Studies in Literature and Language

On the political level, political terms and/or slogans have always been an interesting topic yet an equally controversial one. At the beginning, democracy was not really the rule of the people by the people and for the people, but only a privileged section of the people. It has taken humanity a lot of time and a hard struggle for the true liberation of Mankind to reach what most of us may now regard as true democracy and to come up with the declaration of the rights of man, as we know them now. Yet, even after a long history of struggle across several centuries, in the second half of the twentieth century, the totalitarian regime in what was once East Germany was ironically called democratic, and in China, where the majority of the Chinese people were subjected to the totalitarian rule of the communist party, the official name was the People Republic of China. Yet all this had to do with the Eastern Block that was once as the Socialist Block. Things must have been much better in the other half of the world during the cold war, one, may optimistically expect. Yes, such great expectations, but again and again, between the appearance and the reality, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the decent, falls the shadow, and, in our case, linguistically speaking, between the signifier and the signified, falls the signification. The right to veto any resolution is given only to five major powers in a world that claims to seek equality and fraternity! It seems that some countries are more equal than the others, God bless Orwell! Even in the United States of America, where freedom and individuality have a priority over several other values, half a century ago, we had people like Joseph McCarthy1 who thrived on accusations of political opponents and had actually persecuted quite a few of them until he himself was disqualified.

2. REFLECTIONS AND FINDINGS

The question arises: what about the Arab Spring Revolutions? Or should we say Uprisings? May be even the term “Spring”, here, could be substituted by “Autumn”! Yet “Spring”, “Autumn” and for that purpose even “Fall”, are definitely not political terms per se. So the present research/reflection paper would better only focus on the explicitly political in this respect, although for quite a number of intellectuals, in Egypt at least, the present situation with the dominion of political Islamists and what may seem to be a tendency to narrow down the margin of freedom available for the press in particular and media in general induces them to regard it as an autumn of the very revolutionary ideas and ambitions that had ignited the uprising against the regime of ex-president Hosni Mubarak.

2.1 Revolution vs. Uprising: Definition: Between the Idea & the Reality

On the theoretical and/or academic level, what is the difference between an uprising on the one hand and a proper revolution on the other? A possible definition of the term revolution is as follows:

“a: a sudden, radical, or complete change b: a fundamental change in political organization; especially: the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed c: activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation d: a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something: a change of paradigm <the Copernican revolution> e: a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> <the foreign car revolution>”2.

On the other hand, what is an uprising? Maybe the following definition could do:

“an act or instance of rising up; especially: a usually localized act of popular violence in defiance usually of an established government in social and political science, a major, sudden, and hence typically violent alteration in government and in related associations and structures. The term is used by analogy in such expressions as the Industrial Revolution, where it refers to a radical and profound change in economic relationships and technological conditions”3.

The question now arises: Was the 1952 free Officers Movement a true revolution and is the 2011 one merely an uprising? It is certainly a difficult question to answer and most probably requires a specialist in politics rather than a linguist or even a sociolinguist to reflect on. The 1952 started as a coup d’état per se, but quickly evolved into a really radical change on the social and political levels. The agricultural reform act, the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the departure of the last British soldiers fro Egypt are cases in point. These changes were endorsed by the majority of the Egyptian people, and, hence, the legitimacy of labeling the July 1952 a revolution as such in some political estimations.

The January 2011 uprising, on the other hand, started as a really impulsive and massive rejection of a regime that may actually be traced back to the fifties of last century rather than simply the last 30 of Mubarak or even forty years after Nasser’s death in 1970. The Egyptian people, or more accurately the extreme majority of it, has not only endorsed the uprising, but even participated in it one way or the other. In that sense, it looks more appropriate to call it a true revolution, especially when compared or contrasted with the 1952 coup d’état. That is what Ahmed Hegazy, an Egyptian poet and thinker, for instance, maintains in his Wednesdays articles in Ahram newspaper.

The problem is that good beginnings do not by necessity lead to good ends. The lack of a real leadership of the angry movement of the people and the absence of a clear-cut ideology underlying it, have both unstrapped the revolution from its revolutionary nature and turned it into a mere uprising that has hardly changed the regime and is soon exploited by dogmatic groups that transform the young people’s love of freedom into maybe a worse kind of dictatorship under the mask of religiousness or rather religiosity.

Thus, was it really a revolution or only an uprising? The researcher, as the title of the present paper suggests, tends to consider it some kind of an overwhelming civilian protest movement or uprising that has managed to depose the head of the regime and several leading figures associated with it, but has hardly toppled the regime itself as such. Egypt is still a republican regime, the dominating economic policy is still a capitalist one that is mainly based on the free-market concept and, officially at least, most of the laws governing the functions of the republic president, the ministers and political life in general have not significantly changed. Hence, it would rather be an overstatement to describe the whole course of events as a revolution in the full sense of the term.

