Revolution LITE isn't Going to Cut it

I woke up this morning to the news of Maikel Nabil Sanad's farcical military tribunal. Sanad was sentenced to three years in prison with charges of insulting the military and spreading false information about the military. He was tried in the absence of a lawyer, because the army set the sentencing date for tomorrow. Many believe that his blog post "The Army and the People are not One Hand"(also available in English) where he uses a chronological evidence based argument to support this claim, was the reason behind the military's targeting of Sanad. Sanad is an Egyptian blogger who describes himself as a pacifist and holds extremely controversial views about Egypt's mandatory military conscription and peace with Israel, which many claim made him an easy target for discrediting by the military.

Following the deposing of Mubarak, the military has failed to convict any of those associated with the old regime, but has swiftly managed to convict via military court, within hours, protesters under charges of thuggery and other fabricated charges. The military has also engaged in wide-spread torture, intimidation and brutal dispersal of protesters. The list of restrictions on freedom, human rights violations and impediments to the fulfillment of the #Jan25 demands is long and well documented and can be easily obtained by searches on google and youtube. Every action by the army sets a precedent, when unchallenged effectively allows yet another action that strips even more people away from their basic human rights under the guise of stability and patriotism. For example, had people effectively mobilized for Amr El Beheiry, the army would not have targeted Sanad.

The #Jan25 uprising has been spatially confined to #Tahrir Square and temporally confined to the weekend. It has constantly been hammered into our heads that its great to express our dissent, but lets not disrupt safety, security and people's day-to-day livelihoods. We have to work, be productive, look forward to building #Egypt and show our objection on #Friday. Saturday the military usually does some abominable act or issue some horrible decree, then issue a strange and vague communique denying these incidents or fabricating some intricate lie. There is not much to say about this other than it seems that the Egyptian army is engaged in psychological warfare with the #Egyptian people, nothing less than George Orwell's #nineteen eighty-four. The military is seemingly using the infamous #doublethink tactic to control and sway public opinion.

There are many there who will unequivocally, without hesitation, attack those who criticize the actions of the military, because of a deep-seated fear of instability. You might be comfortable now, you might be changing your car and you might be making good money, but the economic, political and social trajectory in Egypt are all related. The political arena is in place to ensure that the economic policies serve specific people. When these people are carrying guns, they will not give up either and allow for the loss of their interests. It is a trajectory and while you might feel you have stability what you don't realize is that slowly economic disparity is creeping in and in a few years the material belonging you wanted to maintain by wanting stability are no longer within your economic reach. So keeping dissent in #Tahrir to please others and garner their support is just not going to cut it, not criticizing the army will allow them to constantly push the limits of our freedom, a democracy within a cage, that will never allow real social change. Revolution involves disruption and the while the price of freedom is high and immediate, the price of its absence is even higher on the long run. Whether its #KhaledSaid #AmrElBeheiry or #MaikelNabil, whether you are politically active or not, whether you care about freedom of speech or not, the day you step in the way of the interests of the Egyptian Military Junta deliberately or by accident, justly or unjustly, they will swiftly and mercilessly sweep you out of their way.

This post was inspired through social media conversation with @fazerofzanight

Théâtre de l'Absurde de L'Egypte -Part 1- Zahi Hawass

Many Egyptians were outraged when they heard that Zahi Hawass had been appointed the position of the new Minister of Antiquities by the Essam Sharaf cabinet after his much celebrated resignation as Chief Antiquities Official. Despite his fame, Hawass is not necessarily internationally respected as an Egyptologist or scholar as much as he is famous for his resemblance to Indiana Jones. Hawass was even featured in a Hell's Kitchen style reality show Chasing Mummies by the History Channel, I don't see Gordon Ramsay appointed as the Minister of Agriculture. Most of those who know him and have worked with him personally attest to his megalomania, incompetence and corruption and yet openly admit that masturbating his ego is an important supplement to applications for permits for excavation and research in Egypt. Regardless of what Hawass's reasons were for his resignation, many seasoned and young archeologists were celebrating his resignation and considered it a victory of the #Jan25 uprising. His recent appointment as the Minister of Antiquities came as a shock considering his unequivocal support for deposed President Hosni Mubarak . There is no doubt that the Essam Sharaf cabinet and the Supreme Council of Armed Forces were aware of his position during the #Jan25 uprising, but regardless they still went ahead and appointed him as the new minister of the antiquities, despite their promises of a new fresh government free of elements of the old regime. The hypocrisy of the new government and the army is apparent, but Hawass's decision to honor the #Jan25 uprising by creating a revolution exhibit to be hosted in Cairo and 14 other European countries is the cherry on top of the Egyptian political theatre de l'absurde.

