On the night of February 11, 2011, I joined hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in Tahrir Square to celebrate what just days before had seemed an impossible feat: the overthrow of the authoritarian president of three decades, Hosni Mubarak. Now, the revolution appears dead, the economy is in steep decline, and many citizens support the new military strongman heading the reentrenched regime who presided over a massacre of over 1,000 of his opponents in the summer of 2013. What happened? How could millions of people come to support a status quo they had earlier rejected? How could they cheer on a man with no political experience and no regard for the constitution or separation of powers? The answers to these questions are critical to our understanding not only of what happened to one of the biggest revolutions in the twenty-first century. They also offer potential insights into why we are witnessing a worldwide rise of reactionary movements in the broader Middle East, but also in the United States, Western Europe, South America, and the Indian subcontinent.

“Why did these uprisings not achieve their desired effects?”

From the perspective of 2022, the Egyptian revolution of 2011 that brought down Hosni Mubarak does not seem like a revolution at all. Indeed, the entire era of uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa in that year may seem like they were for naught, with the possible exception of Tunisia. Egypt is under the firm grip of a military ruler once again, Bahrain and Morocco are still in the control of ruling dynasties, and Libya, Yemen, and Syria are fragmented and war torn. Why did these uprisings not achieve their desired effects? Many commentators rightly focus on causes such as economic inequalities and the intensification of the security state, often intertwined with racial and ethnic hierarchies. Yet one critical component is vastly underexplored: the alluring aesthetics of authoritarian populisms. Drawing from my research in Egypt, I suggest that new forms of authoritarian rule may look good and feel good to people who experience instability in their lives, as well as a loss of respect or dignity.

From revolutionary protest to aesthetic dictatorship

The protestors who took to the streets that year across the region were part of a global wave of protests against similar forces, from Occupy to the Indignados. Their anger and determination were instigated by international forces, such as the predatory effects of neoliberal capitalism, as well as, in the case of the Middle East, US empire and European governments propping up dictators in their own self interests. We saw similar protest tactics and shared demands across many contexts. And in the decade since, we have seen counterrevolutionary forces rise with a vengeance.

“Many Egyptians came to see, indeed came to feel and sense, that the protests and resulting state violence were disrupting all that they had fought for—a life of dignity.”

In all of these cases, it has become clear that governments are more beholden to elites than to everyday people. In the Middle East, there is the added layer of US, European, and Russian influences. The forces of political-economic power and neoliberal capitalism are nearly insurmountable, and very difficult to keep fighting against beyond the heady days of revolutionary protests. Part of the answer as to why many Egyptians came to support a new military dictator just two and a half years after their uprising against an authoritarian regime has to do with the affectual state produced by continued protests. By the summer of 2013, many were tired of the constant news of protest, street skirmishes, the rise in crime, haphazard government crackdowns, and rapid changes in government personnel. Only the most committed revolutionaries, and their Muslim Brotherhood rivals, were out on the streets protesting, often in violent clashes. For others, these times were both enervating and stressful. Many Egyptians came to see, indeed came to feel and sense, that the protests and resulting state violence were disrupting all that they had fought for—a life of dignity. At the beginning of the uprising in 2011, a staggering 25 percent of the population were living under the poverty line, and nearly 25 percent just above it. By 2013, those numbers had likely increased. In circumstances like these, one cannot even economically sustain two years of protests, with their inevitable disruption to income. People became frustrated with the lack of change and fatigued by all the upheaval. A strong desire for stability emerged. “We need stability (istiqrar)” was a common phrase uttered in everyday life and in the media.

General Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi’s promises of stability merged with this desire, and in some cases likely produced it. When Sisi urged Egyptians to go to the streets in 2013 to demand the overthrow of President Muhammed Morsi, the democratically elected president and affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, he did so by drawing on longstanding Mubarak-era discourses casting the Brotherhood as uncivilized violent terrorists and the government/military as savior. He knew that many Egyptians also feared that if the government did not take strong action, Egypt would become like Syria. Many Egyptians worried that ISIS would take over Egypt, and made no distinctions between the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS. Certainly, the government’s rhetoric that Egypt needed stability was in its own best interest. And Sisi in particular had an aesthetic presence that connoted stability, particularly to the middle classes.