2.2 Democracy: Definition, Theory and Practice

Definition: The traditional definition of democracy may be summed up as follows:

“Noun: democracy

1. The political orientation of those who favour government by the people or by their elected representatives

2. A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

3. The doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group” [WordWeb.info]

Another, probably more specialized definition, may be the following:

“Government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is a useful definition of “democracy”, but a close look at the power of money and of those few who have a lot of it (and not just in election campaigns)—something that neither behavioralism or rational choice deign to do—makes it abundantly clear that no part of this definition applies to the society in which we live.” (Olman, Bertell, n.d.).

How was the term used by the 1952 July revolution? It was, indeed, referred to in the six principles and/or aims of the revolution or rather, as was first called by its very supporters, the movement of the free officers group. The group sought the establishment of “a sound democratic life”. Yet the way to bring this hope into reality was rather weird. To start with, all political parties were dissolved and political leaders were arrested or at least detained, including even the most vehement opposition leaders who had fought for decades against the dethroned king Farouq and the British occupation of Egypt, such as the Wafd party figures whose support of the resistance activities in the Suez Canal area were well-known on different levels. The minority of officers among the free officers group or, then, the Revolution Council, who objected and advocated the return of the military figures to their regiments and the beginning of a new era of democracy under the new republican system of government were simply sent away as ambassadors to far away countries. Yousef Seddiq and Khalid Mohy El-Din are two cases in point.

Was it quite a different case with the 2011 uprising? At the beginning, the answer seems to be in the affirmative. The young people who ignited the spark of the people’s collective uprising against the semi-military semi-dictatorial regime were mainly dreaming of freedom and democracy. They were also dreaming of social justice, but not at the expense of personal freedom and democracy. The parliamentary elections in January 2011 and the presidential one going on now may be fairly regarded as clear-cut evidence to support this claim. Yet, quite unfortunately, just after the end of the first round, the candidates who lost the elections suddenly turned back against elections results, against the whole idea of presidential elections and asked for a presidential council instead, one that excludes one of the two winners and includes the losers! Even on the Facebook, the cradle of the January 2011 uprising, there were several comments condemning the choices and votes of around five million and five hundred thousand people who voted for General Shafiq, the second runner for the second round, as traitors! Thus, it seems quite feasible to wonder whether this is really democracy or totalitarianism. Dr Hoda Jamal Abdel Nasser’s article in Ahram 2nd of June 2012 as well as Dr Osama Al-Ghazaly Harab’s article in the same paper on 6 June 2012 are two examples of condemnation of what they both consider as a fascist attitude adopted by promoters of democracy and freedom. It is worth noting here that Dr Hoda Abdel Nasser is a socialist and is the daughter of the well-known political leader in Egypt and the entire Arab world late Jamal Abdel Nasser. In short, she is a leftist and a pan-Arabism supporter as well, whereas Dr Osama Al-Ghazaly Harab is a liberal who explicitly advocates democracy in the western sense. Both, however, agree on rejecting the hardly democratic attitude of the opponents of Shafiq and even both stated they voted for the same candidate, Amr Mousa, in the first round and that they shall vote for Shafiq in the second and final round. Here again the researcher wonders whether the traditional and standard sense of democracy has or has not been lost in the actual use of it during the events. If the right to practice democracy and enjoy its advantages is confined to a group of people no matter who they are we are back to the roots of democracy in ancient Greek rather than what it denotes in our modern world. Again, between the signifier and the signified the signification seems to have got lost.

2.3 The Freedom of Thought and Expression: Definition: Between the Idea & the Reality

The freedom of thought, in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech. At present, in the most civilized countries, the freedom of speech is taken as a matter of course and seems a perfectly simple thing. We are so accustomed to it that we look on it as a natural right. Nevertheless, this right has been acquired only in quite recent times, and the way to its attainment has lain through lakes of blood. It has taken centuries to persuade the most enlightened peoples that liberty to publish one’s opinions and to discuss all questions is a good and not a bad thing. Human societies (there are some brilliant exceptions) have been generally opposed to freedom of thought, or, in other words, to new ideas, and it is easy to see why (Bagnell, 2004).

