1 00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:03,930 Hello and welcome to Almanack. The Oxford Middle East podcast. 2 00:00:03,930 --> 00:00:10,620 My name is Peter's focus, and today I'm joined by Adam Abdullah and Kalyani Net and Gundy's to talk about unofficial ways of expressing dissent. 3 00:00:10,620 --> 00:00:17,400 We discuss where we're graffiti music. Our football fans played in the Egyptian revolution and its aftermath to 2013 protests in Turkey 4 00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:24,230 and Morocco and Palestine as Mominul Morsi diet cattle were tackled and mocked by Mike Dahmer. 5 00:00:24,230 --> 00:00:46,500 But that did not stop and the Murray and pass my daughter Mustafi and most. 6 00:00:46,500 --> 00:00:52,200 At the moment, one of those on the green and still enjoying the vitamin D regimen a week or bohemian of speed treks on Tuesday, 7 00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:57,090 accusing him of to to finally get a deal for the good of you to bust my, you know, get better daily consequence tax cuts. 8 00:00:57,090 --> 00:01:01,920 But I immediately tired up the government, the country, but also gets out of one. I get deals on those two together. 9 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:05,580 I hate holiday. Yeah, I bet they deny. 10 00:01:05,580 --> 00:01:09,660 Yeah, right? Oh yeah, I bet I did. 11 00:01:09,660 --> 00:01:15,960 I. Yes, I know that it's been my. 12 00:01:15,960 --> 00:01:25,620 Hurry. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our episode today about non-traditional means of expressing dissent. 13 00:01:25,620 --> 00:01:29,790 We are going to be talking about Egypt's. That's going to be my area of expertise. 14 00:01:29,790 --> 00:01:34,990 Adam is going to be doing Morocco and Palestine, and then Kalyani is going to be doing Turkey and Palestine. 15 00:01:34,990 --> 00:01:38,940 And I thought the best way to start would be for Adam to give us some information 16 00:01:38,940 --> 00:01:44,110 on the context of why these non-traditional forms of expressing this and have 17 00:01:44,110 --> 00:01:48,090 developed by describing what the case is in Morocco because what is happening in 18 00:01:48,090 --> 00:01:52,800 Morocco is equally applicable to all the other countries we're going to discuss. Well, thank you so much for your letters. 19 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:57,000 This is, I think, a really interesting and important discussion that we're going to have. 20 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:03,300 And one of the ways that you can look at other alternative ways of dissent is that 21 00:02:03,300 --> 00:02:08,310 in societies where you are policed more where your discourse is more police, 22 00:02:08,310 --> 00:02:11,370 where your speech is policed to a large extent, 23 00:02:11,370 --> 00:02:19,410 where there are not so many official ways of showing your dissent or disagreement with government policies, 24 00:02:19,410 --> 00:02:23,700 you will find it that you will have to look for alternative ways to dissent. 25 00:02:23,700 --> 00:02:30,180 Basically, this is a way how political actors or citizens, for example, in Morocco, are protecting themselves. 26 00:02:30,180 --> 00:02:38,160 So if they happen to disagree with a government policy and they don't feel that dissenting from it is something that is safe for them, 27 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:44,880 whether it be physical harm or something that would impede their career or social life, 28 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:51,660 they might look for ways how to be how to anonymize this form of dissent in Morocco, for example. 29 00:02:51,660 --> 00:03:01,020 You know, this can go from music on the internet. So this was like a huge intervention in political discourse and political activism in Morocco. 30 00:03:01,020 --> 00:03:04,170 Was that the penetration of Merkel by the internet. 31 00:03:04,170 --> 00:03:13,980 Also, obviously, this is what we're going to be talking about later as the ultras movement and football fans in North Africa in general, 32 00:03:13,980 --> 00:03:20,730 but also in Morocco in particular. But I was wondering what it looks like in Turkey, if it's any similar in Morocco. 33 00:03:20,730 --> 00:03:26,910 You can't touch the king, the royal family. These are topics that are off bounds and out of balance. 34 00:03:26,910 --> 00:03:36,240 And if you cross these red lines, then you will be persecuted. So I was wondering what it looks like in Turkey, Kehlani, while in Turkey, 35 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:41,430 it looks a bit different in that while you know Turkey is now known for having to imprison 36 00:03:41,430 --> 00:03:46,050 the highest number of journalists in the last few years under the AKP government, 37 00:03:46,050 --> 00:03:51,990 and there are certain things that you know one no one can say you can't criticise Erdogan in particular, 38 00:03:51,990 --> 00:03:57,600 sort of a unique feature of censorship in Turkey is that it's constantly changing. 39 00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:04,980 So even in terms of arts, the things that people read respond to in public space and are entertained by it and the way history is told, 40 00:04:04,980 --> 00:04:06,240 those are always changing. 41 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:16,200 For example, based on 12 Turkish Kurdistan, Erdogan has first funded a movie and then banned it later on when things fell apart. 42 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:20,190 Things change quite a bit in Turkey in terms of what is allowed, what is not allowed. 43 00:04:20,190 --> 00:04:27,390 Street art is allowed in protest of certain things as long as it doesn't push the state on certain issues. 44 00:04:27,390 --> 00:04:31,980 So it was one of those things that's very changeable and it goes with Erdogan's mood. 45 00:04:31,980 --> 00:04:36,750 So you're saying basically that you're allowed to do graffiti and allowed to criticise things and slogans? 46 00:04:36,750 --> 00:04:41,070 You criticise the things the government also does not like? 47 00:04:41,070 --> 00:04:47,550 Exactly. Either they don't like or don't care about at this moment, but they could at some future point, you don't know. 48 00:04:47,550 --> 00:04:56,370 And this is I mean, this is something that is definitely running theme, not only in Southwest Asia and North Africa, but also everywhere else. 49 00:04:56,370 --> 00:05:04,920 Like, as long as you're staying within a certain space which is defined by ideology or hegemony or whatever you want to call it. 50 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:13,320 And this is something that obviously as they exacerbate that in countries where laws around free speech are, 51 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:19,620 you know, not as clearly defined or protected as as in Europe, for example, 52 00:05:19,620 --> 00:05:27,210 to bring it back to where we were, one of the ways people can express dissent in these countries is, 53 00:05:27,210 --> 00:05:35,020 for example, the first thing we're going to discuss, which is graffiti. Kalyani, you mentioned that during protests, 54 00:05:35,020 --> 00:05:42,570 that's like at a time when many of the laws breakdown of this and people use those as opportunities to express themselves. 55 00:05:42,570 --> 00:05:48,930 So, for example, the Gezi Park protests in 2013, that graffiti played a substantial role. 56 00:05:48,930 --> 00:05:57,330 Could you go into this? But yeah, of course. I think in general, there's a debate that always happens between graffiti versus vandalism. 57 00:05:57,330 --> 00:05:59,880 When you talk about graffiti, what is graffiti, what does that realism? 58 00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:04,170 And I think it comes down to in some ways, doing these big protests, a question of, 59 00:06:04,170 --> 00:06:07,920 you know, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. 60 00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:12,810 It's kind of like that. It ends up being something of that nature. 61 00:06:12,810 --> 00:06:20,970 But I think what was significant in the Gezi Park protests was how widespread the use of graffiti was. 62 00:06:20,970 --> 00:06:28,920 And also, and this is, there's a lot of comparison done between sort of the Gezi Park protests and the Tahrir Square protests and its interior. 