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Introduction The Egyptian Ultras are well-organized Troublesome Thugs or groups of young football supporters, first Respectable Rebels? established in 2007. These fans played an important role in protests and street fights Class, Martyrdom and Cairo’s at the time of the 25th January 2011 Revo- lution. Almost exactly one year later, on 1 Revolutionary Ultras February 2012, 72 members of Egypt’s largest Ultras group, Ultras Ahlawy, were killed after a match at a stadium in Port Said. Particularly after this massacre, the Ultras gained a reputation as some of the revolutionary struggle’s most archetypical rebels. The young football fans seemed to embody a combination of ordered mascu- linity and untamed bravery that the post- revolutionary nation required. In addition, their history of fighting the security state well before 2011 stood out as an epitome of the rebellious Egyptian youth’s quest Carl Rommel for political rights and freedom. This ethnographic essay homes in on the This ethnographic article explores the ing protests. As the article shows, the fan development of the Ultras fans’ status and politics of Egypt’s Ultras football sup- groups were hesitant to join the demon- repute during the month of protests and porters. The Ultras have frequently been strations, which at the time were heavily violent clashes that raged in Downtown heralded as some of the Egyptian Revo- associated with “thuggery” (balṭaga). Cairo in November and December 2011. lution’s most prominent rebels, in partic- Only after the death of one of its mem- This was a period when classed and gen- ular, after the Port Said stadium massacre bers did the Ultras whole-heartedly take dered debates about “thuggery” (balṭaga)1 in February 2012, when 72 Ultras mem- on their rebellious subjectivity. dominated public debates in ways that bers were killed. However, this essay severely discredited those who were pro- focuses on an earlier phase of violent Keywords: Football; Masculinity; Class; testing. Through a close examination of clashes in central Cairo when the Ultras Martyrdom; Egypt; Revolutionary Politics the ways in which the leadership of Cairo’s were highly ambivalent about the ongo- Ultras groups reacted and acted during
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this short but eventful period, this essay of fandom that appealed to broad layers games on television. This oppositional illustrates how and why the death of one of Egyptian youth. The supporter groups ethos often found expression in catch- Ultras member became a turning point for hence grew rapidly; already in 2009, UA phrases such as “against the media” and the fan groups’ aspirations and politics. In and UWK occasionally managed to mobi- “against modern football,” sententiously conclusion, it attempts a more general lize more than ten thousand young men summarizing the groups’ loathing for the suggestion regarding the interlocking and teenagers in their respective curvas— commodified, globalized and mediatized politics of martyrdom, class and notions of the curved sections behind the two goals— spectacle into which football has turned in respectability. at Cairo Stadium. Staging spectacular recent decades (170-84; Kuhn). The ethnography presented in the essay shows, involving songs, dance, powerful The Egyptian Ultras’ rebellious principles weaves together a variety of different fire crackers (shamarīkh) and grand, cho- and attitudes were not only a key reason types of data: media sources, secondary reographed “entrance scenes” (dakhlāt, behind their appeal among the Egyptian literature, interviews and participant sing. dakhla),3 the Ultras dominated Egyp- youth. The same oppositional attitude also observation. It is part of a larger anthropo- tian fan culture numerically, visually and provided them with many enemies, both logical research project on Egyptian foot- audibly in the last years before 2011 (Sherif within the security state and in the football ball, for which I conducted 20 months of Hassan, Personal conversation). media establishment. Already in 2008, the fieldwork in Cairo between 2011 and 2013. The popularity of the Egyptian Ultras is police started to monitor and regulate the While the name of one of my interlocutors typically related to their dedication and groups’ activities, equipments and mes- that appears in the text has been changed strict, non-negotiable principles: cheer for sages in the curvas, and as the Ultras to ensure anonymity, I have chosen to 90 minutes no matter the result on the refused to