When Egyptians descended on Tahrir Square to demand the removal of Morsi, they were in part doing so out of aesthetic attraction to Sisi’s strongman image as bolstered by middle-class nationalism. As I discuss elsewhere, this kind of nationalism had come to dominate the immediate post-2011 uprising aesthetic environment of civic activity, and only increased with time.1Jessica Winegar, “A Civilized Revolution: Aesthetics and Political Action in Egypt,” American Ethnologist 43, no. 4 (2016): 609–622. Sisi’s military aesthetic connoted stability and prestige in a society where support for the military is high–due in part to conscription, decades of military propaganda in the mass media and education, and the national fame of elite officers. For many, his demeanor, dress, and way of speaking conveyed a respectable masculinity that was recognizably middle class. This aesthetic presentation relied heavily on hegemonic nationalism as well as a particular mode of Islamic piety. And his supporters loved it.

“There was an intense feeling of hope and reassurance that was expressed through nationalist love for Sisi that proliferated in mass culture that indeed focused on masculine, military, and middle-class aesthetics.”

The anthropologist Maria Malmström and I have both analyzed the outbursts of love and affection for Sisi that coincided with his ascent in the summer of 2013 from Minister of Defense to what many thought of as “savior of the Egyptian people.”2→Maria Frederika Malmström, The Streets Are Talking to Me: Affective Fragments in Sisi’s Egypt (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019).
→Jessica Winegar, “Love and Disgust: Sovereignty Struggles in Egypt’s Uprising,” in Sovereignty Unhinged, eds. Deborah A. Thomas and Joseph Masco (Duke University Press, forthcoming).
There was an intense feeling of hope and reassurance that was expressed through nationalist love for Sisi that proliferated in mass culture that indeed focused on masculine, military, and middle-class aesthetics. Love for the strongman was expressed in huge street banners, large gilded frame portraits of him dotting the urban landscape, songs and music videos by some of Egypt’s top musicians, television talk shows, Twitter hashtags, Facebook groups, and political cartoons (including one of him portrayed as Superman saving a female Egypt in his arms). People posed with their hands making two C’s in support of Sisi. Many of these expressions used the word love (hub) to refer to both Sisi and the nation as if they were one, and indeed Sisi’s frequent evocations of love for the nation was often framed as the basis of people’s love for him. In just one of many examples, a song released after the coup but before the August 2013 massacre entitled “We Love You Sisi” lauds him for “getting rid of the Brotherhood for us” and refers to him as a “respectable Egyptian,” “the symbol of virtue,” “son of the Nile,” “one of us,” “who protects all of us,” and an “uncle” (`ammu, the word used for father’s brother, a man who symbolizes great power in the patriline). Indeed, people’s expressions of support for Sisi drew on patriarchal family metaphors that had circulated in mass media for nearly a century, in which patriarchy was represented as “a form of love rather than an expression of authority grounded in compulsion.”3Walter Armbrust, “Long Live the Patriarchy: Love in the Time of `Abd al-Wahhab,” History Compass 7, no. 1 (2009): 251–281, 253.

https://items.ssrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Winegar-Image-1.jpeg
Two young men in Tahrir Square with Sisi masks and poster. The poster has phrases such as “Glory to Egypt” and “The army and the people are one hand.” Image accessed from the internet in 2016; no longer available online.

Thus, Sisi supporters did not understand him to be an authoritarian compelling obedience from his subjects. Rather, the aesthetic attraction was based on a desire for a strong yet refined male savior, a good military man, a good Muslim man, and a benevolent patriarch. And these characteristics were constituted, indeed substantiated, for many Egyptians by a range of aesthetic aspects. First, Sisi sported a prayer bruise and frequently uttered Islamic phrases, which communicated adherence to Islam. But his shaven face was a stark contrast to the beards of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, which were derided as medieval and uncivilized. In a highly religious society fearful of radical Islamism, this communication of “proper” Islam provided a sense of comfort. Sisi also wore both military uniforms and business suits, drawing on the attraction to the military as well as economically successful men. And finally, people remarked upon the soft tenor of his voice. This was the aesthetic of the benevolent patriarch, not the oppression of the Islamists, who were frequently ridiculed for being loud and screaming in their protests.

But this attraction would not last forever. Now, eight years into his rule, that appearance has crumbled for many, as they have watched the country slide even deeper into poverty and witnessed oppression at levels not seen even in the Mubarak era.