63 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:36,450 You saw more sort of artists taking ownership. A lot of artists came up through creating these beautiful murals and, you know, they were recognise, 64 00:06:36,450 --> 00:06:40,410 Oh, this is this artist's work, etc. or they've painted over this person's look. 65 00:06:40,410 --> 00:06:48,570 Whereas the duck in the Gezi Park protests for some reason, then you know, there's no telling why or what really is the catalyst for these things. 66 00:06:48,570 --> 00:06:52,740 But there were a lot of symbols that were just taken and could be used repeatedly 67 00:06:52,740 --> 00:06:56,520 in order to give a bit of background as to why some of these symbols are used. 68 00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:02,430 Basically for the Gezi Park protests happened in May, over May and June in 2013. 69 00:07:02,430 --> 00:07:04,110 Basically, it started kind of small. 70 00:07:04,110 --> 00:07:14,610 A local opposition leader, Sara Syria, and about 50 individuals decided to protest the conversion of the last green space in space in Taksim, 71 00:07:14,610 --> 00:07:17,670 which is Gezi Park being converted into a shopping mall. 72 00:07:17,670 --> 00:07:26,400 And there was a disproportionate police response and media response, and that sort of snowballed into this massive movement. 73 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:31,020 And what was interesting here was that there was a huge amount of mass media censorship because 74 00:07:31,020 --> 00:07:36,750 Erdogan's very good at sort of controlling the media and the narrative that is broadcast in Turkey. 75 00:07:36,750 --> 00:07:46,020 But on the other hand, in sort of proportion to that graffiti and especially graffiti shared through social media on sort of Apollo of its own. 76 00:07:46,020 --> 00:07:54,690 And a good example of that on one of the days when the protests were really picking up speed, CNN in Turkey instead aired a penguin documentary. 77 00:07:54,690 --> 00:07:57,360 And so that gave rise to the name of the Penguin Media. 78 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:05,490 The media that won't report the protests so suddenly found like images of penguins wearing gas masks being Stenzel all over the city. 79 00:08:05,490 --> 00:08:08,310 And then the Twitter board wearing a gas mask. 80 00:08:08,310 --> 00:08:15,570 So Zhang, who was censored, who is not censored graffiti was particularly good for sharing on the on platforms like Twitter, 81 00:08:15,570 --> 00:08:20,070 Facebook and even their vision of Urban Dictionary, which is great. 82 00:08:20,070 --> 00:08:23,940 You also saw a lot of like the mobilisation of pop culture at that time. 83 00:08:23,940 --> 00:08:28,890 So one of the things that was written on many of the walls this winter is coming, which of course, 84 00:08:28,890 --> 00:08:37,410 is the Game of Thrones reference the significance of saying that Erdogan's first meme, and it's a very sort of disrespectful way of addressing him. 85 00:08:37,410 --> 00:08:42,800 And it's sort of really sort of writing that in a public space is really making a statement. 86 00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:44,070 And, you know, 87 00:08:44,070 --> 00:08:53,970 in Egypt was something very similar in that they would basically draw on inspiration from Egyptian history and Egyptian symbols to for their graffiti. 88 00:08:53,970 --> 00:08:58,860 So there's, for example, quite a famous one of King Tut's uncovered and dressed as Che Guevara, 89 00:08:58,860 --> 00:09:03,720 which is incredibly funny if it wasn't for the quite context. 90 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:07,500 There's also one of Queen Nefertiti wearing a gas mask. 91 00:09:07,500 --> 00:09:14,040 And there's also obviously a huge number of pieces, for example, of the Sphinx, as it is like the pre-eminent symbol of of Egypt. 92 00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:22,860 And then there's also very famous graffiti called that includes a cyclist where a tank is facing a bread boy and anyone who's been to Egypt, 93 00:09:22,860 --> 00:09:28,590 especially. It's like the slightly less expensive neighbourhoods has probably seen these guys on 94 00:09:28,590 --> 00:09:33,660 their bikes carrying like a huge number or huge amount of bread on the on their head. 95 00:09:33,660 --> 00:09:39,420 And it basically, for many people represented like the daily struggle for sustenance and was also quite interesting 96 00:09:39,420 --> 00:09:44,820 about this piece of graffiti that was developed and it's evolved as the revolution went on. 97 00:09:44,820 --> 00:09:48,260 So, for example, after a major massacre. The Maspero massacre, 98 00:09:48,260 --> 00:09:53,180 dead bodies were added under the tracks of the tank and then pro-military revolutionaries 99 00:09:53,180 --> 00:09:57,860 would later remove these bodies and instead add the army and the people on one hand, 100 00:09:57,860 --> 00:10:01,670 which with hindsight is an absolutely bizarre thing to say. 101 00:10:01,670 --> 00:10:06,830 And then this graffiti piece was also developed by more feminist graffiti artists that took away this 102 00:10:06,830 --> 00:10:13,520 slogan and then added quite a grim picture of a soldier feeding on a woman as if it was like a vulture. 103 00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:18,770 Just like in Turkey, it became like a way for people to express their displeasure with the regime. 104 00:10:18,770 --> 00:10:24,320 Absolutely. There's Nick in this in response to that, those sort of things that kind of picked up. 105 00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:29,480 And the first thing is there's a trend of using humour in these forms of resistance. 106 00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:35,810 And I think humour is weaponized basically because it is a good way of sort of capturing sort of that 107 00:10:35,810 --> 00:10:41,360 sense of community as like a group of very disparate people coming together in protest of something. 108 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:50,120 And humour as a way of sort of disengaging the state or whoever is the oppressive power and their narrative about these so-called terrorists, 109 00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:51,080 these rebellions, 110 00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:58,930 etc etc. Because when you look at the evidence of revolt and its humour and its sort of teasing and mildly insulting that in many ways, 111 00:10:58,930 --> 00:11:04,190 it takes the wind out of their sails because it's almost a mockery of the power that they're going up against. 112 00:11:04,190 --> 00:11:13,280 So people are often found in graffiti that it's good and it's sort of very useful to sort of weaponize humour in this way. 113 00:11:13,280 --> 00:11:18,080 Yeah. Like, I'd like to create counter-narratives because especially in the Middle East, 114 00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:25,520 these dictators stay in power by telling the West that if they fall out of power, they're going to be replaced by wild eyed terrorists. 115 00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:29,480 While these people, like through the graffiti, can highlight the fact that like, no, you know, 116 00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:35,900 we just want peace and dignity and greed are not to be tortured as soon as we criticises the government, for example. 117 00:11:35,900 --> 00:11:43,220 Exactly. And I think there's also harkening of their own history is, like you say, with sort of using equity and the things etc and even in Turkey, 118 00:11:43,220 --> 00:11:50,630 the sort of, you know, where we co-opting this nationalist sort of narrative that you're using against us. 119 00:11:50,630 --> 00:11:56,210 I think those things are really important. And of course, the change of NATO graffiti and the fact we're going to add to it, remove it. 120 00:11:56,210 --> 00:12:02,150 And it's sort of constantly evolving. It's it's a nice nice is not perhaps a good word. 121 00:12:02,150 --> 00:12:05,660 It is an interesting sort of parallel to revolutions themselves, right? 122 00:12:05,660 --> 00:12:15,560 Yeah. I mean, talking about constantly evolving. You know, I think sort of slightly different, obviously, because of the imposition context. 123 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:19,910 But when you look at the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian landscape, right, 124 00:12:19,910 --> 00:12:25,970 so this is this is like a constant battle between who defines the space, right? 