compromise, violent confronta- keep the real names of journalists and pitch; stand up throughout the entire tions ensued between the fans and the individuals who are mentioned in the match; travel to all games, home as well as security forces on several occasions (Sherif media sources that I use. away (Bashir 78-81). By observing these Hassan, Personal conversation). Criticism rules, the Ultras came to self-identify as of the new supporters was also a regular The Egyptian Ultras Movement, 2007-2011 distinct from more conventional support- and increasing feature in the sports press, The Egyptian Ultras movement began to ers. For instance, the Ultras made a point where the Ultras were accused of violence, take form in 2007. The two largest and of supporting their teams irrespective of fanaticism, drug addiction, hatred and most influential groups were from the out- wins and losses, and their club loyalties insults (Thabet 39-40). The reasons behind set Ultras Ahlawy (UA) and Ultras White were understood to transcend the wor- the groups’ rapid growth were also ques- Knights (UWK), supporting the two domi- ship of individual players. Furthermore, tioned, as prominent journalists insinu- nant Cairo clubs, al-Ahly and al-Zamalek, the Ultras’ insistence on always watching ated that the Ultras must be supported by respectively.2 Inspired by similar fan matches live at the stadium set them apart some “political organization hiding behind groups in Europe and elsewhere in North from the great majority of Egyptians who the curtains” (45-46). In sum, Egypt’s Ultras Africa, the Ultras represented a new type for various reasons opted to watch the supporters were regularly portrayed as a
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serious problem to be dealt with by a part of a dominant narrative of the revolu- Cabinet building in November and broad coalition of older individuals and tion as an anti-authoritarian quest for December 2011. During this month of established institutions in the last years “freedom,” run by the “revolutionary bloody unrest, I noted how distinctions prior to January 2011. youth” (shabāb al-thawra). In the years were frequently drawn between good This more or less unified criticism of the that followed, many journalists, activists “revolutionary youth” (shabāb al-thawra) Ultras fans’ intentions, activities and poli- and academics would note how the fan and those “thugs” (balṭagiyya), who pre- tics drastically fragmented after the out- groups’ particular history had “prepared” sumably attempted to destabilize the break of the Egyptian Revolution. Con- them for street fights and fostered a disci- nation and derail what had so far been trarily, the Ultras were now increasingly pline and organization well suited for the achieved. Friends of mine, who previously portrayed as a vanguard of the revolution- revolutionary moment (Elgohari; Hamzeh had been largely positive towards Tahrir ary struggle. It is important to note the and Sykes; Mosbah). Square, popular power and demonstra- reluctance with which the supporter tions, began to ask troubling questions groups became enmeshed in the acceler- The Balṭagiyya on Muhammad Mahmoud about the usefulness of the protests and ating national-political developments. Street about the protesters’ origins and identi- True to their explicitly non-political profile By the end of summer 2011, this narrative ties: who were these people who kept on and principles, none of Cairo’s Ultras of the Ultras’ importance in the 25th Janu- defying the Ministry of Interior’s tear gas groups actively encouraged their mem- ary Revolution was well established and bullets? Where did they come from, bers to join the protests on Tahrir Square. among journalists and activists inside and what did they really want? Were they However, many joined in “as individuals,” Egypt and abroad (Bilal; Elkayal; Lindsey). really revolutionaries, fighting in the and as a result, the football supporters’ However, as winter was approaching, the nation’s interests? Or were they simply characteristic songs, flags and fireworks status of any “revolutionary”—the Ultras balṭagiyya, who had come to destroy and were very much present throughout the very much included—was increasingly fac- break down? eighteen days of protests (Hassan). ing problematic questions. One term that To understand how and why the problem Because of their experience of efficient perhaps more than any other encapsu- of balṭaga affected the Egypt Ultras move- on-the-ground organization and street lated the mood in Cairo this first revolu- ment