The Intellectual and the People in Egyptian Literature and Culture
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The Intellectual and the People in Egyptian Literature and Culture DOI: 10.1057/9781137392442.0001 Other Palgrave Pivot titles William Van Lear: The Social Effects of Economic Thinking Mark E. Schaefer and John G. Poffenbarger: The Formation of the BRICS and Its Implication for the United States: Emerging Together Donatella Padua: John Maynard Keynes and the Economy of Trust: The Relevance of the Keynesian Social Thought in a Global Society Davinia Thornley: Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism: Filming on an Uneven Field Lou Agosta: A Rumor of Empathy: Rewriting Empathy in the Context of Philosophy Tom Watson (editor): Middle Eastern and African Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices Adebusuyi Isaac Adeniran: Migration and Regional Integration in West Africa: A Borderless ECOWAS Craig A. Cunningham: Systems Theory for Pragmatic Schooling: Toward Principles of Democratic Education David H. Gans and Ilya Shapiro: Religious Liberties for Corporations?: Hobby Lobby, the Affordable Care Act, and the Constitution Samuel Larner: Forensic Authorship Analysis and the World Wide Web Karen Rich: Interviewing Rape Victims: Practice and Policy Issues in an International Context Ulrike M. Vieten (editor): Revisiting Iris Marion Young on Normalisation, Inclusion and Democracy Fuchaka Waswa, Christine Ruth Saru Kilalo, and Dominic Mwambi Mwasaru: Sustainable Community Development: Dilemma of Options in Kenya Giovanni Barone Adesi (editor): Simulating Security Returns: A Filtered Historical Simulation Approach Daniel Briggs and Dorina Dobre: Culture and Immigration in Context: An Ethnography of Romanian Migrant Workers in London M.J. Toswell: Borges the Unacknowledged Medievalist Anthony Lack: Martin Heidegger on Technology, Ecology, and the Arts Carlos A. Scolari, Paolo Bertetti and Matthew Freeman: Transmedia Archaeology: Storytelling in the Borderlines of Science Fiction, Comics and Pulp Magazines Judy Rohrer: Queering the Biopolitics of Citizenship in the Age of Obama Paul Jackson and Anton Shekhovtsov: The Post-War Anglo-American Far Right: A Special Relationship of Hate Elliot D. Cohen: Technology of Oppression: Preserving Freedom and Dignity in an Age of Mass, Warrantless Surveillance Ilan Alon (editor): Social Franchising Richard Michael O’Meara: Governing Military Technologies in the 21st Century: Ethics and Operations Thomas Birtchnell and William Hoyle: 3D Printing for Development in the Global South: The 3D4D Challenge DOI: 10.1057/9781137392442.0001 The Intellectual and the People in Egyptian Literature and Culture: Amāra and the 2011 Revolution Ayman A. El-Desouky Senior Lecturer in Modern Arabic and Comparative Literature, SOAS, University of London, UK DOI: 10.1057/9781137392442.0001 © Ayman A. El-Desouky 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saff ron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Th e author has asserted his right to be identifi ed as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published by 2014 PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fift h Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN: 978–1–137–39244–2 PDF ISBN 978-1-349-48333-4 ISBN 978-1-137-39244-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-39244-2 Th is book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. www.palgrave.com/pivot To My Parents Ahmad and Su’ad & To the House of Rafi’ In the shadow of whose Tree I have learned to recognize what it means to connect DOI: 10.1057/9781137392442.0001 Contents Preface vii Acknowledgements xiii Introduction: Intellectuals, Representation, Connective Agency 1 Part I The Intellectual and the Quest for Amāra 1 Amāra: Concept, Cultural Practice and Aesthetic 18 2 Signature or Cartouche? Dilemmas of the Egyptian Intellectual 46 Part II The People and theAmāra of Connective Agency 3 The People Already Know: Positionality of the Intellectual, Connective Agency and Cultural Memory 68 4 TheAmāra on the Square: Some Reflections Post 25 January 2011 91 Postscript: Ih. nā al-mas.riyyīn and al-sha‘b: The Untranslatabilities of Conceptual Languages 111 Bibliography 127 Index 137 vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137392442.0001 Preface This slim volume is offered primarily as a thought experi- ment. The thought is that of social reality in its collective and collectivizing modes of expression, and the challenges these pose for the endeavours of intellectual and politi- cal critical thought. The challenge is presented here first and foremost as one of transitioning from the social to the political and what that entails – beyond reversing the abstracting impulse of political thought since the eighteenth century – to our understanding of the nature of collectivi- ties, social cohesion and social movements, communities, societies and nations, what I believe to be one of the most urgent questions of our time. Such a thought experiment also has further historical implications as to what it means to think against the institutionalizing and professional- izing impulses of modernity, East and West alike. And the challenges are increasingly shared, or recognized as deeply implicating beyond the historical frontlines of developed and developing, with immediate pressing issues such as social equality and cohesion of communities, the viability of the representative systems and discourses of so-called democracies, the threats of extremism, economic crises, crises of energy and the environment, human rights, and the list is growing almost by the day. To think aesthetically and intellectually from within the social is to think against the grain of the modern political imagination of the collec- tive, and the related discourses of knowledge production. This same political imagination is also the sphere of modern intellectual work and self-perception of the intellectuals as a socially constructed elite. DOI: 10.1057/9781137392442.0002 vii viii Preface Icons of Egyptian intellectual life, such as Son’allah Ibrahim, Gamal al-Ghitani, Bahaa Taher and Alaa al-Aswani, all indubitably figures of resistance to power, have been criticised recently for their failure to think outside of historical relations to power and the state (by openly support- ing General al-Sisi in face of perceived threats of the Brotherhood and extremism). The general perception since January 2011 is that of a ‘failure in imagination’ on the part of the intellectual and leftist elites to rethink their relation to the masses of the people. In modern literary and intellectual history, and beyond the heady days of socialist realism and proletariat themes and emplotments, pivotal questions have remained theoretically unresolved and practically fraught with challenges: whom are we addressing in the end through the intervening powers of the word and of representation? The power to articulate social realities, whence does it issue? How is the same voice recognizable when it turns to those whose truth it is representing and standing-in for? Are the powers of representation and articulation the same in this dialogic relation, or are they placed in irreducible tension? To look for this tension we have so far the resources of literary articula- tion to fall back on, the dramatization of tension that is otherwise swept under the conceptually polished discourses of ideologies. What it does it take to speak to the absent their own truth by allowing their own possi- bilities of voice? The specifically Egyptian cultural practice of amāra, or producing the special and mutually recognizable signifier of a shared identity and a common fate, will be offered for analysis and reflection in the attempt to address these questions. The tension here is between the image of absence and the image of voice. This proposed volume therefore constitutes a sustained reflection on the nature of intellectual labour amongst Egyptian intellectuals, as represented in literature. It will not seek to offer yet another study on the definition of the intellectual, which is also ultimately a study in social change, but rather an investigation into the positionality of the intellectual, and of communication and speech as a language of social identity – as well as the potential for an aesthetic beyond the questions of realism