125 00:12:25,970 --> 00:12:31,760 So the space, unlike in other contexts, perhaps is inherently political or ready. 126 00:12:31,760 --> 00:12:40,700 So you could argue that there is either a total absence by definition of public space in Palestine, especially what I'm talking about the West Bank. 127 00:12:40,700 --> 00:12:48,410 You virtually don't have any squares in a refugee camp, you don't have any places where you could congregate. 128 00:12:48,410 --> 00:12:55,040 And the only way of communication is basically these walls that are that used to be empty. 129 00:12:55,040 --> 00:13:00,170 But now they are a very densely populated by plain graffiti, 130 00:13:00,170 --> 00:13:06,320 which is something that emerged out of necessity during the First Intifada because the Israeli occupation 131 00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:13,310 basically stops the Palestinian movement from communicating in any other way other than this. 132 00:13:13,310 --> 00:13:21,290 You know, they didn't had the time in the 80s, in the late 80s. There was no way to use, you know, technology in the same way as we have today. 133 00:13:21,290 --> 00:13:24,830 Telephones were confiscated and I think lines were cut as well. 134 00:13:24,830 --> 00:13:30,080 The only way that you could coordinate a national movement was through writing on the wall, 135 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:34,700 you know, which is something that is very effective in a way, 136 00:13:34,700 --> 00:13:42,820 but also extremely precarious because you have to remember that they would usually create these graffiti at night. 137 00:13:42,820 --> 00:13:45,580 The refugee camp would be under assault on there. 138 00:13:45,580 --> 00:13:53,870 There was a curfew at night in these refugee camps, so if the soldiers would catch you spraying, graffiti would get arrested or worse. 139 00:13:53,870 --> 00:13:59,060 So this isn't like an interesting element in comparison between these two very different contexts. 140 00:13:59,060 --> 00:14:06,170 But another one contemporary as the apartheid wall or the separation will depend what you want to call it, 141 00:14:06,170 --> 00:14:13,280 which has become like a huge canvas for international graffiti artists to come and paint on it. 142 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:18,920 And it's like a controversy. I would like to hear how you feel about it as well in terms of because there's 143 00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:26,450 a lot of criticism relating to art basically doing something to the wall, 144 00:14:26,450 --> 00:14:37,010 which is making it more agreeable, making it more digestible for the international audience, rather than just showing it as it is a very ugly, 145 00:14:37,010 --> 00:14:45,590 oppressive manifestation of occupation, apartheid and colonialism really settler colonialism. 146 00:14:45,590 --> 00:14:49,450 So it's a very interesting. Discussion, I would like to hear what you what you think. 147 00:14:49,450 --> 00:14:55,360 Personally, I think if anyone makes the argument that you know they shouldn't put graffiti on the wall, 148 00:14:55,360 --> 00:14:59,230 I think that's quite weak because first of all, 149 00:14:59,230 --> 00:15:05,290 you know, if you have to look at the wall all day, you probably don't want to look at like this grey monolith unless you have to. 150 00:15:05,290 --> 00:15:10,210 More importantly, though, I do think it's a very good example of the medium being the message, 151 00:15:10,210 --> 00:15:15,110 because the fact that people can graffiti there, you know, 152 00:15:15,110 --> 00:15:23,380 just highlights the fact that this wall has been placed in the middle of a society basically that is blocking people from from going somewhere. 153 00:15:23,380 --> 00:15:28,000 So I think it draws much more attention to it because when I saw it, when I was in Palestine, 154 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:33,040 for example, it is quite a few tourists around who might not know everything about the history, 155 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:36,100 but they have seen in the guidebooks like, Hey, you should go to this, well, 156 00:15:36,100 --> 00:15:43,810 you should see the graffiti because in many cases it is very beautiful, and even famous ones like Banksy have gone there to do graffiti. 157 00:15:43,810 --> 00:15:50,290 And interestingly, there's a similar parallel in in Egypt during the 2011 revolution as well. 158 00:15:50,290 --> 00:15:58,030 One of the murders, which sparked the revolution was of the so-called called, Savage said, and he was beaten to death by some policemen. 159 00:15:58,030 --> 00:16:04,240 And his name and his face was painted on the side of the Ministry of Interior, 160 00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:09,740 basically highlighting the fact that the Ministry of Interior was in charge of the people who ended up murdering this guy as well. 161 00:16:09,740 --> 00:16:17,080 The Makama is the centre of the Egyptian bureaucracy, and this is an enormous building right next to Tahrir Square. 162 00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:22,420 And it became a canvas in which people could paint and basically allowed them to reclaim a 163 00:16:22,420 --> 00:16:27,050 building and a location which had become a symbol of government inefficiency and corruption. 164 00:16:27,050 --> 00:16:34,900 So I think any opportunity like whether it's in a park or on the apartheid wall or a government building in another country, 165 00:16:34,900 --> 00:16:44,080 it allows people to sort of reclaim a piece of land or a piece of all, which has always symbolised something very different for them. 166 00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:49,210 Yeah, I think that there is one thing that's really interesting about Palestine and, 167 00:16:49,210 --> 00:16:54,280 you know, forms of protest like music and graffiti done by Palestinians. 168 00:16:54,280 --> 00:17:00,850 And I think it's this question that repeatedly comes up who is it for who the audience of this graffiti was the audience of this music? 169 00:17:00,850 --> 00:17:07,600 I think, for example, Banksy has created the sort of, you know, he's brought this international awareness of what's happening to Palestine. 170 00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:15,730 And obviously that was instrumental in sort of, you know, capturing sort of people who were unfamiliar with these issues and capturing the attention. 171 00:17:15,730 --> 00:17:20,120 But there are people within Palestine. Of course, we call this conflict tourism. 172 00:17:20,120 --> 00:17:25,030 You come, you see oppression and then you leave and you know, you take a good picture, you take a selfie. 173 00:17:25,030 --> 00:17:32,290 And that's that's the extent of it. I still have to live with this wall, which is very beautiful now, but nonetheless it is still a wall. 174 00:17:32,290 --> 00:17:35,860 And I think there is a middle ground somewhere that I'm not saying one or the other. 175 00:17:35,860 --> 00:17:43,090 But I think this idea of who is it for is something that repeatedly comes up for Palestinians because of the nature of the world 176 00:17:43,090 --> 00:17:50,890 who is looking at it becomes sort of a very interesting sort of idea because Palestinians themselves are physically looking at it. 177 00:17:50,890 --> 00:17:56,810 But through the internet, it's sort of reaching an international audience. Almost everything is built for that international audience. 178 00:17:56,810 --> 00:18:03,100 Yeah, I just want to say also, I mean, I think, you know, you guys make pretty good points that I wouldn't necessarily disagree with it. 179 00:18:03,100 --> 00:18:09,850 But I would say that one interesting thing is to consider the fact that, you know, Palestinians have agency rights or Palestinians themselves. 180 00:18:09,850 --> 00:18:16,130 It's not. It's not like internationalists came in and they started this whole thing with creating graffiti, right? 181 00:18:16,130 --> 00:18:19,060 So this is and this is not what you're saying, obviously, 182 00:18:19,060 --> 00:18:27,370 but I think it's just important to really stress that centralising the perspective of the people who immediately relate to that cause, 183 00:18:27,370 --> 00:18:34,180 we immediately relate to that reality. And actually, I think, you know, a lot of Palestinians are not against using this as a kind of us, 184 00:18:34,180 --> 00:18:39,340 as a as a means to protest what it is more is their opposition to what Kehlani mentioned. 