at this historical moment, a contex- fights, the groups played an important tionary autumn was balṭaga (approx. tualization of the concept’s origins, uses role as protectors of the sit-in on the “thuggery”), and its derivative balṭagiyya and abuses is necessary. As the Egyptian square, in particular on 28 January, the so- (“thugs”, sing. balṭagī). This highly conten- novelist Youssef Ziedan details in an arti- called Day of Rage (Dorsey; Zirin). Indeed, tious problem was discussed most cle published in al-Miṣrī al-Yawm on 30 the Ultras movement’s long-time aversion intensely during the bloody protests and November 2011, the balṭagiyya’s identity, to, and struggle against, the police—sum- street fights that took place on and around aims and actions have always been sur- marized in the famous abbreviation Muhammad Mahmoud Street, Tahrir rounded by ambivalence. Ziedan notes A.C.A.B. “All Cops Are Bastards”—became Square and (slightly later) outside the that the term originally derives from the
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Turkish word balṭa: a particularly heavy For particularly “suspicious” characters— The result of this incorporation of the weapon, which it was the task of the such as street vendors, minibus drivers or balṭagiyya into the security apparatus, balṭagī to carry in times of war or at public just any working-class man in Cairo’s infor- Amar has termed the “balṭagī effect”: a executions in the Ottoman era (see also mal neighborhood (al-ashwāʾiyya)—this manufactured depiction of oppositional Ghannam 122). However, as the modern implied vastly increasing police violence demonstrations “as crazed mobs of brutal Egyptian state took shape in the nine- and surveillance (Political Life 139-45). men [...] according to the conventions of teenth century, the balṭagī was gradually Many times, the problematic masculinity nineteenth-century, colonial-orientalist disassociated from the state apparatus. of the balṭagiyya was also associated with figurations of the savage ‘Arab Street’” Instead, his societal role came to oscillate the serious and widespread problem of (212). Moreover, it is also well known that diffusely between extortion and protec- sexual mob violence against women in the police employed a network of former tion, predominantly in Cairo’s popular Egyptian public spaces (Amar, “Turning prisoners that many would consider as (shaʿbi) neighborhoods. In constant ten- the Gendered”). balṭagiyya to act as informers all across sion and dialogue with the similar but As has been shown by Paul Amar (Security Egypt. In this way, the issue of the more favorably connoted male figure al- Archipelago), the Mubarak regime did not balṭagiyya at the same time crystallized as futuwwa, the history of al-balṭagī is hence as much confront as cynically make use of a discursive construction, a political tool a steadily shifting one (Jacob 225-62). the balṭagiyya. Facing increasing numbers applied by the regime, and as hordes of However, the balṭagī has consistently of protests in the 1990s and early 2000s, men of flesh and blood who roamed the embodied a somewhat problematic, the police gave up their half-hearted Egyptian streets. semi-legal and masculinized subjectivity, attempts at fighting the thugs and instead Before returning to how the Ultras football associated with physical strength, vio- “appropriated them as a useful tool” (211). fans came to tackle this emerging prob- lence and money. More precisely, Amar claims that the lem, one final dimension of the distinction The balṭagī’s precarious position at the between balṭagiyya and revolutionaries fringes of legality went through a series of Ministry of Interior recruited these should be made clear. As several com- particularly quick perturbations in the last gangs to flood public spaces during mentators have noted, the tendency to decades of the Mubarak era. Indeed, times of protest [...] ordered [them] to separate the country’s political actors Salwa Ismail has argued that thuggery mix with protestors and shout extremist between good and bad elements came effectively replaced Islamist terrorism as slogans in order to make the activists with a bundle of problematic knock-on the main threat to the nation in Egyptian look like ‘terrorists’, or, alternatively, to effects. During a round-table discussion at public imaginations in the late 1990s.4 In wreak havoc, beating civilians and do- the conference Narrating the Arab Spring, her ethnography, Ismail details how the ing property damage in the area of the held at Cairo University on 21 March 2012, focus on poor, young males as threatening protest (211-2). political scientist and leftist activist Rabab balṭagiyya led to heavily increasing secu- El-Mahdi, for example, pointed to the ritization and middle-class moral panics. strong class connotations of the balṭagiyya