Most people have been enraged by the blatant hypocrisy of not just Zahi Hawass, but other public figures. The absurdity is seen as a testament to the incompetence or hypocrisy of the new regime, but the absurdity is rarely viewed as a tool of oppression in and of itself. Hawass has not suffered a blow to the head (though it might do him some good) where he's lost his memory and can stand there straight-faced commemorating an uprising that had deposed a leader he clearly supported in his widely aired interview with BBC. There is also no doubt that Hawass, the army and the Essam Sharif cabinet are completely aware that many Egyptians have not forgotten his statements during the uprising. If we look at how the state and its different elements represent themselves to the public as an intentional act of asserting their power, then we can look at absurdity as a state spectacle of its power. Man in the theatre de l'absurde is a puppet that has no control over his actions, powerless to change a meaningless world around him. Like Sisyphus, man's efforts are futile, repetitive and meaningless. Most of us react to the state's absurdity either with anger or amusement at their incompetence or hypocrisy, but rarely do we think of it as a deliberate message and tool to render clear logical thought, action and opposition meaningless and futile. The state's repeated and pervasive transcripts of absurdity construct the stage and plot of the theatre de l'absurde where they send a clear message that Egyptians are the powerless protagonists.

This post was theoretically inspired by James Scott's Domination and the Hidden Arts of Resistance: The Hidden Transcript and dedicated to the passionate committed Egyptologists that I know, whose names I won't mention so they can apply for permits for excavations and research.

What's Wrong with Minumum and Maximum Wages?

Over the last few months I have been following the Egyptian workers movement and demands. This post will be extremely succinct. One of the workers' top demands is setting a monthly minimum wage of 1200 L.E and setting a maximum wage of 20,000 L.E. I've watched my revolutionary socialist friends celebrate the renationalisation of many private companies. As peachy as this sounds to you there are a few things to consider and must be brought to the dialogue.

Whether you are making 1,200 L.E, 20,000 L.E or 100,000 L.E your labor is still being exploited. If you are not owning the means of production then your labor is always under-valued. That is the only way profit is made. How else do you think profit is made? First of all, say you work in a glass factory, there is equipment and raw materials. It costs 5 L.E to make a glass without paying your labor. Yet the most essential factor to converting this raw material to a glass is the labor power. Now your boss will pay 5 L.E for this Labor. The owner then proceeds to sell this glass for 15 L.E because that is its value on the market. That's 5 L.E profit, but that glass would not have existed were not for the labor, so labor value is really 10 L.E not the 5 L.E you were getting paid. The glass cannot exist without the labor so the conversion from raw material to a glass is really all done by the labor and can only be done by the labor. So now you might ask, what about the owner, the glass can't be made without his investment. Actually, that assumption is incorrect, the reason the glass cannot be made without his investment is because he's monopolized and acquiesced both the means of production and possibly even the rights to the raw material. Not because his role is essential for the production process. Many people argue that the owner has invested so much, the owner of a factory or a piece of land has the right to make a profit, he owns the factory. Actually this is when history comes in. All ownership had to come to be through exclusion of others, and no historical process of ownership was devoid of violence and oppression used to exclude others from the right of ownership to a piece of property whatever that may be. As long as someone owns a means of production historically it had come to be through violence. Minimum wages and maximum wages whatever they maybe will never lead to social justice, at best they might just lead to a "little bit better" exploitation.

Secondly, when the state steps in to nationalize companies and factories, the labor is still exploited. The state essentially replaced the owner. The desire to profit from production automatically places the labor force in a position of exploitation. It doesn't matter if its an individual, a state or an institution. The only way to avoid this exploitation would be to change how we produce. Instead of producing for profit, production must be geared towards need. Where the means of producing is not solely owned by anyone. This would mean that you would make the glass and if the profit on the glass you made was 5 L.E then you would own that, so instead of getting 5 L.E you would be getting the 10 L.E it took for you to make that glass.