185 00:18:39,340 --> 00:18:43,480 Like, like, as you said, conflict tourism or or people. 186 00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:49,570 You know, I know I'm going to bring this up because this is something that I've had in me for a long time. 187 00:18:49,570 --> 00:18:55,190 So this is this was the ugliest union of Jewish students they had on their Facebook page. 188 00:18:55,190 --> 00:18:58,690 If you go on their Facebook page and you look at their cover photo. 189 00:18:58,690 --> 00:19:03,400 One of the things that they had there for a while was the picture of them going to Israel, 190 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:08,230 and they had a picture with that wall and it said, Peace, Shalom and Salam. 191 00:19:08,230 --> 00:19:13,180 Oh no, with like a dive. And they were there and they were like looking really happy. 192 00:19:13,180 --> 00:19:18,970 Oh, we're on a trip to Gaza. You know what? I think it was the Gazan separation wall in that case. 193 00:19:18,970 --> 00:19:24,440 One of them, it was either the West Bank or Gaza. But this is exactly like the worst case scenario that can happen with it. 194 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:36,400 You know, this is the danger that can that this foreign intervention in this space that is to be reclaimed by people resisting colonialism can happen. 195 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:43,240 Like this situation is like the worst case scenario. So I guess this this is where all of the anxieties come from, the frustrations, 196 00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:50,270 because if someone is making money off that suffering or showing it as something that it's not, that's that's really problematic. 197 00:19:50,270 --> 00:19:58,360 Yeah, I think you raise a good point because for every action and for every piece of art or graffiti somebody makes, 198 00:19:58,360 --> 00:20:01,970 there's going to be a reaction that like a desire, probably to take it away. 199 00:20:01,970 --> 00:20:07,510 And you see, it's sadly very clearly in Egypt now that if one goes to downtown Cairo, 200 00:20:07,510 --> 00:20:13,540 there's there's no graffiti anywhere anymore because the government sees his coup and his sham 201 00:20:13,540 --> 00:20:21,400 election in 2014 have has removed all the graffiti in pretty much wherever you can find it, 202 00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:26,380 and even introduced a protest law which made protesting and graffiti illegal. 203 00:20:26,380 --> 00:20:31,660 And graffiti artists would get enormous fines and several years worth of the salary and up to four years in prison. 204 00:20:31,660 --> 00:20:36,380 They basically flip it on its head a bit like UGC. You mentioned that, for example, 205 00:20:36,380 --> 00:20:43,360 the quotes are from the newspaper is that the statements on the graffiti are inflammatory and obviously made in haste obscenities. 206 00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:48,040 The rule and will note needs only a brief to bring down. Sankara's have become disillusioned. 207 00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:56,860 The capital has turned into a series of insults and will guarantee so under the guise of like, protecting, I don't know the good people of Cairo. 208 00:20:56,860 --> 00:21:03,640 They say, OK, let's get rid of all the graffiti and let's find the living daylights out of anyone who dares paint on the wall, 209 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:07,120 which allows them to basically de-politicize their crackdown as well. 210 00:21:07,120 --> 00:21:09,970 And it's exactly what you just did by standing in front of this thing. 211 00:21:09,970 --> 00:21:16,450 They basically removed the context of why these things are there and then only look at it in a way which benefits benefits, 212 00:21:16,450 --> 00:21:22,120 which is very unfortunate because if graffiti is about reclaiming public spaces for the people, 213 00:21:22,120 --> 00:21:28,480 the Egyptian government has been extremely successful in regaining control of all the public spaces in Egypt by banning, 214 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:34,300 protesting and removing the graffiti. I love how the journalists obviously made in a hurry. 215 00:21:34,300 --> 00:21:37,630 I mean, if you're going to make them illegal, what is the person supposed to do? 216 00:21:37,630 --> 00:21:42,010 You think they're going to sit there and just be like, OK, let me rethink about this and do it. 217 00:21:42,010 --> 00:21:49,920 Very pretty. I mean. I think, yeah, the danger is either it becomes labelled as vandalism or it becomes something else entirely, 218 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:54,830 either sort of co-opted by people sort of with their own personal interests at heart. 219 00:21:54,830 --> 00:22:02,770 Yeah, no, exactly. And you know, sometimes happens often happens with the with the Palestine keys. 220 00:22:02,770 --> 00:22:06,290 And it can be reduced to an Instagram post for some people. 221 00:22:06,290 --> 00:22:13,670 In addition to graffiti, there's you know, another very popular way of expressing dissent is is through music. 222 00:22:13,670 --> 00:22:17,480 Often there's music. When it's current, it's criticises the states, 223 00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:24,590 but sometimes it has to be a bit more surreptitious than that because they only had some examples as well of this being the case. 224 00:22:24,590 --> 00:22:34,850 Oh yeah. Interestingly enough, a lot of the examples I looked at were of hip hop music, which I think is less surprising when you think about it. 225 00:22:34,850 --> 00:22:43,550 Because of course, hip hop sort of is a genre that grew out of resistance to authority, sort of protesting oppression, 226 00:22:43,550 --> 00:22:46,880 etc. They're a couple of songs in the last few years that have come out in Turkey, 227 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:51,230 which have sort of immediately irked the government or tones come down really hard. 228 00:22:51,230 --> 00:22:59,210 And one of them, of course, is the artist as well, who had a song called Ola Almiron's incident or event. 229 00:22:59,210 --> 00:23:06,080 And through the song, he sort of describes actually many events that have been taken taking place across Turkey that have fallen under the radar. 230 00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:10,220 Whether it's violence against women, whether it's sort of corruption, 231 00:23:10,220 --> 00:23:18,050 whether it's sort of increasing inequality and whether it's sort of ignoring all of that in favour of keeping the ruling party happy. 232 00:23:18,050 --> 00:23:25,940 It's still on YouTube. It has 10 million, 10 million music. You can listen to it on Israel's channel, but it's still there. 233 00:23:25,940 --> 00:23:29,390 But he was immediately imprisoned from being accused of inciting drug use. 234 00:23:29,390 --> 00:23:33,660 So the song, which is a very racist attitudes towards hip hop anyway. 235 00:23:33,660 --> 00:23:38,810 Oh, it's all about inciting drug use, et cetera, et cetera. This particular letter just quickly. 236 00:23:38,810 --> 00:23:44,300 What I just think is it's quite interesting that that's a bit similar to their criticism of the graffiti in Cairo, 237 00:23:44,300 --> 00:23:51,530 where it basically refutes to like a good society and use that as as a way to suppress dissent in any way, 238 00:23:51,530 --> 00:23:57,740 shape or form, because they're basically, you know, try to hold onto conservative values in a certain way. 239 00:23:57,740 --> 00:24:04,670 Exactly. And even though there was nothing really going against conservative values here, it was mobilised against this particular song. 240 00:24:04,670 --> 00:24:11,870 I think what sort of people who I think what is interesting about the song also there was interplay between the English and Turkish a little bit. 241 00:24:11,870 --> 00:24:16,850 So, for example, he rang school and then he goes on to say all eyes on me. 242 00:24:16,850 --> 00:24:19,880 And that's kind of an interesting way to see if there's an incident and all 243 00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:23,510 eyes are on us and we're not responding or we have not acted a certain way. 244 00:24:23,510 --> 00:24:32,600 And it was really interesting to have that, which is which is a reference to Tupac's song All Eyes on Me or his album. 