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Since 2011, I’ve noticed anti-Semitic books, eg Protocols of the elders of Zion etc have greatly decreased in popularity among Cairo’s book sellers. This is not to mention anti-Jewish conspiracies significantly declining in everyday discourse. A big contrast with the 1990s/2000s.
A few reasons can shed light on this. Thread.
The Mubarak regime banked on keeping the population focussed on external matters (and imaginary threats), to distract them from internal failings. If it meant the conflation of Zionism with Judaism, then so be it.
The 2011 Arab uprisings were a watershed moment because it turned Arab heads from the direction of the external to the internal. The Arab tyrant was now seen as the worst conspiracy imposed on the population.
The 2011 acquisition of agency and moulding the future meant that concrete reality would triumph over the circulation of conspiratorial hot air, the tyrant’s favoured tools.
The Arab Spring meant a reconsideration of previous-held views and injection of forgiveness into circulation. On the cultural level, Egypt underwent a reconciliation with its Jewish past, which spawned films and an unusual but welcome enthusiasm with Egyptian Jewry.
Although the distinction between Judaism and Zionism in the 2000s was regrettably never always clear. There seems now to be a much more maturation in distinguishing the two.
While Mein Kampf still appears at Egypt’s book stores (like it does in the UK, Australia etc), it seems to be placed in a certain context. Eg sandwiched between books like Karl Marx’s Das Capital, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Trotsky’s works, Nietzche etc
This placement is key to understanding the function of Mein Kampf in today’s Egypt. The book is approached as a historical-political work (horrible as it is) than a purely anti-Semitic work that it played up until the 2000s.
In recent years, I have given numerous Arabic lectures on the works of Hannah Arendt, and the audiences are drawn from Azhari scholars to jeans factory workers. They’ve never once expressed discomfort with the Jewishness of Arendt or any other philosopher.
There are also geopolitical factors. For example, the regime has manufactured new “enemies”, Qatar, Turkey etc. Some which makes anti-Jewish prejudice of yesteryears look tame.
Also the popularity of self-help books have risen in the market. Translated books like the 48 Laws of Power; Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus etc keep getting reprinted. Political books have diversified away from anti-Semitism. Orwell’s 1984 still sells well.
Anti-Israel sentiment is still strong on a popular level, and for obvious good reason. The slow but gradual positive restoration of Jews back into the Egyptian imaginary shows that the fruits of the Arab Spring cannot always be measured in election victories and constitutions.
