The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and the popular bestirrings in other Arab countries, have of a sudden infused tidal energy in the Arab creative imagination. This energy found expression in a variety of modes: essay writing, fiction, graffiti, song, etc. But most notably it found expression in poetry, the Arabs' primeval art. From the beginning, the Tunisian revolution took as its motto the first two lines from Tunisian poet Abu al-Qasem al-Shabbi's (1909-1934) timeless poem LIFE'S WILL: "If a people decides to live, fate cannot but comply". The Tunisian people translated this poem into action on the streets of their country. The daring revolt and its unforeseen triumphant unraveling of an oppressive prototypically-Arab regime galvanized the imagination of all Arabs. In the midst of the Tunisian revolution, Hisham al-Jakh, an aspiring young Egyptian poet competing in Abu Dhabi's popular PRINCE OF POETS’ TV Show, delivered a fiery poem titled THE VISA, denouncing, to the hosts' discomfort, all Arab regimes as selfish betrayals of their people's pan-Arabist and democratic ambitions. The audience's euphoric response was emblematic of the general emotions gripping the Arabs everywhere. As revolutionary fervor spread to Egypt, the Arabic poetry scene was electrified. New enthusiastic poems in both Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic poured in on live television, online, and in print from well-known established poets like Ahmad Matar, Ahmad Abdul Mu’ti Hijazi, Ahmad Fuad Nagm, and Abdul Rahman al-Abnudi, but mostly from fresh young poets who made their exuberant voices heard on the new media. This paper will study this new poetic wave, its main characteristics, its artistic significance, its continuities and discontinuities, its durability in the Arabic literary tradition, and above all, how it balances the subtle esthetic essential to the “poeticness” of any poetry with the direct combativeness central to any revolutionary discourse.

The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and the popular bestirrings in other Arab countries, have of a sudden infused tidal energy in the Arab creative imagination. This energy found expression in a variety of modes: essay writing, fiction, graffiti, song, etc. But most notably it found expression in poetry, the Arabs' primeval art. From the beginning, the Tunisian revolution took as its motto the first two lines from Tunisian poet Abu al-Qasem al-Shabbi's (1909-1934) timeless poem LIFE'S WILL: "If a people decides to live, fate cannot but comply". The Tunisian people translated this poem into action on the streets of their country. The daring revolt and its unforeseen triumphant unraveling of an oppressive prototypically-Arab regime galvanized the imagination of all Arabs. In the midst of the Tunisian revolution, Hisham al-Jakh, an aspiring young Egyptian poet competing in Abu Dhabi's popular PRINCE OF POETS’ TV Show, delivered a fiery poem titled THE VISA, denouncing, to the hosts' discomfort, all Arab regimes as selfish betrayals of their people's pan-Arabist and democratic ambitions. The audience's euphoric response was emblematic of the general emotions gripping the Arabs everywhere. As revolutionary fervor spread to Egypt, the Arabic poetry scene was electrified. New enthusiastic poems in both Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic poured in on live television, online, and in print from well-known established poets like Ahmad Matar, Ahmad Abdul Mu’ti Hijazi, Ahmad Fuad Nagm, and Abdul Rahman al-Abnudi, but mostly from fresh young poets who made their exuberant voices heard on the new media. This paper will study this new poetic wave, its main characteristics, its artistic significance, its continuities and discontinuities, its durability in the Arabic literary tradition, and above all, how it balances the subtle esthetic essential to the “poeticness” of any poetry with the direct combativeness central to any revolutionary discourse.

An Analysis of Arabic Social Media on FaceBook: The We Are All Khalid Saeed Group Social media communication is becoming increasingly popular not only among Westerners but also among Arabs. Several social media groups such as 'We are all Khalid Saeed', 'October 6 Movement', 'Taghyiir Movement' on facebook.com and twitter.com played a pivotal role in the Egyptian Revolution. Among these groups, the 'We Are All Khalid Saeed' took a leading role since it was this group which, on January 15, 2011 issued the call for a march to the Ministry of Interior on Police Day (January 25, 2011). This paper presents an analysis of the language used by young Egyptians preparing for the January 25th uprising that ended by toppling the Mubarak regime after 30 years of ruling Egypt with an "iron fist". We will select a representative sample of the blogs posted on the website of this group from the first call to march until Mubarak's departure on February 11th, 2011. The analysis shows three significant patterns that are significant to linguists. First, it focuses on code mixing (Mazraani, 1997; Bassiouney, 2009). For example, we note that young Egyptian bloggers do mix MSA expressions with Egyptian colloquial Arabic. Mixing MSA with the vernacular has significant implications for the current controversy on whether to teach colloquial Arabic first, or concurrently with MSA. Second, it will show how the slogans and demands of the protestors changed over the course of a few days. For example, what started as a call to march to the Minister of Interior to protest police brutality, changed in a few hours to demanding that Mubarak not run for re-election; and again within a few hours, to demand his resignation; thus, toppling the regime and the end of military rule which has lasted for nearly 60 years. Third, since the language studied is that of the youth, it provides rich data for identifying possible language change in process in Egyptian Arabic.

In the 2011 protests that the Arab world has been witnessing, there is a revival of the language of protest which has remained dormant in recent past. This paper will attempt to provide a sociolinguistic analysis of some of the language content of blogs, banners and headlines which have appeared both on the ground in protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). A selected number of samples are used to illustrate both standard features and the regionalisms reflected in slogans, chants and written materials lending substance to the argument of variability within the MSAs in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Yemen (Ibrahim 2009). However, despite the differences in geographic context, the similarity in demands, issues, and theme in addition to the strength and clarity in the message call for brevity and meaning not form becomes more important. Other features including prosody, rhyme and other “catchy” aspects in both standard and colloquial result in a high degree of effectiveness, mutual use and intelligibility of slogans and language for mass protest. When a protest march includes young and old, male and female demonstrators form various steps in the socio-economic ladder, the language used to convey the message has to “click” for a cross section of these participants for it to be adopted and exported. A slogan is born, evolves and lives to become either universally appealing, or to disappear. Possible factors (both linguistic and other) contributing to the effectiveness of protest language will also be discussed.