Gramsci’s ‘Southern Question’ and Egypt’s authoritarian retrenchment: subalternity and the disruption of activist agency

ABSTRACT

Explanations of the authoritarian retrenchment after Egypt’s 2011 Revolution invoke either the regime’s repressive advantage over ‘leaderless’ mobilisation and civic activists, or insufficient preparations and radicalism on the part of opposition groups. Both explanations are unsatisfactory. First, because despite being ‘reformist’, opposition groups’ demands were perceived as radical challenges to regimes before, during and after the uprisings. Second, because appeals to regimes’ coercive capacity contradict explanations of opponents’ rise to prominence before the uprisings: if activists eroded Egypt’s authoritarian regime before 2011, what made them unable to continue doing so afterwards? Conversely, if activists’ agency was effective before 2011 despite gross imbalances in coercive capacity, then those imbalances alone cannot explain activists’ post-revolutionary decline. In short, if activists’ agency cannot be denied before Egypt’s ‘eighteen days’, it must be accounted for in their aftermath. To do this, the authors draw on Gramsci’s original texts and Italian-language scholarship to develop his neglected notion of disgregazione.

RÉSUMÉ

Les explications du repli autoritaire après la révolution égyptienne de 2011 invoquent soit l’avantage répressif du régime, soit une faute de radicalisme de la part des groupes d’opposition. Les deux explications sont insatisfaisantes. D’abord parce qu’en dépit d'être « réformistes », les revendications des groupes d’opposition étaient perçues comme des défis radicaux aux régimes avant, pendant et après les soulèvements. Deuxièmement, parce que les appels à la capacité coercitive des régimes contredisent les explications de la montée des groupes d’opposition avant les soulèvements : si les militants ont contesté le régime autoritaire égyptien avant 2011, qu’est-ce qui les a empêchés de continuer après ? Inversement, si l’action des militants était efficace avant 2011 malgré les déséquilibres flagrants de la capacité coercitive, ces déséquilibres ne peuvent à eux seuls expliquer le déclin des militants après la révolution. En bref, si l’agentivité des militants ne peut être niée avant les « dix-huit jours » égyptiens, elle doit être prise en compte après. Pour ce faire, nous nous appuyons sur les textes originaux de Gramsci et sur la recherche en langue italienne pour développer sa notion de disgregazione.

KEYWORDS:

• Arab Spring
• authoritarian resilience
• Egypt
• Middle East
• Antonio Gramsci
• subaltern
• civil society
• organic intellectual

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Printemps arabe
• résilience autoritaire
• Égypte
• Moyen-Orient
• Antonio Gramsci
• subalterne
• société civile
• intellectuel organique

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for helpful and constructive engagement, as well as Pamela Abbott, Cristina Flesher, Jillian Schwedler, Patrizia Manduchi, Alessandra Marchi, Rossana Tufaro, Sami Zemni and Josh Stacher for comments on previous versions. Both authors contributed equally to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 It is noted that both authors contributed equally to this article.

2 The interviews were conducted by Author 1 unless otherwise indicated. Interviewees have been anonymised by replacing names with a tag (e.g. ICA1 is independent civic activist 1). A full list of interviews and other fieldwork is given in the section ‘Primary sources’ after the reference list.

3 Following conventions in Gramsci Studies, we cite the Prison Notebooks providing both reference to the page(s) of the relevant English translation, when available, and to the Notebook (Q – ‘Quaderno’), followed by section/paragraph numbers (§) from the Italian critical edition (Gramsci 1975).

4 Elsewhere, Hoare translates disgregazione as ‘destruction’ (Gramsci 1978, 454), regarding which this observation holds all the more.

5 While Gramsci uses ‘disgregare’/‘disgregazione’ in multiple ways, the use mapped here recurs throughout his work, e.g. Q1§14, 102; Q3§158, 411; Q4§49, 479; Q5§126, 654–655; Q7§80, 912; Q8§2, 937; Q8§195, 1058; Q9§68, 1139; Q13§17, 1586; Q14§38, 459.

6 Author 2’s translation. Hoare’s Selections omits this portion of the sentence.

7 ICAs themselves suggest that the ‘civil society’ rubric is too broad (e.g. ICA13, 18 January 2009; ICA14, 14 January 2009) or distinguish between independent/activist non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and intidad (emanations) organisations that the regime establishes (e.g. Al-Gil) (e.g. ICA13, 18 January 2009) or co-opts (e.g. Al-Ard), ‘development NGOs’ having little political influence or impact (e.g. ICA13, 18 January 2009), and ‘assistance CSOs [civil society organisations]’, mostly Islamist charities (gam‘iyyat ahliyya) (e.g. ICA2, 13 January 2009). Others’ definition of ‘civil society’ resembles Gramsci’s in its breadth (e.g. ICA3, 15 January 2009), while others still adopt ‘human rights community’ (huquqiyyūn), referring to liberal and leftist pro-democracy groups.

8 In Gramsci scholarship, QM is the standard abbreviation for ‘Note Sulla Questione Meridionale’.

9 Agrarian society was only partly demobilised – for example in the Brotherhood’s Delta strongholds. Amr Roussillon’s documentary Ana al-Sha‘b (Am I not the people?) describes expectations of a revolution promised, eagerly awaited, but never delivered in rural areas, thus ultimately perceived as a mobilisation ‘in Cairo’. This footage contests popular perceptions of an urban ‘people’ (sha’b), capturing rural populations’ claim to also be part of ‘the people’ demanding the downfall of the system.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gennaro Gervasio

Gennaro Gervasio is Associate Professor in History of Muslim Countries at Roma Tre University and was previously Director of the Centre of Middle East and North African Studies at Macquarie University. His research spans secularism and Marxism, and the role of intellectuals and social movements in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt. He is author of al-Harāka al-Mārkisiyya fī Misr, 1967–1981 (The Marxist Movement in Egypt, 1967–81) (2010).

Andrea Teti

Andrea Teti is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Salerno, Managing Editor of Middle East Critique, Co-Founder of the Critical Middle East Studies network, and lead author of The Arab uprisings in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia (2018) and of Democratization against democracy: how EU policy fails the Middle East (2020).