To understand why Al Jazeera is important, you must first have watched countless hours of Arab state media prior to the satellite channel’s existence. I was subjected to those countless hours of state-sanctioned news and entertainment as I learned Arabic in the mid-1990s, and my thought at the time was that it must impose a horrifying stupor on those with nothing else to watch. Typical news shows from Gulf nations opened with a long, polite greeting delivered at a passionless pace; this was generally followed by two minutes of princes meeting with ministers — posed in a handshake, posed in elegant chairs, posed in discussion — punctuated only by the flashing cameras of photographers not in frame. There was little voiceover because there was never much to tell. Wal ann, the anchor would finally say, illal tofaseel — “and now, the details.” Only then could something resembling actual news begin.
The language of that news was colorless, flavorless, and odorless. Things were always improving, even if they weren’t. George Orwell would have recognized Newspeak in those broadcasts, and indeed the Arabic language lends itself to subtle modes of message-control that would be the envy of his MiniTrue. Pronounced in one measure, the verb “to fight” can indicate which side is the aggressor; with a longer vowel, it can be neutral — as if the fight broke out spontaneously and with equal fault. In contrast, Al Jazeera brought flash and dash; it engaged in the heretofore unknown practice of investigative reporting; but the basic difference between the channel and its competitors was the language of its news. Al Jazeera reporters were unafraid of controversy where state reporters were mild as milk. When the Bushies pressured American distributors into not carrying the channel, its reporters had already been kicked out of at least four Middle Eastern countries for embarrassing their governments. It didn’t matter, because Al Jazeera was still available to anyone with a satellite dish. Official repression only reinforced its cachet.
Orwell would also have recognized Mubarak as a despot and his regime as an oligarchy. With half the country’s population living on two dollars a day, the Mubarak family reportedly has as much as $70 billion in assets. The National Democratic Party, or NDP, remains the sole legislative and governing class. The spoils of oligarchy radiate through Egyptian civil service, police, media, and the various organs of state-controlled society according to each individual’s status and personal gift for corruption. Those men attacking the crowd on horseback and camelback three days ago are probably not just police and hired thugs; it is likely that many of them are family members of men whose livelihood depends on the regime. Mubarak’s fall would be theirs, too. They are what Orwell called the “inner party” in his famous dystopian novel, and they have more to lose than Mubarak.
Orwell’s fictive world did not have satellite channels or Twitter. Using inherently democratic technologies of our modern age, Egyptians have found myriad ways around the web blockade. Some observers have doubted the internet’s utility; but it is a mistake to see technologies themselves as the liberation. Indeed, technology does not replace our basic powers of social interaction; it multiplies them. Egyptians are past masters of the network. Naguib Mahfouz described this phenomenon while depicting post-WWI anti-British riots in Cairo in his novel Palace Walk. It is depicted in the classic docudrama Battle of Algiers. Cold War writer William Lederer called it “the bamboo telegraph.” Chinese activists were using it a decade ago when text messaging came along. It is the oldest form of human networking; Twitter merely brings that world online in 140 characters. Technology liberates those who use it for liberation: it is actually less important that Al Jazeera’s signal arrive through a satellite dish than that its reporters uplink a camera in Tahrir Square. Both acts are necessary to circumvent the Mubarak government; together, they are a network.
Given the disparities between very small top and very large bottom, Egypt’s decline was inevitable. Orwell — who depicted the ministry buildings as pyramids — found his chief horror in an imaginary oligarchy that has solved the problem of inevitable decline; but that is fiction. The reality is that oligarchies not only follow the same cycle Aristotle described in his Politics, but do so at a more rapid pace than ever. The late, harsh measures undertaken by the regime this week — detaining journalists, shutting down the internet, and using state media to disseminate propaganda — are too little, too late, and insufficient. In part, that is because this most techno-savvy revolution is not just popular, but propelled by necessity: Egyptians can no longer feed themselves. These are bread riots. Oligarchies which fail to supply basic necessities must rely on absolute command of both information and the means of violence; the regime has neither. Indeed, horse- and camel-mounted attacks are a desperate response by men who do not command the army’s tanks, and whose best efforts to monopolize information have already failed. Molotov cocktail-throwing waves of attackers in their hundreds and thousands, pressing against the tens of thousands in Tahrir Square for fifteen hours, are signs of regime power failing.
No one “lost” Egypt; Egypt is for Egyptians to win. Beneath the baksheesh-driven oppression of the Mubaraks lies a rich, five thousand year-old culture awaiting liberation. Connective forces have invigorated it, while the desperation of hunger has compelled it towards rebellion. Meanwhile, an ossified bureaucracy has lost touch, and lost control. At some point, people fear the bullets of police less than gnawing hunger in their bellies; and one cannot turn all of Cairo into Treblinka. Indeed, Al Jazeera might very well broadcast live from the crematorium, and without secrecy where would your tyranny be?
