275 Al Rowad

Essays in Language and Literature in Honour of

M.M. Enani

Edited
Loubna A. Youssef

Co Editor
Maher S. Farid

Editorial Board
Prof. Mohamed Osman Elkhosht
Dr. Amani Badawy
 M.M.Enani 276

This is an occasional Cairo University Refereed

Publication

Issued by:
Cairo University Center for Languages and
Professional Translation

Director:
Prof. Mohamed Osman El-Khosht

Deputy Director:
Dr. Amani Badawy

Date: 2012
277 Al Rowad

Egypt and the Prison as a Dual Space of

Repression and Resistance:
The Dialectics of Power Relations in
Literature and Film
By Pervine El-Refaei
This paper aims at examining the dialectics of power relations in
postcolonial Egypt, culminating in the 2011 revolution. The paper
attempts to provide answers to the following questions: How can we
scrutinize the mechanisms of power permeating the Egyptian carceral
society in light of Foucault's book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the
Prison (1977) and surveillance theories? How can a utopian light at the
end of the tunnel be perceived vis-a-vis Foucault's dystopian metaphor of
the panopticon and Mathiesen's concept of the synopticon? What are the
channels of resistance offered by surveillance theories?
Taking these questions as points of departure, the paper aims at
scrutinizing the depiction of Egypt as a prison under the surveillance of a
police state, and its battle for freedom and democracy in two different
areas: Radwa Ashour‟s 2008 novel Farag (Release) and Youssef Chahin
and Khaled Youssef‟s 2007 film Heya Fawda (Chaos) . My choice of the
novel and the film is triggered by their delineation of the regime‟s
hegemonic and subjugating tactics, intricately intertwined with escalating
resistance on the part of Egyptians, ushering the inevitability of
revolution. The paper is divided into three major sections. The first
section discusses Foucault's concept of the panopticon vis-a-vis new
surveillance concepts. The second and third sections discuss Ashour's
novel and Chahin and Youssef's film as exemplary works of prophetic
resistance art in light of the theories of surveillance.
Panopticon/ Synopticon: Surveillance/Counterveillance
The dialectics of power relations in Egypt necessitate a definition
of terms coined by scholars of surveillance studies. In response to Michel
Foucault's concept of "panopticism", scholars introduced new concepts
like "synopticism", "the viewer society", and "counterveillance".
Concepts of surveillance fluctuate between offering pessimistic
 M.M.Enani 278

discourses that foreground oppression, and optimistic ones that focus on

resistance. On the one hand, Michel Foucault and Thomas Mathiesen,
present a dismal perception of power structures that allow no resistance.
Aaron Doyle and Michael Welch, on the other hand, present different
channels of resistance.
In Discipline and Punish: The History of the Prison (1977), Foucault
utilizes Jeremy Bentham's 18th century panopticon or prison design as a
metaphor for the modern carceral society. The panopticon is designed to
ensure a center/periphery relation between the guards and the prisoners.
The architecture affords total visibility of the prisoners who inhabit
peripheral cells gazed at by the guards who occupy a centrally-located
tower. The panopticon's disciplinary mechanism proliferates in the whole
social system and its "institutions of repression, rejection, exclusion and
marginalization" (308), like hospitals, schools, asylums, factories and the
military. The carceral society is composed of enmeshed citizens or docile
bodies that internalize the gaze and act as both objects and subjects of the
panoptic mechanism. Foucault argues that the surveillance machine and
its carceral network represent a hierarchical disciplinary power that
perpetually and automatically permeates and normalizes the whole 'social
body', working from top to bottom. He contends that there is no "center
for power" as people become the executive agents of its mechanism and
participate in their own incarceration. Thus, the system ensures self-
monitoring, culminating in the "supervisor being supervised" (176-7).
Foucault writes, "although it is true that its pyramidal organization gives
it a head, it's the apparatus as a whole that produces power and distributes
individuals in this permanent and continuous field" (176-7).
Foucault's ideas have raised a great deal of controversy, giving rise
to new theories of power. Mathiesen has coined the term "the viewer
society" which highlights the intrinsic role of television and mass media
and their negative impact on consciousness overlooked by Foucault.
Power, Mathiesen argues, operates following "a reciprocal" process or
what he calls the synopticon. In contrast to Foucault where visibility is
exercised hierarchically by the few watching the many, visibility is a
two-way simultaneous process, operating from top to bottom as well as
from bottom to top, since "the many see and admire the few" (215).
In contrast to Foucault and Mathiesen, Doyle and Welch, present a
more optimistic discourse of resistance which focuses on the positive role
279 Al Rowad

