Revolutionary Anxieties

Revolutionary Anxieties studies the role of the liberal elite during the Egyptian transitional period (2011-2014). It shows how the election of the Islamists caused anxiety among the liberal and cultural elites that constituted Cairo's exclusive society. The book examines their relationship with other Egyptians--those who were not part of Cairo's exclusive society, including their servants, the city's poor, and members of Islamist parties. It further illustrates how the narratives of "others" relied on dichotomies such as "ugly versus beautiful" and "civilized versus uncivilized," familiar to scholars from the colonial era. The book also shows how, during the transitional period, Cairo's liberal elite attempted to assert their superiority in various fields. Performative practices related to gender, culture, and art; etiquette and manners; the use of foreign languages; and knowledge of Egyptian history all manifested the cultural capital of the liberal elite. One purpose of this book is to explore the uses of the past in legitimizing and reinventing current cultural and socio-political asymmetries. Throughout, I demonstrate how access to narratives of Egypt's past--understood as "liberal" and "civilized"--functioned as a critical resource for the elite who opposed the new Islamist rulers. The insistence on Egypt's true "civilized" character, which was seen as endangered by the Islamists, was closely tied to political calculations.