Thirdly, what do you think is going to happen when instead of getting 5 L.E for a glass you get 7 L.E? Well, first of all owners need to meet profit margins so to get their 5 L.E in profits, the owner will now need to sell his glass for 17 L.E, meaning that price paid for a glass increases. So say you now need to buy a glass? Do you know what that does to your purchasing power? Absolutely nothing. In other words setting minimum or maximum wages will lead to inflation keeping you at the very same position you were in before your wages increased.

So obviously at this point many of you reading this post will say, "You are calling for extremely radical changes to economic systems. This is extremely unrealistic". Well my response is if this unrealistic to you then don't sit dreaming of social justice. There will never be social justice while labor is exploited. You are now probably thinking, "As nice as all this sounds how is this post relevant to the current debate on Egypt's minimum and maximum wages?". Simply put, and just to please the fake self-proclaimed radicals out there, the cap in this dialogue should not be placed on maximum wages, but as a first step to true social justice, the cap should be placed on profit margins.


This post inspired by my very rudimentary understanding of Marx's Das Capital and conversations with @atlemk

4 WAYS YOU CAN HELP FREE MOHAMED RADWAN WITHOUT GETTING OFF YOUR COUCH

1) CIRCULATE THE NEWS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA: The more people that know about this the harder its going to be for the American and Egyptian governments to push this under the rug. You can SHARE this note with all your friends, Post the following links to your TWITTER FEEDS #FreeRadwan, FB STATUSES or YOUR BLOGS, Talk about it. JUST DON'T LET THIS DISAPPEAR.

Facebook Page
http://www.facebook.com/#!/free.radwan

Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/31/headlines/relatives_friends_of_detained_egyptian_american_in_syria_stage_cairo_protest

CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/03/31/syria.espionage/

VOA News
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Egyptian-American-Held-in-Syria-for-Allegedly-Taking-Photos-of-Protests-118785654.html

AOL News
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/28/family-of-us-prisoner-mohamed-radwan-in-syria-were-worried-he/

Daily News Egypt
http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/egypt/protesters-demand-syria-release-egypt-detainee-mohamed-radwan.html

Ahram Online
http://english.ahram.org.eg/~/NewsContent/1/64/8971/Egypt/Politics-/Mother-of-Egyptian-detained-in-Syria-pleas-for-rel.aspx

Associated Press
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5itaf_jqBCnHh-7XdY_BArbL9iuFg?docId=f1413ee4f63a4aafa9f79426aba1c14c

Nora Shalaby's Blog (His Cousin)
http://almahrusa.blogspot.com/2011/03/muhammed-radwan-arrested.html

Tarek Shalaby Blog (His Cousin)
http://www.tarekshalaby.com/2011/03/my-cousin-radwan-detained-in-syria/


2) CONTACT the media and DEMAND continued coverage, a suggested letter has been already drafted you can just copy and paste it, as well as a compiled list of addresses that is ready to be copied into the email. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS COPY AND PASTE

List of media emails:
nytnews@nytimes.com, executive-editor@nytimes.com, thearts@nytimes.com, bizday@nytimes.com, foreign@nytimes.com, metro@nytimes.com, national@nytimes.com, sports@nytimes.com, editor@usatoday.com, loudounextra@wpni.com, kerin_oconnor@dennis.co.uk, simon_davies@dennis.co.uk, picturedesk@mirror.co.uk, letters@theherald.co.uk, newseditor@independent.co.uk, legal.department@independent.co.uk, zeitiminternet@zeit.de, redactie-i@telegraaf.nl, woche@tpg.com.au, dasecho@videotron.ca, redaktion@dasecho.com, journal@journal.lu, abonnement@journal.lu, masson@lemonde.fr, editorial@francemag.com, dimanche@ouest-france.fr, direct@humanite.fr, abonnements@lexpress.fr, web@publikompass.it, publicidadinternet@abc.es, economia@abc.es, fotografia.madrid@abc.es, gente@abc.es, ilustracion.madrid@abc.es, diseno@abc.es, internet@abc.es, atencionclientes@prisacom.com, sch@chuvashia.ru, press.int@aljazeera.net, comments@alhurra.com, webdesk@france24.com, hrwdc@hrw.org, berlin@hrw.org, hrwbe@hrw.org, hrwgva@hrw.org, hrwuk@hrw.org, paris@hrw.org, hrwsf@hrw.org, toronto@hrw.org, feedback@humanrightsfirst.org, mena@hrw.org, info@ictj.org, rsf@rsf.org, info@frontlinedefenders.org, malaf@kuttab.org, richard.howitt@geo2.poptel.org.uk, richard.howitt@europarl.europa.eu, iseek@un.org, newsroom@aila.org, jhertling@bloomberg.net, barden@bloomberg.net