of mass media. Doyle rightly considers Mathiesen's Synopticon to be

more pessimistic than Foucault's panopticon as it foregrounds "passivity"
and allows no resistance (290, 291). Doyle writes, "In various contexts,
mass media conduct surveillance, engender public support for it, help
resist surveillance or help the marginalized use surveillance as a tool of
resistance" (291). In this light, resistance can be generated by both the
media and the audience (292), epitomized by "oppositional voices" (290)
and "oppositional readings" (292). Similarly, Michael Welch points out
different channels of resistance or "avenues of political activism" (302).
Welch defines counterveillance as "the modes of monitoring that are
reversed to the original source of observation…Whereby prison officials
rather than the prisoners become the target of unwanted attention"
(302). Welch mentions examples of different counterveillance tactics like
"disabling or destroying surveillance cameras, using video recorders to
monitor surveillance personnel, and staging public plays to draw
attention to the prevalence of surveillance in society" (303). Welch points
out how counter-surveillance is "a nuanced form of optical activism", "a
form of protest that reverses the visual field not only as a challenge to
penal power but also toward institutional reform. It consists of two major
inversions: 1-Turn the prison inside out. 2-Watch the watchers" (304).
Seen in the light of the previously mentioned concepts, the dialectics of
power relations epitomized in the selected novel and film leading to the
revolution can be brought to the fore.

Radwa Ashour's Farag: A Panoptic/Synoptic Discourse

Commenting on the incarceration of his son Alaa and the detention
of his two young daughters by the military police in the 2011 post
revolution period, the Egyptian lawyer and political activist Seif Elislam
Abdel Fattah declared: “I have discovered after all those years that I have
bequeathed my son my own cell” (qtd. in El Aswany). In a similar vein,
Radwa Ashour‟s Farag traces the repression and subjugation of three
different generations, living through three consecutive regimes, under the
dictatorship by Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. The father‟s incarceration is
followed by his daughter‟s and later by her much younger brother‟s,
spanning the period from the fifties to 2004. Sabry Hafez rightly points
 M.M.Enani 280

out how Radwa Ashour uses the prison as a metaphor to highlight the
excruciating and degenerate reality of Egypt. The novel, he argues,
represents a study of the archeology of the prison and of coercion as a
basic characteristic of the infrastructure of Egyptian society.
Egypt‟s oppression is interlaced with the major historical events in
the Arab world that have shaped the life and destiny of Egyptians,
namely: the 1948 Palestine War, the 1956 war, Algeria‟s war for
liberation, Egypt‟s 1967 defeat, the students‟ movement in the 70s, the
1982 Sabra and Shatilla Massacre, the Israeli defeat in and liberation of
Southern Lebanon in 2000 and the Western invasion of Iraq in 2003. As
the novel unfolds, the setting expands to encompass the experience of
incarceration in the whole Arab world through depicting prison life. The
novel opens and ends in two major settings, Egypt‟s train station and the
prison. In the opening lines, the protagonist-narrator Nada, the child,
embarks on a journey with her French mother to the prison to visit her
father, the Western educated professor and academic. Wrongly accused
of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, the father is unjustly detained
without trial. The opening chapter sets the tone for the whole novel,
delineating the impact of incarceration on the consciousness of the child
who is destined to encounter her father beyond bars. Filled with high
aspirations and a romantic dream of freedom and family reunion, Nada is
utterly frustrated with the reality. Her shattered dream translates itself into
a fever and anxiety about being forgotten by her father. As the novel
unfolds, Nada acquires knowledge of the harsh reality and meaning of
prison life. The little girl in the beginning of the novel poses an innocent
question to her own mother:
What does a prison mean?
It‟s a closed place that allows no release.
Like the lion in the zoo?
Like the lion in the zoo. (17)1

1
All translations from Ashour's novel Farag are mine.
281 Al Rowad

The mother‟s definition is frustrating to the little girl as it

contradicts the dream she has in mind of an open zoo in which all the
animals enjoy their freedom. The prison journey, as Nada puts it, “is the
beginning of a consecutive and harsh destruction of all what my
imagination constructed in the previous days” (5).
The panoptic-synoptic relation implicit in the power structures is
manifest. Nada recalls the prisons of state media and education as two of
the regime‟s intrinsic tactics of domination that constantly promulgate
the domesticating, disempowering, paternal discourse of the father/ruler.
Missing her own imprisoned father and brainwashed by the media‟s
emotional discourse, Nada, ironically enough, sees in Nasser‟s speeches,
voice, facial expressions and gait, her own absent father:
But my father was absent and Abdel Nasser‟s name, voice and
image were circulated everyday around the clock. Songs I love,
recall and hum their words, sing his praises…He was not just a
leader or a president talked a lot about at home, in the street
and at school; he simply infiltrated the space we grew up and
were shaped in, like water or air or soil or light rays we
spontaneously absorbed to become what we are. Abdel Nasser
used to foster me. (19)
Nada's debate with her mother about Abdel Nasser and the threat he
poses to France due to his support for Algeria overwhelms her with
anxiety and conflict. In light of Mathiesen's previously mentioned
views, Nada admires the ruler who incarcerates her father. Gradually, she
starts to doubt her father‟s innocence and somehow condemn him for his
actions. Nada reflects, “I was preoccupied by who was right, the
president who incarcerated my father or my father whose views had led
to his incarceration and exile from his family for all those years?” (23)
Nada‟s words draw upon all the media‟s cultural heritage manipulated by
Egypt‟s consecutive regimes. The exemplary songs of Abd Elhalim
Hafez, known for being the singer of the 1952 revolution, or coup d'etat,
to be more precise, are cases in point. The song “Nasser, we all love you,
Nasser we‟ll stay beside you” is an example of a long list of songs that
idolize the president. The song, ironically enough, consolidates a
discourse of communal consent to a father/ruler who has the right and
wisdom to choose for his passive, blindfolded people/children. Sadat‟s
 M.M.Enani 282

