocks for an online lived reality that is based on a social matrix of power, while leaving few traces of how these embedded power relations affect our interactions and subjectivities. They function as the maps and guides of our communal imagined reality. However, like all maps, interfaces are important for what they do not depict or portray. Their power lies in how the terrain in which concepts, ideas, and our experiences and subjectivities are represented.20 In this technological geography of human-computer-human interaction (HCHI), the design of technological interfaces forces users to adapt to the “construct of the machine.”21 The anthropology of cybercultures raises interesting and productive questions regarding the relationships between humans and technology and technology’s effects on “our” subjectivities. This only includes, of course, those who have access to these technologies. Theoretically, the internet is a democratic space accessible to all, but not everyone around the world has equal access to the internet. This so-called “digital divide” compounds the problems of access to resources of everyday life. While there has been an increase in racial and global diversity in internet use, the quality and forms of access differs. In Egypt, for example, having internet in your home is a luxury, but internet cafes and cell-phone mediated internet access is abundant. Even in the US, a large majority of minorities and lower-class individuals do not have internet access in their own homes. Some of my university colleagues had to go to public libraries to complete online college applications. However, the digital divide today reveals itself predominantly through the varying levels of internet speeds and access to specific cyberspaces that are regulated through monetary cost. Technology is commonly described as neither inherently good nor bad but such a perspective masks the networks of power

Cybercultures, Online-Arab-Queers, and Interface Hackers: Locating Individuals, Identities and Ideas in Cyberspaces

16. Rodriguez, Queer Latinidad, 142.

17. Ibid, 135.

18. Kolko, Beth, “Erasing @race: Going White in the (Inter)Face,” in Race in Cyberspace, ed. Beth Kolko, Lisa Nakamura and Gilbert Rodman, (New York: Routledge, 2000), 213. 19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., 219. 21. Ibid., 220.

22. Kolko, “Erasing @race,” 213.

within which the use and consumption of technology and the internet are situated.22 As a result, it is important while performing an anthropology of cybercultures and cyberspaces to raise questions such as: what new forms of social construction of reality are being created or how are already existing realities being modified through technological innovations? How are people’s routine experiences affected by technologies? How do specific social locations (race, gender, sexuality, class, etc.) affect one’s interaction with cyberspaces? And finally, what new subjectivities are produced by the use of these technologies and how are these subjectivities along with those already existing regulated through HCHIs?

Interface: Regulating Queerness

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid., 219.

25. Nakamura, Lisa, Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet, (New York: Routledge, 2000), 106.

Beth Kolko and Lisa Nakamura explore how the lived illusion of race becomes represented and experienced in specific cyberspaces where race or specific racial categories are assumed to be non-existent and irrelevant. Their works show that these assumptions regarding cyberspaces work to translate the structures of power that exist in our society. Kolko and Nakamura argue that by erasing (or purposely excluding) race from cyberspaces, the current dominant racial hierarchy becomes embodied in the interactions of its users in which the assumed race is white.23 Though cyberspaces might be faux-blank environments where one can write in one’s subjectivities, users, designers, and engineers all unintentionally bring with them to this new terrain the same assumptions and power relations that some attempt to leave behind with their bodies when logging on to the virtual worlds. However, these power relations manifest and appear in different forms and structures not analogous to those of “real” world. Therefore the contextual locations out of which cyberspaces come into existence influence the type of experiences and interactions that occur online, but do not entirely limit them. The bodies of the subjects of this study, queer Egyptian men, are located primarily in the cosmopolitan city of Cairo. However, their subjectivities do not end with their bodies as they expand virtually in all directions through cyberspace. When these men log on to the net, they enter the realm and dominion of the many multinational corporations that construct and regulate the cyberspace. These corporations act as nation-states setting political and ideological boundaries through the development of their specific “user-friendly” interfaces. However, these boundaries are partly constructed along the already existing ideological axioms that tend to comprise culture-specific assumptions and ideas.24 The cyberspaces are then the virtual manifestations of the many global forces that shape and create subjectivities. Through the mechanisms of capitalism and a “free market economy,” the multinational corporations and its technology serve as the accomplices to the hegemonic powers of imperialism, orientalism, and colonialism. Thus, the world that cyberspaces claim to distance us from becomes programmed and coded into cyberspace itself. The manifestation of the contextual dominant social tendencies, however, reveals itself in cyberspaces through new and creative but, nevertheless, indoctrinating and regulating forms. The contextual location of cyberspaces calls attention to the crucial factor of the politics of authorship in these cyberspaces. Who designs these virtual terrains and for what purpose? The large majority of designers and architects of the vast expanse of cyberspaces are white male software engineers.25 The design of these cyberspaces is sponsored by the multinational corporations and their main driving purpose is the

