Revolutionary anxieties

Defending privilege in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution

Liina Mustonen

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781526187673
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526187666
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Revolutionary Anxieties illuminates a largely overlooked dimension of the 2011 Egyptian revolution: the fears and uncertainties of Cairo's liberal elite, socialites and cultural actors who opposed the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. The book offers fresh insight into the revolution's failure by examining the perspectives of those invested in preserving the status quo. Engaging with post-colonial theory and analysing elite Cairo through the lenses of gender and race, it draws on over two years of ethnographic research in spaces such as the Cairo Opera House, an Egyptian–European film festival and an exclusive sporting club. It shows how members of Egypt's liberal upper class asserted their privilege at a moment when class hierarchies were under challenge, revealing the depth of counter-revolutionary sentiment among the city's affluent elite and offering a rarely told story of the Arab Spring.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 “Go forward to the glorious past”: Politicized nostalgia
• 2 Attack on civilization: Saving the Egyptian cinema culture
• 3 The politics of high culture: Anxieties at the Opera House
• 4 The “Others”: The ugly, the ignorant servant, and the abstract poor
• 5 Gendered anxieties: Saving the modern woman
• 6 Postcolonial elites, identity, and memory culture
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index