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discourse, which in her view created a the security forces retaliated with birdshot the police and the military became fiercer counterproductive split between “respect- and sharp ammunition. In a highly ambiv- on UWK’s Facebook page, and all mem- able” middle-class “revolutionaries” and alent fashion, the group of men labeled as bers were instructed to attend the mar- the “vulgar” lower classes. Another similar balṭagiyya were hence simultaneously the tyr’s funeral (22 Nov. 2011). and very timely intervention was an article villains and the unsung heroes of the revo- However, not even at this point did UWK by historian Lucie Ryzova, published on Al lutionary struggle. officially tell its member to join the strug- Jazeera’s website on 29 November 2011. gle en masse. Instead, representatives of Ryzova here noted a distinct division Hesitation, Action UWK as well as Shihāb’s family had to face between the lower-class men on the front- The focus on balṭagiyya in Egyptian pub- questions about the dead man’s history, line of the Muhammad Mahmoud clashes lic discourse at the time of the Muham- morals and motives. In an interview pub- and the middle-class protesters, who were mad Mahmoud Street protests made leg- lished in the online football magazine more likely to be located in the relative ible an abject, problematically masculine alforsan.net five days after Shihāb’s death, safety of Tahrir Square. Coming into cen- Other. Simultaneously and dialectically, his mother struck back against those who tral Cairo from the informal neighbor- the trope also carved out a set of revolu- questioned that her son was a proper rev- hoods on “cheap Chinese motorcycles,” tionary ideals that connoted non-violent olutionary martyr. Understandably shaken whilst sporting “a particular dress code respectability and middle-class normality. and pressured by the media questioning and hairstyle that often involve copious This discursive split clearly affected the her son’s role in the street fights, she quantities of gel,” the type of men that stance of the Ultras groups towards what claimed that “the one who goes to a pro- Ryzova saw fighting at the frontier had for was happening. While Ultras I spoke to test prepared to sacrifice his life (mustaʿid many years been portrayed as trouble- later confirmed that many members of li-l-tadḥiyya bi-ruḥī) cannot possibly be a makers, sexual harassers and a threat to both groups actively participated in the balṭagī, but he is a hero and a man and not public order in the Egyptian mainstream. protests in November and December a tramp (mutasharrid) as some people Hence, Ryzova argued, the notion of 2011, neither Ultras Ahlawy nor Ultras claim.” The title of the article was indicative balṭagiyya would always come in handy White Knights ever directly called upon of the mood in the country and the protes- for middle-class Egyptians when speaking their members to join the fights via their tors being on the defence: “The mother of about this particular lower-class masculine official Facebook pages.5 For UWK, this the martyr: those who die in Tahrir are not habitus. And yet, it was precisely these attitude changed to some extent, when balṭagiyya” (Diyyāb). young men—often driven by a deep desire one of their members—a young man The longer the unrest wore on, the more for revenge after years of police harass- called Shihāb Aḥmed from the impover- difficult it became to rid the protestors of ment (see also Ismail, Political Life, “The ished, informal (ashwāʾi) neighborhood accusations of balṭaga. After a short period Egyptian”)—who threw rocks at the police, Bulaq al-Dakrur—was killed on Muham- of calm during the parliamentary elections carried the injured to hospital on their mad Mahmoud Street on the third day of in early December, the fighting broke out motorbikes, and paid with their blood as the fighting. Thereafter, the criticism of again on 16 December after a sit-in out-
