It’s been more than ten years since the Arab Spring uprisings, the series of large-scale anti-government protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa that began in 2011. The unrest – which commenced in Tunisia before spreading swiftly east into Libya and Egypt, north into Syria and south into Bahrain and Yemen – erupted in response to anger over allegations of widespread corruption, human rights abuses, a lack of democracy and severe economic depression.
Over the past decade the Arab Spring revolts have left a profound legacy. Widespread social unrest, riots, localised violence, civil war and the deposition of autocratic leaders all occurred to varying degrees. Tunisia experienced a revolution, and its President fled the country. Libya descended into civil war and its de facto leader, Muammar Gaddaffi, was killed during the conflict. Revolution broke out in Egypt and President Hosni Mubarak’s government was overturned. Syria descended into civil war; a situation that remains ongoing today. Revolution broke out in Yemen before also descending into civil war. Yemen is currently experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Only Tunisia has transitioned to a stable constitutional democracy.
In Egypt, the revolution has been quelled but the conditions that led to the Arab Spring have largely remain unchanged. While large-scale protests rarely occur, the younger generation is using Egyptian cultural expression to push back against an iron fisted government. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power as Egypt’s de facto military leader in 2013 and then again as it’s democratically elected President in 2014. Since that time, el-Sisi’s government has pushed a nationalism narrative, censoring any form of expression not in line with a carefully curated and culturally conservative Egypt. Yet the truth is that poverty and dysfunction remain the reality for many millions of Egyptians and serious human rights abuses are more prevalent than ever.
Freedom of expression is, unsurprisingly, heavily censored by the Egyptian government who usually argue such expression is antithetical to Egyptian values. One form of musical expression, Mahraganat, is on the forefront of this censorship campaign. It is a street genre rooted in the protest movement that combines rap, electronic dance music and Egyptian folk music to describe everyday class struggles of the poverty entrenched, disenfranchised youth. With the connectivity and reach of social media, the genre is having its moment both in Egypt and internationally having recently featured in Marvel’s Moon Knight production.
Despite its popularity, in February 2020 Egypt’s musical licensing organisation banned this form of musical expression. Many Mahraganat artists are now prohibited from ever performing throughout the country. The prohibition is so extreme that two Mahraganat singers were recently fined and jailed on vague allegations the artists were “violating family values”. The charges – which essentially criminalise free expression – are in direct violation of the associated right.
The Egyptian authorities maintain that this form of cultural expression allegedly misrepresents Egypt on the world stage and is promoting a decline in moral standards. The government refuses to accept that Mahraganat artists are merely reflecting the reality of life for young people in Egyptian society, using music as the medium to do so.
A similar situation has occurred in the Egyptian film industry. Feathers, a critically acclaimed Egyptian feature film and a 2021 Cannes film festival winner, is banned throughout Egypt. It portrays a side of life – the poor and difficult side – that the Egyptian political elite would prefer remains out of sight of international viewing. The film’s star, a 40-year-old Egyptian mother of eight, Damiana Nassar, had never acted nor could she read her lines, having left formal education when she was 12. The same struggles, and the same hard realities Damiana has faced in life made her the perfect casting fit as the long-suffering protagonist.
After the film was released last year, an Egyptian politician requested parliament hold the film’s producers to account for scenes in the film that portrayed extensive poverty, arguing that such scenes did not reflect reality. Yet, life as depicted in Feathers is the reality for so many Egyptians. In fact, the house where the movie is set is so similar to that of many working-class Egyptians that some viewers thought the film was shot in Damiana’s real-life home.
These artistic depictions of life in Egypt – whether it be in songs that speak to commonly experienced economic and social issues, or films that portray poverty so accurately audiences wonder if the set really is a set – are popular because they voice real life issues: unemployment, poverty, social barriers, and the taboo subject of drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism. They represent the lived experience of so many young Egyptians. Prohibiting this form of freedom of expression, one that resonates so strongly with a population, will likely only serve to fuel the fire of cultural change that the Arab Spring itself represented. Real stories, expressed through music and films, are simply the new resistance.
All views expressed within are the authors only.