era, followed by Mubarak‟s, similarly witnessed the wide propagation of

such a cultural discourse in songs and school curriculum.
The novel delineates an important scene in Egypt's collective
memory. President Nasser's historical speech in response to the 1967
defeat has its negative impact on Nada's family, leading to the separation
of both parents. Ironically enough, the shocked reaction of the coerced
father is never comprehended by the French mother. It is interesting to
read the whole episode in light of Mathiesen's views on the media's
negative impact. Describing that memorable day, Nada states:
The speech ends. My father cries like children. My mother
is overwhelmed by sudden hysteria; she screams. I don't
get it! “I don't get it at all!! Why do you cry? Isn't he the
fascist officer and the despotic dictator who incarcerated
you for five years for no reason?!” (52)
Detention and real prisons are major coercive spaces in a carceral
society. Trying to compensate for her father‟s absent years, the young
Nada endeavors to gain knowledge of her father‟s prison experience
which he never speaks about. Knowledge, she states, grants her security.
Nada reads all the available prison literature of resistance. Torture scenes
of the prisoners of Abu Zabal and the Oases' prisons help her to locate
her father and trace his footsteps. Meticulously recollecting documented
scenes of torture, Nada describes scenes of bringing people down to their
knees, verbal abuse, beating, kicking and dragging them, head banging,
hair shaving, face slapping, starving and stripping them.
The techniques of surveillance, panopticism and counterveillence
are vividly represented in Ashour's novel. Nada analyzes a poem by
Fouad Haddad, populated by images of very harsh police and prison
officers as well as severe jailers. The body of officials is objectified by
the regime as a means of inflicting torture. The protagonist-narrator
depicts Abdel Latif Rushdi, the prison officer who implements the
harshest means of torture on prisoners. Blindly following orders, Abdel
Sadek, the jailer, ironically enough, almost suffers from a heart attack
due to the amount of effort exerted in torturing the prisoners. Screaming
in pain at the tortured prisoners, Abdel Sadek yells, “You sons of bitches,
don‟t you have any mercy!” (35) Coercive scenes expand to include an
image of a prisoner in Syria forced to swallow a dead rat and another in
Spain, suffering from claustrophobia and lack of communication.
283 Al Rowad

Detained herself by the police for participating in the students‟

demonstrations and sit-in, Nada reflects on the repressive impact of
surveillance and captivity on herself:
I was not frightened when they went into the house and
searched it. I was even neither scared of the sight of the two
armed policemen at the door, nor of the sight of the three
armed policemen at the bottom of the stairs near the
building‟s entrance. However, while I was sitting in the
middle of the two officers who detained me, looking at the
dark, barren streets, I was overwhelmed with a sudden
feeling of suffocation. I asked the one to my right to open the
window. I did not tell him I needed air to breathe; but this
was literally and not metaphorically what I wanted. (79)
In contrast to Foucault's depiction of a Western prison as a disciplinary
institution that reforms the soul, Egyptian prisons, Nada states, are
extremely destructive. Besides the physical death of activists as a result
of torture, “metaphorical death” or “the disintegration of body and soul”
(83) is another reality Nada contemplates. The psychologically defeated
self is represented by three main fragmented characters, belonging to two
different generations, Nada‟s father and her two friends, Arwa and
Seham Sabry. Released from prison, the oppressed father becomes a self-
monitored academic on the public level as he no longer engages in
politics or speaks about it. On the domestic level, the father ironically
becomes a patriarchal, domineering, oppressive person. He divorces his
French wife and marries the obedient, submissive Hamdia, denying her
the right to work and to bear children. Nada, in contrast to Hamdia,
rejects the father‟s patriarchal order to his own wife to have an abortion and
preserves the life of her unborn brothers.
Nada reads Seham Sabry‟s State Security interrogation file,
recalling to us the historical events. Detained in El Qanater prison during
the 1973 students‟ movement, Seham is depicted in chains admitting her
participation in the sit-in and the demonstrations, in calling for
establishing committees to defend democracy and in writing articles
condemning the coercive regime. In an act of total negation of selfhood
and identity, Seham is represented in the interrogations by the term
"almathkoura", “the aforementioned” (83). The double standards of the
State Security‟s investigations are brought to the fore. The investigations
 M.M.Enani 284