245 00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:39,440 So there you go. Adam, you also had some something to say about like Hip-Hop in Palestine. 246 00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:43,580 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, hip hop and rap in general is, I think, 247 00:24:43,580 --> 00:24:51,320 now the most prominent form of radical expression in alternative Palestinian culture, especially amongst young people. 248 00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:59,960 So you have people like these are authors and artists that really reflect the reality, the harsh reality of the way people live it, you know? 249 00:24:59,960 --> 00:25:06,740 So an interesting group as well as a group called get that five oh, kebab camps, I guess. 250 00:25:06,740 --> 00:25:10,310 I haven't heard of them before. I started doing research on this one. 251 00:25:10,310 --> 00:25:15,260 And there are a Palestinian group based in Lebanon when they were asked about their 252 00:25:15,260 --> 00:25:20,990 music and how does it relate to traditional Palestinian expression of resistance. 253 00:25:20,990 --> 00:25:25,770 The their response was basically that hip hop and rap builds on on this. 254 00:25:25,770 --> 00:25:35,870 They they share similar ideas, they share values, but they make it more relatable to the current situation of of the of young people, 255 00:25:35,870 --> 00:25:42,890 especially economic class, and also reflecting the oppression that they feel not only from the occupation, 256 00:25:42,890 --> 00:25:51,380 not only from the Zionist entity, but also from the Palestinian Authority, from Arab regimes like whether that's Lebanon, 257 00:25:51,380 --> 00:25:58,580 Syria, Jordan, obviously very important player and muzzling Palestinian dissent. 258 00:25:58,580 --> 00:26:03,020 But it's interesting how you see it also relate to global issues, right? 259 00:26:03,020 --> 00:26:07,970 You have like collapse like collaborations like with these Palestinian artists, 260 00:26:07,970 --> 00:26:15,530 where low key here in Britain, with French musicians, with musical groups in Ferguson. 261 00:26:15,530 --> 00:26:17,810 There's there's an amazing music video. 262 00:26:17,810 --> 00:26:24,290 The song is called We Could Be Free, and it's about like a delegation of people from Ferguson going to Palestine. 263 00:26:24,290 --> 00:26:30,470 There's also an interesting point that this he's a Palestinian-American Hip-Hop artist called actor, 264 00:26:30,470 --> 00:26:37,130 and he was talking about how another interesting part of leveraging hip hop in this way is that it 265 00:26:37,130 --> 00:26:43,270 echoes certain poetic traditions that are sort of common in the Arab world makes it a common response. 266 00:26:43,270 --> 00:26:50,310 Homes about homes and traditions, homes that are both on behalf of either the artist or the patron or whoever it is. 267 00:26:50,310 --> 00:26:53,640 It was interesting to read about how they sort of incorporate sort of these two 268 00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:59,310 styles and sort of find these similarities and kind of merge them together. 269 00:26:59,310 --> 00:27:01,910 I mean, I hate to use the word sort of. 270 00:27:01,910 --> 00:27:07,910 Globalisation, but that is the word that came up a lot, sort of taking something that is both global and local and combining it. 271 00:27:07,910 --> 00:27:12,260 But there was also another thing, another issue that I thought I would ask Adam as well, 272 00:27:12,260 --> 00:27:18,620 which is this whole idea of it isn't for us, if it's the Palestinians feeling of this thing isn't for us. 273 00:27:18,620 --> 00:27:25,190 A lot of the American Palestinian rappers sort of felt a lack of authenticity. 274 00:27:25,190 --> 00:27:32,120 Even though they have a bigger audience, they have more resources to sort of protest and collaborate with others. 275 00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:38,720 They felt that there was something inherently inauthentic about themselves and also in terms of the choice of language. 276 00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:45,170 Many of them were choosing to speak more in English than in Arabic because they knew the audience would also connect more to that. 277 00:27:45,170 --> 00:27:50,210 Is this an interesting sort of thought as who gets to make the music? Who has that amplification power? 278 00:27:50,210 --> 00:27:52,910 That's a really good point. Kalyani, and thanks for bringing it up. 279 00:27:52,910 --> 00:28:01,760 I think it's interesting because the way I understand it, so for context, so I was born in Prague, but my father is Palestine and my mother is Czech. 280 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:09,500 I see a difference between the Palestinian identity and expressions of this identity in the Diaspora, 281 00:28:09,500 --> 00:28:14,270 in Palestine, proper, in the refugee camps in Lebanon, for example. 282 00:28:14,270 --> 00:28:19,280 I see that as a different kind of diaspora than to the Diaspora in the West, quote unquote. 283 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:30,260 Right. So I don't I wouldn't see them as less authentic. I wouldn't see them as any less worthwhile to to listen to their expression or not 284 00:28:30,260 --> 00:28:36,140 having the same ability to express as Palestinians like a Nasser or the synaptic. 285 00:28:36,140 --> 00:28:37,940 And it's and it's a very interesting combination. 286 00:28:37,940 --> 00:28:44,690 So I think one of the expressions of Palestinian identity and the reflection of or the result of the Nakba, 287 00:28:44,690 --> 00:28:53,210 the continuing the the state that Palestinians find themselves in, which is this diasporic existence. 288 00:28:53,210 --> 00:28:58,130 One of my favourite tools in the world, like just one of my favourite Arab parties, is Kuroki, 289 00:28:58,130 --> 00:29:05,900 and this is like a rock group that still lives in Egypt and their songs, most of them on the political. 290 00:29:05,900 --> 00:29:10,460 And when they are, they tend to be, like, very metaphorical to the extent that, 291 00:29:10,460 --> 00:29:16,340 like a foreigner would never understand what they were referring to when it comes to like the political 292 00:29:16,340 --> 00:29:21,890 messages they have to other people who I can recommend listening to what is called a centimetre. 293 00:29:21,890 --> 00:29:29,420 And he currently lives in London, probably because of his music, which is much more expressly and explicitly political. 294 00:29:29,420 --> 00:29:30,980 So, for example, in one of his songs, 295 00:29:30,980 --> 00:29:38,420 he talks about being on a bus and saying that the bus driver is a crazy guy who keeps having accidents with the bus, 296 00:29:38,420 --> 00:29:43,970 and that obviously refers to the current leader of of Egypt, Sisi. 297 00:29:43,970 --> 00:29:48,650 You know, it is allegorical, but not very subtly so. 298 00:29:48,650 --> 00:29:54,590 But then there's another artist, Rami, as some who currently lives in Sweden, if I'm not mistaken. 299 00:29:54,590 --> 00:30:01,910 And before the elections, I think in 2018, he made a song called Balata, which means date. 300 00:30:01,910 --> 00:30:11,180 And this became an incredibly famous song because it basically calls President Sisi a day and it builds in a very positive way. 301 00:30:11,180 --> 00:30:16,730 And he says, for example, of shiny brown and Mr dates for years have passed in disgrace. 302 00:30:16,730 --> 00:30:21,800 And then he says, You lived in gardens. We lived in jails, obviously referring to the massive inequality. 303 00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:26,900 But then he gets a lot more political and says, you clumsy. So you lousy, clumsy loser. 304 00:30:26,900 --> 00:30:31,940 Your desperate gold digger, you betray. And then he calls the soldiers loyal barking dogs. 305 00:30:31,940 --> 00:30:39,080 And the army is a very sensitive topic in in Egypt, and criticising them that explicitly is in general, a very bad idea. 306 00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,620 And then towards the end of the song, he does a twinkle twinkle little star. 307 00:30:42,620 --> 00:30:45,410 I wonder where your balls are to the president. 308 00:30:45,410 --> 00:30:55,160 The consequences of this have been quite extreme because they habash the guy who directed the music video, which I can recommend everybody to watch. 