Social Movement Studies Volume 16, 2017 - Issue 1: Special Issue: Resisting Austerity: Collective Action in Europe in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis Editors: Cristina Flesher Fominaya & Graeme Hayes This section: Edited by Amador Fernández-Savater, Cristina Flesher Fominaya, With contributions by Luhuna Carvalho, Çiğdem, Hoda Elsadda, Wiam El-Tamami, Patricia Horrillo, Silvia Nanclares & Stavros Stavrides Pages 119-151 Abstract This is a roundtable with reflections on Tahrir Square, Egypt; Syntagma Square, Greece; Rossio Square, Portugal; 15-M Puerta del Sol, Spain; Gezi Park, Turkey; and Occupy Wall Street, USA.
Wiam El-Tamami For a long time I was afraid and unwilling to write about the revolution, struggling with the impossibility of translating the immensity, intensity, and sometimes absurdity of the upheaval — within us and without — into words that make sense, that can convey something of the experience without reducing its unfathomability. What does it mean to write without betraying? Is it possible to bring such irreconcilable elements into a cohesive whole that nevertheless belies its own incoherence?
[Untitled. Illustration by Salma El Tarzi]by Wiam El-Tamami Jadaliyya, 30 July 2013 We were on the edge of Tahrir Square on Wednesday 3 July when the army made its announcement. The square burst into jubilation. A member of our team checked his smartphone. He shouted over the din of drumbeats and squealing vuvuzelas: “Morsi's gone. They've appointed the head of the constitutional court in his place and suspended the elections.” We watched the celebrations.
[Untitled. Illustration by Salma El Tarzi]by Wiam El-Tamami Jadaliyya, 30 July 2013 We were on the edge of Tahrir Square on Wednesday 3 July when the army made its announcement. The square burst into jubilation. A member of our team checked his smartphone. He shouted over the din of drumbeats and squealing vuvuzelas: “Morsi's gone. They've appointed the head of the constitutional court in his place and suspended the elections.” We watched the celebrations.
Photo by Joseph Robertson Mansoura Ez Eldin & Wiam El-Tamami
Granta, 28 September 2011
Last night Wiam El-Tamami was announced as the winner of Harvill Secker’s second annual Young Translators’ Prize in association with Foyles. We are delighted to support this venture by publishing the winning story, below, with an interview with Wiam by Online Editor Ted Hodgkinson. The judges this year were author Penelope Lively, journalist Maya Jaggi, translator Anthony Calderbank and Harvill Secker editor Briony Everroad.
Photo by Joseph Robertson Mansoura Ez Eldin & Wiam El-Tamami
Granta, 28 September 2011
Last night Wiam El-Tamami was announced as the winner of Harvill Secker’s second annual Young Translators’ Prize in association with Foyles. We are delighted to support this venture by publishing the winning story, below, with an interview with Wiam by Online Editor Ted Hodgkinson. The judges this year were author Penelope Lively, journalist Maya Jaggi, translator Anthony Calderbank and Harvill Secker editor Briony Everroad.
Wiam El-Tamami Granta, 6 December 2011 In the first of a two-part diary, Wiam El-Tamami writes from Cairo about the violence that continues to engulf Egypt. Photo by Gigi Ibrahim. Monday 28 November I woke up in a rage about the elections. A violent, sputtering rage, bordering on revulsion. I felt like a dog that had been fed a teething toy to stop his howling about a wide-open wound. I couldn’t get the sign out of my mind, raised by an old man in Tahrir: ‘If Tantawi can’t accept my sowt in a vast square, will he accept it in a ballot box?
Wiam El-Tamami Granta, 6 December 2011 In the first of a two-part diary, Wiam El-Tamami writes from Cairo about the violence that continues to engulf Egypt. Photo by Gigi Ibrahim. Monday 28 November I woke up in a rage about the elections. A violent, sputtering rage, bordering on revulsion. I felt like a dog that had been fed a teething toy to stop his howling about a wide-open wound. I couldn’t get the sign out of my mind, raised by an old man in Tahrir: ‘If Tantawi can’t accept my sowt in a vast square, will he accept it in a ballot box?
Wiam El-Tamami Granta, 7 December 2011 The second and last installment of Wiam El-Tamami’s diary of the ongoing turmoil in Egypt. Read the first part here. Monday 21 November On the metro home, a man (one of State Security’s many informants?) was swearing that he’d just been at the midan and that there was nothing going on, that it was all lies. The people sitting around shouted him down, saying they’d seen the videos with their own eyes, police beating and shooting, setting the square on fire, dragging a dead man into a rubbish heap.
Wiam El-Tamami Granta, 7 December 2011 The second and last installment of Wiam El-Tamami’s diary of the ongoing turmoil in Egypt. Read the first part here. Monday 21 November On the metro home, a man (one of State Security’s many informants?) was swearing that he’d just been at the midan and that there was nothing going on, that it was all lies. The people sitting around shouted him down, saying they’d seen the videos with their own eyes, police beating and shooting, setting the square on fire, dragging a dead man into a rubbish heap.