totally ignore the ferocity and inhuman dragging, beating and kicking of
students at the hands of the police, the thugs who use knives, chains and
sticks in beating the students, and the state security police‟s act of
smashing cars to accuse students of rioting. Ironically, Seham Sabry,
Arwa and others are demonized as traitors and followers of agendas
financed by foreign powers.
After a number of failed attempts to commit suicide, Arwa, Nada‟s
colleague and fellow prisoner, finally meets her death by jumping out of
a twelve-storey building. Voicing her generations‟ thoughts and
disillusioned by the oppressive reality, Arwa writes a book entitled The
Aborted Generation in which she represents the collective “aborted
dream” of justice and freedom (91, 92). Arwa sees no release from such a
repressive regime and sees in death the only outlet. Similarly, Seham
metaphorically dies. Seham is first depicted as a defiant, tall girl with a
pony tail. In jail, she powerfully struggles with three prison jailers to free
herself from incarceration. Together with Nada, they empower
themselves and others fellow prisoners through recollecting poetry of
resistance. As the plot develops, Seham becomes an old, fat, defeated
woman who struggles with chronic depression and escapes to religion as
a solace. She finally meets her death, hit by a car while walking absent-
mindedly in the street.
Such absurdity of politics is contemplated upon by the older,
experienced Nada at the end of the novel. Nada‟s definition of the prison
is anchored in Foucault‟s and Bentham‟s views on the panopticon. The
protagonist-narrator elaborates the concept itself in one of the novel's
chapters entitled "The Panopticon" (80). For Nada, human beings are
victims of a universal carceral system and manipulative, oppressive
regimes that control their time and space. Nada writes:
But the machine is the same. Was it Foucault who said it
or was the definition of the prison quoted and mentioned
in his book? The machine grants the regime the power to
control the person‟s freedom and time, everyday, day after
day and year after year. It decides for him when to wake
up and when to sleep, when to work, what to eat and when
to rest, when to talk and when to be silent. The regime
specifies the nature of his job and the quantity of
production needed. It dictates his body language, owns his
285 Al Rowad

moral and material powers. Prison is the same even if it is

different, here, there, no difference. (210)
Similar to the novel's opening, the ending depicts Nada in her late
fifties, undertaking another journey by train in which she reads the prison
memoirs of the Moroccan political activist Ahmed El Marzouqi. Nada‟s
last words in the train, “I‟m almost there” (214), are followed by El
Marzouqi‟s story and release after being incarcerated for eighteen years.
The novel‟s open ending casts a glimpse of hope that envelops the
overall gloomy, depressing atmosphere. Nada‟s cyclical journey, like that
of Egypt itself, has not yet come to an end. On the train, Nada is
confronted by two women, symbolizing the two sides of Egypt‟s journey:
repression, despair, futility, and defeat, on the one hand, and resistance,
hope, perseverance and creativity, on the other. In silence, both women
are engaged in a mechanical process of constant knitting. The first
skinny, stiff woman has a very serious, grim face and hair that is pulled
tightly backwards. Dressed in a dark dress, the woman is depicted
knitting a dark, grey woolen piece of clothing. The other, in contrast, is a
pleasant, cheerful, feminine woman with loose, wavy hair and is dressed
in a printed, colorful dress. The grim-faced woman who stares vacantly is
described as someone blind and deaf, indicating subjugation and a sense
of confinement. The other “round-figured” woman has a perceptive gaze
that encircles the whole place, indicating self confidence, freedom and
expansion. While one woman represents a death-in-life kind of existence
and is almost cemented in time and space, the other represents warmth,
life, mobility, communication and compassion. Both women are the
living embodiment of the chapter‟s title, “The Prison of Years” and “The
Flower of Years” (208):
I peep at both women who are now completely engaged in
knitting. The face of the serious woman is fixed and
frozen as though with no eyes and no ears. The face of the
plump woman is relaxed and has a kind look as if she
were carefully listening to someone narrating an
impressive story to her. I get back and look at my watch
and hum: I‟m almost there. (214)
 M.M.Enani 286

The Prisoner’s Strategy of Resistance

Nada‟s cyclical journey from real prisons in the three consecutive
regimes, to the metaphorical prison of life and back again to the real
Moroccan prison at the end, creates a dismal and gloomy vision of a
tragic life that allows no freedom for the individual. The journey, in a
sense, follows the footsteps of Foucault who is criticized for not offering
an alternative or allowing any resistance on the part of the citizen.
However, Radwa Ashour‟s novel represents a strategy of resistance
implemented by some of her positive and powerful female characters of
different ages and cultures, epitomized by the child Mona Anis, Nada
herself and Nada‟s aunt, the strong, uneducated Southern Egyptian
woman.
Voicing her own powerful thoughts which resist the predominant
discourse of the paternal ruler, the little girl Mona, in contrast to Nada,
defiantly and courageously stands up in class addressing her teacher and
her classmates, including Abdel Nasser‟s son. Defying the school as an
institution of repression, Mona undermines and questions the credibility
of Nasser‟s presidency. Nasser, from her perspective, is not as well
educated and experienced as her father the Sorbonne professor.
Nada‟s aunt represents another example of resistance. After her
brother‟s incarceration, the uneducated sister stands up to defend her
brother by writing a letter to Abdel Nasser, addressing him as “Abu
Khaled” or “Khaled‟s father” (120). In stripping Nasser of the idealized
image, the aunt resists the predominant culture of fear and dictatorship.
Belal Fadl soundly observes how the simple, uneducated aunt reveals a
better understanding of life than that manifested by intellectuals. The
aunt exemplifies hope, determination, perseverance and a powerful self
that never succumbs to defeat. The aunt is depicted as an energizing,
mobilizing force. Depressed and drained by the death of her friends
Seham and Hazem, Nada, at the end of the novel, embarks on a journey
to her aunt, seeking empowerment.
The novel represents the gradual development of the tactics of
resistance on the part of Egyptians, the movement from interior space to
exterior space, from protesters being locked up beyond university gates to
protesters taking to the streets in a struggle for reclaiming their own
287 Al Rowad

