Author and anthropology professor, Jessica Winegar, penned this guest post on the symbols of Egypt's uprising. All photos featured in this week's blog series, including those seen here, are courtesty of her.
On February 2, 2011—nine days into the uprising that toppled President Mubarak—the once innocuous Egyptian flag suddenly became a contested symbol. During the prior week, displaying the flag placed one squarely in support of the revolution, and in fact its overnight ubiquity gave new life to what had, until that point, been one of the more marginal symbols of the nation (not nearly as patriotically potent as, say, the American flag is to many Americans).
But on the eve of February 1, Mubarak delivered a rousing speech on national television—a last ditch attempt to maintain power—in which he expressed his love of country, his desire to die and be buried as Egypt's president, and his promise to execute reform. After his speech celebratory gunshots rang out across the neighborhoods of Cairo (where I was living)—and within minutes it had become unclear whether or not waving the flag, or hanging it from one’s windshield or from one’s window or balcony, marked one as pro-revolution or pro-Mubarak. The next morning, Tahrir was nearly empty. It seemed that most people had reversed their view of Mubarak, and the reason to fly flags against him was over.
At about 1 pm on that same day, I scurried from the square when I saw people (hired by the regime) rushing to Tahrir astride horses and camels, armed with swords and State Security Forces-issued batons, intending to force the remaining protesters out. The streets through which I passed on the way home were now awash in Egyptian flags, hanging from open windows out of which poured the national anthem—a sudden radio sensation. I suspect it was the administration’s coordinated attempt to to re-coopt the symbol of the Egyptian flag. And for a few hours, it was difficult to glean where the people’s political sympathies really lay—with the sitting regime or Tahrir’s upstarts. Ambiguity and ambivalence ended with the subsequent brutality that unfolded in the square. The regime’s heavy-handed crackdown on the activists consolidated the opposition and sent thousands back to Tahrir to defend the protesters—a clash that would later become known as the Battle of the Camel.
Fast forward to one year later, the summer of 2012. The Muslim Brotherhood, whose youth came out that February to play a major role in keeping the square occupied, was now in power. And just as suddenly, the symbol of the beard became ambiguous, signifying anything from religiosity (in the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad), to personal style (in the tradition of young pop stars), to a rushed morning (in the tradition of the five o’clock shadow). But when the Brotherhood came to power, and particularly as they quickly and spectacularly started to make major governing mistakes, the beard came to signify allegiance to the organization and President Morsy. What to do then, if one just wore it for style or because one didn’t feel like shaving? As with the flag, the beard was a mark of allegiance—but to what exactly, was not always certain. As one man exclaimed to me when I mentioned his beard, “This is laziness! Not support for the MB!”
Of course, certain symbols that have emerged in the wake of the uprising are anything but ambiguous—and can even be determinant of life or death. On August 14, 2013 opponents of the popularly backed military coup of the democratically elected President Morsy, assembled in Cairo’s Rab`a al-Adawiyya Square to protest. After the regime killed over a thousand mostly unarmed Morsy supporters, surviving supporters and those opposed to the mass killing adopted the 4 finger salute out of mourning, to show solidarity with the dead, or alternately to express continued support of Morsy.
The gesture became ubiquitous in subsequent protests and was quickly adapted to an Internet meme: four black fingers on a yellow background. A professional soccer player was banned from Egypt’s national team for flashing 4 fingers after a goal; a child with the 4 finger sign on his school ruler was hauled into the principal’s office and remanded to authorities; and, as I write this, anyone who displays the 4 fingers can be accused of supporting terrorism and arrested, jailed, tortured, or just killed—as has happened with dozens since the August massacre.
Meanwhile, there is no symbol—not flag or beard or fingers—that can contain all of the hopes for the future that brought Egyptians to the streets en masse in January 2011. There is no agreed upon symbol for the revolution, perhaps because revolutions are long, bumpy, and contested processes. In November, when the current regime tried to install a monument in the center of Tahrir Square to honor the martyrs of the revolution, it was summarily defaced and destroyed by young men who had lost their friends and loved ones in street battles against the forces of that very regime. The apparent message: no authority but the people can claim the square for the nation.
Today another symbol is being asserted as representative of the nation and its future, that of the visage of the current Minister of Defense, Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, being lauded by many as a potential savior who can bring stability back to the country. But to bring stability means to address the grievances that led to the uprising in the first place, a job that will be nearly impossible for one person, let alone one who is part of the system that produced such grievances. As this process continues then, we can expect to see more symbols emerge, around which people will rally in support or opposition. These symbols are not “merely symbolic,” as the phrase goes, but are a key means through which Egyptians find their moral compass in difficult times.
The next post in this blog series comes from Professor of International Relations, Laurie Brand. See her discussion on the significance of claiming the term "revolution."
Jessica Winegar is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University and author of Creative Reckonings: The Politics of Art and Culture in Contemporary Egypt (Stanford, 2006).
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