Tahrir Traditions

On the 1st anniversary of January 25, the day that the uprising against Mubarak was launched, I posted a piece on Sayyid Darwish and the Egyptian revolution(s), at the Merip blog. See it here.

Robin Wright on Arab/Islamic Hip-Hop

Merip has a brand new blog, launched today. I intend to contribute posts on a regular basis--but I will not be abandoning hawgblawg by any means. My first was a meditation on how Robin Wright celebrates Arab/Islamic hip-hop in her book, Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World. Read it here.

And please check out the blog regularly. As of today, there are also posts by Chris Toensing and Laleh Khalili. Content will continue to flow.

Elliott Colla on "The Poetry of Revolt" in the New Egypt

This was broadcast back on February 15, 2011, just 4 days after the toppling of Mubarak. Although so much has happened since then, this is still a very valuable document, since it is based on a deep historical knowledge of the literature and social movements that fed into the Egyptian revolt. Please listen.

Tahrir/Cabinet Kufiyas

Here are some Egypt kufiyas, that date from the events around Tahrir and the Cabinet offices, around the weekend of December 16-18, when Egyptian military and security forces killed 17 protesters and wounded over 500. I have lost track of where I originally found all these photos, but I've given the photographers, or at least the agency, where available.

Ahmed Ali/AP

I believe this kid was one of the youngsters arrested. If I can find more info about him I will post it later. I worry about what happened to him.

Associated Press

This is one of the better-known photos of the events around the Cabinet sit-in, a photo of one of the several women who were badly brutalized by the military police, who appear to love to wield their long batons in a sadistic manner.

Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

I love this photo. One of the protesters, with his improvised head protector, takes a moment to read the Qur'an.

Dia/Associated Press

One of the many wounded revolutionaries, helped by a kufiya-clad comrade.

Ali al-Malky

These are protesters saving documents from the library of  L'institut d'Egypte, which burned to the ground. The source is al-Masry al-Youm, where you can read about this calamitous event.

Rana Khazbak

This is a photo Sheikh Emad Eddin Effat, secretary general of Dar al-Iftaa, the body that issues Islamic fatwas (edicts), and one of the most famous martyrs of the protests, killed by a bullet to the chest on December 16. According to al-Masry al-Youm, Effat was considered one of Al-Azhar's moderate and progressive sheikhs. Effat's final fatwa forbade voting for parliamentary candidates affiliated with the Mubarak regime and former members of the dissolved National Democratic Party, who are known colloquially as the feloul. Effat based his ruling on the fact that regime remnants aspire to subvert Egypt’s post-revolutionary future through bribery and patronage.

American Eagle Kufiyas on Times Square

Thanks to Nazli for alerting me to this, and sending me these photos, taken off the huge screens at Times Square, just a few days ago. I assume the screens are from the "77kids NYC Style Lab" that occupies the entire lower level of the American Eagle Outfitters' Times Square flagship at 1551 Broadway, which opened on July 20.

Yep, kufiyas go kid fashion. Kufiyas at the center of US commercial/popular culture. Is American Eagle trying to feed off of the incredible energy of the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring? Is American Eagle trying to co-opt and market street fashion affiliated with the top news stories of the year? You betcha. And will this stop activists around the world from wearing their kufiyas? Hardly.

Here is the ad for the 77kids line, that is up right now on the American Eagle 77kids website. Funnily enough, although the kufiya is featured in the ads, I can't find it for sale as an accessory, either for boys or for girls. Hmmm.

another Tahrir kufiya, and election analysis

Monique Jaques/Corbis

Happy holidays. I've been collecting items to post, including lots of kufiyas from recent events in Egypt, but have fallen behind. I hope to finish up before the 1st of the year, before I have to make a new set of New Years' resolutions. Meanwhile, here's one, the photo that accompanies a very fine analysis of the Egyptian elections, by Yasmine El Rashidi, from the New York Review of Books. The title, "Egypt on the Edge," suggests a lot of danger ahead, but El Rashidi's tone is not, in fact, overly alarmist. But it is sobering. A few good suggestions as to why the Salafist Al-Nour party has done so well to date. One: a miscalculation by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has often shifted its position from supporting the revolution to wanting to clear out Tahrir Square for the sake of winning elections. El Rashidi suggests that this lost the Brothers some support in popular quarters. The Salafists, by contrast, were seen as straight shooters. Another miscalculation was by the "liberals," and particularly by telecom tycoon Naguib Sawiris and founder of the Free Egyptians Party, who tweeted a cartoon with a Minnie Mouse in face veil and a Micky Mouse in full beard, suggesting the dangers posed by an Islamist victory. This caused an uproar and a huge loss of customers and profit. And possibly a loss of votes for the FEP, the most important "liberal" party.

There's a lot more here, please read the entire piece.

Time Magazine's Person of the Year: The Protester (many in kufiyas)

You no doubt know that Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2011 is "The Protester." The protester who, for Time, set it all off, is of course Tunisia's Mohamed Bouazizi. Read about it here. And check out the photo essay, of protesters from around the world (and especially, of course, from the Arab world), by  Peter Hapak. Three of the thirty-six items in the portfolio (some of which juxtapose two persons) feature protesters in kufiya. I reproduce them below:

El Teneen, a prominent Egyptian graffiti artist, wears a homemade gas mask.

Syrian activists Abdul Hamid Sulaiman, Rami Jarrah and Mohamed Abazid all fled the country. "I was tortured for three days, and that’s when I became more active and started using a pseudonym," Jarrah says. Right, his damaged iPhone.

An Egyptian protester, left, holds a spent shell casing found after clashes in Tahrir Square. 
Right, protester Ahmed Aggour, a.k.a. Psypherize, an Egyptian activist, artist and blogger.