space. Nada documents scenes of demonstrations taking place in Tahrir

Square and downtown streets in response to the bombardment and
invasion of Iraq. The link between the local and the global highlights
how resistance to oppression in Arab societies is intricately interlaced
with resistance to Western imperial culture. Nada ironically quotes Tony
Blair‟s words uttered to justify Western invasion of Iraq: “We will bring
democracy and prosperity to an oppressed, coerced people, and we will
protect their oil fields and refineries” (200).The journey from repressive
institutions exemplified by prisons and universities to streets and finally
to Tahrir Square runs parallel to Nada‟s dream project. The dream
develops from her wish to write a book about prisons that would end with
her father‟s prison years to her desire to write a book about prisons that
would end with “Tahrir” or liberation (176).
Moreover, the novel sheds light on the gradual development of
the mechanisms of resistance. The beginning introduces classical
empowering methods like Knowledge of prison literature and Western
experience of resistance. Foucault‟s concept of knowledge as power is
highlighted by Nada herself. Reading Arabic and Western literature,
Nada admits: “These readings granted me power over my peers; I gained
more knowledge which made me speak more confidently and proudly”
(68). By the end of the novel, the use of computers and cyberspace ushers
the beginning of new channels of resistance. Nada, following the
footsteps of her younger brothers, becomes computer literate and starts
her “personal blog” (281).
The literature of resistance as an empowering, energizing device
plays an important role in Radwa Ashour‟s novel. In prison, Nada and
Seham recite poetry of resistance, taking the horses in a French poem as
symbols of freedom and empowerment. Documenting his own prison
experience in his memoirs, El Marzouqi, the Moroccan prisoner, narrates
how he finds his own family in Farag, the bird, and its mate. Leaving his
own cell at the end, El Marzouqi expresses his gratitude to the bird which
has nourished him and the prisoners with hope for a brighter future. The
novel ends with El Marzouqi‟s last words to the bird: "Farewell and
thank you” (219).
 M.M.Enani 288

Chaos: The Transformation of Power Relations, Who is

Watching Whom?
As David Lyon in his book Theorizing Surveillance: the
Panopticon and Beyond (2006) puts it: “the more stringent and rigorous
the panoptic regime, the more it generates active resistance” (4). In the
light of Michael Welch's previously mentioned views, I contend that
Chahin and Youssef's film can be depicted as a form of "optical
activism". The film represents a counterveillant discourse that exposes
the reality of the police state. Ironically enough, the film starts with those
words: “We appreciate the national role played by the police
establishment to maintain stability and security. These are just isolated
acts”. Commenting on those words, Khaled Youssef later states:

We were forced to insert this notification at the beginning

of the movie by the censor‟s office. Of course, these are
not isolated acts; they reflect the nature of a whole
oppressive system under which Egyptians live…We want
the people to act and work on getting their rights back.
This is what we dream of, and we hope not to be deluded
in that. I believe in the masses...Betting on the masses is
the only option left, and I don‟t think there is no other
option. (qtd. in El-Hennawy)

Ammar Gahoor rightly observes that the film represents an image

of a degenerate Egypt, controlled by a corrupt and ignorant authoritarian
regime. Power relations of oppression and resistance are conspicuously
represented in the very opening scene, setting the tone for the whole film and
refuting Foucault's contention of the docile bodies. The film starts where
the novel ends with scenes of documented demonstrations in Egypt a few
years before the January revolution, violently suppressed by the riot
police. Assuming the role of the narrator, the camera oscillates between
close-ups, long shots and medium shots, providing the viewer with
minute details of the socio-political setting. The rebellious word "NO" is
loudly shouted by a male demonstrator, voicing Egyptian collective
voice of resistance to a dismal, corrupt and pulverizing reality.
289 Al Rowad

