A year after its outbreak, Youssef Rakha lists seven of the more revealing flights of humour that have punctuated the Egyptian revolution and its aftermath A picnic at Hyde Park and Shafik's Pullover By 25 January, the idea of a revolution with a predetermined time and venue had already solicited some sarcasm. People reminded each other to bring sandwiches, drinks and mats on which to recline, not to mention music and speakers. It was as if what would turn out to be the bloodiest string of protests in the history of modern Egypt was in fact a picnic to be held on the asphalt stock in the middle of city centre; and the geeky, Westernised language of the well brought up young activists who were calling for action against the powers that be was quickly appropriated to point up the allegedly pampered, qu'ils-mangent-de-la- brioche attitudes of the seemingly anachronistic quarters whence the call for demonstrations was emanating. Subsequently, in late January and early February -- young people having turned up in unprecedented numbers, eventually forcing the riot and for some reason also the regular police to abandon their posts on 28 January -- that notion of a picnic took on a certain degree of credibility as protesters set up living quarters in Tahrir Square, sandwiches and music beginning to make an appearance. There were other things to laugh about, of course -- tear gas as a recreational drug, protester-intimidating F16s as "an airforce to be proud of", Mubarak as the subject of television adds that claimed their products "challenged boredom" -- but the picnic was to come up again in statements by the Mubarak-appointed prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, to the effect that Tahrir Square should be turned into "a Hyde Park" of youthful energy until the end of Mubarak's term. His smart appearance and prim jumper especially prompted no end of sneering: Shafik's Pullover became a sort of symbol for the truly pampered, qu'ils-mangent-de- la-brioche attitude of the better brought up wing of the festering regime. The picnic went on until Mubarak was forced to step down, his term had not ended, but neither had the political order. Omar Suleiman and the Brother Muslimhood Omar Suleiman, the former head of General Intelligence who during the 18 days in which Tahrir Square was "occupied" became the principal spokesman for Mubarak and eventually announced Mubarak's stepping down, had enjoyed the reputation of being a learned and respectable figure -- largely, as it turned out, because being an intelligence agent he had never made a public appearance. His brief televised speeches, in which he regurgitated all kinds of nonsense on behalf of the regime, proving himself illiterate in Arabic, were especially enjoyed for their staging: Suleiman at the centre behind a small podium, and a very serious-looking man standing at attention to one side of him in back. For a while, the Man Standing Behind Omar Suleiman became the subject of a whole genre of informal revolutionary comedy. For example: "Breaking news. Speaking on condition of anonymity, state officials say that the man standing behind Omar Suleiman is now sitting down." And in English: " mubarak, verb: 1. tr. to stick, adhere or remain attached to a particular position rather than moving when necessary; 'How on earth will I get this filth off now it has mubaraked on the wall!' 2. intro. to be or become glutinous, sticky, unpleasantly or repulsively viscous; 'Why on earth didn't you put it in the freezer, see now it has mubaraked!' cf to do a suleiman, phrasal verb (from the Hebrew): 1. to appear to be endowed with the wisdom of ages; 2. to take orders from the CIA; 3. to divide things (babies, people, political movements) down the middle. E.g. 'I thought they were completely mubaraked to one another, but then she did a soliman on him, and now he has to pay her LE3,000 a month alimony!'" Suleiman in person provided material for laughter when in an English-language television interview undertaken at a time when the Muslim Brotherhood had absolutely no part to play in events, he referred to the protests being secretly organised by the "Brother Muslimhood". What could be that organisation? Speculations about the identity of the Muslimhood and the Man Behind Omar Suleiman fuelled many quips after Mubarak stepped down as well: one still very popular Facebook Page is entitled, "The Man Standing Behind Omar Suleiman for President". Foreign Agendas and the Technology of Espionage Suleiman was also instrumental to the spread of the idea of Foreign Agendas, perhaps the most central counterrevolutionary motif throughout the Arab Spring. Sooner or later, once they have gathered credibility, protests are described as the illicit work of some non-national party, working secretly to spread its agenda among the people -- with the object, presumably, of wrecking damage. Apart from identifying it with "destructive acts" usually perpetrated by the regime itself, the nature of that damage is never specified, let alone