[Comma Press; 2024]
How do you imagine a future unencumbered by the heaviness of the present? Is it at all possible to envision a world completely different from the one we currently inhabit, or is the horizon of imagination defined by its limitations rather than its amorphous possibilities? These are two of the questions asked by a new collection of science fiction–oriented short stories, Egypt + 100: Stories from a Century after Tahrir. Another: How do you conjure the far-fetched—the surreal—in a country where daily life teeters on the edge of madness every conceivable minute, hiding its instability under a thin veneer of normalcy? Egypt under the rule of Abdel Fatah Al Sisi, who came into power two years after the thwarted 2011 revolution, is hard to explain to outsiders, but this collection of futuristic short stories, edited by Ahmed Naji, manages to come close, striking at the heart of what makes the authoritarian regime so frightening.
Egypt + 100 is anchored by an elegantly simple premise: invite a cadre of influential Egyptian writers to imagine what the country will be like in the year 2111—one hundred years after the 2011 Revolution. Published by Comma Press, the book is part of a series that poses the same question to writers from other countries in the SWANA region—including Iraq, Kurdistan, and Palestine—exploring what their countries may look like one hundred years after cataclysmic events, like the 1948 Nakba in Palestine, or the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Science fiction provides an opportunity to stretch the limits of one’s creativity and to process the traumas of the present. Everyone who has lived through the 2011 Revolution and its aftermath remains haunted by it. Movements birthed in the brutal maw of authoritarian countries beholden to capitalist powers feel doomed from the outset. And yet, the stillborn revolution of 2011 doesn’t necessarily represent an end point. It’s arguably the start of a long historical process—but signaling what, exactly? This uncertainty and fear of the future create the hazy space in which the twelve short stories featured in Egypt + 100 live.
In his introduction to the series, Ahmed Naji mentions that science fiction tends to be treated as a largely Western phenomenon. While the genre’s mainstream form is heavily influenced by the aesthetic style and concerns of the Cold War era, there are different facets that gain less traction in popular culture yet are equally important. Afrofuturism, and, more recently, Arabfuturism are vital movements within contemporary literature and visual art, part and parcel of the broader history of the science fiction genre.
As Naji notes in his introduction, approaches to science fiction in the Arab world—which arguably made their first appearance in stories from 1001 Arabian Nights—are markedly different from their Western counterparts. For one, the concept of time is viewed as circular in nature, rather than flat and linear. The Muslim story of the Prophet Muhammad’s Isra’ and Mi’raj—roughly translated to the “night journey”—is one famous and very influential example of this, and Naji does an excellent job of sussing out its impact for those less familiar. In essence, the prophet’s travel on the back of a winged, horse-like bird to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and his ascent to heaven, followed by his return to earth, underpin this notion that “the past, present and future mix together,” and that every beginning is an end. Naji’s introduction helps to situate the particularities of the Arab world’s narrative traditions within the realm of speculative fiction, thus setting up the stories’ singular approaches to the genre.
Naji also humorously calls out the current sociopolitical landscape in Egypt, in all its dark and dystopian eccentricity. In a country whose president openly believes in oneiromancy as a valid method of governance and pooh-poohs investments in health, agriculture, and education—deeming them “worthless”—elements of the ridiculous and cruel are perpetually at the doorstep of every Egyptian citizen. In the immediate aftermath of 2011, “hidden hands” and nefarious foreign funded schemes were deemed by the ruling class as the reason for Egypt’s instability. In reality, Sisi’s rule further entrenched the powerful military regime, leading to its omnipresence in all aspects of life. As a result, the public, with its demands for social justice and economic equality, was no longer merely a nuisance: It became the enemy. One by one, every fragile rubric holding together Egyptian society came under attack, and nonsensical laws were effectively deployed. Legal structures were mobilized to attack public assembly as well as the boogeyman of foreign funding, which impacted the vital work of human rights NGOs and arts and cultural organizations, among other important entities. The purpose: to curtail any semblance of dissent. Is it any wonder then that science fiction, and speculative fiction more broadly, are currently having a moment in Egypt and the Arab world? These genres are apt vehicles of subversion in the face of widespread repression.
The first story in the collection perfectly encapsulates this horrifying dissonance, imagining how current policies might thoroughly transform society decades from now. Mansoura Ez Eldin’s wonderfully imagined “The Wilderness Facilities,” translated by Paul Starkey, vividly captures a dystopian world that, while horrifying, also eerily echoes the present. Here, tension between public and private spheres has given way to an all-knowing surveillance state, replete with the implementation of architectural interventions that compound isolation in order to minimize even a whiff of defiance from a beleaguered populace. For the good, model citizens, the city’s strident urban planning emphasizes extreme quiet—an especially disconcerting quality given Cairo’s famously noisy streets. Cafes are no longer places to congregate but places where people enjoy their tea and coffee on their own, in complete silence. Supermarkets exist for show and are rarely visited since people rely on deliveries from a virtual iteration. The isolation is so extreme that one character who has a muscle memory of a distant time when things were different ventures outside on her own, only to find her surroundings violently feeding her overwhelming—and justified—sense of paranoia.
Meanwhile, the country’s unruly population is banished to a “wilderness facility” where they’re subjected to the nightmares of climate catastrophe: drought, extreme pollution, starvation. The government employees who dreamt up this hellscape with the goal of exerting total control over people’s lives are introduced as empty, cold-blooded ciphers whose main innovation is simply taking the government’s authoritarian philosophies to their logical conclusion. As one self-satisfied and frightening employee thinks to himself early on in the story:
How proud he felt to belong to a dynasty that had introduced this civilized method to societal “management.” He would not use words like “control” and “subjugation,” as the rabble might, who’d been exiled to the ruins and wastelands outside the perimeter of their civilized existence, or who’d been confined to the “wilderness facilities.”
