The
"Street" and the Politics of Dissent in the Arab World
Asef Bayat
|
A
stereotypical image of the "Arab street." (Amr
Nabil/AP Photo)
|
In
the tense weeks between the September 11 attacks and the first
US bombing raids over Afghanistan, and continuing until the fall
of the Taliban, commentators raised serious concerns about what
the Wall Street Journal later called the "irrational
Arab street."(1) If the US attacked a Muslim country,
the pundits worried, would the "Arab street" rally behind
Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamists, endangering other
US interests in the region and rendering George W. Bush's "war
on terrorism" a troublesome, if not doomed, venture from
the outset? As US troops prepared to deploy in Afghanistan, some
officials in Washington implored Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon to exercise restraint in his campaign to crush the Palestinian
uprising by force. Should Israeli incursions into Palestinian
territory continue during the US assault on the Taliban, they
feared, the simmering rage of the Arab masses might "boil
over," leaving the local gendarmes powerless to prevent the
furious crowds from harming Americans, trashing US property and
threatening the stability of friendly Arab regimes. Sen. Joseph
Biden (D-DE) broached the possibility that "every US embassy
in the Middle East [would be] burned to the ground."(2)
Since
the war in Afghanistan, and continuing through the major Israeli
offensives in the West Bank and the buildup to Bush's war on Iraq,
the "Arab street" has become a minor household word
in the West, bandied about in the media as both a subject of profound
anxiety and an object of withering condescension. The "Arab
street," and by extension, the "Muslim street,"
have become code words that immediately invoke a reified and essentially
"abnormal" mindset, as well as a strange place filled
with angry people who, whether because they hate us or just don't
understand us, must shout imprecations against us. "Arab
or other Muslim actions" are described almost exclusively
in terms of "mobs, riots, revolts,"(3) leading
to the logical conclusion that "Western standards for measuring
public opinion simply don't apply" in the Arab world. At
any time, American readers are reminded, protesting Arab masses
may shed their unassuming appearance and "suddenly turn into
a mob, powerful enough to sweep away governments" -- notably
the "moderate" Arab governments who remain loyal allies
of the US.(4)
Worries
about the "Arab street" notwithstanding, US forces did
move into Afghanistan, US bombs did kill Afghan civilians in the
thousands, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only briefly "cooled
off" and Bush moved full speed ahead with plans to attack
Iraq. But, though numerous protests in the Muslim and Arab worlds
did occur, no US embassy was burned to the ground. Nor did the
Arab and Muslim masses rally behind bin Laden. Only when Israel
invaded the West Bank in the spring of 2002 did ordinary people
in the Arab world collectively explode with outrage. The millions
of Arab citizens who poured into the streets of Cairo, Amman,
Rabat and many other cities to express sympathy with the Palestinians
evoked memories of how Arab anti-colonial movements in the post-war
period were driven from below. But because the "Arab street"
had not erupted at the possible US bombing in Afghanistan during
Ramadan, this very real example of latent popular anger in the
Arab world was airily dismissed. Abruptly, the image of the "Arab
street" shifted from an unpredictable powder keg to a "myth"
and a "bluff," somehow kept alive despite the fact that
Arab countries were filled with "brainwashed" people
trapped in "apathy."(5) The implication for US
policymaking was clear: Arabs do not have the guts to stop an
attack on Iraq or any other unpopular US initiative, and therefore
the US should express "not sensitivity, but resolution"
in the face of remonstrations from Arab allies.(6) Neither
the slogans of the actual demonstrators nor the insistence of
Arab governments that they face unbearable pressure from their
populations needed to be taken at face value. The Economist
declared the "death" of the Arab street, once and
for all. It was not long before National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice concluded that because the Arab peoples are too weak to demand
democracy, the US should intervene to liberate the Arab world
from its tyrants.(7)
A
Sense of Place
| 
Egyptian
MP Hasanayn Farid behind row of police, outside Sayyida
Zeinab Mosque. (Thomas Hartwell)
|
In
the narratives of the Western media, the "Arab street"
is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't -- it is either
"irrational" and "aggressive" or it is "apathetic"
and "dead." There is little chance of its salvation
as something Western societies might recognize as familiar. The
"Arab street" has become an extension of another infamous
concept, the "Arab mind," which also reified the culture
and collective conduct of an entire people in a violent abstraction.
