Arab Spring In Egypt Research Articles

From text to allegory: ideological turns in Shamel Abatha’s translation of Animal Farm in the socio-political context of Egypt’s Pre-Arab Spring

ABSTRACT The influence of ideology on the process of translation has been one of the most controversial debates among scholars and translators who may undergo multiple challenges due to certain ideological demands, whether they be political, cultural or religious. In the Arab world, the socio-political scene has been dominated by ideological shifts since the outbreak of the Arab Spring. These shifts have influenced Arab scholars and translators in many possible ways, one of which is the reproduction of incisive narratives that not only account for the causes and effects of revolutions that swept different regions in the Arab world but also provoke political reform. In this vein, this article investigates Shamel Abatha’s translation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) to Arabic. It specifically explores Abatha’s political orientations which result in daring textual manipulations of Orwell’s text before the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011. Following Mona Baker’s narrative theory, the article demonstrates how Abatha’s target text turns into a socio-political national allegory that embodies critical ideological implications. The corpus consists of selected comparisons between Orwell’s Animal Farm and Abatha’s مزرعة الحيوانات [mazraat alḥywānāt] (2009) to show how translation strategies expound the impact of the latter’s political environment on his translation.

Reporters’ agency and (de) escalation during the 2011 uprising in Egypt: Re-writing the historical role of the news media during the Arab Spring

After more than a decade of the so-called Arab Spring in Egypt, it is perhaps time to carry out in cold an examination of the role the news media played during the uprising. In so doing, this piece examines the way Egyptian newspapers from the government and opposition reported those events. The study investigates to what extent the newspapers’ coverage of the political events help to de-escalate or escalate tensions. It analyzed the content of two newspapers in Egypt; Al-Ahram, owned by the government and, Al-Wafd, owned by an opposition party. Our analysis included 366 news articles from 105 issues of the selected newspapers during nine weeks of 2011. The finding indicated that the coverage helped to escalate tension, including that of the government-owned newspaper that had more news coverage of this type than the opposition one. We argue that our findings invite further reflection upon normative assumptions regarding the news media editorial position, its relation to power, and individual agency.

The Presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Media Space of Turkey to Maintain Political Participation after the Events of the Arab Spring in Egypt

After the collapse of the ongoing 2011–2013 policy, the Egyptian movement “Muslim Brotherhood” was banned in many countries of the world including some member countries of the League of Arab States (LAS): Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and several others. On the contrary in Turkey which borders Syria the Brotherhood received support in particular access to the media and made it possible to continue to broadcast the ideas of the organization. This paper discusses the features of building the communication strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood in the period after the Arab Uprising and the overthrow of President Mohammad Morsi in Egypt on July 3, 2013. There is no political party in Turkey that would openly represent the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood, however, some members of the leading Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partısı; AKP), including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, provided the Brotherhood various forms of support including providing asylum to wanted members of the organization and access to the television and radio stations. Even though the Egyptian government charged the Brotherhood’s members in absentia, some of them were allowed to openly meet in Turkey and speak out against the Egyptian government. The Turkish media space has become a platform for broadcasting ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood, which found itself isolated in the Arab media and the Internet. The Turkish government has contributed to the development of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s outreach activities which is seen as a shift in the political participation not only of the organization itself but of Islamists in general. Taking advantage of the favorable political environment in Turkey the Brotherhood attempted to challenge the legitimacy of the new regime in Egypt by creating their own television channels on Turkish television as evidenced by the results of the content analysis presented in this paper.

Intensyfikacja autorytaryzmu wojskowego w Egipcie w okresie prezydentury gen. Abd al-Fattaha as-Sisiego

The army was the most significant beneficiary of the Arab Spring in Egypt. Hosni Mubarak was replaced by a more powerful dictator, General Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi. Under the rule of General as-Sisi and his army, there is no place for dialogue between the ruling elite and society, or for democratisation and building a civil society. President General as-Sisi won the elections but has no legitimacy to rule. The short- and medium-term perspective of changes looks very unfavourable. The remilitarisation of Egypt and military electoral authoritarianism will continue. Adherents of General as-Sisi argue that his authoritarian rule is necessary to stabilise the situation in the country and prevent jihad attacks on the Sinai Peninsula. Opposition groups are encouraged to endorse the president through large-scale projects such as the New Administrative Capital, which sets out to testify that Egypt is rising to the rank of a regional power under the rule of President as-Sisi.