Draft email for media:
Dear Editor,

Thank you for your continued coverage of the American-Egyptian engineer Muhammed Radwan, who has been unlawfully detained by Syrian authorities since March 25, 2011. As his friends, family and concerned citizens of the world, we are extremely concerned about his safety and health. Despite all our efforts to reach him, the Syrian authorities continue to deny him access to his family, and American and Egyptian representatives in Syria. At the moment we do not know where he is or what has happened to him during this past week. We are well-aware of the brutal Syrian regime and their long history of human rights violations and fear that Radwan is suffering serious human rights' violations. We implore you to provide as much evidence as possible and provide continued coverage and investigation of his whereabouts. We also ask you to investigate and report on the positions of both the Egyptian and American governments and their efforts to release him. This is crucial not only in potentially saving his life, but in also stirring up the opinions of the international community and leaderships to condemn the actions of the Syrian regime and brutal dictatorships.

These will be of use to you:
Tarek Radwan (resides in D.C., brother): tradwant@gmail.com, 001-202-550-5835
Nora Shalaby (resides in Egypt, cousin and activist): norashalaby@gmail.com, 002-011-447-7757
Tarek Shalaby (resides in Egypt, cousin and blogger): info@tarekshalaby.com, 002-018-499-4998

3)Mail the State Department. Here is a draft of the letter that you can drop in nearest mailbox
Address it to:
Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

OR Go to the web-site of the State Deptartment
Under topic choose - US Foreign Policy - Middle East as recommended by Jemilu
Then just paste the text.

Draft of Letter:
Dear Secretary Clinton,

We are confident that by now you are well aware of the situation with Mr. Muhammed Radwan, an American-Egyptian engineer, who was detained by the Syrian Government on March 25th. Mr. Radwan has been detained without being charged and made, what appeared to be, a coerced confession on Syrian T.V. on March 26th. His “confessions” include selling Syrian protests pictures to a Colombian, as well as recently visiting Israel. For Radwan to make these completely false statements on Syrian national TV points to the fact that he was threatened by his detainees. Since March 25th, no one has been granted access to Radwan. His father, Abu Bakr Radwan, is currently in Syria speaking with Syrian State Security as well as American and Egyptian ambassadors in an attempt have his son released, or the very least, be granted access to him. Syria has a very long history of human rights violations and we fear that Radwan is being tortured in Syrian prisons.

Mr. Radwan is an American citizen and we call on you to condemn the actions of the Syrian government and request his immediate release. As stated above, the Syrian government is known for its blatant disregard for international human rights treaties and laws. It is unacceptable for an American citizen to be subjected to such treatment and we request that you take immediate action to remedy this matter.

Sincerely,
Your name

4)Call the State Department at 202-647-4000 and ask to leave a voice mail regarding an INTERNATIONAL EMERGENCY

Suggested Script:
Dear Secretary Clinton,
The Syrian Government has detained American Engineer Mohamed Radwan and refuses to reveal information about his well-being and whereabouts. The Syrian government's lack of cooperation with both the American and Egyptian government and blatant disregard to international laws and regulations make it extremely likely that Mr. Radwan will be subjected to serious human rights violations. We strongly call on you to unequivocally condemn the actions of the Syrian government. Failing to condemn the actions of the Syrian government and to pressure them to immediately release Mr. Radwan or at the very least adhere to Human Rights' laws implicates the U.S government as a potential accomplice to crimes against humanity.

