Rumour and decertification in exile politics: evidence from the Egyptian case

ABSTRACT

Does exile affect activism and if so how? In this paper, the case of Egyptian activists exiled in England is taken as illustrative of processes typical of exiled activism. The case study draws on primary and secondary sources including a series of biographical interviews with exiled activists. The analysis compares activism in Egypt with exiled activism in England using the participants’ critical self-reflections to explain the mechanisms mediating the changes. Contrary to reasonable expectations that exile is a spontaneous response to a change in political context, the conditions for exile predate banishment and lie within the institutions of dictatorship which decertify activism. Decertification continues throughout the exile process as fear of repression becomes internalized within the movement. Within the sanctuary of the host country, a process of brokerage counteracts decertification expanding and modifying the exile repertoire.

KEYWORDS:

• Social movements
• exile
• rumour
• decertification
• contentious politics
• Arab Spring

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my informants for their help. I hope they benefit from the findings of this study. My parents Stephen and Alison have always helped and supported me throughout my studies. The following researchers provided invaluable feedback on this project; Máire Braniff, Markus Ketola, Rory O’Connell, Colin Clark, Cillian McGrattan, Kevin Adamson, Lea Sgier, Philip Marfleet, Jack Mowbray, Yusuf Magiya and Anna McKeever.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Decertification has been defined ‘as an external authority’s signal that it is withdrawing recognition and support from a political actor’ (Tarrow and Tilly, 2012, p. 215). Gentile’s ethnographic and archival research, of relevance, has identified contractual blockages in certification which have prevented European trade unions from coalition building (Gentile, 2016).

2. In contentious politics brokerage is commonly understood as the ‘production of a new connection between previously unconnected or weakly connected sites’ (Tarrow and Tilly, 2012, p. 215). In historical cases SMOs were the only suitably resourced actors to function as brokers, but in the age of social media this role can be taken over by looser knit associations or even individuals (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). Hence, in pre-exile Egyptian activism researchers have argued the mechanism brokerage as part of a transnational diffusion process, was crucial in increasing the frequency and volume of contention in Egypt in the years preceding the Tahrir revolution (Abdelrahman, 2011).

3. Context for this argument comes in an extended quote from Marfleet (2016). Marfleet presents evidence masterfully demonstrating the ideology underpinning decertification was brought to Egypt by British colonizers. He goes on to argue this was opportunistically appropriated later by secular Egyptian autocrats (Marfleet, 2016, p. 21–23).

In Egypt, occupied by British forces in 1882, the colonial administration combined suspicion of the mass of people with a conviction that they lacked capacities to modify both their material circumstances and their subordinate political status. According to the British administrator Alfred (later Viscount) Milner, the people of Egypt were ‘docile and good tempered’; they were ‘a nation of submissive slaves, not only bereft of any vestige of liberal institutions but devoid of any spark of the spirit of liberty; (Milner, 2002 [1892], p. 178). At the same time they were ‘in the grip of a religion the most intolerant and fanatical’ (Milner, 2002 [1892], p. 2). Egyptians required European rule and reform: British military occupation, Milner suggested, had succeeded in bringing a ‘revolution’ to their lives in the form of new institutions of administration and justice (Milner, 2002 [1982], p. 5). (Marleet, 2016, p. 18)

4. Strictly speaking contentious politics are interactions involving state actors.

5. The historical record of activism contains a gap between 1954 and 1968. ‘In the following days students passed beyond the university gates and made their presence felt on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria for the first time since 1954’ (Abdalla, 1985, p. 149,150). ‘The student riots and workers' demonstrations of February 1968, however, came as an unexpected blow to Nasser's recovery from the 1967 debacle. In magnitude and ferocity they were the first since 1954, indeed since 1952’ (Vatikiotis, 1978, p. 185).

6. ‘[T]hey [the FO] were not opposed to parties as such, only to their corrupt leaders. Thus the Liberation Rally was designed not as a party, but as an instrument for the reorganization of popular forces.’ Nasser quoted in (Vatikiotis, 1978, p. 134).

7. The exception to this trend towards politicization being protests surrounding the Danish publication of cartoons depicting images offensive to some Muslims (Sami, 2006).

8. The observation this section discusses was made in the field and did change my research plan significantly. In private discussions with exiles I noticed the pattern of otherwise reasonable, some highly educated, people voicing quite spectacular worries, bordering on conspiracy. When I noted the possibility I was observing decertification in action I refined my interview questions to test for this without leading the interviewee. Rather than ask about rumours and fears directly I would ask about challenges in mobilizing activists or reasons for non-participation. I would follow up within the same interview or in further correspondence if a participant did describe rumours to me by asking them more directly about rumour and fear, in this way I felt confident that I had checked my interpretations with the participants, without putting words in their mouth.

9. Collective action situations are the ideal conditions for rumours to spread. Shibutani (1966) argued as much in his analysis of rumours in Japanese-American internment camps. Polletta (2006) found similar results in her study of movement diffusion. In these studies researchers observed activists developing rumours either to fill in gaps in official discourse, or to counter information from official sources that was contrary to their movement’s discourse.

10. This is among the reasons I have protected the identities of my informants. Although the Egyptians I worked with in England were probably the bravest people I will ever meet, their real security concerns affected my work from the offset. Basically every activist I met assumed I was working undercover for the Egyptian embassy. This meant I could not interview activists online, which would have reduced the costs of the study. I had to go to London to meet these people and earn their trust. Even then, the Egyptian exiles I met are so mistrustful I was unable to ever employ a snowball sampling technique as had been my intention.

11. The UK government in 2015 published redacted findings from a report into the ‘activities’ of the MB in the UK at the request of the Saudi government (The Times, November 5, 2015).

12. An equally telling example is that of the protests surrounding president Sisi’s visit to Downing Street. These protests brought the full ideological spectrum of exiled activists onto the streets in common cause (as well as a bus of Sisi supporters) (The Times, November 5, 2015; Egypt Solidarity, 2016, p. 22). However, in the run up to the visit MB activists actually reached out to secular and socialist organizations to coordinate activities (Interviews 5, 10, 15; The Independent, June 18, 2015).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a DEL studentship.

Notes on contributors

David McKeever

David McKeever, a graduate of Ulster University, is a political scientist specializing in social movement research.