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

profit that can be gained by the ownership of such a virtual space. However, I am not entirely attributing the responsibility of the hegemonic effects of the cyberspaces to their designers, but instead envision these public virtual spaces as another form of public media that provides a fragmented perspective of our cultures understanding of lived social realities and the dominant power matrix. Manjam.com, the self-described “gay social network” is one of these corporate owned cyberspaces. Owned by HubJet, a proud LGBT UK-based company, Manjam.com is designed solely in English, and it is not design-friendly to other language scripts, such as Arabic.26 Manjam.com is advertised mainly to the English-speaking cosmopolitan global citizen, but it prides itself in appealing to a world-wide audience. Manjam.com offers free access with limited use. To fully access its functional features a user has to upgrade their account to “premium members” for $19.95 a month with the use of a credit card.27 Queer Egyptian men utilize Manjam.com to develop networks and connections between themselves. Manjam.com became a prosthetic extension of their lived realities, establishing the framework and structure for a community based on affinity or the “the society” discussed in the previous chapter. This perceived isolated use of Manjam.com, however, must always be contextualized in the larger matrix of global interactions and the ways in which these global forces manifest in cyberspaces through the design of the interface. The interface of Manjam.com serves the specific purpose of networking “gay-identified” English speaking individuals and it was designed with this specific group of users in mind. The main structural framework of the website is the establishment of what Nakamura calls “menu-driven identities” or the representation of the self through a myopic and exclusionary set of categories/identities.28 These “menu-driven identities” do not allow modification of the terms and categories provided by the interface. In Nakamura’s study categories of race or ethnicity that do not appear on the menu of search engines Excite and Yahoo! and race-interest websites such as Generation D, AsianAvenue.com and BlackPlanet.com are “essentially foreclosed on or erased.” Mainly focusing on Asian American hybrid identities, she explores how hybridity is erased even from Asian-interest websites that list all categories as discrete and nonoverlapping excluding the hyphenated identities produced through colonialism and imperialism. In Manjam.com as well there is no possibility for the existence of these hyphenated and compound identities. The “menu-driven identities” of Manjam.com are the basis for the functioning of the website. They are designed into the interface to serve the specific purpose of categorizing users for easier and more efficient searches for potential optimal interactions and filtering of user profiles. The many categories enforced by the interface include: gender, ethnicity, body type, penis size, role in bed, sexuality, and more. The non-represented categories become colonized by the available categories because in order to interact with that cyberspace a user must choose a specific category. In addition to ethnicity and race, how do the limiting features of the interface, then, conceptualize and regulate queerness in a context of globalized interactions? How do specific subjectivities of sexual perversion and practices colonize other less dominant ways of understanding the world—subjugated knowledges? The identity categories and terms for sexuality used in the website (straight, bisexual and gay) are based on a Western history of sexual identity and orientation. Most of these terms arose from a very specific historical context, and are not inclusive of Egyptian local constructs of sexuality. When users are forced by the interface, upon registration,

Cybercultures, Online-Arab-Queers, and Interface Hackers: Locating Individuals, Identities and Ideas in Cyberspaces

26. Manjam.com and HubJet.

27. Manjam.com.

28. Nakamura, Cybertypes, 102.

to choose a descriptor or category, the website is forcing a structure of sexual identity and sexual orientations upon the users of the website that might not be universally applicable. At this time the website is also limiting the possibilities within cyberspaces of queering normative sexual encounters. Though the body informs and limits our experiences online, it can also be reconfigured/rewritten online to allow bodily exchanges not physically possible such as being penetrated by a large group of users at the same time. As a result, the observed indirect enforcement of these sexual orientation and identity categories through the design of the interface of Manjam.com furthers the imperialist project of transposing Western concepts and ideas unto Eastern subjects.