@nevsh Mohamed Radwan's cousin compiled the information in this post with me

#Capitalism is your Nation NOW

Yet another widely circulating video on #Facebook shows a middle-aged Egyptian woman carrying a big plastic bag full of oranges, frantically distributing them to young army conscripts during #Jan25. She beseeches them to not fire on their brother protesters. Which compels me to ask the question: Why would the army fire at its people? I thought the army was there to stop a foreign invasion, secure national interests (Hint: The Nile) intimidate timid African countries, deter a Palestinian invasion and in the case of some natural disaster perform relief work. In other words, if #Egypt was a building then the #Army would be the Bawab*. At this point I can't help but admire the #Army's role in protecting my country. My chest swells with strong feelings of admiration, pride and nationalism, "#Egypt will crush you to nothing if you come near us", "Just you TRY taking an extra drop of water from us, our Air Force will obliterate you". Slowly, my chest deflates as a new string of thoughts comes scurrying along, "Are they really protecting the nation?", "Is this really about nation states?", "If they are then why do they care about internal matters of the state? The protesters are not a foreign invasion, they just want a new regime. Why would the army care?"

Well in case you haven't noticed, nation states are so twenty years ago. Nationalism is done and over (except for of course you know who, who are so insecure about their legitimacy that they over-compensate with excessive nationalism). Nationalism has been replaced by #Capitalism, #Capitalism is our nation now. The #Army is not the Bawab* anymore, its the snazzy security guards, donning state-of-the-art tazers and semi-automatics. These security guards don't have big bulky Walkie-Talkies, they have small discrete transparent earpieces, you know the kind I'm talking about. They are way too special now to stand and guard apartment buildings, they stand guard on these very high-end businesses and projects. But not only that, there's been an impressive incentive program where the CEOs of the security companies can now even own some shares of the businesses they protect or even get the start-up for their own businesses. Over the last 40-50 years an extremely effective incentive program was established to ensure that they will be working harder to make their employees work harder in protecting these businesses where they own valuable shares.



So when the army cracks down on you, as one of their communiques stated there was misunderstanding. the truth is its not a misunderstanding on their part, its a misunderstanding on yours, you seem to have forgotten that #Capitalism is your nation now. The army was quick to react to workers striking outside their own factories, much faster than they were willing to react to #Tahrir protesters. As any good CEO would tell you, PR does matter, at least to some extent, and well cameras were all directed towards #Tahrir not the #Workers. The #Workers were definitely chipping away at the structures that the army was not only assigned to protect, but would also carry some serious financial repercussions on their own interests if productivity was hindered somehow. To the luck of the #Army these impudent #workers were somewhat invisible and thus were easy to get rid of without affecting the #army's PR image. The #Tahrir protesters required a long and careful process of villainizing before the #army could do anything to them.

While its much easier to enlist people through ideological propaganda, its much harder to make people let go of certain power privileges they may have when their own interests are secured through these power privileges. It gets even more complicated when their interests are not necessary the interests of the #Egyptian people as a whole. The #Egyptian #army does not differentiate between citizen and foreign, internal or external, it only differentiates between those who support its interests and those who don't. It is clear from #Jan25 that the #Egyptian people do not support the army's interests, so the likelihood that it will let go of its power is pretty unrealistic. So instead of challenging the army over its power privileges directly, it might be more fruitful to directly immobilize their interests and that is through #worker strikes. The army like any #capitalist endeavor cannot function without its #labor force, and since #Capitalism is your nation now, labor force is your strongest weapon.


*Egyptian term to refer to doorman found in most houses in Egypt. He also occasionally lives with his whole family and provides many services, although his main role is the protection of the building from invasions

This post has been inspired by conversations with @sumayaholdijk and @bassemk

You Say You Want a Revolution? Well you know..

"IMPRESSIVE", "WOW", "Now I finally believe there was a true revolution" and @ghonim's comment "Egyptians standing in line to get to a micro-bus. A scene we never experienced during Mubarak's regime. Egyptians are changing themselves not just their regime.", were just a few of the comments circulating around a picture of a group of Egyptians post-#Jan25 that had lined up to get on a micro-bus in the early morning. More recently many people were both impressed and amused at what they considered the genius of stickers that one afternoon had been stuck onto some double-parked cars in the affluent Zamalek neighborhood in Cairo. The stickers stated "This (double-parking) is shameful, the country is changing and you are double parking. Start with yourself". This was preceded by a #facebook note widely urging people to start with themselves. It urged people to not break laws, to pay their fines and to not partake in acts of bribery and corruption. The note even included a number for a hot-line where people could call in and report acts of corruption. The economy apparently was ready for rebuilding and people were going to work harder, work more efficiently and work more creatively. Now that #Mubarak was gone, we needed to focus on ourselves and change had to come from within.

