Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: The Egyptian Uprising and a Sufi Khidma

Abstract

‘Aīsh, huriyya, ‘adāla igtimā‘iyya (“bread, freedom, social justice”) were key demands of Egyptian protesters in early 2011. Whereas the call for bread evokes immediate need, social justice is often associated with structural transformations and a better tomorrow. In light of this temporal tension, this article calls for a critical rethinking of an orientation toward the future by dwelling on the ethical and political potentials inherent to traditions of giving, sharing, and hospitality that are fundamentally oriented toward the present. Drawing on fieldwork in Cairo during 2010 and 2012, I think about an ethics of immediacy that is embodied in seemingly non-revolutionary everyday practices, but that also emerges from stories about Tahrir as a space of togetherness and solidarity. I argue that such an ethics is obscured in dominant neoliberal concepts of social justice, which foreground individual responsibility, productivity, and economic growth. Concretely, the article places the Tahrir utopia in conversation with a Sufi khidma that provides guests with food, tea, and a place to rest. Both spaces, I suggest, gesture toward modes of being in the world which rupture the state’s monopoly of politics, enable alternative forms of circulation and distribution, and encourage forms of relationality different from capitalism (in both its welfare and neoliberal renditions). By bringing these spaces into conversation, I seek to problematize a pervasive neoliberalization of social justice and to contribute to an anthropology of the otherwise.

Speculative futures at the bottom of the pyramid

“…Yet the ethnography of BoP sellers at the margins of formal markets that we explore below suggests the opposite. It is precisely the ‘ethics of immediacy’, as Mittermaier (: 54) puts it, that BoP entrepreneurs seek to escape, and a medium‐term future that its proponents peddle. This is a starkly individualized vision of progress.…”

A civilized revolution: Aesthetics and political action in Egypt

“…The head of one of the big NGOs that organized the cleaning crews, Resala, even used garbage as a prime example to described the group's goal of making Egyptians more “society‐oriented.” “In Egypt,” he said, “we don't care about throwing garbage in the street. But no one can throw garbage in front of my house” (Mittermaier , 518–31).…”

“…These politics were part of what Judith Butler () called “bodies in alliance” that were “productive and performative” in making “political claims” and that were sustained in doing so by the specific kinds of “sociality and belonging” forged in Tahrir. Aesthetic modes of forging sociality and belonging were simultaneously acts of mutual care that enabled people to live the utopia as a kind of “time out of time” (Sabea ; see also Mittermaier ). They were also a mode of honoring God for the victory of getting Mubarak out of power, to build a society pleasing to God, to literally and figuratively clean up the mess of Egypt, to reclaim public space from decades of government neglect and harassment by police forces, and to claim nationalist, democratic citizenship.…”

A region without “spring”: a tenacious tale of poverty, inequality and precarity*

“…Within the context of the “Arab Spring”, protestors at Tahrir Square were calling for many different demands with the concept of ‘adāla igtimā‘iyya (a literal translation of “social justice”). In Egypt, the concept evokes a multitude of demands that reflect the country's political and socioeconomic history since 1952, converging along the socialist, communist, liberal, neoliberal and religious trajectories (Mittermaier ). Since the Arab Spring uprisings, the concept has been recycled across the political spectrum.…”

“…The Muslim Brotherhood, on the other hand, declared it as one of its key goals, “structuring a comprehensive social justice system that will provide the different social classes with equal opportunities in residence, work, medical treatment, and in exercising their political rights”. The 2012 Constitution under the Morsi regime stated that the national economy shall be organised in accordance with a “comprehensive, constant development plan”, which shall “establish social justice and solidarity, ensure equitable distribution … and safeguard the rights of workers” (Article 14) (Mittermaier ). At the same time, the 2014 Constitution under Sisi mentioned the concept of “social justice” nine times in both its Preamble and main text.…”