The Egyptians: A Radical History of Egypt¿s Unfinished Revolution

by Jack Shenker

Overview

The award-winning journalist and longtime Cairo resident delivers a “meticulous, passionate study” of the ongoing battle for contemporary Egypt (The Guardian).
 
On January, 25, 2011, a revolution began in Egypt that succeeded in ousting the country’s longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak. In The Egyptians, journalist Jack Shenker uncovers the roots of the uprising and explores the country’s current state, divided between two irreconcilable political orders. Challenging conventional analyses that depict a battle between Islamists and secular forces, The Egyptians illuminates other, equally important fault lines: far-flung communities waging war against transnational corporations, men and women fighting to subvert long-established gender norms, and workers dramatically seizing control of their own factories.
 
Putting the Egyptian revolution in its proper context as an ongoing popular struggle against state authority and economic exclusion, The Egyptians explains why the events since 2011 have proved so threatening to elites both inside Egypt and abroad. As Egypt’s rulers seek to eliminate all forms of dissent, seeded within the rebellious politics of Egypt’s young generation are big ideas about democracy, sovereignty, social justice, and resistance that could yet change the world.
 
“I started reading this and couldn’t stop. It’s a remarkable piece of work, and very revealing. A stirring rendition of a people’s revolution as the popular forces that Shenker vividly depicts carry forward their many and varied struggles, with radical potential that extends far beyond Egypt.” —Noam Chomsky

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620972557
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	01/03/2017
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Jack Shenker is a journalist based in London and Cairo. Formerly Egypt correspondent for The Guardian, he received multiple prizes for his coverage of the Egyptian revolution. This is his first book.

Table of Contents

List of Maps ix

Note on Transliteration xiii

Prologue: 'The people want …' 1

Part I Mubarak Country

1 'This is our Egypt' 25

2 Palace Ghosts and Desert Dreams 76

3 T Love to Singa' 109

Part II Resistance Country

4 The Colonel's Revenge 143

5 'Who told you we were weak?' 169

6 Enough 191

7 'The streets are ours' 210

Part III Revolution Country

8 The Old Ways and the New 241

9 Sheep Manure and Caramel 279

10 'Now we make our dreams real in the daytime' 326

11 Writing Walls 351

12 Body Paint 383

Epilogue: Journeys 428

Afterword 455

Notes 463

Acknowledgements 507

Index 509

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Egyptians :

“His [Jack Shenker's] understanding of Egypt and its people is visceral as well as intellectual.”
— The Christian Science Monitor

“A brilliant critic and activist journalist explores the democratic motives behind Egyptians' overthrow of their government in 2011.”
— Shelf Awareness

" The Egyptians is...a sparky and resolutely cliche-free look at the struggle for democracy in 21st century Egypt.
— The Observer , The Best Nonfiction For 2016

"A refreshing account...Mr Shenker evokes despair at the economy of this badly run country, but also surprising hope for its future."
— The Economist , Books of the Year 2016

"I started reading this and couldn’t stop. It’s a remarkable piece of work, and very revealing. A stirring rendition of a people’s revolution as the popular forces that Shenker vividly depicts carry forward their many and varied struggles, with radical potential that extends far beyond Egypt."
—Noam Chomsky

"Jack Shenker’s The Egyptians [is] a sweeping look at the long trajectory of popular mobilization, local battles and political conflict, transcending the travails of the Jan. 25, 2011, revolution and the July 3, 2013, military coup. His deeply sympathetic look at the long struggles of ordinary Egyptians, outside of the spotlight of Cairo’s activist class, gives substance to the view that the military coup cannot long suppress the restless energy of Egyptians."
— The Washington Post

"Shenker is a vivid writer."
— The Nation

"A troubling yet highly engaging catch-up on the state of incomplete revolution in Egypt. "
— Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Truly astonishing...painstakingly researched, moving, engaging and engaged, the most articulate and comprehensive account of the revolution I have read to date... The Egyptians is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how and why Egypt's revolution happened – and why it continues.”
— Open Democracy

