Step one: cover up the art
Step two: erase from history books
Systematic Forgetfulness of Recent History
Are our curriculums slowly, but surely, erasing recent Egyptian History?
“Bread. Freedom. Social equality.”
That was the slogan for revolutionaries all around Egypt in 2011. These demands sparked a turning point in Egypt’s modern history that cost 1000 casualties, 6,457 injuries and 12,000 arrests and years of instability: The 25th of January revolution. However, the same people that chanted the slogans do not have access to the pens that write history books. Since then, the revolution’s representation in high school curriculums saw a dwindling over the years, showcasing a dissonance between how history happened and how it’s written.
Why some details are being written out
The ministry of higher education updated the high school social studies curriculum in 2012 to include a “full account and the reasons behind” the 25th of January revolution. According to Alaa el-Eraky, one of the best known history teachers in Egypt, in an interview with raseef 22, the chapter explained the events and what led up to them with excruciating detail. This account was well received by the students at the time, who had experienced these events themselves.
As the years went on and after the military coup that was enabled by the 30th of June revolution in 2013, this account was dialed back considerably and any and all mentions of Hosny Mubarak’s achievements were removed and the Muslim Brotherhood was severely demonized in an updated curriculum.
The narrative of how “the Supreme Council for Armed Forces (SCAF), led by Abdelfattah el-Sisi, succeeded in getting rid of the Muslim Brotherhood rule,” was added, according to el-Eraky.
This wasn’t without reason, according to Gamal Shakra also in an interview with raseef 22, modern historian at Ain Shams University, who argued that there weren’t enough sources to support all the details that were in the 2012 curriculum.
“So that we could incorporate full details, we’d have to collect numerous personal accounts from the Tahrir square youth who participated in the January revolution, as well as the official documents from SCAF, but all of this was not made available to us so we had to document the main events that draw an outline of what happened,” said Shakra.
Where does it end?
The dilution of these events were compounded in 2017 as it was announced that the 25th of January revolution, along with the events of the 30th of June, were to be completely removed from all curriculums.
“10 years have to pass for an event to be considered history that we can write about,” said an official source in the ministry of education, according to Masry el Youm.
The Impact is real
The erasure of these events from curriculums seemed to have a felt impact where in January 2021, a screenshot of a group chat that included middle school students made headlines and rocked social media with a flurry of memes as it was apparent through their messages that they thought that the 25th of January marked the date of a war and that Egypt had won.
“It’s a hard time for us to remember the revolution, to see the younger generation not knowing about it, so it’s dying. As a memory, it is dying,” said Bassel Magdi, one of the millions of youth that sat in Tahrir Square for the 18 days following the 25th of January, 2011.
Magdi, who is also a public speaker, continued to explain that whenever he’d talk about his role in the revolution he’d be met with people who don’t know anything about it.
“One time, I was telling the story of being jailed on the 26th of January after being in Tahrir, and someone asked, ‘what was happening during that time? Was there a war in Egypt?’” he said.
Magdi felt as though the ignorance he met about the revolution was a direct result of the little knowledge passed around about it. The younger generations did not live through the revolution, and the older generations are gatekeeping the information.
“They don’t speak about it too much, but for sure my kids will know about the revolution! If you were with Mubarak, with corruption, I don’t think this was a good memory for you, and there are a lot of people who don’t like the revolution,” he said.
Is there a solution?
In terms of responsibility, Magdi felt that it falls upon his generation to continue to ‘at least’ speak about the revolution, about the values and the concepts it raised through its slogan.
As of right now, both events are represented in only one page each, and it seems it will remain as such for the foreseeable future and it seems as though there are no plans to reinclude these events in school curriculums in their original detail.
So for now, it seems that Magdi’s solution of word of tongue is the only one to combat ignorance of Egyptian history among its youth.
External Sources:
Raseef 22 Article
Are our curriculums slowly, but surely, erasing recent Egyptian History?
“Bread. Freedom. Social equality.”
That was the slogan for revolutionaries all around Egypt in 2011. These demands sparked a turning point in Egypt’s modern history that cost 1000 casualties, 6,457 injuries and 12,000 arrests and years of instability: The 25th of January revolution. However, the same people that chanted the slogans do not have access to the pens that write history books. Since then, the revolution’s representation in high school curriculums saw a dwindling over the years, showcasing a dissonance between how history happened and how it’s written.
Why some details are being written out
The ministry of higher education updated the high school social studies curriculum in 2012 to include a “full account and the reasons behind” the 25th of January revolution. According to Alaa el-Eraky, one of the best known history teachers in Egypt, in an interview with raseef 22, the chapter explained the events and what led up to them with excruciating detail. This account was well received by the students at the time, who had experienced these events themselves.
As the years went on and after the military coup that was enabled by the 30th of June revolution in 2013, this account was dialed back considerably and any and all mentions of Hosny Mubarak’s achievements were removed and the Muslim Brotherhood was severely demonized in an updated curriculum.
The narrative of how “the Supreme Council for Armed Forces (SCAF), led by Abdelfattah el-Sisi, succeeded in getting rid of the Muslim Brotherhood rule,” was added, according to el-Eraky.
This wasn’t without reason, according to Gamal Shakra also in an interview with raseef 22, modern historian at Ain Shams University, who argued that there weren’t enough sources to support all the details that were in the 2012 curriculum.
“So that we could incorporate full details, we’d have to collect numerous personal accounts from the Tahrir square youth who participated in the January revolution, as well as the official documents from SCAF, but all of this was not made available to us so we had to document the main events that draw an outline of what happened,” said Shakra.
Where does it end?
The dilution of these events were compounded in 2017 as it was announced that the 25th of January revolution, along with the events of the 30th of June, were to be completely removed from all curriculums.
“10 years have to pass for an event to be considered history that we can write about,” said an official source in the ministry of education, according to Masry el Youm.
The Impact is real
The erasure of these events from curriculums seemed to have a felt impact where in January 2021, a screenshot of a group chat that included middle school students made headlines and rocked social media with a flurry of memes as it was apparent through their messages that they thought that the 25th of January marked the date of a war and that Egypt had won.
“It’s a hard time for us to remember the revolution, to see the younger generation not knowing about it, so it’s dying. As a memory, it is dying,” said Bassel Magdi, one of the millions of youth that sat in Tahrir Square for the 18 days following the 25th of January, 2011.
Magdi, who is also a public speaker, continued to explain that whenever he’d talk about his role in the revolution he’d be met with people who don’t know anything about it.
“One time, I was telling the story of being jailed on the 26th of January after being in Tahrir, and someone asked, ‘what was happening during that time? Was there a war in Egypt?’” he said.
Magdi felt as though the ignorance he met about the revolution was a direct result of the little knowledge passed around about it. The younger generations did not live through the revolution, and the older generations are gatekeeping the information.
“They don’t speak about it too much, but for sure my kids will know about the revolution! If you were with Mubarak, with corruption, I don’t think this was a good memory for you, and there are a lot of people who don’t like the revolution,” he said.
Is there a solution?
In terms of responsibility, Magdi felt that it falls upon his generation to continue to ‘at least’ speak about the revolution, about the values and the concepts it raised through its slogan.
As of right now, both events are represented in only one page each, and it seems it will remain as such for the foreseeable future and it seems as though there are no plans to reinclude these events in school curriculums in their original detail.
So for now, it seems that Magdi’s solution of word of tongue is the only one to combat ignorance of Egyptian history among its youth.
External Sources:
Raseef 22 Article
Step thee: oppress
Talking about an event that happened around 10 years ago, Abbas is scared to share any political views whatsoever.