the identity of the Foreign Agenda propagators. Agenda in Arabic is another word for "diary"; and for days after Suleiman began to speak of "peaceful protests with legitimate demands" being exploited by foreign agendas, Tahrir protesters took to setting out diaries on the asphalt by their feet, sometimes attaching labels indicating the origin of each: "American", "Hizbullah", "Kentucky". The latter refers to an even more ludicrous claim: that protesters were each given Euro 50 and a KFC dinner box in return for showing up at Tahrir; although never actually proved, this was held as indubitable proof of their being agents of Foreign Agendas. But the more hilarious variation on the Agenda theme was when the word started being used of people, not ideas. "Don't listen to this guy," one person would say, "he's an agenda." In this sense it was applied to counterrevolutionary agents of the regime itself: a secret-police detective or a baltagi or hooligan was generally referred to as an agenda, and of course avoided at all costs. The Agenda motif spilled over into the more general accusation of espionage -- a favourite populist theme -- which prompted a series of xenophobic attacks on the foreign press by "honourable citizens" (for which read, in general, "uneducated people who saw the revolution as a threat to their livelihoods"). A certain gadget was quickly identified in the hands of many of these "infiltrating elements": it was a slim rectangle, one side of which appeared to be a screen; it could record and transmit images and sound, even video at breakneck speed as well as functioning like a mobile phone with an international line. Fortunately it had an identifying mark: on the back of it, appropriately small, was the Masonic apple with a bite taken out of its side. From then on, all you had to do to be identified as a spy was own an iPhone or eat KFC. Shias, Israelis and Masons The accusation of working for the Masons was first levelled at Wael Ghoneim, the Google employee who had started the "We Are All Khaled Said" Page on Facebook -- a reference to the young man who had been brutally killed by police without charge in Alexandria in 2010 -- which proved crucial to the rallying for protesters. Ghoneim was in fact abducted by State Security as early as 28 January, subjected to sensory deprivation, and on his release on 2 February, nine days before Mubarak stepped down, seemed far less enthusiastic about the revolution. What in God's name Masons could possibly have to do with either Ghoneim or 25 January remains an open question, but it was the conflation of Masons with Shias (Iranians), Hamas (Palestinians) and Israelis (sometimes just Jews), not to mention of course Americans, that fed the never-ending string of wisecracks and witticisms emerging out of Tahrir Square and surrounds. The Conspiracy came up repeatedly, and the Conspiracy had to be fought against by honourable citizens. The Conspiracy was the revolution, but wait... According to the founder and owner of Al-Faraeen Channel, the former National Democratic Party MP Tawfiq Okasha (who, naturally enough, lost the elections), the Masonic Conspiracy takes place in stages: first the revolution, then the Brother Muslimhood takeover, and finally the splitting up of Egypt into smaller states. By the time Okasha became among the staples of post- revolutionary discourse, of course, many of the jokes were no longer jokes as such: they were opinions, viewpoints and visions of the future of Egypt; but in the case of Okasha, for example, they were so absurd they functioned just as well. SCAF and Mobile Phone Credit After Mubarak stepped down, much of the hilarity centred on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' messages to the people, whether via SMS or on SCAF's official Facebook Page. The ultra-formal, outdated lingo employed by SCAF was appropriated to express not only suspicion about the military's intentions but also -- with funnier results -- the "official" standpoint of "the people" being addressed. One particularly remarkable phase started when, no longer able to conceal military violence against peaceful demonstrators, SCAF -- addressing the "revolutionaries" -- began to talk about their "credit with you" by way of apology, invoking the metaphor of mobile phone charge cards. Slogans circulated to the effect that SCAF have no more credit, that they must top up, that the line was disconnected. Historical hyperbole about the bravery and honour of the Egyptian military was to undergo sarcastic reformulations in the next few months, with the increasingly untenable myth that the army protected the revolution painfully exposed: people's heads were crushed by armoured vehicles, women were undressed as soldiers stepped on them, conspiracy theories of the regime under Mubarak were rehashed -- and the catch-all term baltagi (pl. and fem. baltageyya ) was used as almost metaphysical justification for the violent repression of protesters. At this point the most unlikely people started declaring