Egypt's revolution was characterised by linguistic features that may help predict its future course, finds Osama Kamal One month after the revolution, academics have been taking stock of the new kind of language that it has brought about and of the rhetoric that has died in the process. One academic has written about the slogans of the revolution. A second has examined the country's conventional oppositional discourse. And a third has dissected the speeches made by former president Hosni Mubarak during the crisis. The writers, all young university professors, discussed their work at a seminar held at the offices of the Tagammu Party in Cairo on 25 February. It offered new ways of looking at the revolution, providing clues that may help us to understand its future course. Emad Abdel-Latif, a professor of linguistics at the Faculty of Literature at Cairo University, spoke first. He has written a PhD thesis on the speeches of former president Anwar al-Sadat and authored a study called, "Why do Egyptians Clap?, in which he discussed public applause during political speeches and performances. Discussing the chants, signs and songs used by the revolutionaries, Abdel-Latif noted how the demonstrators had used catchphrases to drive their message home. The main chant of the revolution was "Leave." Another was "We're not leaving; he will." Even when the message was more complex, the slogans remained brief and catchy, "the people and the army hand in hand," or "Muslim, Copt, hand in hand." The written signs, Abdel-Latif said, had varied in length and form. Some were as large as buildings, such as the placard on which the revolutionaries had spelled out their demands, while others were not much bigger than post-it notes. In their signs, the demonstrators had attempted to refute the allegations of the counter- revolution. One sign said, "I am sick of KFC." "I am not a Muslim Brother. I just need a shave," quipped another." "Egypt is my mother, but Mubarak is not my father," declared a third. Most of the songs that made it to Tahrir Square came from the fifties and sixties, a time of Nasserist revolutionary zeal far detached from ours. "I swear by heaven and earth," "Egypt my love," "Egypt my mother,", "The houses of Suez", "In the name of God," and "My country," were particularly popular among the crowds. What was the revolution called? Abdel-Latif had noted a plethora of names: "The Youth Revolution," "The 25 January Revolution," "The Lotus Revolution," "The Revolution of Wrath," and "The Uprising of the Young." The final name of the revolution would be decided in the future, depending on its achievements, he said. The days of the revolution had also acquired specific names. One was "The Friday of Wrath," another "The Friday of Departure," and yet a third "The Sunday of Martyrs." One week was called "The Week of Steadfastness." The catchwords helped boost morale and keep the crowds focused. Ending his paper, Abdel-Latif mentioned various traits of the revolution, such as individual creativity and a sense of humor. The revolution had created a festive and interactive feeling that had appealed to diverse sections of Egyptian society, helping to make the revolution a success. Meanwhile, highfalutin' language and tortured phrases were avoided. The revolutionaries had no patience for phrases that were not snappy and pointed. For his part, Sayyed Deifallah focused on the rhetoric of the country's conventional opposition. His example was Refaat al-Said, the leader of the Tagammu Party. The younger generation, Deifallah said, had no interest in party politics because conventional parties had no genuine presence in the streets. Often, the opposition parties were little more than mouthpieces for a corrupt regime. This had gone for all the opposition parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which had failed to offer a genuine challenge to the government, he said. Change is not only a political process, Deifallah said. It is also a cultural endeavour. The 25 January revolution had succeeded because it had envisaged a world that was different both on the cultural and political levels. Deifallah identified three phases in al-Said's discourse. The first was right before the revolution, when al-Said told the Middle East News Agency that 25 January was Police Day and it shouldn't be marred with protests. On the second day of the revolution, 26 January, al-Said was still toeing the political line. Interviewed on the Masr Innaharda (Egypt Today) television show, al-Said spoke of the need to maintain stability and a united front. Listening to the leader of the Tagammu was almost like listening to former interior minister Habib al-Adli, said Deifallah. In his third comment, al-Said had shifted his position a little. Calling for a television screen to be placed in Tahrir Square, al-Said said that the demonstrators should learn from the sensible ideas the opposition had proposed during talks with Vice-president Omar Soliman. Ahmad Abdel-Hamid al-Naggar, also an academic, analyzed Mubarak's speeches during the revolution at the seminar. Mubarak had never had the rhetorical flair of either Abdel-Nasser or al-Sadat, he said. His delivery was monotonous, and in recent years it had been devoid of the improvisation that had brought color to his earlier speeches. As Mubarak had grown older, al-Naggar said, his speeches had become shorter and had lacked perceptible emotion. The second speech by the former president, however, was the most effective, he said. This was the speech in which Mubarak had invoked his past achievements in peace and war. By comparison, the other two speeches had seemed lame and ineffectual. Al-Naggar's conclusion was that Mubarak's speeches had lacked variety and had been aloof and detached from reality. Ultimately, they had failed to reverse or even delay his downfall
