Veillance in Verax and Āyālw (Ialu): Two countries, one concern

ABSTRACT

Veillance is Steve Mann’s term for the act of mutual watching which has crept into our postmodern life and has triggered people’s concern over the widespread invasion of their personal lives. Though the different forms and practices of veillance, like surveillance, dataveillance, sousveillance, counterveillance, equiveillance, autoveillance, and dreamveillance (a term I coined), are hard to describe, graphic novels can provide stimulating points of reference for exploring them. The (non-)verbal pictorials they offer engage the readers/viewers, sharpen their understanding of the true essence of veillance and help them reflect on their own situation. The growth of veillance technologies and practices and the sur/sous/veillance nexus of mutual watching is the focus of Pratap Chatterjee and Khalil Bendib’s Verax: The True History of Whistleblowers, Drone Warfare, and Mass Surveillance and Mostafa Youssef’s Āyālw: Haql ālāḥlām (Ialu: The Field of Dreams), two black and white graphic novels from two different countries: USA and Egypt. Engaging with the works of Steven Mann and David Lyon, and other writers concerned with surveillance studies, my article considers the multiple veillance practices evident within Verax (a true story) and Ialu (a work of fantasy), and the constant sousveillant’s attempts to defy the surveillant gaze of power.

KEYWORDS:

• Veillance
• sur/sousveillance
• American & Egyptian graphic novels
• silence
• resistance
• reader/viewer

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Correction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The panopticon is an eighteenth-century design proposed by Jeremy Bentham (1791). It consists of a central tower for the guards, surrounded by a circular-shaped building with several cells. The design enables the guards to put certain people under perpetual surveillance, as the surveilled never know when they are watched, they constantly resort to self-regulation. Michel Foucault, whose analysis of Bentham’s panopticon in Discipline and Punish (1975) serves as the core of surveillance studies, considers the panopticon as a visible evocation of power that ensures disciplinary behaviour.

2. George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell 1948) portrays a dystopian world of surveillance and oppression, a world controlled by the all-seeing-eye of Big Brother and the Party of Oceania. The novel depicts how people are constantly watched and robbed of their memories and their privacy. The Party controls everything including history which is constantly altered and forged. It constantly surveils and brainwashes individuals to force them into submission and idolization of Big Brother.

3. The ability to monitor dreams is presented in some science fiction works. For example, Stuart Gordon’s movie Fortress (1992) presents the concept of monitoring dreams through an advanced computer system. The Fortress’ round-the-clock system, which replaces the guards, is able to detect the conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings of both its prisoners and guards.

4. For a more accurate pronunciation, Mostafa Youssef should have used the Arabic word Iyālw and not Āyālw.

5. The following bios of Pratap Chatterjee and Khalil Bendib are found as such at the Amazon site and other sites like twitter.

Pratap Chatterjee is the author of Halliburton’s Army and Iraq). An investigative reporter who focuses on U.S. warfare and technology, he has served as a commentator for BBC, CNN, Fox, MSNBC; written for the New Republic, the Financial Times, and the Guardian; produced segments for Democracy Now! and Channel Four, and hosted a weekly radio show for KPFA Pacifica radio. The recipient of awards from the Lannan Foundation, Project Censored, and the Overseas Club of America, Chatterjee is a member of the board of Amnesty International. He lives in Oakland, CA.

Khalil Bendib is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Zahra’s Paradise, which was published in 16 languages and nominated for two Eisner Awards. Born in Algeria, Bendib has lived in Berkeley, CA since the 1980s. After eight years as political cartoonist at the San Bernardino County Sun, Bendib now distributes his cartoons to 1700 independent publications nationwide and co-hosts a weekly one-hour show, Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, on Pacifica station KPFA.

Mostafa Youssef (b. 1989) is an Egyptian research-based artist. His practice combines experiences from the fields of art and architecture, where he explores historical and contemporary instances from political and social stand points. His work includes experimentation with diverse media: miniatures, drawings, collage, photography, printmaking and graphic novels. M. Youssef received his Master of Arts in Graphic Narratives from Leuven University College of Arts [LUCA] in Brussels, Belgium after completing his Bachelor of Science in Architecture between Cairo, Egypt and Liechtenstein. Ialu is M. Youssef’s first graphic novel, it reached Mahmoud Kahil Best Graphic Novel Award finalists in 2017 (M. Youssef 2018).

6. See Mohamed Enani (2017, 13–14), an eyewitness to the role of censorship in Egypt.

7. The impact of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four on Ialu is stark and the resemblance between both works cannot escape notice. The events of both texts occur in dystopian settings, Phantasma and Oceania, which depend on new surveillance to shape the self-hood of their inhabitants. The messages, whether the protagonists write or receive, serve as an important motif that prompts their reflection and questioning. Both Ialu and Winston Smith, despite of their attempts, are not able to defeat the all-seeing-eye and the power of new surveillance.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Noha F. Abdelmotagally

Noha F. Abdelmotagally is associate professor of English Language and Literature in the Faculty of Al-Alsun (Languages), Ain Shams University. She has participated in various conferences and research projects both home and abroad. Her teaching areas are Research Methodology, Contemporary Prose, Nineteenth Century Literature, Modernist Literature and Life Narratives at both under and postgraduate levels. Her research and publication interests include comparative and interdisciplinary studies, feminism, ecology, sociology, and psychology. She has published articles on writing by women of African-American, American, Arab, Arab-American, British, Canadian, and Latin origin. She is the author of numerous articles and several book chapters in English and Arabic.