It is another subject of Orientalist imagination, reminiscent
of colonial representation of the "other," which sadly
has been internalized by some Arab selves. By no simple oversight,
the "Arab street" is seldom regarded as an expression
of public opinion and collective sentiment, like its Western
counterpart still is, but is perceived primarily as a physical
entity, a brute force expressed in riots and mob violence. The
"Arab street" matters only in its violent imaginary,
when it is poised to imperil interests or disrupt grand strategies.
The street that conveys the collective sentiment is a non-issue,
because the US can and often does safely ignore it. Such perceptions
of the "Arab street" inform Washington's approach in
the Middle East -- flouting Arab public opinion with increasingly
unequivocal support for Sharon while he proceeds to dismantle
the Palestinian Authority, and simultaneously, with determination
to wage war on Iraq.
But
street politics in general, and the Arab street in particular
,are more complex. Neither street is just a physicality, nor is
the Arab street a mere brute force or simply dead. The Arab street
is primarily an expression of public sentiment, but one whose
modes and means of articulation have gone through significant
changes. Street politics is the modern urban theater of contention
par excellence. We need only remember the role the "street"
has played in such monumental political changes as the French
Revolution, nineteenth-century labor movements, anti-colonial
struggles, the anti-Vietnam war in the US, the velvet revolutions
in Eastern Europe, and perhaps, the current global anti-war movement.
The street is the chief locus of politics for ordinary people,
those who are structurally absent from positions of power. Simultaneously
social and spatial, constant and current, a place of both the
familiar and the stranger, the visible and the vocal, the street
represents a complex entity wherein sentiments and outlooks are
formed, spread and expressed in a unique fashion.
In
the Arab world, the street is the physical place where collective
dissent is expressed. In the street, one finds not only marginalized
elements -- the poor and unemployed -- but also actors with some
institutional power like students, workers, women, state employees
and shopkeepers. The spatial element in street politics distinguishes
it from strikes or sit-ins, because streets are not only where
people protest, but also where they extend their protest beyond
their immediate circle. A street march not only brings together
the invitees, but also involves the "strangers" who
might espouse similar, real or imagined, grievances. It is this
epidemic potential, and not simply the disruption or uncertainty
caused by riots, that threatens the authorities, who exert a pervasive
power over public spaces -- with police patrols, traffic regulation,
spatial division -- as a result. Students at Cairo University,
for example, often stage protest marches inside the campus. However,
the moment they decide to come out into the street (where the
Israeli embassy is located), riot police are immediately and massively
deployed to encircle the demonstrators, push them into a corner
away from public view and keep the protest a local event. Indeed,
this heavily guarded actual street, now renamed after Muhammad
al-Durra, the boy killed in Israeli "crossfire" in the
early stages of the second intifada, points to the fact
that the metaphorical street is not deserted so much as it is
controlled.
Cost
of Living
Arab
anti-colonial struggles attest to the active history of the Arab
street. Popular movements arose in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon
during the late 1950s after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.
The unsuccessful tripartite aggression by Britain, France and
Israel in October 1956 to reclaim control of the Canal caused
an outpouring of popular protests in Arab countries in support
of Egypt. Although 1956 was probably the last major pan-Arab solidarity
movement until the pro-Palestinian wave of 2002, social protests
by workers, artisans, women and students for domestic social development,
citizens' rights and political participation have been documented.(8)
Labor movements in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Morocco have
carried out strikes or street protests over both bread-and-butter
and political issues. Since the 1980s, during the era of IMF-recommended
structural adjustment programs, Arab labor unions have tried to
resist cancellations of consumer commodity subsidies, price rises,
pay cuts and layoffs. Despite no-strike deals and repression of
activists, wildcat stoppages have occurred. Fear of popular resistance
has often forced governments, such as in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco,
to delay structural adjustment programs or retain certain social
policies.(9)
When
traditional social contracts are violated, Arab populations have
reacted swiftly. The 1980s saw numerous urban protests over the
spiraling cost of living. In August 1983, the Moroccan government
reduced consumer subsidies by 20 percent, triggering urban
unrest in the north and elsewhere. Similar protests took place
in Tunis in 1984, and in Khartoum in 1982 and 1985. In summer
1987, the rival factions in the Lebanese civil war joined hands
to stage an extensive street protest against a drop in the value
of the Lebanese currency. Algeria was struck by cost-of-living
riots in the fall of 1988, and Jordanians staged nationwide protests
in 1989, over the plight of Palestinians and economic hardship,
forcing the late King Hussein to introduce cautious measures of
political liberalization. Lifting subsidies in 1996 provoked a
new wave of street protests, leading the king to restrict freedom
of expression and assembly.(10) In Egypt in 1986, low-ranking
army officers took to the streets to protest the Mubarak regime's
decision to extend military service. The unrest quickly spread
to other sectors of society.
