I have not seen a more vicious and vile attack on a student movement than in the letter on the subject by AUC professor, Khaled Fahmy. And for him to invoke the counter-revolution in Egypt is just way below the belt: comparing striking students to Mubarak's armed thugs? Don't get me wrong please: Fahmy was outspoken against the Mubarak regime ONCE the regime started to fall, but he has taken it upon himself to annoint himself the guru of the Egyptian uprising. But I don't need to respond to his attacks on the students: his colleagues at AUC, including two dear comrades, did a great job in responding to him and there is an excerpt: "The rhetoric of vulgarity exposes a
deep liberal fear of the possibility of disorder, such as closing the gates.
This fear echoes the rhetoric of “security” deployed to dismiss Ultras at
demonstrations, to purify Tahrir of vendors, destroy historic book markets at
Nabi Daniel, and to marginalize protests mushrooming daily throughout
Egypt. The rhetoric of vulgarity is
conservative and at core reactionary. To be vulgar” is to be impolite to
elders, irresponsible, and selfish. Vulgarity stops the “wheel of production”
from turning. It halts “stability” from returning. It is what
counter-revolutionary rhetoric has derided as “mataleb fe’aweya.” But such is the nature of a strike:
It is vulgar. If it is going to work, it has to
stop something else from working, and stop it long enough and right enough to
achieve the strikers’ demands. When bus drivers strike, they
paralyze entire cities and deprive citizens of their tax-paid right to public
transportation. When airport employees strike,
passengers with paid-for tickets will miss flights, and suffer emotional and
mental distress waiting on the floors of departure lounges.
The same applies to the effect
textile workers’ strikes have in hitting hard Egypt’s export balance, and
student union strikes in depriving tuition-paid colleagues of their purchased
right to education.
As such, strikes expose legal mantras
like “your right ends where my right begins” for what they really are: liberal
utopias replete with internal contradictions. It is these internal contradictions
that must be addressed if our aim is to think critically. After all, critical
thinking is the aim of a liberal arts education, not etiquette lessons in polite
protest.
**************
The rhetoric of vulgarity must end
before it is reproduced at AUC tribunal hearings. If there were crimes committed during
the strike, such as slander, trespass, assault, and damage to private property,
or failure to provide students with adequate protection, then the place to
address these actions is a court of law, not internal “disciplinary”
procedures. Let those who wish to bring
complaints do so before public prosecution offices, but inside AUC, let the goal
of our tribunal be truth and reconciliation. Amnesty for all: students, faculty
and staff – only this way can we move forward.
**************
Soraya Altorki, Professor of
Anthropology, AUC
Samia Mehrez, Professor of Arabic
Literature, AUC
Sherene Seikaly, Assistant Professor
of History, AUC
Amr Shalakany, Associate Professor of
Law, AUC
Mayssoun Sukarieh, Visiting Assistant
Professor, AUC".
