Table of Contents 1. Introduction

Table of Contents 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….3 2. The Arab Spring revolutions……………………………………………………...…………6 2.1. Tunisia……………………………………………………………………..………8 2.2. Egypt……………………………………………………………………….…….11 2.3. Libya………………………………………………………………………...……13 3. Western stereotypes about the Muslim world…………………………………………...…16 4. Literary analysis……………………………………………………………………………23 4.1. David Lender: Arab Summer…………..…………………………………………23 4.1.1. David Lender’s Arab Spring uprising………………………………….24 4.1.1.1. Realistic features……………………………………………...24 4.1.1.2. Terrorist Spring……………………………………………….31 4.1.2. America’s involvement……………………………………………...…36 4.1.3. The role of mass media…………………………………………………40 4.2. G. Willow Wilson: Alif the Unseen………………………………………………44 4.2.1. Uprising in the City………………………………………………….…45 4.2.2. Religion ………………………………………………………………..56 4.2.3. Cyber War……………………………………………………………...66 5. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………75 - 1 - Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………80 Word count: 25732 - 2 - 1. Introduction For ages, politics, violence and war have been appealing themes for literature. Although many works on these subjects are purely fictional, this is certainly no requirement. Historical events are equally fit to form the basis of a literary work. From very early on, Greek authors such as Herodotus wrote about the Greco-Persian wars and of course, American literature has its representatives in this tradition too. We only need to think about Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls about the Spanish Civil War or Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, concerning the Vietnam War, to verify this. The tendency to write about conflict and social disturbances has not vanished yet. On the contrary, on the occasion of the First World War centenary, articles, novels, lectures and audiovisual material about the Great War are receiving even more interest than before. This master’s thesis will focus on more recent events, namely the events in the North- African and Middle Eastern regions known as the Arab Spring uprisings. Although these revolutions started not so long ago in December 2010, a great deal has been written about them already, mostly journalistic texts, but also prose with literary allure such as Boualem Sansal’s tribute to Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-sacrifice triggered the Arab revolutions. Other examples are Nawal El Saadawi’s “The Egyptian Revolution Won’t Be Fooled”, which captures the first days of the Egyptian uprisings, Laila Marouane’s “Is this How Women Grow Up”, about Algerian misogyny and oppression and Fadhil Al-Azzawi’s “Founding Fathers”, a story about a theme park for deceased dictators. In this master’s thesis, however, the focus will lie on how the events of the Arab Spring are portrayed in the works of American authors. In the United States exist a couple of negative prejudices when it comes to Islam and the Muslim world, prejudices which might also be reflected in American authors’ work. In - 3 - what follows, two very different American novels, which both treat an Arab Spring uprising, will be looked at. On the basis of those two works, I will try to demonstrate how some American literary works are more influenced by Western stereotypes than others. American culture advocates liberal values. Equal opportunities, freedom and democracy are key concepts in the US. These are also the sort of rights which were demanded by the protesting Arab populations during the 2011 uprisings. Consequentially, one might think that American novels concerning the Arab Spring would approve of the democratic revolutions. However, due to a series of unfortunate conflicts between the US and Muslim communities, various negative stereotypes concerning the Muslim world have influenced a substantial part of the American population. Many American people started associating Muslims with terrorists and rich oil suppliers. Hence, in this master’s thesis, I will examine whether the discussed American authors portray the Arab Spring revolutions realistically, as a struggle for values which are also deemed respectable in the US or whether the authors’ novels are still subjected to typical Western stereotypes, resulting in a literary work that is neither realistic, nor informative. Western stereotypes can enter the Arab Spring novels in various ways: a distorted picture of the Arab revolutionaries, depicting the Arab Spring revolutions as Islamic revolutions, a narrow-minded description of Islam itself or a glorification of the US’s role as mediator. It will be necessary to adopt a critical attitude towards the American novels in order to detect and review the preconceptions about Arab individuals and their culture. Therefore, I will discuss Edward Said’s work Covering Islam and Ibrahim Kalin’s essay “Islamophobia and the Limits of Multiculturalism”. These works treat how Western media particularly spread the negative aspects of the Muslim world and almost completely ignore the honorable facets of the Orient, which prevents the Western world from overcoming its prejudices. On top of these research questions, the influence and importance of Internet