Resistance to the Matrix: Hacking and Guerilla Warfare

29. Foucault, Michel, “Power and Norm: Notes,*” in Power, Truth and Strategy, ed. M. Morris and P. Patton, (Sydney: Feral Publications, 1979), 60.

30. Raymond 1999: 189 in Nelson, “Maya Hackers and the Cyberspatialized Nation-State,” 291.

31. This issue is not only specific to Manjam.com. The majorities of cyberspaces are constructed in English and lack the capabilities to manifest any other writing scripts than the dominant Latin script.

However, the interface of Manjam.com and other corporate-owned cyberspaces is not entirely limiting or restricting. The interface sets the scene and regulates the interactions between users—establishing a politicized system of power relations. Foucault reminds us that where there is power there is resistance.29 Cyberspaces have alternate uses embedded in them that can allow for the expression and realization of unintentional realities. However, in order to be able to access these gashes in the infrastructure, a level of familiarization with the system is required. Many of the users of Manjam.com, thus, are able to circumvent the limitations of the interface and transform these sites of indoctrination into sites of resistance and play. They strategically and creatively utilize the tools of the interface to develop an illegitimate and unrecognized self-representation and, also employ “low-tech” cyberspaces as a way to further develop networks, satisfy bodily pleasures, and build communities despite the limitations of the corporate designed and controlled cyberspace. They become hackers and guerrillas. The term hacker originated at MIT as a term to describe a technology user who “explores the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities… who enjoys the… challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.”30 Like computer hackers, the queer Egyptian men that use Manjam.com are appropriating not only the integrated tools of the interface, but the categories that shape the design of its structural framework, to create unique self-representations of their sexual subjectivities. They break down the assumptions buried deep within the Western terms of sexual desire, activity and orientation by putting them in conversation with local identificatory and disidentificatory processes. The main feature of the interface that is used to “hack” in Manjam.com is the “profile headline,” which is supposed to serve as a small introductory description. However, this function of the interface allows for a limited but creative interaction with the interface. Some Egyptian users utilize the “profile headline” as a way of expressing in Arabic script—a function not provided by the general framework of the interface of the website.31 Others use it as a tool to represent their desires or subjectivities that were excluded from the original interface design. Some of these creative manipulations of the “profile headline” include: “lookin for shemale,” “Chubby lover & chaser,” “seeking feminine and cute transladys, trannys, ladyboys for friendship,” “Egyptian male slave ready to serve any mistress” or “Str8 man looking for shemale or ladyboy.” By using the “profile headline,” these users are employing their knowledge of the website to break away from the limited categories and desires provided by menu-driven identities. They are also

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

at the same time decoding and reprogramming Western categories and subjectivities of sexual orientation and desires. They translate Western categories into their own cultural and linguistic understanding sometimes as direct transliterations. One profile heading read as follows:

