Four women of Egypt : memory, geopolitics, and the Egyptian women's movement during the Nasser and Sadat Eras

This article addresses the Egyptian women’s movement of the 1950s–1970s through a recent film entitled Four Women of Egypt, which focuses on the lives of four prominent Egyptian women active in the movement during that period. Using the concept of political memory, the article traces some of the major debates within the women’s movement throughout this era. By focusing on the ways in which these women conceptualize the geopolitical, I show that the twin concepts of imperialism and capitalism were central to the ways in which they understood gender. The result was a complex understanding of how gender intersected with Egypt's position within a broader global system of imperial capitalism. Following the transition in the 1970s to an open-market economy, the women's movement shifted away from critiques of imperialism and capitalism. This shift can be understood only in terms of geopolitics: the rise of neoliberalism in Egypt. New neoliberal policies had dramatic effects on the women’s movement, showing why both the rise and fall of the movement must be contextualized geopolitically and transnationally

Haunted histories: Nasserism and the promises of the past

This article revisits the Nasserist project through the lens of haunting. It explores the afterlives of Nasserism, in particular in relation to Egypt’s move toward a free market economy from the 1970s onwards. To do this, I explore the Nasserist project in order to excavate some of the promises that were made and to trace the legacies these created. I argue that both these promises—only partially fulfilled—and the social violence they at times contained—continued to act as powerful political memories that limited Egyptian politics in the decades that followed. Thinking of Nasserism as a form of haunting allows for a deeper understanding of how different political projects seep into one another, problematizing the notion of a linear teleological or providential trajectory consisting of distinct eras. In distinction to work that has mobilized the concept of haunting (originally theorized by Jacques Derrida) in order to elaborate on the historical manifestation of damaging or violent legacies in the present, I argue that Nasserist forms of haunting should be read as both a productive and destructive normative force in the present. This article puts forward examples of both, particularly in relation to questions of social justice, socialism, and anti-imperialism

On transnational feminist solidarity : the case of Angela Davis in Egypt

In the early 1970s, Angela Davis visited Egypt, a trip she wrote about in her book Women, Culture, and Politics. This article uses Davis’s trip as a lens through which to approach the question of transnational feminist solidarity through the eyes of multiple generations of Egyptian feminists. It argues that the particular conditions in Egypt in the 1950s through to 1970s allowed for new international forms of solidarity focused on material conditions. This enabled Egyptian feminists to forge solidarity with women across the globe, Angela Davis included, who located gender oppression within the same structures, namely capitalism and imperialism. This type of solidarity was made possible by the particular political and economic context of the 1950s–1970s, which differed radically from the eras preceding and following it, as well as the analysis that came out of this context, including a strong focus on capitalism and imperialism. Indeed the decline of this type of analysis can be located in the changes that occurred in Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s—following the shift to an open-market economy—that led to a decline in material analysis. This shift has had major effects on the ways in which Egyptian feminists imagined and put into practice forms of transnational feminist solidarity. By looking at Davis’s encounter with Egyptian feminists, this article demonstrates how practices that were built on a material analysis of gender allowed for solidarity to be created by making differences productive rather than merely divisive

Gramsci in the postcolony: hegemony and anticolonialism in Nasserist Egypt

This article traces Gramsci's concept of hegemony as it travels from Southern Italy to Egypt, arguing that the concept ‘stretches’, following Fanon, through an encounter with the nexus of capitalism and (post-)colonialism. I explore a reading of Gramsci's concepts in a postcolonial context, paying special attention to colonialism and anticolonialism as constitutive of the absence or presence of hegemony. Through an exploration of the Nasserist project in Egypt – the only instance of hegemony in modern Egyptian history – I show how colonialism and anticolonialism were central to the formation of Nasserist hegemony. Drawing on Edward Said, I look at two particular aspects of hegemony as a traveling theory to bring to light some theoretical entanglements that arise when Gramsci travels, in turn highlighting the continuing theoretical potential thinking through such entanglements, as well as of thinking with Gramsci in Egypt and the broader postcolonial world

