Guernica Magazine interviews Ahdaf Soueif, the Egyptian novelist and activist on when she knew the revolution would succeed, the role Al Jazeera and social networking played, and the irresponsible reporting on Lara Logan‘s attack.
On the “irresponsible reporting” on the attack on Lara Logan:
The attack on Ms. Logan was not carried out by protesters but by anti-revolutionary thugs. Brutal physical attacks which—when against women—include sexual assault have since 2003 been a trademark of the thug militias used by the Mubarak regime. Many Egyptian women protesters have—over the years—been subjected to these. The attack on Ms. Logan was particularly severe because the attackers were instructed to regard the foreign media as their enemy, and so the attack was not just harassment; it was punishment. After all, the day before, these same thugs had ensured that all foreign media were confined to their hotels and that the recording studios stayed closed for fear of being trashed. The assault on Ms. Logan was a sad and deeply-regrettable incident and many people, speaking on behalf of Egypt and of the revolution, have apologized to her and have condemned her attackers. But responsible reporting should always place the attack in the context of the counter-revolution, of the kind of tactics commonly used by the Mubarak regime—the kind of tactics and behavior this popular revolution is most vehemently against.
On Social Media:
It was probably a necessary condition for the beginning, but it also wasn’t a sufficient condition, because if it hadn’t been the case that millions of people, i.e. about eighty million people are actually dissatisfied and bordering on desperate, then however much technology you had you would never get those numbers onto the streets. But when the Khalid Said website [We Are All Khalid Said, named after a young activist who was murdered by police in Alexandria in June 2010] put out the call for protests on January 25th and within a short space of time got three hundred and fifty thousand people saying, “I will be there,” they knew that something was up. And so all the other groups said, “Well, let’s meet and work out a strategy.” People have had revolutions before with printed materials and so on. This is a tool of the moment and it is more powerful and immediate than the old tools. But it is still only useful up to a point. Even without the government jamming anything, the fact is that when you have a million people crammed into a space your mobile telephones don’t work. So something else has to take over.
On Al Jazeera:
Al Jazeera was important, but it wasn’t the most important thing. People who were watching TV, i.e people who were at home, were flicking between channels so the channels would balance each other out. They kept an eye on the Egyptian independent “Dream,” on Al Jazeera Arabic (regarded as a bit too prone to hysteria), Al Jazeera English (very good), Al Arabiya (OK but a little suspect), and (not the Iraqi) Alhurra (surprisingly good).
People didn’t need TV to make them aware of the revolution; they just had to look out their windows.