Looking back at the way the 1952 July revolution dealt with the freedom of thought and expression, one finds out that the freedom of expression was only guaranteed to those who identified with the new political regime. Even when Nasser released his famous slogan “Look up in pride fellow citizen”, the joke was released that he only wanted to identify those who would dare look up in pride to get rid of! Thinkers were arrested, writers banned, politicians deprived of their political rights, journalists fired, university professors expelled and even judges were, to use Nasser’s euphemistic term “purged”!1

Was it, anyway better where the January 2011 uprising comes in? One should expect the freedom of thought and expression to enjoy a higher rank and a top priority within the framework of a liberal revolution in contrast with the coup d’état of the 1952 revolution. Yet, between the idea and the reality falls all sorts of freedom. From the very beginning of the 25th of January 2011 events, the young men and women on the Facebook listed their adversaries as enemies of the revolution and blacklisted them, including singers, actors, journalists and literary figures. Tamer Hosni, a singer, Talaat Zakareyya, an actor, Makram Mohammed Ahmed, a journalist and Lamis Gaber, a novelist and playwright all cases in point. They were either nicknamed as the fleeing reminiscent of the deposed regime or the anti-revolutionary forces, just as if the 2011 uprising were another coup d’état or a totalitarian/Marxist revolution. Friends severed their life long relations and sometimes families torn apart just because of political differences. Freedom of speech is sheer fancy; intolerance is the keyword. Once again the political term seems to be totally devoid from its original sense and the signification looses its way between the signifier and the signified.

2.4 Justice vs. Injustice: Definition, Theory and Practice: Between the Idea & the Reality

At this stage of the researcher’s reflections, it is just fair to end up the paper by dealing with the term “Justice”. According to West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, justice is “The proper administration of the law; the fair and equitable treatment of all individuals under the law”. As for Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, (2002), “justice” is “the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments”.

Such definitions sound quite clear, transparent and persuasive. The problem is that justices may be sometimes mistaken for injustice and vice versa. Under the 1952 July “revolutionary” regime, “Revolutionary Courts” were established, consisting of a few tame judges with a number of army officers only to condemn the “enemies of the revolution” which back then extended to include any kind political opposition. The regime was explicitly a totalitarian one. It was, thus, quite consistent to form such exceptional courts of “justice” just to issue “unjust” sentences in favour of the regime in power at the expense of the freedom of opinion, the freedom of expression, the rights of Man and even the mere concept of “justice” per se.

What about the liberal uprising of January 2011, with its claims to defend human dignity and freedom, and its insistence, at the beginning, on resorting only to civil laws and human right? Was justice respected by the revolutionary youth or properly maintained by people in charge? It is true that “justice delayed is justice denied”, but does this justify the call for “Revolutionary Courts” in a revolution that has burst out against a semi-totalitarian regime that originated from a coup d’état that had ultimately turned into a revolution? The trials went very slowly, sometimes even too slowly, and, quite often, the real defendants were never identified, let alone put to trial. But the researcher firmly deems it is totally unjust to ask for quick and fair or just trials that should just end up with death penalty sentences for the defendants or else the mobs consider the verdicts of the courts of justice simply unjust!

3. THE END. OR IS IT JUST A NEW BEGINNING?

Instead of an explicit conclusion, the researcher would rather end up this reflection paper with another question. The researcher’s reflections give rise to more questions than present answers to the questions posed at the beginning of the paper. May be this is good for a change, maybe this is another instance of the difference between appearance and the reality, between the signifier and the signified. At the end of this paper, the researcher hopes this end may mark the beginning of new research papers that aspire to tackle the same topic and propose to provide the readers as well as other researchers with ample answers to an ever increasing number of questions that arise from the difference between the idea and the reality, between the potency and the existence and, finally, between the signifier and the signified, where not only falls the signification but even quite a lot of Egyptians, including the researcher himself. Even so, the researcher hopes to have been able to do the topic in question some kind of justice within the limitations of time and space mentioned in the introduction, while adhering to free thought and expression, even if the paper does not necessarily represent a revolutionary point of view! And, last but not least, to go back to the two terms “Spring” and “Fall”, the use of “Spring” in the Phrase Arab Spring may be still justified if we regard the political changes that have occurred in several Arab countries in the Middle East as the inevitable outcome of the Fall of the old systems, that has, thus, made it possible for new ones to spring out! Finally, it may also be useful to remember that Spring could also be a cruel season, mixing memory and desire and stirring the dull roots of the Arab peoples’ high hopes in democracy and freedom in the cactus land of Arab dictatorships.

REFERENCES

English Sources

Bertell, O. (2010) How Does Political Science Deal with Democracy? How Should It Do So?” Retrieved 12 February, 2012 from: http://www.iefd.org/articles/political_science_democracy.php.

Bury, J.B. (2004). A History of Freedom of Thought. UK: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.