309 00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:59,540 He died in prison. Pre-Trial detention in Egypt is meant to only last two years, 310 00:30:59,540 --> 00:31:05,420 but he was not released when he should have been basically putting it in a legal black hole with no opportunity to escape, 311 00:31:05,420 --> 00:31:09,530 and the circumstances surrounding his death are a bit unclear. 312 00:31:09,530 --> 00:31:15,110 And then another guy who wrote the lyrics is also in prison, and he should have been released earlier in 2021. 313 00:31:15,110 --> 00:31:19,660 But he hasn't been, and he has been charged with terrorist affiliation, disseminating fake news, 314 00:31:19,660 --> 00:31:23,720 abuse of social media networks and contempt of religion, all for producing this song. 315 00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:29,570 And the reason I'm saying this is because of what you guys called out and about, like who has the power to make music? 316 00:31:29,570 --> 00:31:34,460 Because on one hand, I do think the people in Egypt should make music about Egypt. 317 00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:37,010 But on the other hand, like the repressive apparatus, 318 00:31:37,010 --> 00:31:46,040 there is so strong and so all encompassing that only people outside of the country have the capacity and opportunities to be explicitly political. 319 00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:51,740 There should also be an understanding of like the enormous obstacles they face when when doing so. 320 00:31:51,740 --> 00:32:00,770 So the artists that who made the song shared and his fan friends is the way that some people describe it centre and friends in this particular song. 321 00:32:00,770 --> 00:32:08,430 And. So some them can be translated as I won't be, I won't be silenced, but it really means I cannot be silent. 322 00:32:08,430 --> 00:32:12,990 The reason this made such a splash is not only was it released very close to Olé, 323 00:32:12,990 --> 00:32:18,420 which was the previous song that I spoke about, but also as a cover, you know, the musical styles that these 14 artists. 324 00:32:18,420 --> 00:32:24,510 It also brought up very directly. It was all very overt, but a protest against Odofin and the government, 325 00:32:24,510 --> 00:32:30,960 and a good example of that is they have a sound clip within the song of the murder of this woman called Immunoblot, 326 00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:36,210 which happened in 2019 and it was very famous, had garnered a lot of international attention because she was murdered in broad 327 00:32:36,210 --> 00:32:40,680 daylight in a cafe by her husband in front of her ex-husband in front of her daughter. 328 00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:46,320 And to use that sound clip within a song, people found it very jarring, but also very powerful. 329 00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:50,010 And I myself, I it's it's very on the nose kind of messaging, 330 00:32:50,010 --> 00:32:57,750 but it is interesting that they use those kind of clips that have already gone viral on the internet and sort of using them again inside this song. 331 00:32:57,750 --> 00:33:03,840 You know, they address other things, including environmental projects that have sort of degraded turkey, et cetera. 332 00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:09,120 But I thought what was really interesting was that the song particularly addressed the youth 333 00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:13,680 of Turkey in the end and basically sort of says it's your responsibility and it's your fault. 334 00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:21,390 The line is I'm sorry, but this country's hopeless generation is your creation, which I thought was a really interesting sort of thing. 335 00:33:21,390 --> 00:33:25,890 Just turn it around. Yes, all of these problems are there, but who is responsible? Who's supposed to step up? 336 00:33:25,890 --> 00:33:33,810 Yeah, I just thought I had to mention the song because it made such a huge splash and sort of people sort of were responding so strongly to it. 337 00:33:33,810 --> 00:33:42,010 Moving on to like the last section, which is football and football ultras, I didn't think of this until Adam proposed. 338 00:33:42,010 --> 00:33:45,570 We should look at it, and then I was very happy with it. 339 00:33:45,570 --> 00:33:49,590 So Adam, could you basically describe what role the oceans play in? 340 00:33:49,590 --> 00:33:59,730 I guess the political scene in Morocco. So it's I think it's absolutely fascinating because football is something that is so global and it's, 341 00:33:59,730 --> 00:34:07,320 you know, it's probably the world's most popular sport and game. And it's such a huge phenomenon, especially in North Africa. 342 00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:12,300 People wear football shirts everywhere all the time. 343 00:34:12,300 --> 00:34:15,840 You know, it's it's just the thing that people do, and it doesn't have to be a Moroccan club. 344 00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:21,060 It's very it's like a fashion international thing when it comes to ultras. 345 00:34:21,060 --> 00:34:30,660 So ultras is basically a movement of fans. It comes from Latin Ultra means to be further away or further in the direction of than other people. 346 00:34:30,660 --> 00:34:36,870 And it was started. This was started in the early 20th century in Latin America and Argentina, 347 00:34:36,870 --> 00:34:43,950 and then it was brought to Italy and from Italy it spread to North Africa and in North Africa. 348 00:34:43,950 --> 00:34:50,190 Usually, what you would see if you go to football games that there would be chance, especially in you're in the European context. 349 00:34:50,190 --> 00:34:58,260 But in North Africa, especially Morocco, there would be actual songs so that the whole crowd, especially the old trust, 350 00:34:58,260 --> 00:35:06,120 which is like the core of the fans, they literally sing for five minutes and everyone knows the lyrics and they don't break that nothing. 351 00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:11,670 It just keeps going. And for me, I used to go to football games and ice hockey games back in Prague, 352 00:35:11,670 --> 00:35:18,330 and this is for me so impressive because it's it must feel absolutely incredible when you're there. 353 00:35:18,330 --> 00:35:25,260 And this really shows how much in need people and especially young people. 354 00:35:25,260 --> 00:35:32,640 And you have to remember that Morocco is a very young population. 46 percent of the population are under 15 years old. 355 00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,420 So you have to keep that in mind when you talk about that society. 356 00:35:36,420 --> 00:35:44,040 And so you can see how there's a huge need for expression of political, but not necessarily even dissent. 357 00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:54,060 I mean, it's mostly dissent. But even of political opinion in a non government regulated platform, and this is what the football stadium provides. 358 00:35:54,060 --> 00:35:58,890 It provides a very high level of anonymity. So if you go to a stadium, 359 00:35:58,890 --> 00:36:04,170 which is also why people protest when the government tries to check people's IDs when they 360 00:36:04,170 --> 00:36:08,850 go to football games because they want to keep this anonymity because it protects them, 361 00:36:08,850 --> 00:36:16,920 it protects people from being persecuted. It protects people from being targeted by the government and face consequences for what they say. 362 00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:24,270 This ultras movement, its work or its avenue is most visibly manifested in the stadium, 363 00:36:24,270 --> 00:36:27,180 but they also do work in the neighbourhoods where they're based. 364 00:36:27,180 --> 00:36:34,410 So in Casablanca, in Quneitra, like in all major cities in Morocco, but also in Algiers, right? 365 00:36:34,410 --> 00:36:41,040 Algiers also has two very important teams, which took part, by the way, and in the end, 366 00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:44,880 the popular uprising against President Bouteflika, which resulted in his ousting. 367 00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:52,830 So there's also a way how these movements feed into a more a wider movement to political 368 00:36:52,830 --> 00:37:01,910 culture and what agency they have for for people living in those popular areas and for young. 