Consecutive Scenes of violent beating, head banging, dragging and

seizing of demonstrators populate the screen, recalling Radwa Ashour's
scenes. Authoritarian words of command are given by senior officers to
junior policemen to oppress and detain the demonstrators. Some
demonstrators are delineated running through a popular public market,
chased by the police. The scene runs against the resistant loud words of a
female vendor, exemplifying the victimized down-trodden world. The
woman casts a spell of angry, vengeful words of damnation on the
executive agents of power running havoc in the streets of Egypt.
"Chaos" delineates Egypt's political conjuncture through the
triangular relationship between the oppressed, persecuted people,
symbolized by the young female protagonist Nour, the brutal, sadistic
policeman Hatem as the representative of oppressive power or authority,
as Nour herself describes him, and Sherif, the representative of the
judiciary and law. Hatem, the executive means of power in a hierarchical
system, is only there to obey the orders of his seniors. An inhabitant of
Shubra, a densely-populated district of middle, lower-middle and poor
class citizens, Nour is an English language schoolteacher who is in love
with Sherif and is obsessively loved by Hatem. Bahia, Nour's mother,
represents the disillusioned Egypt of the past, the aborted dream of a
radiant, beautiful and free independent Egypt. However, Bahia is still
strong, protective, resistant and empowering to her daughter Nour who
represents the burgeoning hope, epitomized by her name which means
"light". Bahia is compared to Wedad, Sherif's mother, who acts as a
school principal and has her own morals grounded in her socialist
political stance. In contrast to the domestic Bahia, Wedad energizes
herself by her recollected memories of her university days and the 1970s
students' demonstrations in which she took part and where she first met
Sherif's father.
As a socio- political space, the police station from which Hatem
emerges is depicted as a microcosm of real prisons in a carceral society.
The camera zooms in to focus on Hatem‟s rigid and almost frozen face,
gazing at the new detainees. The significant use of light and darkness,
represented by the sudden shift from external grey light to internal
darkness characteristic of the police station is conspicuous. The historical
disintegration of Egypt and the rottenness of the dream through the abuse
of power are highlighted through time and space and the stark contrast
 M.M.Enani 290

between colonial and postcolonial Egypt. Ironically enough, the police

station had originally been a palace owned by a royal family member.
Incarcerated in secret underground cells, the dehumanized political
activists are harshly beaten and humiliated by Hatem. Voicing his
symbolic role through the words he utters to jailed activists, Hatem
states, "I'm the government". Hatem‟s dialogue with one of the young
detainees highlights the interconnectedness between the meaning of
discipline and docility. Harshly beaten by Hatem, the young man
defiantly calls for his rights stating, “Our families have to know where
we are”. Hatem oppressively and domineeringly shouts: “Your families
are responsible for your captivity because they have not disciplined you”.
A junior policeman informs Hatem of a man who has just met his death
under torture. The piece of information is harshly and nonchalantly
received by the robotic Hatem who gives his orders to throw away the
body, ironically stating: “I‟m saying he will die tomorrow”.
In another scene that takes place in a popular restaurant, Hatem is
depicted as the corrupt policeman who takes bribes to run petty errands
for the people of the neighborhood through the aid of his authoritarian
network. The scene symbolically casts those in power in the light of
greedy, despotic dictators who usurp and negate the rights of a whole
society. Threatening the restaurant owner, who for the first time after
twenty years of free meals asks Hatem for money, Hatem powerfully
states, "If you don't pay tribute to Hatem, you don't pay tribute to
Egypt".
The historical conflict between the police state and the Egyptian
judiciary, known for its battle for its independence to consolidate the
state of law and justice, runs as a backcloth to the whole film. It is worthy
of note that the film takes its point of departure from the real sit-in of
judges, led by the Judges' Club in 2005, in response to their rejection of
corrupt parliamentary elections in the Mubarak period. Epitomizing
corruption, in the cellular structure of the police station, Hatem
coercively addresses the detainees on whom he personally inflicts brutal
means of torture saying, "The one and only law we know is Hatem's
law". Sherif, in contrast, is introduced to the audience through the words
of the waiter who belongs to the poor classes as “the best prosecutor in
the whole country”. Kindly and humanely treating a couple of detainees
standing in his office, Sherif scolds the policeman who beats them and
291 Al Rowad

sets them free. Words of appreciation and gratitude uttered by the

released are set in contrast to words of anger uttered by the victimized
youth in the police station‟s cell.
The struggle between the police and the judiciary is similarly
highlighted in the beginning through the representatives of both
institutions. Sherif rejects the fabricated investigations and accusations of
rioting and engaging in a coup d'etat hurled by the corrupt police officer
at the detainees. The encounter reveals the limitations of Foucault's
theory of power. The police officer's use of the silencing strategies of the
panoptic machine that operates hierarchically is adamantly rejected by
the prosecutor. The explicit warning of the police officer against the
anger of senior authorities watching from above the release of the
detainees is nonchalantly received by Sherif. The prosecutor
emphatically states, "We don't take orders from anyone". Subverting the
police officer‟s accusations, Sherif faces the officer with the reality:
“Stop violating the law and everything will be stable”.
However, the film also sheds light on the conflicting discourse
within the judicial body itself, divided between those who have been
polarized by Mubarak and those who have sought independence. Such a
conflicting, ambivalent discourse is epitomized by the prosecutor's
internal conflict. On the one hand, Sherif is attracted to Sylvia, the
morally corrupt, drug addicted daughter of the National Party member,
the supportive and representative of the Mubarak regime. On the other
hand, Sherif defends justice, the law and those victimized by the regime.
As the film develops, Sherif sees Sylvia's reality and manages to release
himself from the grip she has on him. The therapeutic process is
symbolized by the dance he has with both his mother and Nour,
respectively, with classical Egyptian music in the background signifying
authentic cleansing.
Foucault‟s depiction of the school as a repressive, disciplinary
institution in the carceral state is subverted in the film. In contrast to the
school teacher in Radwa Ashour‟s novel who hails and defends Nasser,
Wedad rejects the brainwashing tactics imposed on her school. Gazing
from her office window, Wedad witnesses the representatives of
Mubarak‟s regime penetrating the boundaries of her school to stick
posters of a National Party member running for parliamentary elections
to the school walls. The techniques of surveillance and counter-
 M.M.Enani 292