and the media during the Arab revolutions will also be talked over. Nowadays, mass media have a key - 4 - role in modern society. Next to television, radio and news papers, social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have proven their value as means of communication. Because of the omnipresence of the social media in our Western society, we do not need to be surprised that they are also represented in contemporary literature. In the American novels about the uprisings, both authors mention the undeniable importance of the mass media in the Arab world during the revolutions. I will discuss how the American authors present the Internet and older media as weapons, wielded by the revolutionaries. The oppressed Arab citizens used the mass media in order to counter censure and send out complaints about the social malaise behind the backs of their authoritarian regimes. Furthermore, social media enabled the Arab people to quickly organize and recruit people for public protests. Freedom of speech is a right that Western societies keep close to the heart, so communicative tools such as Facebook, which help to ensure this right, are generally depicted positively in the American novels. Nonetheless, both authors also acknowledge that mass media can be used to mislead citizens or gain information about them. News reports can bend the truth and influence public opinion. The Internet, moreover, contains a lot of personal information about people, information that can be sought out by governments around the world. Therefore, I will not exclusively focus on the authors’ depiction of the usefulness of mass media, but address the limitations and dangers, as they are represented in the novels, too. I will start this master’s thesis by providing some background about the Arab Spring; where did the uprisings take place, when did they start and maybe most important, why did they occur? This information will help to make out whether the American narrations are more or less comparable with the actual events. Thereafter, I will discuss the works of Edward Said and Ibrahim Kalin in order to reveal the Western stereotypes and adjust the negative image of the Muslim world. Once these aspects are treated, we can start the examination of the relevant literature. In this work, the focus will lie on prose, more specifically two American novels. - 5 - The first novel is David Lender’s Arab Summer, a novel which is clearly subjected to Western stereotypes. Lender lives in New Jersey, is a former Wall Street investment banker and has not extensively studied Arab culture. His novel displays various images which are without a doubt prototypes of Western bias. The next novel is G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen. Not only did Wilson study Arab language and literature, but she has lived in Caïro herself. Standing much closer to Arab culture and habits, she provides her reader with a more open- minded view on the Arab Spring than Lender. I chose to discuss these two novels because they embody two completely different ways of representing Arab conflicts. While Lender’s novel confirms narrow-minded Western prejudices, Wilson’s work provides the reader with a broader view on the revolutions and Muslim culture in general. By examining these works I will try to demonstrate how contemporary American literature represents the modern day crises of the Arab Spring, that the representation can be realistic, but also a model of typical bias. Unfortunately, only a small selection of literature about the Arab Spring is represented in this master’s thesis, but it should be enough to convey the idea that one should be careful when reading a literary work because writers, too, can be affected by the societies they live in. Furthermore, we will take a look at the novels’ treatment of mass communication, which has highly influenced the course of the Arab uprisings. I will discuss how the usage of the mass media is represented in Arab Summer and Alif the Unseen, making a distinction between, on the one hand, the advantageous aspects of mass media, and, on the other hand, the dangerous and manipulative side of mass media. Ultimately, this study should give us a strong notion about which themes and motifs are recurrent in American works about the Arab Spring. 2. The Arab Spring revolutions Before starting the examination of the literature a brief survey of the Arab revolutions will be presented. The spark that ignited the Arab Spring uprisings was Mohamed Bouazizi, the desperate Tunisian vendor who killed himself as a protest action against the ruling regime. - 6 - The large-scale protests that followed Bouazizi’s death not only resulted in the overthrow of the Tunisian regime, but the civilian opposition also blew over to neighboring countries. Starting 17 December 2010, people in the Arab world from Mauritania in the west to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the east, rose against their patriarchal, dictatorial governments (Lambrecht 2013:19). What started in Tunisia continued later in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and numerous other North-African and Middle Eastern countries (Eikelboom 2011:7).

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