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Here it goes. I can’t stress enough how that recent take on ‘secular liberals’ and the Arab uprisings is both out of touch AND extremely harmful.
I’ve seen many people criticize it for what it is, but also so many others who celebrated it. A few points.
I’ve seen many people criticize it for what it is, but also so many others who celebrated it. A few points.
Do we ever know who those secular liberals are? Are they anti-imperial leftists too? The answer is no. We only know that those so-called secular liberals run “Western-backed” NGOs and defend human rights. And that Arab politics is neatly divided into secular and Islamist.
This narrative plays right into the hands of THE two groups that actually spearheaded a counter-revolution in Egypt: the Islamists and the military. In Egypt, human rights’ NGOs are crushed under the weight of a most ruthless dictatorship. They are simply no more.
Guess the pretext the dictatorship used in locking them up, freezing their assets, and at times murdering them altogether? Yup, you guessed right: “foreign collusion.”
These kinds of arguments are weaponized against real people, with real consequences, every single day.
These kinds of arguments are weaponized against real people, with real consequences, every single day.
Singling out ‘secular liberals’—not in favor of a leftist anti-capitalist critique, base, or movement, but for the sole reason of lambasting them for their alleged ‘westernization’ (whatever that actually means?)—is, frankly, vacuous...
...and plays into the same old tropes that the Islamists are a more authentic voice in Egyptian/Arab politics. I’m sorry, but this not where we should be ten years later.
ZERO mention of Israel, all while downplaying the disastrous impact two Gulf monarchies have had in wielding and financing the forces of counter-revolution in the region. No, the so-called secular liberals & monarchies aren’t equal in power or money. No “two-sides” this too.
Yes, non-Islamist political forces are in crisis. Yes, they are disorganized. And yes, that’s among the many reasons that the revolutions ‘failed.’ But what does critiquing them do here besides further marginalize them in academic and political discourse?
Not to mention that it completely erases the agency and languages of those involved. As if the world really corresponds to our neat theoretical divisions. Or as if human rights or activism or law or politics itself do not have rich histories and traditions in our societies.
On that point, I’d like to quote at length Ismail Fayed’s brilliant essay on the language of authenticity (which is a MUST read): https://madamasr.com/en/2020/07/22/opinion/u/on-queerness-and-the-jargon-of-authenticity/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=a73bb4c62e177a37dba21fd976c3525bdd3112d4-1610877587-0-AccmkbvBMYOcIZDiEJf587ReTb9jgO4n2ZwsS7A79uWUTpTz57n7br_VJxso7OpDPDo5VU7e45FtDC_fj1lQBuIG5Lkcif_Agz0jkUiLDCBpg9e9z5lbi2onAL-Fsn0kOukYF6aLWqpETDwcFrJyu3rk4--9Z3ZFIDUvsoA_TkCGbNQUxKVOFwa3Us7Veeq0H9YiOc0JpYITMlqfkbdP9MpzAnZmq3oP4IMAKo4OHy1LekErVHTOYHi1NlSumeU7ngeyQ3QxhcokYnJt5O3PbC5aFOxfzg1_4PhzI-Q54VcaqxPYjIC6vxt0R99D1GghagNerDfFkbcXrSOCcym2fgouRF08DuEoS8m8a1PBKMnQmxYYkTt_eu6ZF1Ste8he7UWuB17EpkWSehnmtFL7QAVSDZ6n1i39OYTSVm7i_UaHGY9hla3soychI6qUUZBSb0w7As2TxhgJ8PYc8FftACk
“This authentic and pristine utopia, free of any Western influence, only exists in the delusions of some postcolonial academics. And it’s time they give up this quest for authenticity, because the price for this fevered search is literally our bodies and our lives.”
Finally, I think that what this moment rather demands of us is to engage in the ongoing, collective project of unearthing the archive of leftist, liberal, and feminist thought and movements in Egypt and the Arab world (happy to share some links).
Just so we can learn more about how those before us, also in the midst of political defeat, imagined and practiced politics and theory otherwise. And in doing so, rejected such narrow views of the world, and of their and our place in it. /end