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side the Cabinet building was broken up are paid by [the ousted President’s and its institutions (maslaḥat al-balad wa by military police. The scenes of tear-gas, son] Gamal Mubarak to destroy the munshaʾatiha),” and that all individuals Molotov cocktails, stone-throwing teenag- elections. By the way, that woman [in present at the protests were there as “citi- ers and armed police firing rubber bullets, the blue bra], she was not a real mu- zens” only and not as members of any kind birdshot and live ammunition all seemed naqqaba [woman wearing niqab, full- of group (al-Shurūq, 21 Dec. 2011). In a a ghastly re-run of an all-too-familiar script. body veil]. You could see that on the politico-discursive climate where the pro- Yet, a distinct change in attitude towards type of underwear she wore. This is tests connoted balṭaga—a concept which what was going on was at the same time a Muslim country, Carl. It cannot be in turn was singled out as the main threat noticeable. One taxi driver told me: “The run this way. But Inshaʾ Allah, it will to the nation—Idris and UA sided with the police must hit them harder, to save the be re-built step by step through elec- “respectable” common good against the revolution.” At the grocer’s I was told: “The tions and institutions. All of them are troublemakers. state must defend itself against those balṭagiyya! Honestly, it does not mat- When the fighting finally subsided, the criminals. The people in this country need ter to me if they die or not. (Mahmoud, Ministry of Health reported that 12 people someone strong, someone like Mubarak.” Personal conversation) had died and 815 had been injured. What My interlocutor Mahmoud, a gym teacher In the midst the growing public concern is crucial for our story is that one of those and Zamalek fan in his early 30s, was one about the disreputable and randomly vio- casualties, a young student called of those who drastically re-conceptualized lent balṭagiyya that roamed the vicinities Mohamed Mustafa, who often went under the political process around him. Only a of Tahrir Square, public statements in sup- his nickname Karika, was a well-known few weeks earlier, Mahmoud had been port for those protesting were rare. The member of Ultras Ahlawy. When Karika firmly against the unacceptable violence Ultras were very much in line with this gen- was shot dead on Qasr al-Ainy Street on committed by the military and the police. eral pattern; a couple of days into the sec- 21 December, Ultras Ahlawy were abruptly Three days into the second wave of vio- ond wave of clashes, leaders of both UA pushed straight back into the political lence—and just 24 hours after footage of (18 Dec. 2011) and UWK (19 Dec. 2011) struggle. Suddenly, their leaders’ recent Egyptian military police dragging and made statements on their Facebook statements, ensuring the group’s impar- beating a veiled woman across Tahrir pages, stressing their non-political stance tiality, seemed alien and out of touch. On Square, famously revealing her bare belly and disassociating themselves from what the 23rd of the month, al-Ahly played and blue bra, had spread across the was going on. Moreover, the UA capo Maqaṣṣa at Cairo Stadium, and the entire world—he instead told me: Ahmed Idris came out in the press to vig- match was turned into a tribute to the mar- Have you seen those who camp in Tah- orously deny the rumors that one of the tyr and a manifestation against the state rir Square now? I pass them every day men who had been killed in the clashes violence that had killed him. Most Ultras on my way to work, and I can tell you, had been a member of his group. Instead, fans present were dressed in black instead they are not good people, not respec- he made clear that UA were against “any of the normal red, the dakhla (“entrance table (mish muḥtarama). Probably they action that hurts the interest of the country scene”) before kick-off covered the curva
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with a huge black and white portrait of ber of the country’s respectable upper very bloody end. On 1 February 2012, 72 their dead friend, and al-Ahly’s Portuguese middle classes. If anything, the killing of Ultras Ahlawy members were killed at the coach Manuel Jose showed his sympa- Karika seemed to prove that the demon- stadium in Port Said in a massacre that the thies by wearing a T-shirt under his grey strators were real, honorable shabāb al- Ultras themselves interpret as the security tweed jacket, on which was printed “RIP thawra (“revolutionary youth”) after all. At state’s revenge for the supporters’ oppo- Mohamed Mustafa.” Throughout the least, this was what Ultras Ahlawy insis- sitional activities. As I elaborate on else- game, the fans’ chanting against the ruling tently claimed, when they honored Karika where (“Revolution, Play and Feeling”), military council and