Рец. на кн.: AMIRA MITTERMAIER. GIVING TO GOD: ISLAMIC CHARITY IN REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019. XIV+233 p.

Amira Mittermaier’s book examines the practices of Islamic charity in contemporary Egypt. To answer the question of how and why pious Muslims engage in charity in their mundane lives, the author visits not only mosques, shrines, charitable and volunteer organizations, but also Tahrir Square in Cairo, an important locus for understanding Islamic piety. The place became widely known in 2011 due to the massive anti-government protests that came to be known as the Arab Spring in Egypt. The study of political activism allows the author to get a better grasp on the ordinary ethics of Islamic charity that considers the issues of social justice to be no less important compared to the political activism. But unlike liberal emancipatory projects, the understanding of social justice within the framework of Islamic piety relies on a fundamentally different ethics, political ontology, and temporal orientations. Drawing upon different cases, Mittermaier demonstrates the diverse ethical repertoire of Islamic giving, ranging from the examples of radical asceticism and self-denial, based on the Sufi ideal of the gift, to the more utilitarian approaches to charity, where gift exchange is considered to be a means to collect divine rewards for performed virtues. By comparing the Islamic gift ethics with the secular projects of social restructuring and reducing poverty, the author urges the reader to rethink Islamic charity as having a specific political meaning and potential vis-a-vis progressive ideas and politics.

Religiosity and Egyptian Muslim millennials’ views on offensive advertising

Purpose This paper explores reasons behind Muslim fervour, in response to advertisements that cause them offence – where marketing promotions and brands are seen to contradict or challenge the tenets of their religion (Islam) and culture. Design/methodology/approach The authors investigate Egyptian Muslim Millennials’ perceptions post 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring revolution qualitatively – through a series of iterative focus groups, diaries, and laddered coding procedures. Findings In contrast to the way in which media stories regularly highlight this phenomenon locally, internationally, and inside and outside of the Muslim world, we find that the landscape is more cultural, contextual, dynamic, politicised, and subtle. In addition, religiosity may not in fact be the determining factor and its presence is much more nuanced. The socially mobile, educated, and digitally connected Egyptian Muslim millennial demographic, that grabbed headlines during the Arab Spring for their influence, were found in this study to describe offence as being annoying or provocative advertisements where the message, theme or execution disregards their intelligence. Furthermore, parents, access to basic utilities, and having a stable living environment command a greater influence than religiosity for them. Finally, an environmental paradox exists, where restricted living conditions juxtaposed in parallel with escapism offered by social-media consumption, leads millennials towards being more accepting of advertising that could be classified as offensive. Practical implications This study is of value for researchers, educators, and professionals in the fields of advertising, marketing communications, consumer behaviour, and sociology. Social implications The observations raise questions concerning how the media reports stories, or advertisers conduct their campaigns – as to whether they are representative, motivated by sociopolitics or propaganda, an intended tactic, highlight unintended poor execution, ambivalence, or part of a wider phenomenon. Originality/value The authors present a new dual-process personality/religiosity conceptual model – designed to explain the stepwise process of Muslim opinion-forming, behaviour, and consumption of advertisements. Furthermore, we illustrate this with a supporting allegory the authors call a “Narnia paradigm”, drawing from C.S. Lewis’s fictional story “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”.