| 
Cairene
women presenting petition to US Embassy official after being
blocked from marching on the embassy. (Thomas Hartwell)
|
While
the lower and middle classes formed the core of urban protests,
college students often joined in. But student movements have had
their own contentious agendas. In Egypt, the 1970s marked the
heyday of a student activism dominated by leftist trends. Outraged
opposition to the Camp David peace treaty and economic austerity
brought thousands of students out into urban streets. Earlier
years had seen students organizing conferences, strikes, sit-ins,
street marches and producing newspapers for the walls, the "freest
of publications."(11) In 1991, students in Egypt,
Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen and Sudan demonstrated to express
anger against both the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the US-led
war to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. Since 1986, Palestinian students
have been among the most frequent participants in actions of the
intifada, often undeterred by the Israeli army's policies
of shooting and arresting students or closing down Palestinian
universities.
Fragmentation
Yet
many things have changed drastically for the Arab street since
the 1980s. The pace of cost-of-living protests has slowed down,
as governments enact structural adjustment programs more slowly
and cautiously, deploy safety nets such as social funds (Egypt
and Jordan) and allow Islamic NGOs and charities to help out the
poor. Indeed, the Arab world enjoys the lowest incidence of extreme
poverty in the world's developing regions.(12) Meanwhile,
the discontent of the impoverished middle classes was channeled
into the Islamist movements in general, and the politicization
of professional syndicates in particular.
On
the other hand, the more traditional class-based movements --
notably, peasant organizations, cooperative movements and trade
unions -- are in relative decline. As peasants have moved to the
city from the countryside, or lost their land to become rural
day laborers, the social basis of peasant and cooperative movements
has eroded. The weakening of economic populism, closely linked
to structural adjustment, has led to the decline of public sector
employment, which constituted the core of trade unionism. Through
reform, downsizing, privatization and relocation, structural adjustment
has undermined the unionized public sector, while new private
enterprises linked to international capital remain largely union-free.
Although the state bureaucracy remains weighty, its underpaid
employees are unorganized, and a large proportion of them survive
by taking second or third jobs in the informal sector. Currently,
much of the Arab work force is self-employed. Many wage-earners
work in small enterprises where paternalistic relations prevail.
On average, between one third and one half of the urban work force
are involved in the unregulated, unorganized informal sector.
While tension between bosses and employees is not uncommon in
these establishments, laborers tend to remain more loyal to their
bosses than to fellow workers in the shop next door.
Although
the explosive growth of NGOs since the 1980s heralded autonomous
civic activism, NGOs are premised on the politics of fragmentation.
NGOs divide the potential beneficiaries of their activism into
small groups, substitute charity for principles of rights and
accountability, and foster insider lobbying rather than street
politics. It is largely the advocacy NGOs, involved in human rights,
women's rights and democratization, not wealth and income gaps,
that offer different and new spaces for social mobilization.
As
people rely more on informal activities and their loyalties are
fragmented, struggles for wages and conditions tend to lose ground
to concerns over jobs, informal work conditions and an affordable
cost of living, and rapid urbanization increases demands for urban
services, shelter, decent housing, health and education. Under
such conditions, the Arab grassroots resorts not to politics of
collective protest but to the individualistic strategy of "quiet
encroachment." Individuals and families strive to acquire
basic necessities (land for shelter, urban collective consumption,
informal jobs and business opportunities) in a prolonged and unassuming,
though illegal, fashion. Instead of organizing a street march
to demand electricity, for example, the disenfranchised simply
tap into the municipal power grid without authorization.(13)
Legacy
of Islamism
In
the Arab world, the political class par excellence remains
the educated middle class -- state employees, students, professionals
and the intelligentsia -- who mobilized the "street"
in the 1950s and 1960s with overarching ideologies of nationalism,
Ba'thism, socialism and social justice. Islamism has been the
latest of these grand worldviews. With the core support coming
from the worse-off middle layers, the Islamist movements succeeded
for two decades in activating large numbers of the disenchanted
population with cheap Islamization -- moral and cultural purity,
affordable charity work and identity politics. However, by the
mid-1990s, it became clear that the Islamists could not go very
far with more costly Islamization -- establishing an Islamic polity
and economy and conducting international relations compatible
with the modern national and global citizenry. Islamist rule faced
crisis where it was put into practice (as in Iran and Sudan).