Following the referendum, to my annoyance, one of the most widely shared blog posts was @Sandmonkey's Playing Politics. @Sandmonkey's analysis for the supposedly tragic, according to many Egyptian internet users, referendum results was that not enough people had changed from within. While he wasn't implying that people needed to improve themselves from a moral perspective, he was explicit about the reconstitution of people's political knowledge. The failure was because those who wanted "No" were not able to change the people who wanted "Yes" from within. Again, the call was for an improvement to who we are, not just as individuals, but as political subjects. We needed to focus on others, we needed to help them change from within as political subjects.

We can focus on ourselves or we can focus on others, we can recruit and assemble, convince, coerce or raise awareness, mobilize and reach out, regulate ourselves or regulate others, but as long as the same institutions are in power the space we have to effect change will always be constrained. The space for maneuvering within the political arena no matter what that arena looks like visibly or how it is shaped invisibly will always be constrained by those in power. Playing their game, using their rules and on their board, means they will always always WIN. We can sit and play that game for as long we want, but they will continue to place their rules and their regulations, constraining the political arena so that they always win. They will win because they are making the rules and they will continue to make the rules because they are winning.

But who are these mysterious sinister "They"s?. Who are the ones who own the board-game? Is it the Illuminati or Free Masons? Is it a new world order? Who are they and what do they want from us? Unfortunately, because I really DO love drama, all "they" are those who own the means of production and what they want is simply put accumulation of wealth. By virtue of owning the means of production, whether it is land, whether it is a factory or whether it is an academic institution, they are able to own YOU, whether you are making 10 L.E, 10,000 L.E or even 100,000 L.E. Because whatever they are giving you they are making so much much much much more through your effort and labor. Because they own the means of production, and in many ways have monopolized them, means that you cannot go out and own the means of production, so now you have to pay them to live, so you work for them and they pay you so you can pay them so you can get the different things you need to live. So look at it this way, the reason why they are able to make the profits they are making is because there is a single aspect of production they are able to exploit, that aspect is you. You are putting all the work and energy to make whatever product or service they are selling, their under-valuing of your work is how they make profit. Take a minute to think about it, imagine if they hadn't monopolized the means of production how much more you would be making for the work you are putting in.

Okay, okay, I know what I am sounding like, but I'm sure at this point if you are still reading this post, your probably asking what does this have to do with #Jan25. Well, for starters the current institutions in power in Egypt right now, namely the #Army and certain business owners, are mainly concerned with preserving their interests and as long as you don't work for them or you aren't stopping those laboring to make their profits they couldn't care less what you or anyone else says or does. The army will put the rules of the political arena as it wishes with the sole purpose of protecting its interests, which to sum them up, are the accumulation of wealth. So if you want to really get the army to comply with your demands, you don't play their game, you stop the manufacturing of their game. If you really want a revolution, stopping double-parking, lining up for the bus, raising political awareness or even playing a careful and strategic game is not going to do it. The basis of our oppression is unequal wealth distribution and the closed future possibility of wealth accumulation. There will be no social or economic justice as long as the few are controlling the playing field. If we get rid of the army today, it will be someone else tomorrow. If you really want a revolution then if you don't own your means of production be ready to figure out how to seize it and if you are monopolizing and owning the means of production be ready to relinquish your ownership and control. That is if you really want a revolution.

The ideas in this post are theoretically inspired by Foucault and Marx

The content of this post was inspired by conversations with @sumayaholdijk @bassemk @atlemk @3arabawy and @snefru

How a Democratic Referendum Toppled a Revolution

The international media was determined to coin #Jan25 a #facebook revolution at its inception. Following the first mobilization of people on January 25th, it seems that the Egyptian government also bought the idea that it was indeed a #facebook revolution and immediately retaliated by first blocking social networking sites like #twitter and #facebook. When people started using proxies they pulled the plug on the internet. To the surprise of the #Egyptian government more and more people were mobilized, because for years the barrier of fear was slowly, but surely being chipped away, building up to an unstoppable momentum that nearly brought an end to the old regime.