surveillance are manifested in action and dialogue. Time and again,

Foucault‟s hierarchical panopticon is subverted as Wedad is featured
occupying a higher position, watching from above the authoritarian
representatives in the school yard. The threatening words uttered by male
officials are met by Wedad‟s resistant words. Ironically enough, the
carceral, patriarchal culture anchored in fear, objectification and
appropriation is resisted by a female principal of a girls‟ school. Drawing
upon the same culture, the man states: “The big Pasha will get upset”. In
response, Wedad powerfully and defiantly unmasks the reality of such a
regime. Utilizing the same discourse of objectification and
dehumanization, Wedad states, “Take this garbage out”. The scene, like
many others, sets the traditional state/people encounter in the light of a
male-female, superior-inferior relation that is contested and subverted.
The authoritarian words of the National Party member to the male porter
who follows the orders of the female principal are utterly ignored: “What
are you doing man; are you crazy? Who dares to remove the posters of
the National Party?” In an act of total defiance, Wedad is featured tearing
down all posters. The man‟s words that denote surveillance: “I have
heard a lot about you”, are met by Wedad‟s defiant words: “And you
have been suffocating us for more than twenty years. Soon I will
congratulate you on your failure in the elections”. The sound of the
man‟s firm steps, signifying the authority of a police state, is cast against
the external bars that encircle the school. Wedad‟s resistance is similarly
manifested in another scene that takes place inside the classroom.
Reprimanding another male teacher for his teaching methods, Wedad
orders the history teacher to use a map while teaching. She angrily states:
“When history changes, geography likewise changes”. Wedad‟s
conscious words represent the collective voice of cultural resistance to a
whole imperial history and culture, grounded in power structures,
overshadowing and shaping such a corrupt, carceral state.
The depiction of oppressive surveillance methods implemented by
a regime that penetrates the privacy of its citizens is similarly epitomized
by Hatem's sexually perverted behavior. Gazing through his binoculars
from a small round window that overlooks his neighbors' bathroom,
Hatem is depicted peeping at Nour while she is taking a shower. The
contrast between both settings is manifest as the light that envelops
Nour's setting is set in sharp contrast to Hatem's dark surroundings.
293 Al Rowad

Stealthily invading Nour's flat, Hatem steals her picture and a piece of
her clothes only to manifest his perversion by grabbing, smelling and
gazing at them in his dark room while drinking. Hatem's public advances
and sexual harassment of Nour are strongly resisted by her. Seeking
protection, Bahia accompanies her daughter to a Parliament member who
belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood. The scene is depicted against the
pictures and banners of two juxtaposed political oppositional figures: the
representative of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Nasserite Hamdeen
Sabahi, one of the political leaders who ran for the presidency in the
2011 post revolution period. The clash of both institutions, the police and
the judiciary, erupts in the street between both protagonists, culminating
in Sherif's official warning to Hatem to keep his distance from Nour.
Gahoor rightly highlights Hatem‟s juxtaposed, schizophrenic self.
Driven by an inferiority complex, Hatem absurdly dons the mask of the
romantic lover. Wearing a wig to cover his bald head and a pink printed
shirt, Hatem meets Nour and unveils the depressive human side of his
childhood. An orphan who lost both parents at the age of two and was
maltreated and abused by his uncle and aunt, Hatem grows up to inherit
his father's role. However, the confession he makes to Nour to gain her
sympathy and love is ridiculed by her and by eyewitnesses. Driven by
destructive feelings, Hatem kidnaps Nour and rapes her. The intrinsic
role of time and space is not to be overlooked. The escalating events take
place in daylight and are perceived by a number of youth who gaze at the
drugged Nour carried by Hatem. However, Hatem temporarily deceives
them, claiming that his wife has lost consciousness. The rape scene
which ironically takes place on Nour‟s birthday is cast against the
background of the Nile as a setting, which highlighting fluidity and
transition. The extended moment epitomized by the Nile links the past to
the present as well as foreshadows the future. The camera zooms in to
depict Hatem‟s determined gaze of vengeful power. After a failed
attempt to escape by jumping in the Nile, Nour strongly shouts, resisting
his assault. The rape scene explicitly symbolizes power relations between
the authoritarian regime and the people in the light of a male-female
relation. The setting in which the scene takes place is highly symbolic.
Attempting to cement her in time and space in the traditional role of the
passive, voiceless, objectified female/nation, Hatem takes the boat to an
isolated, deserted, barren piece of land where the basic sexual instincts he
 M.M.Enani 294

harbors are depicted against the flock of sheep in the background.

