Story by Yawen Chen
Photo by Kai Hayashi
During the past few months, the unexpected fall of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and other major Middle East countries has aroused all sorts of speculation from the rest of the world. In light of the recent changes in this area, earlier this month the UO Arab Student Union hosted “The Arab World on Fire,” a panel discussion addressing various political, economic, and social issues in the Arab world.
One of the panelists, Michael Allan, teaches comparative literature at the UO. His research focuses on colonialism, secularization, and the formation of modern reading practices in Africa and the Middle East. After the panel discussion, he sat down with Ethos to explain his personal reasons for studying Middle Eastern culture and his concerns about the Egyptian revolution.
Yawen Chen: ‘The Arab World on Fire’ panel discussion had a large turnout. You gave us a very powerful presentation and provided much key information at the panel. Have you worked with the Arab Student Union before?
Michael Allan: No, it was actually my first time working with the Arab Student Union. They are very well organized. It really meant a lot to see the amount of people who would be interested at this point of time. It’s reassuring to know that in Eugene, Oregon, there are many people who see the importance of the magnitude of the event that we are dealing with. It’s an exciting time and it’s good to see people recognize that.
YC: I remember you also mentioned that Cairo is like your second hometown. Can you tell me more about your background?
MA: [Laughs.] Right, somewhat. My family is all from Montreal, and I moved to the U.S. when I was a kid. Then, when I graduated from university I moved to Cairo. My first job was actually working at the American University in Cairo. I work in modern Arabic literature and Francophone literature, but largely, the framework for most of my scholarship is colonialism and literature in the 19th and 20th centuries.
YC: How do you find Cairo different?
MA: It’s really not a foreign place. It’s really not otherworldly.
YC: What motivated you to study the Arabic language and culture?
MA: When I went through my high school’s curriculum, I found that we studied Europe, Latin America, China, Africa, but never the Middle East. The period between the so-called formation of civilization until the Gulf War was completely ignored. So when I was an undergraduate, I thought, how can I properly consider myself educated if I have no understanding between the distinction between the Safavid [Dynasty] and the Ottoman Empire? There is this gaping hole in my education, and I thought: ‘Now I am in university and I have the access to the resources. If I’m not going to study at this point in my life, then when will I?’ So I started to take classes, and the more I took classes, the more I was into it and wanted to know more.
Other motives come from the readings I undertook over the years. There were moments of reading about the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. I had friends who were really into his poems and I would read it in translation, and I developed the desire to start reading Darwish in Arabic. The more I involved myself, the more I realized that Arabic is everywhere in my life.
YC: Who inspired you the most?
MA: Still, Mahmoud Darwish. There is some richness to his poetry that makes it impossible to reduce his work to a slogan. That’s precisely the reason why I read it and reread it so many times, and it touches me in different ways [throughout] my life.
YC: What do you think brought the people to the street in the first place? You mentioned the role of Kefaya [the unofficial name for the group the Egyptian Movement for Change] is very critical in the revolution in Egypt. What are the motives that prompted Kefaya to come into being?
MA: I think a movement like Kefaya comes out of a number of very simple frustrations. One was with the lack of open elections in Egypt. So coalitions came together out of the frustration of [Hosni] Mubarak’s sustained rein without open elections, and became more concerned when it seemed like Mubarak’s son would succeed him. Kefaya also grew out of the frustration with corruption within the Mubarak regime. And Kefaya really grew up in horror at the extent of police brutality, where citizens could be arrested and tortured in prisons. Suddenly, Kefaya was this social movement that came together to draw attention to those issues, and bring them to the Egyptian public, and thankfully, bring it to the international public as well.
YC: Religion has always been a contended topic in the Middle East region. Do you think religious conflict is a key factor in the uprisings of Middle East nations?
MA: Honestly, I would strongly resist calling this a ‘Middle East issue.’ I think if anything, there is now a universal hope among people who have grown up under dictators. I think it’s not a Middle East cultural phenomenon. It’s a global phenomenon.
Seeing what’s going on in Algeria, in Libya, in Yemen, in Iran, if anything, there is an inspiration in this moment, there is a particular type of social organizing among young groups, among groups that come together from religious and secular backgrounds, from Marxist and liberal and conservative traditions.
For me, one of the frustrations I have with what I hear how the story of what is happening in Egypt is told is that commentators are inclined to frame it in terms of secularist verses Islamic. And I think that learning Arabic, studying Arabic sources, living on the ground, engaging in the situation means understanding that that narrative just doesn’t work in this context, where you have groups like Kefaya. All of these coalitions really fuel this revolution. I think part of what makes it an important moment is to look at what sort of possibilities have come together to this moment.
YC: What do you think of the role of Facebook and Twitter in this revolution?
MA: One of the things I find negative about social media is that its inclined to shift people’s attention away from the roots of the events to the success of the social media network. Social media like Facebook and Twitter has contributed on a certain level, but they are just tools. For example, the largest protest occurred when the country suffered an Internet blackout, which means without [the use of] social media. It surprises me that there is this fascination about social media as somehow the driving force of this revolution.
YC: So then you don’t think it is?
MA: I don’t. The frustration I have is that the people who talk about social media end up talking less about the revolution. This is not a WikiLeak revolution. This is not a Twitter revolution. It is young people and elder people making coalitions. A lot of these social movements don’t grow out of nowhere. I think it’s the time to reflect less on the effects of social media and more on what is really going on in those countries.
YC: Even though Mubarak is gone, some people are worried about the tension between the people and the military. What questions should be paid attention to?
MA: Given that Mubarak was quite old, there were already on the way a number of legal measures to put in place systems that would assist with more open elections upon his passing. That said, there is the question of whether this is going to be one of the reforms, in which case you would have to tinker with the system, or will it really be a revolutionary moment. I think this is a revolution of workers, students, and of all Egyptians.
YC: What as students can we do about what is going on in Egypt?
MA: If there is anything you can do about what is going on in Egypt, draw inspiration or use this as an opportunity to read more and explore more. There are multiple pathways. Popular culture can be one way. High culture can be another. The desire to know about the world, what your particular place is in the world, and how that world of yours can transform and expand is important for students.
As a professor, I’m there to take a student’s hand and help him or her, but I’m not someone who implants inspirations on my students. We all have that continuing responsibility to find what we love in multiple languages and multiple traditions.