the Ministry of Interior at Cairo Stadium. It made perfect sense for the tragedy in Port Said further politicized was also more explicit than before; high them to reflect the discourse of the estab- the Egyptian Ultras movement. In the up above the curva, an enormous banner lishment back onto the police and the mil- months that followed, Ultras Ahlawy espe- was hung with a message that read: “The itary. Singing from the stands their most cially came out in a spectacular campaign engineer Mohamed, martyr of freedom. provocative song about Egypt’s police- for justice and revolutionary reforms that, The balṭagiyya killed him with live ammu- men as failures in school and corrupt at least for a while, turned them into some nition (Al-muhandis muḥammad shahīd “crows” that destroyed the fun for the of the revolutionary struggles most her- al-ḥurriyya. Qataluh bi-l-rusās al-balṭagiyya) youth, the fans returned over and over alded rebels. While the Ultras had been (Ultras Ahlawy’s Facebook, 23 Dec. 2011). again to a rhyming chant that was both widely celebrated for their political par- The contrast between the dead engineer— simple and effective: “al-dakhiliyya— ticipation already in 2011, the tragedy in Mohamed Mustafa had been an engineer- balṭagiyya (“The Ministry of Interior—are Port Said further added to their revolu- ing student—and the balṭagiyya who killed balṭagiyya”)” (Ultras Ahlawy 07 Media). tionary credentials. For many, the death of him—referring not so vaguely to the Minis- the 72 young men seemed to have con- try of Interior and the military—had an Class, Martyrdom, and the Production of firmed once and for all that the Ultras’ important function. In the days that fol- Rebels cause had been a just one, and it certainly lowed, Mustafa’s educational qualifica- In the beginning of 2012, Ultras Ahlawy made much broader segments of the tions and the fact that he had been one of cranked up the pressure against the Egyptian public aware of their history of the country’s best tennis players were con- interim regime yet another notch. In the struggle against the state and the police.7 stantly reiterated in the media (e.g. Maher). stadium and outside, the group contin- As this essay has shown, the Ultras’ uncon- This framing of the dead supporter effec- ued its blatant accusations of the ruling tested position as revolutionary rebels in tively disrupted the narrative of the ongo- Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for 2012 and 2013 was, however, preluded by ing protests as a matter of lawless balṭaga, Karika’s death; they mocked the police a period in which the supporters’ stances because as most Egyptians would instantly more explicitly than ever before; and they vis-à-vis politics, the state and the revolu- recognize, an engineering student who in turned more directly political in both tionary struggle were characterized by addition played an expensive sport like words and deeds.6 Tragically, this period hesitancy and ambivalence. In retrospect, tennis was not just anybody, but a mem- of mobilization would soon come to a the death of Mohamed Mustafa aka Karika
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Carl Rommel comes across as a crucial turning point Mustafa’s martyrdom—in contrast to that of conflation of class, martyrdom and within this decisive phase of late 2011: a Shihāb Aḥmed’s—the former’s respectable respectability, is thus crucial to bear in earned his PhD in anthropology from particularly ‘generative event’ (Kapferer) middle-class status must hence be taken mind if we are to fully understand how and SOAS, University of London, in 2015. His through which the Ultras groups managed into account. In a period ridden by “hyper- why the Egyptian Ultras steered clear of PhD research deals with the changing to dispose of their hesitation and unequiv- visibilization” (Amar, Security Archipelago) the looming accusations of balṭaga and emotional politics of Egyptian football, ocally assume their rebellious ethos. It is of low-class balṭagiyya as the urgent chal- surfaced as one of the Egyptian Revolu- before and after the 2011 Revolution. His particularly intriguing to compare the ease lenge of the nation, it would have been tion’s most celebrated groups of rebels. research interests include emotionality, and confidence with which UA acknowl- difficult for Egypt’s Ultras groups to par- subject formation, nationalism, media edged and publically honored Karika as take in the struggle on Muhammad Mah- infrastructures and the ethnography the group’s revolutionary martyr, and how moud Street without