the imperial narrative: - 'otherly' challenged

Here is an independent 'other' voice successfully challenging the accepted imperial narrative on  what is, rather simplistically,  described as just  the "Arab Spring" looking for  an imperially imposed "Democracy"

By “imperialist liberalism,” I mean that loose US-European academic tradition, whose defense of liberalism, especially of representative democracy and individual freedom, is inextricably tied to a colonial, Western-centric conceptual toolbox that sometimes reaches the limit of directly and unashamedly defending US global interests.

First, placing the Egyptian revolution within a ready-made typology — derived partly from the study of the so-called Western classical revolutions and partly from the study of some recent democratic revolutions — is one of the famous tricks of imperialist liberalism.

The first signs of this showed in the early days of the revolution. At that time, things were not yet clear. But despite this analyses mushroomed that the 25 January revolt was not in fact a revolution, but a popular uprising that demanded some reform and ended with a military coup.

Defining revolution is perhaps one of the most complicated issues in social and political sciences. And the Egyptian revolution may have indeed taken odd twists. However, it is fair to say that much of the imperialist liberal analysis is based on erroneous and a historical assumptions.

The main problem with this Western-centric frame of reference is that it allows the observer to see in the 25 January revolution only one episode: the exceptional 18-day Tahrir Square sit-in that preceded Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. The revolution from this perspective is a spatially and historically limited event; it was located at Tahrir and it lasted for 18 days.

Understanding the Egyptian “uprising” as an 18-day detour that ended with the “revolutionaries” failing to assume power may fit the ready-made typology of democratic revolutions driven basically from Latin American and East European models. But when applied to the Egyptian case, it leads to misunderstanding.

The “revolutionaries” may have not gained power on 11 February 2011. That’s true. However, ignoring the political and social earthquakes that shook Egypt since 11 February — earthquakes that testify to the fact that the revolution continued well beyond the confines of Tahrir and the 18 days — reflects some sort of theoretical blindness.

A broader historical perspective can indeed help us to understand that the Egyptian revolution cannot (yet) be categorized as victorious or failed, betrayed or hijacked. Egypt’s revolt is rather an incomplete episode that continues to reverberate.

This is simply because neither the power strife nor the mobilizations from below have ended, or even started to ebb, after 11 February.

Secondly, reductionism is a prevailing trait in the imperialist liberal literature. First, the Egyptian revolution is reduced to a mere political-democratic revolution, and then democracy is reduced to the ballot box.

But labeling the revolution as a simply democratic one is a contentious issue. There are serious signs that point to deeper aspects of our revolt.

The unending social and economic struggles, the minor uprisings on all fronts and in all areas, might tell us that Egypt is witnessing something a little deeper and more diverse than an attempt to change the way political power is practiced.

But the trick here is this: Liberal imperialists claim that since Egypt has witnessed a transition toward a pluralist political system and has conducted relatively free elections, then there is no point in speaking about continuing the revolution. The main thrust of the argument is that what we need is to focus on now is fine-tuning the procedural aspects of the new system, rather than trying to overthrow it.

Such an argument does not hold unless you accept the definition of democracy as the conduct of periodical elections and nothing more. Of course, the right to assembly, freedom of expression and the rights of women and minorities may also be of concern. But elections represent the core of democracy.

The imperialist aspect of this idea lies in its attempt to market a certain “good model,” and then blame those who fail to abide by it. The chief problem here is that the proponents of this model are obsessed with official politics to the point of reducing democracy to the building of representative democratic institutions.

But this “model worshipping” approach fails in face of a complex and changing reality. 

Paradoxically, while Egyptians are losing interest in the official political process and becoming increasingly skeptical of it, both the Muslim Brotherhood and those analysts continue to have faith in it.

Imperialist liberals have a unilateral and unsophisticated view of political Islam. They tend to think of it in binary oppositions, the most famous among these is the moderate-extremist binary.

Paradoxically, both traditional Islamists and imperialist liberals have a one-dimensional understanding of the world.

Islamists divide the world into the simple binaries of Muslim/non-Muslim, East/West and good/evil, and at the heart of their project is a heated conflict over identity and a continuous confrontation with the West and to save Islam with the goal of reviving Islamic civilization.

Imperialist liberals, on the other hand, focus on one core idea, which is freedom and particularly individual freedom. This is somehow reflected in the worship of the free market which, it is claimed, is the embodiment of individual freedom in the field of economics.

Imperialist liberals of course understand that the Brotherhood, though moderate, is not exemplary in its liberalism. That’s why they developed a categorization that distinguishes between anti-liberal democrats, such as the Brotherhood, and anti-liberal un-democrats, such as most Salafis (let us disregard for the time being the fact that the Salafis betrayed this categorization and accepted engagement in the democratic game).

But now it is becoming clear that the Brotherhood is not even democratic, for it has been hostile to the revolution and its demands. Hence, besides writing a non-consensual, sectarian Constitution, it has maintained the old regime’s tools of killing and torture and targeted the media and activists.

But this is of no importance to the imperialist liberals, since, as we said, moderation is a concept whose core is serving the hegemonic interests, rather than abiding by the substantive meaning of democracy.

Atef Said is a human rights researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

www.egyptindependent.com/opinion/imperialist-liberalism-and-egyptian-revolution