The first cracks of Egypt's barrier of fear started when images of the atrocities committed by Egypt's State security started circulating over the internet, not to mention the reports by human rights organizations, complaints and calls by human rights lawyers for prosecution of those responsible for brutal acts of torture. Finally the strongest power wielded by state security in its ability to remain a hidden and invisible hand was slowly being eroded. The power of surveillance was no longer unidirectional, while the state watched the people, the people finally had the tools to watch the state. Egypt's most ominous institution was now under surveillance. The people's fear barrier surrounding the omnipotent, omniscient institution was starting to crack. Instead of focusing on their fear, people started feeling a sense of anger, indignation at the complete absence and disregard to human dignity that accompanied every interaction with the state's hidden eye and hand of discipline. The man inside the panopticon was no longer a mystery and so the panopticon started to collapse and with it people's fear.

People's hatred for #Egypt's state security apparatus's back-handed brutal methods of maintaining order and stability for the old regime combined with the cracks in the fear barrier became one of the main reasons millions of people were mobilized; calling to an end to regime sponsored brutality and fear production. For awhile, the people became the experts, they knew how to run things, how to maintain safety, how to maintain a semblance of stability for the long-awaited purging of the system, the people had a political vision where human dignity and freedom were at their very core.

Shortly following Mubarak's fall people slowly started giving their new-found power away to experts that told them what the economy was and how it had to be handled, to public figures who told them what needed to be done next and to an army that operated within a black-box to rebuild a nation, while it simultaneously detained, brutally tortured and fabricated charges against those who opposed it. The very core value of human freedom of expression and dignity was slowly becoming eradicated, instead of the eradication of the institutions that were trampling all over these values.

Then came the referendum, while torture and a complete disregard for human life were occurring simultaneously. The revolution quickly transformed into the long and hopeful road of reform. Did we forget why we mobilized in the first place? Was this a case of mass collective amnesia? Did "no" or "yes" really matter? If the same structures of fear and intimidation were still there? What were we reforming, it wasn't the systematic, ongoing torture and intimidation by institutions of the state? That wasn't getting reformed. While "yes" and "no" have their implications, that I am not denying, their implications for changing the very basis of which the state interacts with its subjects in terms of human freedom, dignity and respect is irrelevant. What were we reforming? A constitution that was rendered illegitimate by a revolution? Then why were we reforming it?
When we start to reform and when we start to rebuild we also stop revolting. When we call for reform, we are also saying that what millions fought against has been eradicated, that state sponsored illegal violence was eradicated. Well, if you haven't figured it out it hasn't. The panopticon's hidden surveillance and discipline that thousands have fought so hard to bring down is slowly being reinstated by the army and other institutions. No matter what the outcome of the referendum was we are still ruled by institutions that show no restraint in using illegal, brutal violence and humiliation against its subjects, while 25 million people rush to have their voices heard.
Those of you who have been celebrating the democracy of the referendum need to understand that that this democracy is deeply rooted in an acceptance of the complete disregard to basic human rights.


This post was theoretically inspired by Foucault and Certeau and the content was inspired by conversation (some via social networking) with @sumayaholdijk, @nevsh @bassemkhalifa @fazerofthenight, @yasminb, Aya Sheikhany, Hala Said and Amr Azim

I want to make it clear that I strongly condemn
@ghonim's stance on refusing to post the videos, pictures and testimonies of those tortured by the army on We Are All Khaled Said . Are those tortured by the Army not #KhaledSaid ??

I also want to add that I disagree with @sandmonkey's opinion concerning torture in his blog post playing politics


While most people were concerned with the outcomes of the referendum, @3arabawy continued to address the issue of torture in his tweets and blogpost

I believe that I speak for all of us who of us who care about freedom and human dignity when I say that we are indebted to the brave people who gave testimonies of their detention and torture and those who collect these stories. Without them this dismantling of the barrier of fear would have no chance.
Testimonies of Torture by Army in English

I also don't necessarily think that the revolution has been entirely toppled thanks to #workers, the title is just for dramatic purposes