On teaching anticolonial archives

What does exploring decolonisation mean, look like and feel like In the classroom? And how does one think of this in relation to both the curriculum and pedagogy? Sara Salem takes up these questions as she reflects on designing and delivering a course at LSE on anticolonial archives. She takes readers through the contents of the course, the questions and emotions that it generated and considers the role of the professor in creating a space where everyone can participate meaningfully. At the end of the course, it’s not just the students who have changed, but the teacher, too

Should They Stay or Should They Go: Rethinking The Use of Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude in Immigration Law

Although absent from modern English conversation, the words moral turpitude continue to carry devastating consequences for undocumented aliens living in the United States. Under federal immigration law, an alien convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude may be deported or denied entry into the United States. Perhaps most significantly, nearly all immigration relief is conditioned on an alien having never been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. So the question becomes, what is a crime involving moral turpitude? There is currently no clear answer. No one standard exists for determining whether a conviction qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude. Circuit courts are split, each applying their own body of case law to determine issues of moral turpitude that reach their dockets. This Note reviews the history and inconsistencies of CIMT jurisprudence, explains Attorney General Mukasey’s failed attempt to standardize the area, and finally recommends a standard approach to be applied by the BIA and circuit courts across the country

Fanon in the postcolonial Mediterranean: sovereignty and agency in neoliberal Egypt

In this essay I revisit Fanon’s theory on the emergence of a postcolonial elite in the Global South, and suggest that his argument around the dynamics of imperial transformation following the end of formal colonial rule can shed light on the postcolonial era, in particular the period of neoliberalization that began in the 1970s to which foreign capital such as European Union (EU) capital has been central. I use the concept of amnesia to highlight some of these changes, focusing on two forms: the amnesia of radical critique and the amnesia of empire, arguing that they allow for questions of economic dependency, sovereignty, agency and resistance to come to the fore, highlighting both change and continuity. In particular, Fanon’s work allows for an exploration of both forms of amnesia, through his emphasis on a dependent bourgeoisie as well as the ways in which global political economic structures condition postcolonial agency

Sonallah Ibrahim and Miriam Naoum’s Zaat: deploying the domestic in representations of Egyptian politics

This article explores the television adaptation of Sonallah Ibrahim's novel Zaat, arguing that the series provides us with an interesting representation of the various ways in which national projects in Egypt are gendered. It adds to feminist debates around nationalism, capitalism, and gender. In particular, the focus on the intimate in Zaat reveals how political projects are depicted in the domestic sphere through the lens of women's work. The article explores two themes: one, the increasing financial pressure and its effects on constructs of masculinity and femininity, and two, the steady decay of infrastructure and social services and how it renders middle-class life an impossibility. The article argues that by focusing on the intimate, Ibrahim's novel and the TV adaptation both reveal the various forms of work women perform and make use of women's work to critique or celebrate national projects

Empire’s h(a)unting grounds: theorising violence and resistance in Egypt and Afghanistan

This article thinks theory otherwise by searching for what is missing, silent and yet highly productive and constitutive of present realities. Looking at Afghanistan and Egypt, the authors show how imperial legacies and capitalist futurities are rendered invisible by dominant social theories, and why it matters that we think beyond an empiricist sociology in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, the authors explore the ways in which portrayals of the country as retrogressive elide the colonial violence that has ensured the very backwardness that is now considered Afghanistan’s enduring characteristic. Specifically, using the example of the institutionalisation of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), they ask what alternative narratives might emerge if we take empire’s ghosts seriously on their own terms? In Egypt, the authors look at the ways in which Gamal Abdel Nasser’s anticolonial project continues to haunt present-day Egyptian political, social and economic life. In particular, they ask how anticolonial nationalism and its promises produced lingering after-effects, and how we can understand these through the figure of the ‘spectre’. The article asks what it would mean to produce social theory through (re)visiting sites of resistance, violence and contestation, proposing haunting as a means through which to understand and analyse political, social and economic change in the Middle East