A Decade of Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia: outcomes and prospects

A Decade of Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia: outcomes and prospects

Influenza della primavera araba sul lessico arabo e italiano

The Arab Spring has carried out radical changes in the political system of several Arab countries like Egypt. Due to the Arab spring in Egypt, new terms have become part of the Arabic language and existing words have acquired a particular meaning; the Italian language also goes along with this, producing equivalent terms, despite the non-congruence between the two languages. This work is a linguistic study that concerns the semantic and lexical evolution in terms and entire phrases in Egypt before and after 25 January 2011. The study aims at shedding light on the etymology of the Arab lexemes and their meaning and the particular meaning acquired during the events of the Arab Spring with the aim of clarifying the cause of its formation. It is particularly difficult to translate them in the Italian press that uses more than one translation strategy to ensure as much as possible the fidelity and clarity of the text. Therefore, in this contribution we have examined the direct translation strategies thoroughly, such as loan word, calque and literal translation, sometimes followed by a paraphrase, useful for making explicit a new concept to a foreign reader.

Who revolts? Income, political freedom and the Egyptian revolution

This study addresses the question: who is likely to participate in a public revolt against autocratic governments? In doing so, it asserts that a greater emancipative value, primarily, as well as a greater importance placed on politics and living of democracy will drive an individual to participate in a revolution. To evaluate this assertion, we explore the connection between an individual’s income level and his or her desire for political freedom in the context of the Arab Spring in Egypt that ousted an autocratic regime. Based on cross-sectional data taken from the fifth wave of the world values survey in 2008, one that employs a nationally representative sample of 3051 respondents from Egypt, we find that high-income individuals are more likely than are middle- and low-income individuals to report higher emancipative values and empowerment to participate in a revolution. This result supports the public choice view that revolutions are motivated by private expected utility and benefits-costs calculus.

Understanding the Discourse of ‘Alī Jum’ah on the Military Coup during the Arab Spring in Egypt

This article aims to propose an alternative explanation to the existing scholarship about the factors behind the failure of Egypt to transform into a democratic country after having experienced the major moment of the Arab Spring. I argue that the theological discourse of the ʿulamāʾ and their commitment to one of the currents of Islamic political thought in the premodern period contributed to the miscarriage of the Arab Spring. In doing so, I focus on unpacking the discourse of the previous grand muftī of Egypt, ʿAlī Jumʿah (Ali Gom’ah), on the military coup against the democratically elected president from the Muslim Brotherhood, Muḥammad Mursī (Mohammed Morsi). On several occasions, Jumʿah conveyed discourses that supported and justified the actions of the military leaders who took power. I trace ʿAlī Jumʿah’s discourse on the coup through three medieval scholars’ views on the usurpation of power (al-istīlāʾ ʿalá l-imārah). I compare ʿAlī Jumʿah’s discourse to that of al-Māwardī, al-Ghazālī, and Ibn Jamāʿah, three prominent political theorists and jurists in the medieval period. I argue that the tendency to conform with tradition led ʿAlī Jumʿah to formulate his undemocratic discourse. In this article, I examine several notions from the Islamic legal field that ʿAlī Jumʿah employed to justify the coup. I also argue that in addition to following the standard norms from the medieval period, ʿAlī Jumʿah also departed from such norms in several aspects. I contend that his discourse during the Arab Spring has had severe implications for both the Islamic legal field and the political trajectory of Egypt.

Women's political participation and intrahousehold empowerment: Evidence from the Egyptian Arab Spring

Egyptian women have played an unprecedented role in the Arab Spring democratic movement, possibly changing women's perception about their own rights and role. We question whether these events have translated into better outcomes within Egyptian households. We conjecture that potential changes must have been heterogeneous and depended on the local intensity of protests and women's participation over 2011–13. We exploit the geographical heterogeneity along these two margins to conduct a double difference analysis using data surrounding the period. We find a significant improvement in women's final say regarding decisions on health, socialization and household expenditure, as well as a decline in the acceptation of domestic violence and girls' circumcision, in the regions most affected by the protests. This effect is not due to particular regional patterns or pre-existing trends in empowerment. It is also robust to alternative treatment definitions and confirmed by triple difference estimations. We confront our main interpretation to alternative mechanisms that could have explained this effect.