The crumbling allure of authoritarian aesthetics

“While some Egyptians were proud of this accomplishment of moving sensitive remains so safely, and impressed with the beauty of the spectacle, others lambasted it as a gross expression of power and misspending of money…”

If responses to the most recent display of militaristic nationalist aesthetics are any indication, then their appeal still exists but is wearing thin. In April 2021, the regime held a multimillion-dollar gold-themed spectacle in Tahrir Square to transport ancient Egyptian mummies from the old to the new Egyptian Museum. The transport vehicles for each mummy were perhaps intended to look like chariots but were aesthetically very similar to tanks. The military personnel flanked the parade, which featured performers dressed up as the ancients moving in coordinated, stiff military-like formation. The parade included cannon salutes and military drums, and ended with Sisi himself parading down a long red carpeted hallway to receive the mummies at the steps of the new museum. While some Egyptians were proud of this accomplishment of moving sensitive remains so safely, and impressed with the beauty of the spectacle, others lambasted it as a gross expression of power and misspending of money in a country experiencing very high poverty rates, an ongoing pandemic, and an infrastructure crisis that had recently resulted in yet another deadly train crash. Some noted how poor Egyptians in the adjoining neighborhoods were not allowed to view the spectacle in person. Others complained that it was a blatant attempt to erase the Egyptian revolution’s history in Tahrir Square and rewrite it, not only with the parade but also with fresh pavement and a gated off obelisk in the famed center where protestor tents once stood.4→Rayhan Uddin, “Egyptians Criticize Mummy Parade for Neglecting the Living,” Middle East Eye, April 5, 2021.
→Mariam Elnozahy, “Forever is Now, on the Art of Art D’Égypte,” Madamasr, October 20, 2021.
→Hussein A.H. Omar, “Pharaohs on Parade,” London Review of Books, April 6, 2021.

Just as the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East were connected in cause and form to uprisings in other parts of the world, the rise of right-wing populisms in their wake is also an interconnected international phenomenon. As we take stock of the decade after the 2011 uprisings in Egypt and across the Middle East, we should consider the aesthetic dimensions of the shifts in power. We should ask how the aesthetic features of counterrevolutionary, right-wing figures or movements may attract everyday citizens into their fold. In the Middle East, the appeal of Netanyahu and al-Assad could be unpacked along these lines. We might also extend this approach to investigating the rise of other male political leaders who have cultivated right-wing populism through aesthetic tactics—leaders such as Trump, Bolsonaro,5Ricardo F. Mendonça and Renato Duarte Caetano, “Populism as Parody: The Visual Self-Presentation of Jair Bolsonaro on Instagram,” International Journal of Press/Politics 26, no. 1 (2020): 210–235. Modi, and Orbán. Their styles are attractive to people seeking stability and respect, whether it is from perceived threats to whiteness or Hinduness, for example, and/or from the predations of neoliberal capitalism. Yet we are also still in a global era of protests, and Egypt and the Middle East are no exception. From social media outcries to labor strikes to street protests to the arts, less militaristic and more dynamic styles continue to be a means for expressing dissent. But we ignore the allure of authoritarian aesthetics at our peril.

Banner photo: Image of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s likeness emblazoned on expensive chocolates. Photo credit: Maria Malmström.

References:

1
Jessica Winegar, “A Civilized Revolution: Aesthetics and Political Action in Egypt,” American Ethnologist 43, no. 4 (2016): 609–622.
2
→Maria Frederika Malmström, The Streets Are Talking to Me: Affective Fragments in Sisi’s Egypt (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019).
→Jessica Winegar, “Love and Disgust: Sovereignty Struggles in Egypt’s Uprising,” in Sovereignty Unhinged, eds. Deborah A. Thomas and Joseph Masco (Duke University Press, forthcoming).
3
Walter Armbrust, “Long Live the Patriarchy: Love in the Time of `Abd al-Wahhab,” History Compass 7, no. 1 (2009): 251–281, 253.
4
→Rayhan Uddin, “Egyptians Criticize Mummy Parade for Neglecting the Living,” Middle East Eye, April 5, 2021.
→Mariam Elnozahy, “Forever is Now, on the Art of Art D’Égypte,” Madamasr, October 20, 2021.
→Hussein A.H. Omar, “Pharaohs on Parade,” London Review of Books, April 6, 2021.
5
Ricardo F. Mendonça and Renato Duarte Caetano, “Populism as Parody: The Visual Self-Presentation of Jair Bolsonaro on Instagram,” International Journal of Press/Politics 26, no. 1 (2020): 210–235.