Elsewhere, violent strategies failed (as in Egypt and Algeria),
and thus new visions about the Islamic project developed. The
Islamist movements were either repressed or became resigned to
revision of their earlier outlooks.
Anti-Islamic
sentiment in the West following the September 11 events, and the
subsequent "war on terrorism," have undoubtedly reinforced
a feeling that Islam is under global attack, reinforcing the languages
of religiosity and nativism. Several Islamist parties which, among
other things, expressed opposition to US policies scored considerable
successes in several national elections. The Justice and Development
Party in Morocco doubled its share to 42 seats in September 2002
elections. In October 2002, the Islamist movement came in third
in Algerian local elections and the alliance of religious parties
in Pakistan won 53 out of 150 parliamentary seats. In November,
Islamists won 19 out of the total 40 parliamentary seats in Bahrain,
and the Turkish Justice and Development Party captured 66 percent
of the legislature. However, these electoral victories point less
to a "revival of Islamism"(14) than to a shift
of Islamism from a political project with national concerns into
more fragmented languages concerned with personal piety and global,
anti-Islamic menace. If anything, we are on the threshold of a
post-Islamist turn.((15))
The
Islamist movements undoubtedly changed the Arab states. They rendered
the Arab states more religious (as states moved to rob Islamism
of its moral authority), more nativist or nationalist (as states
moved to assert their Arab authenticity and to disown democracy
as a Western construct) and more repressive, since the liquidation
of radical Islamists offered states the opportunity to control
other forms of dissent. This legacy of the Islamist movements
has further complicated the politics of dissent in today's Arab
world.
Renaissance
The
revival of the "Arab street" in 2002 in solidarity with
the Palestinians was truly spectacular. For a short while, states
lost their tight control, and publicly vocal opposition groups
proliferated, even among the "Westernized" and "apolitical"
students of the American University in Cairo. The Palestinian
solidarity movement showed that there is more to Arab street politics
than Islamism, and spurred the renewal of a political tradition.
In January, as the US moved closer to attacking Iraq, one million
Yemenis marched in Sanaa, chanting, "Declaration of War Is
Terrorism." Over 10,000 protested in Khartoum, thousands
in Damascus and Rabat, and hundreds in the Bahraini capital of
Manama.(16) Twenty thousand Christians in Jordan staged
a prayer for the people of Iraq, condemning Bush's war.(17)
One thousand Yemeni women demonstrated in the streets to protest
the arrest of a Yemeni citizen mistaken for an al-Qaeda member
in Germany.(18) Large and small protest actions against
war on Iraq have continued in Egypt and other Arab countries amid
massive deployments of police.
However,
at least with regard to Palestine, the tremendous rise of the
Arab street occurred with the tacit approval of the Arab states.
The extremity of Israel's violence during the 2002 invasions brought
the politicians closer to the people. Street dissent was directed
largely against an outside adversary, and protesters' slogans
against their own governments were voiced primarily by the ideological
leaders rather than the ordinary participants.(19) Only
in the most recent Cairo rallies have crowds demanded the removal
of the 20-year old emergency laws which continue to hamper free
public assembly.
Why
did the Arab street fail to rise against its own suppression,
to demand democracy and justice? While the disenfranchised have
resorted to "quiet encroachment," the Arab states have
considerably neutralized the political class by promulgating a
common discourse based on nationalism, religiosity and anti-Zionism.
Entrenched in the "old-fashioned pan-Arab nationalism,"
and seduced by the language of religiosity and moral politics,
the Arab intelligentsia failed to seize the moment to win political
concessions from their own authoritarian states. Israel's occupation
of Palestine, with material and diplomatic US support, has trapped
generations of Arab intelligentsia in a narrow-minded nativism
and cultural nationalism from which the authoritarian Arab states
largely benefit.(20) The nativist often dismisses ideas
and practices, however noble, that can be described as rooted
in alien, usually "Western" cultures, and romanticizes
ideas and practices of the "self" even if they are oppressive.
Human rights, for example, may simply be discarded as a Western
import or a manipulative US ploy.
On
the other hand, the Arab governments allow little room for independent
dissent. Since 2000, demands for collective protests against the
US and Israel have been ignored by the authorities, while unofficial
street actions have faced intimidation and assault, with activists
being harassed or detained.(21) On February 15, 2003, the
day that over ten million people throughout the world demonstrated
against the US war on Iraq, thousands of Egyptian riot police
squeezed some 500 demonstrators into a corner separating them
from the public.