Consensus vs. dissensus over the ‘civil state’ model: a key to understanding the diverse outcomes of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia

ABSTRACT The ‘Jasmine Revolution’ that toppled Tunisian president Zine al-‘Abidine Ben ‘Ali on 14 January 2011, and the 25 January 2011 uprising that toppled Egyptian President Husni Mubarak had similar characteristics yet different outcomes. While the Tunisian experience led to democratization and to a non-violent transfer of power, the Egyptian one led to a reversion to authoritarianism through a military coup and to bloodshed. This paper suggests that the key to understanding the diverse outcomes of the Arab Spring in these countries is the prevalence of consensus/dissensus in each society over the most suitable state model for the post-revolutionary era. The existence of an agreed-upon vision for the post-Arab Spring state in Tunisia—a vision of a ‘civil state’—and a wide controversy over such a model in Egypt was a pivotal factor influencing the level of socio-political cohesion during the transitional period, hence determining whether it is destined for success or failure. A prior agreement between Islamist and Secularist opposition groups over the civil state model spared Tunisia the turmoil that Egypt went through due to the polarization over the desired state model in the post-Mubarak era, which served as a catalyst for the 2013 soft coup against the Muslim Brothers elected president.

Constructing political other in the discourse of the Egyptian Arab Spring

Constructing political other in the discourse of the Egyptian Arab Spring

An eye for an eye and the struggle for power in the discourse of the Egyptian Arab Spring

An eye for an eye and the struggle for power in the discourse of the Egyptian ArabSpring

From revolution to resistance: a study on the discursive demise of the Egyptian Arab Spring

From revolution to resistance: a study on the discursive demise of the Egyptian Arab Spring

Egypt: Revolution 2011/2025. Dystopia, Utopia, and Political Fiction in Mustafa Al-Husayni’s Novel "2025 An-Nida Al-Akhir"

The article discusses the novel 2025. An-Nida al-Akhir [2025. The Last Call] written by a young Egyptian journalist and writer born in 1982 – Mustafa al-Husayni. The novel was published in early 2011, between the fall of Zayn al-Abidin Ibn Ali in Tunisia and of Husni Mubarak in Egypt. It describes a revolution against the regime of Jamal al-Mubarak, son of Husni, spurred by a group of young Egyptians. The story takes place in 2025 and antici­pates the development of the political situation in Egypt and the Middle East between 2011 and 2025 in a utopian/dystopian manner. Alongside Utopia by Ahmad Khalid Tawfik and the poetry of Usama al-Abnubi and Abd ar-Rahman al-Abnudi, al-Husayni’s book is considered to be a forecast of the Arab Spring in Egypt.

Protesta social y estadios del desarrollo moral: una propuesta analítica para el estudio de la movilización social del siglo XXI

Different studies on democracy and political disaffection are of the belief that the internet and social networks provide new opportunities for social mobilization and citizen participation. e social mobilizations of the second decade of the 21st century, such as the Arab Spring or the 15M in Spain, defined the protagonist role of online communication and social networks for the summon and the development of protests. is paper, which uses the stages of moral development and applies them to social reality, provides a theoretical proposal for a three-dimensional analysis (introducing the concepts of strategy, action, and objective) to study contemporary social mobilizations. It also presents and compares the three analytical dimensions and uses them to characterize, in an exploratory manner, three cases of social mobilization (the Arab Spring in Egypt, the 15M, and the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages in Spain). In the text, the use of social net- works and the media is a transverse study based on the three dimensions proposed. e analysis shows that some forms of protest have declined to the feelings of political frustration of citizens, and they have been displaced to a second institutional level or suffered a systematic disarticulation. We propose the conceptualization of the contemporary social movement as a collective space built on a strategy aimed at a specific political system that performs change actions focused on autonomy processes and sets out long-term objectives that have been agreed upon.