‫ سنة من القاهرة عايز سالب ناعم دلوع املقابلة جادة و كامريا كامريا‬31 ‫انا توب‬

i'm 31/top/cairo looking for smooth bottom for real meet&cam2cam

Though the Arabic and the English closely resemble each other there are key differences between the versions presented by the user. The Arabic script begins with a literal transliteration of the English word “top” into Arabic. The entire Arabic segment is written in the very local Egyptian Ammiyya or dialect, and refrains from the use of any proper Fusha or Modern Standard Arabic. Another interesting difference is that in the Arabic a desire for a bottom is expressed with the Arabic word for “negative.” Unlike the category top that is transliterated from the English, the category of bottom or passive partner is not of the same value as it is recoded in the Arabic. The Arabic word for negative also creates an imagery of a concave figure ready to be penetrated—an object—further exacerbating the categorical and ideological difference between the two roles of same-sex practices. It is also important to note the user’s understanding of English slang and internet lingo such as cam2cam and the common internet descriptive request of a/s/l (age/sex/location), which he does both in English and Arabic. However, instead of delineating his sex, the user states his preferred sexual practice. Through representations such as “str8 man looking for shemale or ladyboy,” users are also challenging the assumptions behind the category of a straight man. Is a straight man’s desire for a ladyboy conceptualized through the normative category of straight or heterosexual? As explored in the previous chapter, sexuality for some queer Egyptian men is not understood in terms of identity, but instead as a supplemental sexual practice. However, what kind of effect does this subversion of Western categories on the global stage of cyberspace have on individual subjectivities? In order to construct such a perversion of a category, Egyptian queer men must develop an understanding of the conventional meaning of the term—become acquainted with the rules of the system. These non-conventional users are thus hacking the interface of the website. They utilize and explore the capabilities of this pre-determined system, creatively over-coming its categorical limitations and stretching the conventional boundaries of the categories themselves. Through Western eyes, these men are deemed to be corrupting the heterosexual identity and elicit a reaction of how such an identity is possible, while at same challenging the Westerner’s conceptualization of heterosexuality. However, as previously described, some users have incorporated the gay identity as part of their self-understanding. Unlike the majority of profile headlines that are extremely focused on sexual practices and desires, some users are looking for a partnership or emotionally stable relationship that is deemed customary of Western homosexual relationships. Some men confirm the Western assumption of “Oriental bisexuality” by portraying themselves as sexually active with men and engaged in heterosexual marriages. Others completely outright reject any form of homosexual identity and its community or “gay” society with statements such as “no society guys” or “if you are society guy I will know and not respond.” The irony is that the delineation of the society is not as simple as it is thought to be perceived for the different identities are constantly at play, re-arranging themselves in relation to each other.

Cybercultures, Online-Arab-Queers, and Interface Hackers: Locating Individuals, Identities and Ideas in Cyberspaces

Another interesting unconventional use of Manjam.com is the advertisement of sex for cash. Though the site does allow for advertisements of LGBT-friendly businesses, it was not constructed as a form of online prostitution. Some use it as a medium to advertise their skills as masseurs and their services: erotic massages. Others simply advertise themselves as sexual objects for sale: “I am cash only $$$$$” or ‫انا كاش فقط اي توب عاوز‬ ‫[ ينام معايا كاش يا حبيبي‬I am cash only, any top that wants to sleep with me, cash, habibi]. The majority of the men that advertise their bodies for cash were self-identified ladyboys, again reinforcing their desirability in the economy of pleasure. Through their profiles they constructed themselves as objects for consumption often including a variety of pictures of themselves in drag—another example of how the Egyptian queer men manipulate the interface to fulfill their needs, in this case monetary as well as sexual. 32. Nelson, “Maya Hackers and the Cyberspatialized Nation-State,” 289.

33. Abdel Salam, Mohamed, “Egypt: Average weekly wage 329 Egyptian pounds ($60),” BikyaMasr, May 13, 2010, accessed November 24, 2012, http://www.bikyamasr.com/12424/ egypt-average-weekly-wage-329egyptian-pounds-60.

34. Nakamura, Cybertypes, 102.

Hacking is also about the “ability to form networks for communication and information sharing.”32 The “free” users of Manjam.com are restricted to a predetermined amount of use in a specific time frame: received messages disappear from a free user’s inbox after a few days, number of profiles that can be viewed daily is restricted and a limited amount of outgoing daily messages is enforced. Can a local Egyptian really pay $19.95 (119.7 EGPs) a month to use a website to its full capacity, when the average weekly wage is around 300 EGPs?33 As a result of these financially enforced limitations, the Egyptian users thus organize and establish their communities outside of the established framework of the corporate-owned cyberspace. They utilize guerilla-like forms of organization through the use of “low-tech” practices, such as emails and cellphones, to establish rhizomatic communal networks. Users exchange this type of information through the “profile heading” and personal messages. Due to the low number of free messages, initial interactions revolve around the exchange of “low-tech” interactional information. I characterize these alternate cyberspaces as “low-tech” for they are a kind of technology that tends to be more accessible than the “high-tech” spaces controlled and designed by multi-national corporations.34 These guerilla-like hacker queer Egyptian men thus establish illegitimate and unrecognized communities through the subversion and manipulation of the West’s imperial tools and machines.

