Egyptian Hip Hop and the January 25th Revolution


Book Description

Abstract: In 2011, the world watched as a wave of popular uprisings rippled through North Africa and the Middle East. These "revolutions," as they came to be known, were aimed at overthrowing the region's dictatorial rulers and sought to address the growing social issues of police brutality, government corruption, and unemployment. During this time, Egypt took center stage with Cairo's Tahrir Square serving as the emblematic public space of revolutionary activity.




Egyptian Hip-Hop: Expressions from the Underground


Book Description

This ethnographic study of the Egyptian underground hip-hop scene examines the artists who collectively molded the scene and analyzes their practices and explores how these artists have interacted with and responded to political and social upheaval and change. It reveals how rappers approached and reformulated the genre in times of revolution and stasis to reveal how rap acts as a multi-layered form of expression. More specifically, it examines the location of the art form within the broader history of oppositional cultural expression in Egypt, outlining the artists' oppositions to various hegemonic structures and critically deconstructing them to reveal that they often reflect dominant ideology.




The New Egypt


Book Description




The Egyptians


Book Description

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




Why Occupy a Square?


Book Description

On 25 January 2011, tens of thousands of Egyptians came out on the streets to protest against emergency rule and police brutality. Eighteen days later, Mubarak, one of the longest sitting dictators in the region, had gone. How are we to make sense of these events? Was this a revolution, a revolutionary moment? How did the protests come about? How were they able to outmaneuver the police? Was this really a 'leaderless revolution,' as so many pundits claimed, or were the demonstrations an outgrowth of the protest networks that had developed over the past decade? Why did so many people with no history of activism participate? What role did economic and systemic crises play in creating the conditions for these protests to occur? Was this really a Facebook revolution? Why Occupy a Square? is a dynamic exploration of the shape and timing of these extraordinary events, the players behind them, and the tactics and protest frames they developed. Drawing on social movement theory, it traces the interaction between protest cycles, regime responses and broader structural changes over the past decade. Using theories of urban politics, space and power, it reflects on the exceptional state of non-sovereign politics that developed during the occupation of Tahrir Square.




Tweets from Tahrir


Book Description

The Twitter posts of the activists who brought heady days of revolution to Egypt in early 2011, paint a picture of an uprising in real time. This book brings together a selection of key tweets in a compelling, fastpaced narrative, allowing the story to be told directly by the people who made the revoltution.




Whatever Happened to the Egyptian Revolution?


Book Description

In his latest exploration of the Egyptian malaise, Galal Amin first looks at the events of the months preceding the Revolution of 25 January 2011, pointing out the most important factors behind popular discontent. He then follows the ups and downs (mainly the downs) of the Revolution: the causes of rising hopes and expectations, mingled with successive disappointments, sometimes verging on despair, not least in the case of the presidential elections, when the Egyptian people were invited to choose between a rock and a hard place. This is followed by an outline of a possible brighter future for Egypt, based on a more balanced and faster growing economy, and a more democratic and equitable society, within a truly independent, modern, and secular state. The story of what happened to the 2011 Revolution may be a sad one, but if viewed within the larger context of Egypt's economic and social developments of the last century, on which the author's previous books threw very useful light, it can be regarded as one important step forward toward a much better future.




The Battle for Egypt


Book Description

In a series of riveting dispatches, Cairo native Yasmine El Rashidi provides an eyewitness account of the entire 2011 Egyptian Revolution as it unfolded, from its origins in the days leading up to the first January 25 protest in Tahrir Square through the violent confrontations with the regime and the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, to the subsequent military takeover and the March 2011 constitutional referendum. Drawing on her deep knowledge of the Egyptian capital and its underlying social divisions, El Rashidi brings together a vivid story of the uprising itself with subtle insights about the strengths—and limits—of the protest movement and the prospects for large-scale political change in the September 2011 parliamentary elections. With a preface by the Oxford scholar of revolutions Timothy Garton Ash. The Battle for Egypt is available as an e-book only. There is no print edition of this book.




Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa


Book Description

This book examines social change in Africa through the lens of hip hop music and culture. Artists engage their African communities in a variety of ways that confront established social structures, using coded language and symbols to inform, question, and challenge. Through lyrical expression, dance, and graffiti, hip hop is used to challenge social inequality and to push for social change. The study looks across Africa and explores how hip hop is being used in different places, spaces, and moments to foster change. In this edited work, authors from a wide range of fields, including history, sociology, African and African American studies, and political science explore the transformative impact that hip hop has had on African youth, who have in turn emerged to push for social change on the continent. The powerful moment in which those that want change decide to consciously and collectively take a stand is rooted in an awareness that has much to do with time. Therefore, the book centers on African hip hop around the context of “it’s time” for change, Ni Wakati.




The Egyptian Revolution


Book Description

This book offers a chronicle of, and a revealing look at, the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and its aftermath. The author, an Egyptian-American journalist living in Egypt, detailed the news coverage and man-in-the-street impressions of Mubarak's fall and Mohamed Morsi's struggle to stay in power. At home in the U.S. as well as in Egypt, he uses his experience as a journalist to explain for Americans the confrontation between Islamists and seculars.