Women's Political Participation and Intrahousehold Empowerment: Evidence from the Egyptian Arab Spring

Egyptian women have played an unprecedented role in the Arab Spring democratic movement, possibly changing women's perception about their own rights and role. We question whether these events have translated into better outcomes within Egyptian households. We conjecture that potential changes must have been heterogeneous and depended on the local intensity of protests and women's participation over 2011-13. We exploit the geographical heterogeneity along these two margins to conduct a double difference analysis using data surrounding the period. We find a significant improvement in women's final say regarding decisions on health, socialization and household expenditure, as well as a decline in the acceptation of domestic violence and girls' circumcision, in the regions most affected by the protests. This effect is not due to particular regional patterns or pre-existing trends in empowerment. It is also robust to alternative treatment definitions and confirmed by triple difference estimations. We confront our main interpretation to alternative mechanisms that could have explained this effect.

Digital Media Framing of the Egyptian Arab Spring: Comparing Al Jazeera, BBC and China Daily

Digital Media organizations had a crucial role on the coverage of the Egyptian ‘Arab Spring’, but until today the outcomes of the news gathering are debatable in the academic society. This study examines the frames of the English-language websites of Al Jazeera, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and China Daily from 9 to 13 February 2011 because of the termination of Hosni Mubarak’s presidency. The sample consists of 92 website articles, which report the Egyptian ‘Arab Spring’ without considering any video footage in the examined news stories. The particular article examines the frames of each article and categorizes them according to a Knowledge Extraction (KE) tool named ‘Open Calais’, which is owned by another media organization, Reuters. In this study, China Daily’s coverage differs from the former researchers’ results regarding the ‘Arab Spring’ covering. According to the findings, there was a merited coverage on the case of the Egyptian ‘Arab Spring’ without relying exclusively on the content of the official press agency of the People's Republic of China, Xinhua News Agency, and acted like a western-type news media.

A CIDADANIA EM QUESTÃO: organizações regionais indígenas e TICs na Pan-Amazônia

As passadas mobilizações que tiveram amplo suporte na internet como as da Primavera Árabe, no Egito, ou as de Junho de 2013, no Brasil, apontam novas configurações do ato conetivo nas redes digitais. Mas, deve-se dizer que um outro espaço-tempo é experimentado nas ações organizacionais indígenas, pois elas estão inseridas numa luta secular perante a subvaloração histórica dos seus fundamentos não-modernos. Neste trabalho apresentam-se alguns dos principais resultados de uma pesquisa desenvolvida entre 2011 e 2014 com a Associação Inter-étnica de Desenvolvimento da Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), a Confederação de Povos Indígenas do Oriente, Chaco e Amazônia da Bolívia (CIDOB) e a Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira (COIAB).
 
 PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Organizações Indígenas Amazônicas; TICs; Cidadania.
 
 
 ABSTRACT
 Past mobilizations that had broad support on the Internet as the Arab Spring in Egypt or June 2013 in Brazil suggest new configurations of connective act on digital networks. But it must be said that another space-time is experienced in indigenous organizational actions because they are embedded in a secular struggle against the historical undervaluation of its non-modern foundations. This paper presents some of the main results of a research conducted between 2011 and 2014 with the Inter-ethnic Association of Peruvian Rainforest Development (AIDESEP), the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the East, Chaco and Amazon of Bolivia (CIDOB) and the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB).
 
 KEYWORDS: Amazon Indigenous Organizations; ICT; Citizenship.
 
 
 RESUMEN
 Las pasadas movilizaciones que tuvieron amplio soporte en internet como las de la Primavera Árabe, en Egipto, o las de Junio de 2013, en Brasil, apuntan nuevas configuraciones del acto conectivo en las redes digitales. Pero, se debe decir que otro espacio-tiempo experimentan las acciones organizacionales indígenas, pues ellas están involucradas en una lucha secular ante la subvaloración histórica de sus fundamentos no modernos. En este trabajo se presentan algunos de los principales resultados de una investigación desarrollada entre 2011 y 2014 con la Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), la Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente, Chaco y Amazonia de Bolívia (CIDOB) y la Coordinación de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Amazonia Brasileña (COIAB).
 
 PALABRAS CLAVE: Organizaciones Indígenas Amazónicas; TICs; Ciudadanía.