Highlighting his juxtaposed love-hate relation, Hatem tells Nour: “I
would rather kill you, but life would be impossible without you…I want
you to get me a baby that would grow up to be a minister”. The
patriarchal discourse of a carceral state that objectifies its nation is
paramount. The sexual and the political are revealed to be two sides of
the same coin.
The transformation of the dialectics of power relations from
surveillance to counterveillance is again depicted. The raped Nour
utilizes the technological surveillant technique granted to her by a helpful
officer to identify the man who helped in her kidnapping. Sherif and
Nour storm into the police station in search of the convict. The film
depicts the awakening of people of all ages. The poor, old waiter in the
police station who has been a silent eyewitness to a history of oppression
finally acquires a voice and informs Sherif of the whereabouts of the
convict. The scene escalates as the people of the district march towards
the police station, shouting slogans that predict the January revolution
and the „Day of Rage‟. Slogans like "The prison never changes a
conviction", "The revolution will soon come and purge everything",
"You who usurped our country, release our brothers" are loudly and
emphatically shouted by rebellious citizens. It is interesting to note the
sharp contrast between the film‟s opening and ending which highlights
the escalating resistance and rebellion of the masses. The long shots and
gradual close-up scenes of the marching rebellious people of the district
outnumbering the representatives of authority standing in front of the
police station are conspicuous.The fleeting scenes of protesters chased by
the police in the film‟s opening are cast against the adamant presence of
the people at the end. Calling for the release of their detained sons, the
crowds attack the police station in a manner that foreshadows the January
revolution. Filled with terror at the sight of the mobilized crowds, the
police officers call for Hatem's detention. The oppressor-oppressed
relationship is totally subverted as Hatem is being chased by the people.
The shift in the use of lighting from the grey darkened light, enhanced by
the black clothes of the police in the film‟s opening, signifying
repression, to the white clothes of the police at the end, signifying the
disempowerment of authority, is significant. The camera eye oscillates
between above shots close-upsa, medium shots and a final long shot of
295 Al Rowad

the masses and police cars arriving at the scene. Hatem finally shoots
himself after a failed attempt to kill Sherif, uttering his last plea for Nour
to forgive him. Like Radwa Ashour‟s open ending, the film‟s ending
depicts the people caught in an in-between space, located inside and
outside the external bars of the police station, with the sound of the sirens
of police cars in the background. Such an ending takes us to Chahin and
Youssef‟s translation of the film‟s title as “Chaos”. The English word
which sounds more of a statement or a description of reality, loses a lot
of the power and resistance explicit in the Arabic idiom. The crowds‟
powerful presence at the end delivers a more emphatic, threatening
message which would make the words “Don‟t Mess With Us!” a more
appropriate title that interrogates and subverts a whole carceral system.
Conclusion
The study of Radwa Ashour‟s novel and Chahin and Youssef‟s film
from the perspective of surveillance theories highlights similarities and
differences in their stances. Both the novel and the film utilize the
oppressed yet resistant female as the main protagonist, depicting power
structures in the light of a male-female relation that is interrogated and
contested. Both depict the prison as a metaphor to unmask the reality of a
coercive police state. Pinpointing one of the novel‟s chapters entitled “An
Article on the Importance of Agriculture”, Salah Fadl argues that the title
sheds light on Nada‟s emphasis on the necessity of instilling into her
younger brothers, the representatives of the new generation, the national
sense of belonging. However, though Fadl foregrounds the novel‟s
resistant message and the implicit glimpse of hope at the end with which
this study agrees, Radwa Ashour tends to be more pessimistic and
supportive of Foucault‟s views on power relations, grounded in the
metaphor of the panopticon. Ashour highlights the frustration of the
generation of the seventies that seems to be overshadowed and burdened
by a dismal past and present, besides expecting an unpredictable future.
Chahin and Khaled Youssef, by contrast, represent a more optimistic
vision of power relations and a more revolutionary and resistant
discourse. The film consolidates hope epitomized by the younger
generation that is backed and empowered by the older generation.
Though raped, Nour is not defeated or disempowered. The film, in
 M.M.Enani 296

contrast to Ashour‟s novel, completely subverts Foucault‟s metaphor of

the panopticon and Mathiesen‟s synopticon.
Power proves to be dialectical as repression and resistance are
facts of life. In his online article "Darker Skies Ahead: Egypt‟s Future of
Uncertainties", Hany Ghobara comments on the present crisis of the post
2011 revolution period:
The battle for middle earth has begun as the forces of tyranny
and the forces of freedom are colliding for one decisive battle. This
is a memorable scene from J.R. Tolkien‟s the third bestselling
novel of all time. The Lord of the Rings resembles the situation
now in Egypt. The forces of freedom have once again reunited
under one banner in manner unseen since the first 18 days of the
January 25th revolution. This time they rallied for one last decisive
battle for freedom in Egypt to fight and they don‟t intend to give
concessions to tyranny any longer.
However, the gloomy air enveloping the Egyptian revolution,
jeopardized by the ongoing disputes over power and authority and
over Egypt's identity, gives rise to a number of questions: Could
the new implemented strategies of counterveillance give birth to a
democratic society? Could Foucault's thesis of the prevalence of a
carceral society in which citizens are coerced and self-monitored regain
power? Which views will prevail at the end, the repressive or the
resistant, the carceral or the counter-surveillant?
297 Al Rowad

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