“Jack Shenker pulls no punches in his examination of the post-Nasser Egyptian establishment and its venal and murderous ways...It is stirring stuff, compellingly reported and powered by a tenacious empathy for the underdog in a country where the rich have taken - in many cases plundered - almost everything from under the noses of the poor…”
— Sunday Times

“Shenker has written what amounts to a contemporary history of injustice…Shenker is a sensitive interlocutor, and the people-stories he relates comprise a stirring mise en valeur of a struggle for human dignity of unsung depth and dimension.”
— Times Literary Supplement

“Inspirational...[Shenker's] analysis is acutely clear-sighted, given the chaos of recent events. The book mixes a hawk's eye view of the forces of global capitalism as applied to Egypt with a vivid worm's eye view of what it is like to be caught up in a revolution. This is a passionate book, but not an unbalanced one...it tells stories that need to be told, and which have been widely ignored.”
— Independent

"Intimate and comprehensive."
—Pankaj Mishra, author of From the Ruins of Empire

"The central argument of this meticulous, carefully researched and passionately argued book is that the battle in Egypt, as in almost every other place in the world, is between a dominant global neoliberal capitalist system and the people whose lives and livelihoods it is destroying. . . . The Egyptians is not just about the revolution, it is an act within it; making its case, documenting its achievements and tragedies, pushing forward its narrative. It celebrates the collective and enacts it in its co-operation with texts and witnesses."
—Ahdaf Soueif, author of The Map of Love

"This is the deepest and most comprehensive account of Egypt’s revolution in the English language, and it will set the agenda for debate throughout the Arab world."
—Paul Mason, author of Postcapitalism

"Essential reading for those who want to go beyond the conventional wisdom and understand the real causes of upheaval in the Arab world."
—Lindsey Hilsum, author of Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution

"This superbly written book documents the great victories—and terrible setbacks—of a people thirsting for democracy and social justice. A courageous writer who gives voice to the hopes and fears of the people of Egypt."
—Owen Jones

"Shenker is one of the best observers of the current scene in Egypt."
—Khaled Fahmy, professor of history at the American University

From the Publisher

★ 2016-10-06
A sharp jab at the neoliberal economics adopted by Egypt over the last decades, which ultimately spurred grass-roots revolt.Was it actually revolution, or was it a convulsive moment buried now in the status quo? In his debut book, London- and Cairo-based British journalist Shenker, the former Egypt correspondent for the Guardian, gets at the deep economic forces that allowed Egyptian dictators from Anwar Sadat to Hosni Mubarak to transfer resources from the poor to the rich and essentially become “a land of minority accumulation and majority degradation.” While Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to instill reform by defeating feudalism and imperialism, the pact he sealed with the people ensured their exclusion from politics. His successor, Sadat, introduced liberalizing reform that fit “neatly with a global trend away from state oversight of the economy and toward a model in which capital would be free to move without regulation”—what essentially became the neoliberalism propounded by Milton Friedman and implemented disastrously in Chile and other Latin American countries. Shenker skillfully breaks it all down, showing how the move toward privatization created a highly centralized, undemocratic system of governance aided by the global financial community, offering little accountability and allowing a few “nepotistic clusters” to get rich while leaving the rest struggling and impoverished—conditions ripe for revolution. Yet the military now rules again in Egypt and has driven the revolution underground and invisible—or so it would seem. Shenker provocatively explores ways and places (“tenuous little zones”) where the ancien regime has no more legitimacy and where cracks of resistance grow larger—e.g., villages demanding self-mastery, women pushing back against sexual violence, laborers striking for fair wages, graffiti artists and emerging writers working against the state, and, overall, a bold refusal to give in to fear of the state police. A troubling yet highly engaging catch-up on the state of incomplete revolution in Egypt.

Kirkus Reviews