369 00:37:01,910 --> 00:37:09,830 And I think it might be interesting to look at one of the lyrics of the songs in the context of North Africa, 370 00:37:09,830 --> 00:37:13,490 especially an Islamic devotion, is something that is present everywhere. 371 00:37:13,490 --> 00:37:19,820 It's like ubiquitous, right? You will always find in these songs got you always find a love. 372 00:37:19,820 --> 00:37:24,530 So one of them is, Oh God, bring us to victory. 373 00:37:24,530 --> 00:37:34,130 And that's how it starts. And then it says, you have made us lose our skills and you threw drugs at us. 374 00:37:34,130 --> 00:37:39,920 How do you want to see us money off of the country? The riches of this country you have stolen away. 375 00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:47,840 And you have given it to foreigners and this whole generation is lost and you killed our passion so you can see it. 376 00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:55,700 And obviously, when they're saying you've lost our money, you given it to the foreigners, you threw drugs at us and hashish and that stuff, 377 00:37:55,700 --> 00:38:00,500 they're talking to the government, right, that they're directly speaking to the government and to the stakeholders, 378 00:38:00,500 --> 00:38:07,070 which is something that they could not do anywhere else. And I just find it really fascinating and I wonder what it's like. 379 00:38:07,070 --> 00:38:11,540 And the same it is, by the way, it also applies to Tunis and Algeria. 380 00:38:11,540 --> 00:38:16,010 So I'm really wondering, what's it like in Egypt? Because I think there's going to be a lot of parallels. 381 00:38:16,010 --> 00:38:20,300 Oh yeah, definitely acquired because the first and incidentally, 382 00:38:20,300 --> 00:38:27,040 the last thing you mentioned was their role in the ouster of Bouteflika because during the 2011 revolution, 383 00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:31,310 and I'm sorry to keep coming back to it, but a lot happened in Egypt in that period. 384 00:38:31,310 --> 00:38:39,370 The ultras, the Egyptian ones, especially from like the two main groups, Zamalek and a largely. 385 00:38:39,370 --> 00:38:46,960 They were quite important because they had quite a lot of experience fighting the police so they could teach the 386 00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:54,250 protesters like how best to create bricks out of paving slabs and throw them at the police and how to deal with teargas. 387 00:38:54,250 --> 00:38:59,320 So what you had basically was like a group of well-organised group of people who are incredibly highly 388 00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:04,000 motivated and who are well known because just like in Morocco and most other countries like football, 389 00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:09,250 is a religion in Egypt, and they would therefore like extremely potent opponents of the regime, 390 00:39:09,250 --> 00:39:13,360 both because of the organising and because of the very high level of societal support. 391 00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,300 Because I don't know how it is in the countries where you guys are from, 392 00:39:16,300 --> 00:39:21,140 but in most European countries, being an ultra isn't seen as like a very good thing. 393 00:39:21,140 --> 00:39:30,400 It has associations with, you know, drugs and violence and often like neo-Nazism as well, while in Egypt, people are big fans of the ultras. 394 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:37,960 There has been some quite strong reactions from the government against the ultras because of the role they've played in the revolution. 395 00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:44,170 So there's something called the Port Said tragedy, which led to the death of 72 al-Hathloul militias, 396 00:39:44,170 --> 00:39:47,200 and the government blamed the violence and rioters and hooligans. 397 00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:52,060 But there were several indications that the state was involved in worsening the situation because 398 00:39:52,060 --> 00:39:57,640 the security forces who were at that football match did not step in to stop any of the violence. 399 00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,150 The lights in the arena were turned off to increase the chaos. 400 00:40:01,150 --> 00:40:07,450 The only exit the ultras had from the stand was locked and blockaded again by the security forces, 401 00:40:07,450 --> 00:40:13,870 which basically guarantee that it would be a massive stampede and also also made illegal in 2015. 402 00:40:13,870 --> 00:40:17,860 Unsurprisingly, they were branded as a terrorist organisation and membership. 403 00:40:17,860 --> 00:40:21,880 Just being a member of an all for now can lead to a very long prison sentences, 404 00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:28,960 and I think I wouldn't be going too far out on a limb to say that just might be the most aggressively persecuted 405 00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:35,450 group in Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood because of the very central role they have played in Discord, 406 00:40:35,450 --> 00:40:39,130 all expressing discontent against the states. 407 00:40:39,130 --> 00:40:46,480 And this I don't know if this is the case in North Africa or anywhere else, but in Egypt now, most football matches, even before COVID, 408 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:53,050 were played in empty stadiums because the government was so afraid of not totally controlling all old public space, 409 00:40:53,050 --> 00:40:56,500 which is basically where you started the podcast today. 410 00:40:56,500 --> 00:41:03,280 And the unfortunate result is that because they're not allowed to be in matches anymore and because membership from the largest group is now illegal, 411 00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:11,860 their relevance has declined. It's interesting to see how extreme the depression is in Egypt because in in Morocco, 412 00:41:11,860 --> 00:41:17,650 it's a similar situation, although it's exaggerated in terms of oppression of ultras activity. 413 00:41:17,650 --> 00:41:23,820 So they are very much a legal organisation, but basically what the government is trying to do there, 414 00:41:23,820 --> 00:41:29,470 there is a settled law that they pushed in terms of exactly controlling IDs. 415 00:41:29,470 --> 00:41:35,110 That means attendance at the matches or criminalisation of certain activity. 416 00:41:35,110 --> 00:41:43,690 So for example, similarly, there was an incident in Morocco that happened where two fans got killed in a stampede in Morocco, 417 00:41:43,690 --> 00:41:47,830 and the government basically used that as a pretext to control their activities further. 418 00:41:47,830 --> 00:41:56,410 There is also cases where people got arrested after a football match because of the chance that they were or the songs that they were singing. 419 00:41:56,410 --> 00:42:02,230 It's very surprising some of the things that they chant, you know, they chant stuff as well as like, We're ready for water. 420 00:42:02,230 --> 00:42:06,850 If the police come at us like, we're ready for you. We're going to fight you. 421 00:42:06,850 --> 00:42:12,160 Obviously, all cops are [INAUDIBLE], and these are very radical songs that they sing. 422 00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:13,540 They really have no reservations. 423 00:42:13,540 --> 00:42:21,040 And it's very interesting and fascinating to see that because as you said in the European context, especially so, so in the Czech context, exactly. 424 00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:25,270 The Ultras are always associated with neo-Nazi ism, like they are neo-Nazis. 425 00:42:25,270 --> 00:42:31,060 They're violent, they're directed towards minority groups and fascist Nazi ideology. 426 00:42:31,060 --> 00:42:35,980 Whereas in Morocco, it's fascinating to see how it's really like progressive politics, 427 00:42:35,980 --> 00:42:41,850 basically right based around the context of the working class and. 428 00:42:41,850 --> 00:42:50,580 A really disgruntled youth. And and they also take it to like the global context and connecting it to Palestine quite often. 429 00:42:50,580 --> 00:42:57,060 And I really think that this is a unique situation that that exists in the Arabic speaking region. 