Neither
Irrational Nor Dead
Faced
with formidable challenges to expression in the street, Arab activists
have developed new means of articulating dissent -- boycott campaigns,
cyber-activism and protest art among them. As the Arab states
exercise surveillance over the streets, activism is pushed inside
the confines of civil institutions -- college campuses, schools,
mosques, professional associations and NGOs. Given the lack of
a free political climate, professional associations offer venues
for political campaigns, to the extent that they often assume
the role of political parties where intense competition for leadership
prevails. Their headquarters serve as sites for political rallies,
meetings, charity work and international solidarity campaigns.
Other civil associations, chiefly the new advocacy NGOs, have
begun to promote public debates on human rights, democratization,
women, children and labor rights. Currently, some 90 to 100 human
rights organizations operate in the Arab world, along with hundreds
of social service centers, and many more social service organizations
that are beginning to employ the language of rights in their work.(22)
Innovations
in mobilization, styles of communication and organizational flexibility
are bringing a breath of fresh air to stagnant nationalist politics.
The Egyptian Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian
Intifada represents one such trend. Set up in October 2000, the
Committee brought together representatives from Egypt's various
political trends -- leftists, nationalists, Islamists, women's
and rights groups. It set up a website, developed a mailing list,
initiated charity collections, organized boycotts of American
and Israeli products, revived street actions and collected 200,000
signatures on petitions to close down the Israeli embassy in Cairo.
The Egyptian Anti-Globalization Group and the National Campaign
Against the War on Iraq, as well as the Committee for the Defense
of Workers' Rights and some human rights NGOs, adopt similar styles
of activism.(23)
Grassroots
charity and boycotts, or product campaigns, have become new mediums
of political mobilization. Collecting food and medicine for Palestinians
has involved thousands of young volunteers and hundreds of companies
and organizations. In April 2002, students at the American University
in Cairo gathered thirty 250-ton truckloads of charitable products
from factories, companies and homes in the space of four days
and nights, bringing them to Palestinians in Gaza. Millions of
Arabs and Muslims have joined in boycotting American and Israeli
products, including McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, Nike and Coca-Cola.
The remarkable success of local products caused Coca-Cola to lose
some 20 to 40 percent of its market share in some countries, while
fast food companies also lost sales.(24) The Iranian Zamzam
Cola captured a sizable Middle Eastern market, extending to Pakistan,
Malaysia, Indonesia and several African countries. Within four
months, the company exported ten million cans to Saudi Arabia
and Persian Gulf states. Some European countries, Denmark and
Belgium, began to import Zamzam. Alongside Zamzam, Mecca Cola
appeared in Paris to cater to European Arabs and Muslims who boycotted
the US beverages. It sold 2.2 million bottles in France within
two months. Mecca Cola allocated 10 percent of the revenue to
Palestinian children.
Information
technology is also increasingly being employed to direct political
campaigns. "Small media" has a longer history in the
Middle East. The sermons of Islamic preachers like Sheikh Kishk,
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Sheikh Fadlallah and the popular Egyptian televangelist
'Amr Khalid have been disseminated on a massive scale through
audio and videocassettes. Followers of 'Amr Khalid, who was banned
from preaching in late 2002, could gather over 10,000 signatures
in his support via websites. More recently, activists have begun
to use e-mails to publicize claims or mobilize for rallies and
demonstrations. In February 2003, Egyptian coalitions in solidarity
with Palestine and Iraq planned to send one million petitions
to the UN and the US and British Embassies via the Internet. Alternative
news websites are probably the most important sites through which
networks of critical and informed constituencies are formed. Satellite
TV is rapidly spreading in the Arab world, bringing alternative
information to break the hold of the barren domestic news channels.
The skyline of Damascus, bristling with satellite dishes, helps
to explain the soullessness of the street newsstands where the
ruling party's dailies are displayed.
While
cyber-campaigns remain limited to the elite (on average only 2
percent of Arabs have access to personal computers),(25)
the politics of the arts reaches a mass audience. The Israeli
reoccupation of the West Bank in 2002 revived the political legacy
of Umm Kulthoum, Fairouz and Morocco's Ahmad Sanoussi. Arab artists,
movie stars, painters and especially singers have become oracles
of public outrage. In Egypt, major pop stars such as 'Amr Diab,
Muhammad Munir and Mustafa Qamar produced best-selling albums
that featured exclusively religious and nationalist lyrics. Muhammad
Munir's high-priced "Land and Peace, O Prophet of God"
sold 100,000 copies in a short period. Other singers, including
Ali al-Hajjar, Muhammad Tharwat and Hani Shakir, joined together
to produce the religio-nationalistic album "Al-Aqsa, O God,"
which cornered Arab marketplaces.
