Many demands of the participants of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions of early 2011 focused on the right to democratic self-governance in the face of repressive autocratic regimes. This revolutionary discourse of inclusive political freedom, however, did not develop in a vacuum. Political speechifying in the contemporary world illustrates an isomorphic tendency among regimes to appeal to democracy and democratic concepts and, by necessity, activists responded to hegemonic conceptualizations of freedom and citizenship posited by ruling autocratic regimes. This project analyzes speeches given by heads of state between 2000 and 2010 from four North African countries – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt. Across all of these countries, I found that democracy was discursively linked to neoliberal economic development and insistence by leaders that the young and poor benefit from such a political economy. Likewise, tight control over civil society is presented as necessary for ensuring stability, security, and the empowerment of women and minority groups in the face of a destructively-religious, unruly, and politically immature populace not ready for complete freedom. As the 1/11 revolutions have illustrated, these hegemonic orientalist discourses were not accepted by the people in these societies. Millions of activists of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs insisted instead on expansive notions of freedom and democratic governance. The basis of this research paper is approximately 1,700 speeches gathered from state information ministry websites, which I analyze for patterns, trends, and differences in how democracy is conceptualized across the four countries. The analysis of relevant speech excerpts relies on qualitative coding, logistic regression techniques, and metric scaling to examine and illustrate convergence and divergence in how these autocrats discuss democracy. Exploring the use of concepts of political freedom in authoritarian contexts shows that they are exceptionally fragile and easily manipulated by regimes seeking to legitimate repressive practices. This analysis also highlights a wider variety of conceptualizations of democracy are ordinarily recognized in studies of established democracies. Examining the use of freedom language among North African countries, two of which have experienced popular upheaval resulting in the removal of entrenched dictators, will also shed light on the varied ideologies and goals of these autocratic regimes. The primary focus will be on comparing and contrasting discursive patterns between these states in light of their own sociopolitical contexts and the drastic re-configuration of democratic discourse since the Jasmine Revolution and beyond.

The Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, whose dimensions continue to unfold in the region, have been made possible by years, if not decades, of sustained social, cultural, and political work. While much has already been written about the social networks, institutions, and technologies that have been mobilized to sustain large, disciplined, and effective protest, far less attention has been paid to the role of arts institutions and interventions in recent bids for freedom in the Arab world. This paper initiates such an investigation by tracing the activist life of a single film—Annemarie Jacir’s “Salt of This Sea”—from its funding and production through its screening and distribution. While the Palestinian case and political field differ significantly from that of Egypt or Tunisia for a number of reasons, the impossibility of a meaningful Palestinian politics since the Oslo Accords has led to the development of a particularly active Palestinian arts scene as a sphere of political and cultural agency. Siegfrid Kracauer hypothesizes that cinema, because of the collaborative nature of its production, is more likely than other art forms to reflect, disseminate and strengthen the zeitgeist or spirit of a particular time and place. I expand on his theory to consider the extraordinary community- building potential inherent in film by virtue of its nature as a communicative act and as a created and circulated object. I argue that a filmmaker can exploit these two features of cinema to organize and speak at the local and global level through the film itself, as well as through the life of the film in the world. By thwarting two film genres, the romance and the road movie, Jacir’s film eloquently captures a Palestinian zeitgeist: frustration at the lack of meaningful politics, desire for freedom, and a claim to an inalienable sense of agency. At the same time, the collaborative work of creating and disseminating the film is transformative of both local and transnational communities precisely because it is collaborative and creative, infused with the ethics and vision that inform the film itself. In addition, this work brings together groups that would not otherwise engage with each other (activists, funders, and museum patrons, etc.). As a result, wider, stronger, and wiser networks are created that have the potential to affect the nature and outcome of future political action.

Coming on the heels of the uprising in Tunisia and the flight of President Ben Ali from the country, the January 25, 2011 Revolution of Egypt calling for freedom, social justice and democracy has taken the world by surprise especially when it actually led to the resignation of President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011. The massive popular uprising led by women, men and children of all ages, religious backgrounds, and social classes, all united in calling for the removal of Mubarak has led to demonstrations across the world in support of the Egyptian people and demands for similar reforms in their home countries. Now that the wall of fear that had silenced the Arab nations for decades has collapsed, a new realization that a veritable domino-effect could rock the Middle East and forever change the map and geopolitics of the world. The importance of this historical moment cannot be underestimated. A new Arab world defined by democracy will undoubtedly have profound local and global ramifications and, not least, far-reaching implications for civil, human and LGBT rights. This paper focuses specifically on the implications of the January 2011 revolutions for gay and lesbian communities across the Arab world and on LGBT activism in the region. Arab LGBT communities have been dramatically mobilized by the January 2011 revolutions and are energized by the possibilities that a major political and ideological change of governments could have for them. Debates are already taking place on electronic discussion groups and social networking sites (including blogs, twitter feeds and facebook pages) increasingly used by the Arab LGBT community in order to avoid persecution and prosecution. Since the political events that have rocked Tunisia and Egypt, LGBT groups have started analyzing and processing the unfolding events and debating strategies to insure that the rights of sexual minorities will be recognized and protected alongside other civil and human rights. My paper addresses the mobilization of these activists around the 1/11 revolutions and their ongoing debates and strategies in support of LGBT rights in the Arab world in the remainder of 2011, as we watch these revolutions continue to unfold.

The recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt throw into relief competing notions of freedom and agency in Middle East societies. Social, cultural, and political projects informed by Islamic sensibilities often associate freedom with Western imperialism and cultural/moral decadence. In such paradigms, calls for increased sexual freedom and more equitable gender relations and marriage and divorce laws are frequently associated with Western cultural imperialism and “invasion” of foreign norms. The language of freedom is deployed as freedom from Western cultural and economic imperialism, not freedom of critical thought and association, and certainly not sexual and gender freedom, or more equitable sexual, gender, and marital relations. Capitalist neo-liberal notions of freedom, in contrast, privilege the autonomous, individualistic, consuming subject, not the politically mobilized and motivated subject demanding individual and collective rights and resources. In contrast to these conservative and neo-liberal approaches to freedom, the revolution in Egypt was facilitated by indigenous feminist and human rights organizations, activists, and intellectuals who have for years equally challenged state repression and authoritarianism, class inequality and imperialism, gender-unequal laws and policies, and repression of sexual and social expression by conservative forces. The 1/11 revolution was unusual in the degree to which it crossed the divides of class, generation, gender, and creed in its composition, including people of secular and religious orientations and different classes, and reflecting a range of synthetic slogans that were unified in their calls for dignity and freedom. Participating in the revolution, I argue, produced a “political generation” (Karl Mannheim 1952) whose notion of freedom requires social justice and recognizes individual dignity and freedom. By definition, such a political generation should also be a feminist one, and thus more expansive in its approaches to gender and sexual relations, as well as marriage norms. This paper first examines to what degree the gender and sexual messages, slogans, and practices of the 1/11 revolution were inclusive and feminist. Second, the author will return to Egypt in summer 2011 to re-interview feminist activists, intellectuals, and religious authorities originally interviewed for an already published work to get a sense of the implications and impact of the revolution on sexual and gender relations and norms, as well as marriage and family laws and policies.