The voice of the people? Echoes and quotations in the revolutionary slogans in Egypt

ABSTRACT

Revolutions are moments of epiphany of the people: they manifest themselves ‘physically’ in the street, in demonstrations, stand-ins, sit-ins, but above all symbolically, to demand a transfer of sovereignty. The manifestation of this symbolic ‘authority’ is also a phenomenon of discourse, of which revolutionary slogans are the main tool. This paper aims to show how slogans can be perceived as an ambiguous form of speech, imitating the language of authority but drawing on emotion to achieve what can be defined as a coup in the language, picturing a consensual vision of the people as a united body. Through quotation and reuse, authority is sometimes built and sometimes undone in the circulation of slogans. This paper aims to show how the fantasized category of ‘the people’ reveals itself as a legitimate but fragile voice, since the effectiveness of revolutionary slogans cannot exceed a very limited moment of consensus and cannot give a stable definition of ‘the people’.

KEYWORDS:

• Slogans
• the people
• revolution
• performativity
• acts of speech
• discourse analysis

Acknowledgments

“The author wishes to thank the ERC funded project “Political and socio-institutional change in North Africa. Competition of models and diversity of trajectories” (TARICA, convention n° 695674) which provided her with proofreading services”.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.