tarnishing their newly of social change. Currently, he is an this narrative came into circulation in the gained popularity. Mustafa’s death pro- associated researcher at the Berlin Egyptian press, with the much less exten- vided UA (and to a lesser degree UWK) based research institute Zentrum sive and more ambiguous coverage of with a way out of the deadlock. Not only Moderner Orient (ZMO) where he works Shihāb Aḥmed’s death a couple of weeks did it push the tentatively non-political on his project “New Men for the New earlier. Clearly, Shihāb’s humbler origin as Ultras Ahlawy back into the fight against Nation: Examining Youth Development, a son of Bulaq al-Dakrur (an informal the police and the military, but through Sports and Masculinity within the neighborhood stereotypically associated grand stadium spectacles, graffiti portray- Post-Revolutionary Egyptian State with balṭaga) bestowed on his martyrdom ing Karika’s face on the walls of Cairo and Bureaucracy.” He is also in the process of a very different positionality within the dis- extensive coverage in the traditional press turning his PhD into a monograph. cursive field of respectability, class and and on social media, his life was also “mat- email: [email protected] thuggery that dominated Egypt at the tering” to the idea and memory of the time. The contrast is all the more striking struggle itself (Paul). After the death of a in light of the changing general opinion middle-class member, Ultras activities vis-à-vis the protests. In fact, and as I have could not as readily be dismissed as shown, at the time when Shihāb was killed balṭaga. Indeed, in course of time, the on Muhammad Mahmoud Street, the atti- entire month of violence—including the tude toward the protests was more posi- earlier clashes that the groups had tive than a month later when Karika died a refrained from joining as well as the death few hundred meters further south on Qasr of Shihāb Aḥmed—would be folded into a al-Ainy Street. more linear narrative of the Ultras group’s In order to understand the powerful emo- long revolutionary struggle against the tional and political “work” (Gribbon) and Egyptian security forces (e.g. Mosbah). “productivity” (Armbrust) of Mohamed This particular historical moment, and its
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Notes 4 An indicative event that 6 See e.g. the photo album Ismail identifies as the from the match al-Ahly vs. Works Cited Dorsey, James M. “Egyptian 1 Since most of the discourses beginning of a new era is Al-Shurta 18 January 2012 on Ultra Tactics Evident in the that I explore in this essay the passing of the “‘thuggery Ultras Ahlawy’s Facebook. Amar, Paul. “Turning the Battle for Cairo’s Tahrir occurred in spoken Egyptian law” (qānūn al-balṭaga) in Gendered Politics of the Square.” Web blog post. The 7 Arabic, I have chosen to 1998 (Political Life 121-22). Hamzeh and Sykes have Security State Inside Out?” Turbulent World of Middle use the Egyptian colloquial Perhaps, it could be argued described this process as a International Feminist Journal East Soccer. mideastsoccer. transliteration balṭaga instead that the period when the transformation of the Ultras’ of Politics 13.3 (2011): 299- blogspot.co.uk. James M. of the Standard Arabic balṭagiyya were assumed to masculinity. After the 2011 328. Web. 31 Mar. 2016. Dorsey, 4 Feb. 2011. Web. 12 variant balṭaja throughout have been the main threat Revolution and the Port Said Apr. 2015. this essay. to the nation ended in tragedy in early 2012, layers ---. The Security Archipelago: summer 2013. Since the 3rd of “anti-militarist” masculinity Human-Security States, Elgohari, Mohamed. “Egypt’s 2 Famous examples of July coup, and President and “martyrdom” masculinity Sexuality Politics, and the End Ultras: No More Politics.” elsewhere in the country are al-Sisi’s war on terror, Islamist were added to the “anti- of Neoliberalism. Durham: jadaliyya.com. Arab Studies Yellow Dragons (supporting terrorism once again seems corporate” masculinity that Duke UP, 2013. Print. Institute, 30 June 2013. Web. al-Ismaili from Ismailiya), to have taken the place as the the fans had embodied 12 Apr. 2015. Green Eagles (al-Masry from most acute issue to be dealt already prior to 2011. Armbrust, Walter. “The Port Said) and Green Magic with. Ambivalence of Martyrs and Elkayal, Heba. “The Ultras (al-Ittihad, Alexandria). the Counter-Revolution.” White Knights: Football 5 The two Facebook pages culanth.org. Hot Spots. Hooliganism or Social 3 Most European Ultras
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