themselves baltageyya. One famous picture shows a delectable little girl smiling and raising a sign that says "I am a baltageyya." The tendency to attach to oneself the term by which SCAF was discrediting protesters spread, reaching a climax with the enigmatic and eminently laughable Third Party -- the ever unknown someone who was supposed to account for the killing and maiming of protesters every time they clashed with Military Police -- with hundreds of variations on the statement "I am the Third Party" or "Obama is the Third Party" etc. When the Justice and Freedom Party -- the political arm of the Muslimhood -- began to deploy similar discourses in defence of SCAF, the Masonic Third Party suddenly became the Bandeeta Mask, a mis- transliteration of the title of the film Vendetta, featuring a mask that had been adopted by some protesters. Things were going downhill indeed. Purification: Fulul and Falafel The purging of "the media", not to mention that of the Ministry of the Interior, was among the earliest demands of the revolution. So far, it has proved impossible. I think I have a few jokes of my own in this department, but first the word fulul, which literally means something like remnants. It has acquired legendary status in popular consciousness since it was first used to describe Mubarak's cronies and their subordinates -- a good half of the population, as it turns out -- but due to its phonetic similarity to the word for fuul, the all-Egyptian bean dish and the majority of the population's source of sustenance, it was only natural that it should solicit a certain amount of wordplay. There are two main reasons why "purification" remains an impossible objective. First, the depth and breadth of the reach of fulul -- and the difficulty of defining them in the first place -- is such that it would take divine powers of investigation and judgement to identify and isolate them in the various state institutions, which even then would leave us with the question of what to do with them. They could always defend themselves with the argument that they were pro-Mubarak because they had no other choice; they could always pretend that they were pro-revolution in the first place. One joke had it that Mubarak himself was the one who called for the revolution. Like baltageyya, fulul seems to be more of a state of being than an action or even an orientation as such. Anyone could use it against anyone else -- to eliminate them. But the second reason why "purification" is difficult is even more pertinent. Unlike previous "revolutions" in Arab history, this particular string of events had neither leadership nor dogma. Who on earth is going to undertake the task of purging state institutions? Surely not SCAF, which was itself one suchE In this sense perhaps we are all fulul. Perhaps we should just gulp down our falafel and forget. Long live Okasha! Islamists, Liblalals and Sharifs Of all the different "political players" who have emerged in the aftermath of the revolution, the self-proclaimed Sharifs or descendants of the Prophet Muhammad are indeed the most fascinating. As represented by Sheikha Magda, according to her own testimony a "Quranic healer" who was always present outside the court during hearings of the Mubarak trial, campaigning against the former president being tried, unlike either the God- fearing hence good Islamists or the Westernised and bad liblalals (in the populist pronunciation of the word), Sharifs are pro-Saudi and (like the inexplicable Sons of Mubarak organisation) pro-Mubarak, but they are not only anti-Iran and anti-Hamas (we have already mentioned Iran and Hamas's own enemies, who have apparently nonetheless joined forces simply to bring down Egypt: Masons, Zionists and Americans); they are anti many things besides: reason, fact, common sense and of course meaning itself. The Sharifs are like the liblalals in that they reject political Islam (which they see as part of the Conspiracy), but they are like the Islamists in that they appeal to a higher power to explain and justify them: President Mubareek, Sheikha Magda is known to have revealed, pronouncing the name Mubareek, is himself a Sharif, "from the progeny of the Prophet Muhammad", as she put it, and therefore quite obviously a good man. Those who killed the protesters -- she saw them with her own eyes, emerging out of boats on their way to Tahrir Square -- were neither police nor unidentified militias; they were "Iranians, Shias from Iraq and Palestinians". How did Sheikha Magda know? They told her. But why would they tell her? Well, she explained, some of them were Sharifs too; and when they found out she was a Sharifa they warmed up to her. Even the Sharifs themselves were capable of evil deeds then... Ah, well! Fortunately or unfortunately, the Sharifs and the Okashas -- there have been speculations that Okasha they might actually be two species of alien life -- are by and large outside the picture. The Islamists have the parliament. One simply wonders what will become of the liblalals.