430 00:42:57,060 --> 00:43:03,810 I don't know. I don't know if in Turkey, it's similar as well, but certainly in Europe, in the rest of the world, 431 00:43:03,810 --> 00:43:10,650 you will not find football ultras movements as involved in community life and in political life. 432 00:43:10,650 --> 00:43:21,690 And being actually formative of a political situation as it is in North Africa, I'm sure I mean, I can't pretend to know that much about football, 433 00:43:21,690 --> 00:43:28,500 but there is some interesting sort of comparison with Turkey because obviously Turkey is sort of very passionate about football as well. 434 00:43:28,500 --> 00:43:35,970 And to go back to the Gezi Park protests because was sort of the seminal moment in recent Turkish history. 435 00:43:35,970 --> 00:43:43,230 I guess there's the Better Torture Group, which is basically the best known supporter of the Besiktas Football Club, 436 00:43:43,230 --> 00:43:48,360 which is amongst the top three biggest football clubs in Turkey. 437 00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:54,000 And they were they were very well known for sort of mobilising against sort of the police 438 00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:59,520 forces and sort of doing and sort of organising A.1 protests during the Gezi Park protests. 439 00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:08,460 I like their motto. The motto is charged a heresy, a car which is torture is against everything, and the little angel show is the anarchy symbols. 440 00:44:08,460 --> 00:44:11,880 So that kind of tells you about, you know, how they look at themselves. 441 00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:18,450 They are very involved in their neighbourhood, etc. the occasional sort of do things with Greenpeace or whatever like, 442 00:44:18,450 --> 00:44:22,320 you know, protest that they feel strongly about, I suppose. 443 00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:27,270 And they're also a group of very disparate football supporters who come together for this. 444 00:44:27,270 --> 00:44:31,530 Again, most famous, the most famous for their role in the 2013 protest in Turkey, 445 00:44:31,530 --> 00:44:38,010 a particularly famous event was when they chased a water cannon away by using an excavator, 446 00:44:38,010 --> 00:44:42,120 which I don't know where they acquired it, but they acquired it and they it worked. 447 00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:47,070 But what's interesting is that what happened in response, which is I can't remember the date, 448 00:44:47,070 --> 00:44:53,970 but very recently Erdogan has backed his own football club, and that has sort of come to the forefront. 449 00:44:53,970 --> 00:44:58,080 And it's it's a football club called Actually Hit. 450 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:04,990 Suddenly, it's emerged. It's not been one of the big three till now, but it has said Myanmar as it has a lot of funding. 451 00:45:04,990 --> 00:45:10,320 It has the colours that they wear are of the AKP party, which is Erdogan's party. 452 00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:14,940 They have his portrait in their trading rooms. 453 00:45:14,940 --> 00:45:25,200 So it's a very interesting co-opting of the space of protest because even the best of class neighbourhood is known for sort of. 454 00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:32,760 Rapidly becoming more, if one could say Islamist is more sort of incorporated into Urdu and messaging, 455 00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:39,480 so it's no coincidence that he's chosen this neighbourhood and sort of he's even donned a uniform and played this no trial for a bit. 456 00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:40,830 That's another story. 457 00:45:40,830 --> 00:45:49,890 But it is really interesting to watch how he sort of co-opting this space for himself so that he does have sort of much more power over the space, 458 00:45:49,890 --> 00:45:54,930 which could otherwise be used for protests. But one thing I did want to point out, 459 00:45:54,930 --> 00:46:03,930 but going back to the graffiti stuff was even pointed out sort of the role of sort of the figure of the women in the Egyptian case, 460 00:46:03,930 --> 00:46:10,410 if you had talked about. Mm-Hmm. And also in the Gezi Park protests, women keep sort of coming up in these protests, 461 00:46:10,410 --> 00:46:14,190 like the women of the red dress as a symbol that stands with every other woman, 462 00:46:14,190 --> 00:46:20,860 there's a woman in a black dress as a woman in a blue bra, which was a woman who hijab, 463 00:46:20,860 --> 00:46:24,870 a woman who was sort of while being detained by the police, her clothes ripped. 464 00:46:24,870 --> 00:46:28,990 And therefore, you know, that became part sort of involved inside these protests. 465 00:46:28,990 --> 00:46:37,890 So I think that's really interesting how women are used sort of like symbolising the protest against this oppressive state of the, 466 00:46:37,890 --> 00:46:43,160 you know, hegemonic power that is against the protesters. That's just sort of a separate point. 467 00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:51,450 Don't do it that way. No. But I think it's an interesting point just because these regimes, which people protest again, tend to, 468 00:46:51,450 --> 00:46:58,890 as we said earlier, the rest a lot of the legitimacy on conservative, often very patriarchal values. 469 00:46:58,890 --> 00:47:05,460 And then the fact that like women are out there protesting and expressing their opinion and being somewhere where the father says they shouldn't be, 470 00:47:05,460 --> 00:47:11,880 for example, already, you know, that in itself becomes like a revolt against the system just because of how, 471 00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:16,880 you know, patriarchal and how conservative and traditional the system in itself is. 472 00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:18,140 So I think that's a very good point. 473 00:47:18,140 --> 00:47:27,740 Actually, low key in the song called From Iraq, Who Chile, and it's about the protest movement that was happening at the same time in Iraq. 474 00:47:27,740 --> 00:47:35,360 And at the same time in Chile, right? And he has this audio sample from a protest that was happening in Baghdad, I believe. 475 00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:42,020 And it's an exchange between an Iraqi politician who's a man and a protester who's a woman, 476 00:47:42,020 --> 00:47:48,680 and he's basically patronising her and he's telling her, Oh, look at you, how can you be like shouting in the street like this? 477 00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:52,250 It's says this is so shameful. And she's in Arabic. 478 00:47:52,250 --> 00:48:00,890 We see a like, it's like, This is a shame, you know? And she said to him, Oh, how can you be telling me about Abe when you're the one who's like, 479 00:48:00,890 --> 00:48:06,560 got the country into the state that it is now, you're the one who's corrupt, you're the one who's really should be ashamed of himself. 480 00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:15,230 So this is like these two worlds come to clash, right? This like this fight for legitimacy and the fight for public space and expression of dissent. 481 00:48:15,230 --> 00:48:19,830 And I think that what we've discussed today, basically the the football, the music, 482 00:48:19,830 --> 00:48:25,340 the the graffiti and so many other ways that we haven't even mentioned today are all 483 00:48:25,340 --> 00:48:32,250 avenues and they are a manifestation of this struggle taking place in a contested area, 484 00:48:32,250 --> 00:48:35,960 right? And in politics that are contested, 485 00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:44,000 that are an example of how these internal conflicts that are maybe invisible are made visible by the people who are suffering, 486 00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:50,080 who are trying to express this and trying to make a change. 487 00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:54,550 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Oxford Mills podcast. 488 00:48:54,550 --> 00:48:58,750 Almanac is a student for an initiative at the Middle East Centre in the University of Oxford. 489 00:48:58,750 --> 00:49:16,201 The opinions expressed in the podcast are not in any way represent the official opinions of the University of the Middle East and to.