Conclusion Cyberspace emphasize the performativity of identities. They require us to textually perform and taken on identities. Cyberspaces allow us the possibility of queering sexual exchanges for though our bodies never cease to exist they can be re-assembled and rescripted in ways that are not physically possible (without causing severe pain at least). However, exchanges between virtual identities are never free from the many regulatory forces (political, social, economic, cultural, linguistic, etc.) that dominate and permeate our social interactions. Instead these forces along with identities become codified and encrypted into cyberspaces, and, thus, becoming another battleground for the manifestation of resistance against hegemonic forces. Cyberspaces allow those who have access to it the possibility to imagine alternative ways of resisting the dominant matrix of power by using its tools to circumvent its limiting structures. By embracing the politics of disidentification and becoming illegible in cyberspaces, queer Egyptian men are able to challenge the rigidity of identity categories. Though not all of the men embrace a disidentificatory practice regarding their sexuality, they take on its methodology through the process of inscribing themselves online by circumventing the limiting “menu-driven identities” available.

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

Juhood Laura Curlin is member of the Class of 2013 at Brown University. She is concentrating in Political Science and Middle East Studies. Stephanie Sistare will graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the spring of 2014 with a double major in Global Studies and Hispanic Literatures and Cultures, with a minor in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. She hopes to continue her research in this area. Maru Pabon is a second-year Puerto Rican student currently double concentrating in Comparative Literature and History at Brown University. Her focus has been an interdisciplinary study of creative works produced under repressive regimes in Latin America and the Middle East, as she is incredibly passionate about literature as a vehicle for social change. Elise Alexander is currently a student at Harvard Divinity School pursuing a Masters' of Theological Studies. She earned her bachelors' degree in International Studies and Religion at American University in Washington, DC, and has a primary research interest in religious diversity in the Middle East, especially the Levant region. Alex Keivahn Smith is a senior in the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton University. He focuses on the contemporary Middle East and is earning a certificate in Persian language. He is especially interested in the intersection of the Near Eastern Studies field with other academic disciplines, such as anthropology, public health, and political economy. Jonathan Hafferkamp is in his third year of study at Duke University, and is majoring in Asian Middle Eastern Studies (concentration in Arabic) and International Comparative Studies (concentration in the Middle East).reviously, he has studied in Egypt, Qatar, and Jordan, and his current work focuses on international business relations in Switzerland. Julijana Englander received a B.A. in Psychology and International Comparative Studies from Duke University in 2013. While an undergraduate at Duke, Julijana has been a member of Duke Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rowing, the Undergraduate Conduct Board, and Delta Gamma. Additionally, Julijana has spent time abroad in Morocco, Egypt and Qatar. Fernando Revelo La Rotta graduated in May 2013 with a double major in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (Arabic concentration) and Cultural Anthropology, and a minor in Women's Studies from Duke University. He is returning to Egypt to continue working with local NGOs and eventually pursue a PhD in Anthropology focusing on Cairo.

Call for Submissions

• Please submit contributions to juhoodjournal@gmail.com. • Essays may be print or photo, and should include a title, subtitle, author and his/her year of study. • Papers should be between 1,200 and 5,000 words. • Papers should be formatted by Chicago-Style Citation guidelines, with footnotes. Do not include in-text citations or a bibliography. • Photo essays should include five to eight pictures. • Photo essays should include an abstract that situates your photo within a narrative. • Submissions can concern any number of disciplines, and are not limited to the Islamo-Christian tradition or a discourse on Arabs. Issues of popular culture, the arts, human rights and Mizrahim presence are just a few viable topics. • The papers should be well-researched and reflect a significant amount of academic rigor. For an electronic version of the journal, please visit www.issuu.com/juhood/docs/juhood4

Juhood, The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs, is a scholarly publication that aims to encourage discussion on the MENA region at Duke University. It tries to provide a diverse array of opinions on the cultures, histories and religions that constitute the region. It strives to be a space in which students can publish research on the Middle East and North Africa. It endeavors to place objectivity and erudition at the center of each contribution.

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs