The Stories We Tell Against Storytelling

A Decade after our Springs*

Rasha Salti

After the pacificist popular insurgency forced Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee Tunisia on a plane in the dark of night of January 14th, 2011, for “safe haven” in Saudi Arabia, and less than two weeks later, the call for protest on Tahrir Square mobilized several thousand Egyptians on January 25th, champions of the “Arab exceptionalism” theory seemed to have been finally proven wrong. “Arab exceptionalism” is a widely pervasive theory that argues that Arabs were exceptionally immune to democratic systems of governance. It emerged after the third wave of “democratization” gained groundswell in the countries that formed the Soviet bloc in the 1990s and gained currency among social scientists in reputable western academic institutions and in moneyed think tanks, that pursued the vexing riddle of when (or if ever), Arab societies might be enticed to the winsome prospects of democracy. One of its chief proponents was British historian and Middle East specialist, Elie Kedourie, who argued in Democracy and Arab Culture that the expectation was vain because there was “nothing in the political traditions of the Arab world—which are the political traditions of Islam—which might make familiar, or indeed intelligible, the organizing ideas of constitutional and representative government.” Furthermore he continues, people “had been accustomed to  autocracy and passive obedience”.[1] Kedourie taught at the London School of Economics from 1953 to 1990, his writings carried significant sway, and while his wordsmithing and argument –“exceptionalism”– may have seemed a little too extreme or harsh to fellow scholars or experts researching the topic, the more pervasive and less strident version refers to a “democracy deficit” in Arab societies which is linked to the longevity of autocracies in the region. The currency of the theory of Arab exceptionalism is so powerful, that it has entirely blind sighted the “off-frame” and other potential perspectives, specifically whose attention is focused on the long and rich history of social protest in the entire region.

If one considers the fiftieth anniversary commemorations of the May 1968 student protests, five decades seemed not to have been sufficient to correct the obtuse Eurocentric perception of that historical moment and include the student protests that took place in Buenos Aires, Lahore, Beirut and in Cairo. A cursory listing of some of the major strikes, citizen actions and mass mobilizations that have marked the contemporary history of the Arab-speaking region, reveals a radically different representation of societies. Going only as far back as the late 1970s –the moment when structural adjustment reforms began to be implemented in exchange for loans and support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)–, one finds in the case of Egypt, for instance, that food or bread riots (or the rejection of eliminating state-funded subsidies on basic staples, the drastic withdrawal of social safety nets and privatization of vital economic sectors) occurred in 1977. In 1976, Anwar Sadat sought loans from the World Bank to relieve the country's debt burden. After the bank condemned the Egyptian government’s policy of subsidizing social welfare and basic foodstuffs, Sadat announced in January 1977 that subsidies on flour, rice, and cooking oil were cancelled as well as state employee bonuses and pay increases. Known as the 'Bread Riots of 1977’, the protests were spontaneous, they mobilized hundreds of thousands of workers, students and activists in major cities in the country[2]. It was faced with brutal repression, 79 people were killed and 800 wounded and ended with the deployment of the army, but the subsidies were reinstated. In Morocco, similar riots occurred in 1981 and 1984, in Sudan in 1985, in Tunisia in 1984 and 1986, and in Jordan in 1989. These riots were invariably quelled and disbanded with the excessive ministration of violence, but they often instigated reforms and a less cruel implementation of the drastic structural adjustment measures.

In Algeria, the October Riots that took place in 1988, mobilized workers, unemployed youth, and social justice and democracy activists. The protests began on October 5 in 1988 and were caused to a large extent by sharp drops in oil prices throughout the preceding years, affecting revenue for the Algerian government, as well as by the slow pace of economic and political reform. The protests were violently repressed but they set in motion a process of internal power struggles and public criticism that eventually led to the downfall of the Algerian single-party system that had kept the military-dominated FLN in power since 1962 and instigated democratic reforms. A new constitution was promulgated in 1989, as Chadli Bendjedid accepted the introduction of a multiparty democracy. He was assassinated shortly thereafter while giving a live televised speech to the nation.

The recurrence of protests and strikes had accelerated in the years leading up to the Arab Spring. In the case of Tunisia for instance, it is impossible to write the story of the collapse of Ben Ali’s regime without considering the struggles of the miners of the Gafsa Phosphate Company, the largest employer in the Gafsa region in Tunisia[3]. Following the structural adjustment plan implemented inn 1986 and further reorganization policies, by 2006, the number of employees had dropped by 75%[4]. Formed in 2007, the Union of Unemployed Graduates was active throughout towns in the mining region, with regional and local committees. After an accident on the worksite in 2008, a protest erupted and lasted six months, it mobilized workers, unemployed youth, temporary workers, and students. It was the widest protest movement since the Bread Revolt shook the country in 1984 and deployed in a variety of actions, such as hunger strikes, demonstrations, sit-ins, and work stoppages on mining sites. In addition, railway tracks were torn apart to prevent transport of phosphate. The movement was also brutally crushed by the regime, but it constituted a milestone for dissenting political groups, and invigorate the disenchanted youth to act.[5]

Circling back to the case of Egypt, looking at the frequency of labour protests points to an emboldened involvement on behalf of political groups in challenging the culture of fear and violent reprisal from the government. In the span of the five years between 1988 to 1993, there were an estimated 162 labor protests, averaging 27 per year, but in the five years that followed from 1998 to 2003, the average increased to 118. The number of collective actions rose to 265 in 2004, mostly in the sector of textile production, and by 2007, actions expanded to other sectors of industrial production, public and civil services, transport and liberal professions. In 2011, there were only three trade unions independent of direct control by the state that organized 1,400 work stoppages and protests in which an estimated 600,000 workers participated.[6]

The recent history of Arab societies is not only punctuated by bread riots and labor protests, but also social movements pressing for equitable political and economic inclusion of marginalized ethnic and cultural minorities, pluralism, the recognition of cultural difference, and the redress of gender inequality. One landmark social movement was known as the ‘Amazigh Spring’ in Algeria (Tafsut Imaziɣen in Amazigh or Kabyle, or simply Tafsut for "spring"). After the lecture that the Amazigh thinker Mouloud Mammeri planned to take place in Tizi Ouzou was cancelled, a general strike took place on April 20, 1983, to protest the censorship. Hundreds of Amazigh activists and students were arrested. The indignation was against two decades of the austere policy of Arabization implemented by the FLN’s autocracy, and the continuous refusal of the ruling party to recognize Amazigh identity as a fundamental constituent of Algerian society. While the movement was brutally crushed, its impact was to create organizations such as, the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) and the Berber Cultural Movement (Mouvement Culturel Berbère or MCB). The Amazigh Spring was also a foundational event for Algeria's nascent human rights community outside Amazigh circles. The bread riots that swept the country in 1988 referred explicitly to the “Amazigh spring” in devising strategies of mobilization and organizing civil actions.

“Kefaya” (Arabic for “enough”), the unofficial moniker of the Egyptian Movement for Change (el-Haraka el-Masriyya Min Agl el-Taghyeer), was a grassroots coalition of activists from across the political spectrum that expressed overt opposition to Hosni Mubarak’s attempts to legate his son, Gamal, the presidency of Egypt, to the widespread corruption that corroded the state, to economic stagnation and to the culture of fear and total disregard for human rights. Kefaya first appeared in the summer of 2004, but it was more active and visible a year later, in response to Mubarak’s referendum about constitutional changes to grant him an additional term and election campaign. Kefaya emerged from social movements that rose a few years earlier and mobilized different groups across communities, namely, protests in solidarity with Palestinians during the Second Intifada (in 2000), and anti-war protests following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The latter spurred the emergence of the March 20^th Anti-War Movement and was one of the largest to ever take to the streets since Mubarak had taken office. The first rally called for by Kefaya was on December 12 in 2005, it marked the first instance when Egyptian citizens demanded that the president step down. Gathered on the steps of the High Court building in downtown Cairo, some 500 to 1000 activists stood mostly silent, their mouths shut with tape, carrying placards that were emblazoned with a large yellow sticker that read Kefaya.

This history is recorded, archived, and studied but it represents a marginal scholarship of the Arab region. It is also recorded and transmitted in song, poetry, literature, and film. These creative fields constitute a repository of the memory of struggle, dissidence, and standing against tyranny. Unlike songs, poetry, and novels, films travel and are exhibited with far greater difficulty, given that prior to the advent of digital media, the circulation of film was constrained by technical contingencies. Therefore, sadly, only researchers or passionate amateurs of Arab film are cognizant of this rich, subversive, and captivating patrimony.

The advent of light-weight digital cameras and post-production software democratized film production drastically, in the Arab world as in the rest of the world. While smartphones were becoming furnished with progressively more sophisticated cameras, the policing and control over the production of film was tightening in the region. And, in tandem, social and political indignation were erupting more frequently. Regimes across the Arab regions prohibited the media (audio-visual and print) from reporting on social movements. For instance, prior to January 25th, 2011, media outlets in Cairo, local, regional and international, were absolutely forbidden from reporting on, or filming the protests staged by Kefaya. The protests were never large, a mere handful of fifty to a hundred activists, who were allowed to march over short distances or stand in front of the building that housed the Syndicate of Lawyers, or the contiguous building housing the Syndicate of Journalists. They also gathered around symbolic sites like the Talaat Harb Square. This small group was usually confronted with national security decked in riot gear twice or thrice their number. Only residents of the area, or those who happened to be passing by became aware of them. Even radio reports on traffic were not allowed to mention them although the assembly of riot police disrupted traffic greatly. It is likely that the archives of national security from Moubarak’s era holds the largest and most thorough record of these protests, but for average Egyptians, they are forever recorded in two narrative films. Ibrahim el-Batout’s Eye of the Sun (Ein Shams, 2008) and Yousry Nasrallah’s The Aquarium (Genenet al-Asmak, 2008), two very different films, released in the same year, that point to the despair overwhelming quotidian life and film protests in the Wust el-Balad neighbourhood[7].

Ibrahim el-Batout was a well-known photojournalist and cameraman who had covered several wars in the former Yugoslavia and Sudan, as well as the First Gulf War[8]. He did not complete his assignments unscathed, and upon returning to Cairo, he began to work as a cinematographer with independent filmmakers and directed several documentary films. His second narrative feature The Eye of the Sun braids stories from his own experiences –sorrows he witnessed and documented, and that he intentionally links together. The morbid consequence of the depleted uranium left by US troops in the first Gulf War, dwindling living conditions for the working poor in Cairo, lack of access for treatment from cancer to a taxi driver’s 11-year-old daughter and the devastation from the avian flu epidemic. Produced on a shoe-string budget, el-Batout shot the film on DV without official permissions, he blended documentary with fiction and invited actors to improvise in reaction to surroundings. He enlisted a cast willing to take the risk of facing reprisals. The film was censored from screening in Egypt and elsewhere in the world with the threat of retribution to the director and crew[9]. The Centre Cinématographique Marocain (under the directorship of late Noureddine Saïl[10] offered to endorse the film, by claiming it a Moroccan production and enabling the fabrication of 35mm prints that made it possible for the film to travel to festivals and eventually screen in Egypt, after censorship was lifted. In a pivotal scene, one of the characters of the film, a taxi driver named Ramadan (Mohamad Abdel-Fattah[11]) is driving a customer to Wust el-Balad, when they come upon a protest. As he negotiates traffic gone awry, he witnesses the police beating a protestor who manages to escape bludgeoned and needs immediate medical care. Shocked, Ramadan takes him in his taxi, overcoming his fear of violent punishment and rescues him. El-Batout shot the scene by bringing in his actors and props into a real protest that was on-going. Knowing their frequency, he could envisage a minimum of planning to seize the opportunity.

Yousry Nasrallah’s The Aquarium is an entirely other story, the film was an international coproduction between Egypt (Misr Films), France (Archipel 33) and Germany (Pandora Films), with funding from Arte France and the World Cinema Fund. The film cast Egyptian stars, Amr Waked, Gamil Rateb, Bassem Samra, Ahmed el-Fishawi and Tunisian-born Hend Sabry. The film’s plot tells the story of the encounter of two listless souls, Laila (Hend Sabry) a radio host for a late-night talk show who listens to people’s woes and provides advice, and Youssef (Amr Waked) a loveless, and emotionally numb anaesthesiologist, who is coming to terms with his father’s slow and impending death from illness. In the build up to their encounter, secondary characters that intersect their lives speak directly to the camera, almost in confessional mode. The film’s central theme is the profound mal-être of Cairenes, the opening sequence is especially stunning, as the camera hovers above the night-time landscape of Wust el-Balad (downtown Cairo) and in a voice-over a man says: “I am scared”. In a long monologue, he then proceeds to list of all that scares him. The film includes scenes that show poultry farms in direct reference to the avian flu, as well as scenes of the recurring protests in Wust el-Balad.

When the strike broke out at the Gafsa Phosphate Mines in 2008 in Tunisia, the government imposed a very tight media black-out. Eventually internet services were shut down momentarily to prevent activists from sending reports to Tunisians and to the rest of the world. Images of actions captured by striking activists emerged a few days after they started using untraceable circuitous networks of international hackers[12]. Similarly, video footage captured by the striking workers of Misr Spinning Weaving Company were “smuggled” through networks of activists in defiance of a total media black-out solidly imposed by the Moubarak security forces. Some of the videos attested to previously unimaginable political acumen by striking workers, in one instance, videos documented workers occupying the space of a factory that mostly employed women, who were refusing the new management regimes. They had chained themselves to their machines, while their husbands brought them meals accompanied by their children on a visit their mothers voluntarily locked onsite.

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