Of
course, the extent and efficacy of these new spaces of contention
remain very modest. Yet the growing tendency of most Arab governments
to try to control them -- closing NGOs, banning publications or
songs and arresting web designers -- offers a hint of their potential
to compensate for the impediments facing the Arab street. As such,
street politics is not a virtue, but a necessity and an opportunity,
when people are compelled to make themselves heard. Virtue lies
not in mass politics, but in civil society, in the institutionalization
of interest articulation and in rational dialogue. Yet the street
remains the most vital locus for the audible expression of collective
grievances, so long as the local regimes or the global powers
ignore popularly held views. The Arab street is neither "irrational"
nor "dead," but is undergoing a major transformation
caused both by old constraints and new opportunities brought about
by global restructuring. As a means and mode of expression, the
Arab street may be shifting, but the collective grievance that
it conveys remains. To ignore it is to do injustice to both moral
sensibility and rational conduct of politics.
Endnotes
1
Robert Bartley, "Resolution, Not Compromise, Builds Coalition,"
Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2001.
2
Cited in Robert Satloff, "The Arab 'Street' Poses No Real
Threat to US," Newsday, September 27, 2002.
3
Ibid.
4
John Kifner, "Street Brawl," New York Times,
November 11, 2001.
5
See, for example, Reuel Marc Gerecht, "Better to Be Feared
Than Loved," The Weekly Standard, April 29, 2002 and
"The Myth of the Arab Street," Jerusalem Post, April
11, 2002. Authors sympathetic to Arab protest can have similar
takes. See, for example, Ashraf Khalil, "The Arab Couch,"
Cairo Times, December 26, 2002 and Robert Fisk, "A
Million March in London, but Faced with Disaster, the Arabs Are
Like Mice," Independent, February 18, 2003.
6
Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2001.
7
Al-Hayat, November 6, 2002.
8
See Edmund Burke and Ira Lapidus, eds. Islam, Politics and
Social Movements (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1990) and Zachary Lockman, ed. Workers and Working Classes
in the Middle East: Struggles, Histories, Historiographies
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994).
9
On labor struggles, see Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A
Political Economy of the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1990) and Marsha Pripstein Posusney, Labor and the State
in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
10
Lamis Andoni and Jillian Schwedler, "Bread Riots in Jordan,"
Middle East Report 201 (Fall 1996).
11
Ahmed Abdalla, The Student Movement and National Politics in
Egypt (London, Saqi Books, 1985).
12
UN Development Program, Arab Human Development Report 2002
(New York, 2002), p. 90.
13
For a detailed discussion of these dynamics, see Asef Bayat, "Activism
and Social Development in the Middle East," International
Journal of Middle East Studies 34/1 (February 2002).
14
See Reda Hilal, "Blowback: Islamization from Below,"
al-Ahram Weekly, November 21-27, 2002. See also 'Ali Abu
al-Khayr, "al-Islam al-Siyasi wa al-Dimuqratiyya," al-Wafd,
February 15, 2003.
15
See Asef Bayat, Post-Islamism: Socio-Religious Movements and
Political Change in the Middle East (Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, forthcoming).
16
Al-Hayat, January 28, 2003.
17
Al-Hayat, February 15, 2003.
18
Al-Hayat, January 20, 2002.
19
In Arab countries other than Egypt, there is little evidence pointing
to demonstrators targeting their own governments' policies.
20
By comparison, the opposition in today's Iran attempts to subvert
the hardliners' manipulation of the Palestinian cause to suppress
internal dissent, as in the protest chant "Leave Aside Palestine,
Let Us Focus on Ourselves" (Felestin-o raha kon, fekri
behal-e maa kon).
21
As reported by Human Rights Watch, in Egypt some 11 activists
had been detained by security agents in February 2003. Cairo
Times, February 6-19, 2003.
22
Interview with Fateh Azzam, coordinator of human rights program,
Ford Foundation, Cairo, February 2003.
23
See Hossam el-Hamalawy, "Closer to the Street," Cairo
Times, February 6-19 2003.
24
Payvan Iran News, October 14, 2002; Asia Times,
January 24, 2003; al-Qahira, January 7, 2003.
25
Arab Human Development Report 2002, p. 75.