Copious layers of bureaucracy and middle management—the very markers of modern “civilization”—work to ensure that the populace remains stuck in the mundanity of its oppressed existence.
Gamal al Ghitani explored the brutalities of surveillance states in an Egyptian context in his 1974 historical novel Zayni Barakat. Set in seventeenth-century Mamluk-era Cairo, the novel functions as a political fable skewering the abuses of the 1960s Nasserist era. Extending Gamal al Ghitani’s themes, the stories in Egypt + 100, especially “The Wilderness Facilities,” explore what happens when an authoritarian regime’s worst tendencies meld with extensive technological advances, AI, and totalitarian architecture. The results are a few terrifying steps away from the excesses of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s inner circle, to say the least.
Push some of the futuristic elements aside, and the works presented in this collection also feel like ghost stories. Everyone is haunted by memories of a time when things were different, when the alienation wasn’t so extreme, and there was still the possibility of human connection. As in Nora Nagi’s inventive “Unicorn 2512,” translated by Mayada Ibrahim, the characters may not remember the particular events their hearts long for, but they do vaguely know of a time wherein their ancestors fought openly in the streets for change and did not rely solely on the virtual world to indulge their stifled dreams of dissent.
In one of the collection’s standout stories, Egypt goes back in time: Tahrir Square becomes Ancient Rome’s Colosseum, and people battle to the death in the public sphere. “Everything is Great in Rome,” written by Ahmed Fakharany and translated by Robin Moger, signals a fear that as time goes on, we continue to regress as a species rather than progress. While in 2011 people went to Tahrir to protest the government, public mobilization is now supplanted by public spectacle in 2111. Everything is tightly controlled, and the government offers these bloody spectacles at Tahrir / the Colosseum in an effort to not only calm inflamed passions but also to ensure a sort of mass public amnesia, where the populace forgets the ills of Egypt altogether: “The Colosseum was, maybe, only a test run of the latest in cutting-edge technology; a technique for grafting onto our capital the genes of another city entirely.” By channeling emotions elsewhere, the powers that be ensure that people’s rage never turns into a productive force, directed at others instead.
This points to one striking element prevalent in the collection: the extent to which the writers contend with the elusive muse of hope. Here, there isn’t much of it, and the worlds described throughout the collection unnervingly allude to the dark, absurdist realities of the present. While futuristic elements in contemporary fiction sometimes offer a powerful reclamation of sorts for marginalized people (Larissa Sansour’s beautiful 2015 sci-fi short In the Future, They Ate from the Finest Porcelain being one vivid example), there’s not much of a respite to be found here. Instead, most of the writers featured in Egypt + 100 use sci-fi to explore the implications of current follies and the all but certain climate catastrophe waiting in the wings.
This isn’t to say that the collection eschews hope entirely. Some of the stories intimate, if ever so slightly, the possibility of a utopian future. Yasmine El Rashidi’s “Oral History of a Past, Obsolete and Forgotten” features a protagonist recounting what she knows of the 2011 Revolution, expressing shock at the state’s violent reaction to the events. The character feels removed from this historic upheaval and alludes to the calm and serene present. Trouble may color the peripheries of her existence, but they do not cloud her environment. Interestingly, the state doesn’t seem to be concerned with negating the story of 2011; rather, the unnamed protagonist enjoys access to archives, noting, “Everything I know is both firsthand and secondhand.” Her grandparents and parents shared their stories of Tahrir without a sense of traumatic rupture, and she can easily find their stories within the state archives—something that most researchers will now tell you is near impossible as the powerful try to suppress the history of the past thirteen years.
Belal Fadl’s satirical story is another instance wherein the future doesn’t look too bad. In “God Only Knows,” translated by Raph Cormack, a sheikh talks about his role in issuing fatwas in Egyptian society. Those familiar with the Islamic religious structure may know that fatwas are meant to help Muslims navigate the more difficult aspects of daily life. In this humorous story, major edicts are brought about not necessarily because the public is excited about the prospect of an egalitarian society but because climate catastrophe and a broken economy have forced them to change their stances on various issues. Same-sex marriage, for example, is no longer looked upon as a Western-influenced anomaly but as a healthy and just development: “[The] fatwa put an end to the destruction of households and brought together families that had been torn apart by estrangements and disownings.” The edicts from the sheikh offer noble, if imperfect solutions to problems that have long plagued the country. And while it may have taken a cataclysmic pandemic and failed revolution for things to change, at least they did, eventually. “God Only Knows” stands out for its depiction of hard won progressive religiosity that seems—to me, at least—to strike an incongruently optimistic note when compared with the rest of the collection. At the same time, it’s interesting to think what could happen if Egyptians were given the chance to fumble their way through governance without the paranoia of “external influences” trying to weaken and bring down the fragile state.
The last story in the collection is written by the editor himself: Naji’s sardonic “The Tanta White People Museum,” translated by Rana Asfour, imagines the aftermath of a global pandemic and its impact on Tanta, a small governorate in Egypt. The plot is propelled by the demise of more than half of the world’s white population, whose anti-vax and racist tendencies eventually get the best of them. During a brutal pandemic, white people in Europe and North America decide en masse to avoid a treatment that, while successful, will darken their skin. The survivors then travel to Tanta and other parts of the Arab world, which in 2111 is experiencing a renaissance of sorts, having found its way back to being an economic and cultural powerhouse after centuries of imperialist misadventure (“It appeared that history was finally in favour of the Arabs and Muslims after years of humiliation, disenfranchisement and ignorance.”). In an inversion of racial hierarchies, white people are marginalized and oppressed as a minority group. Nonetheless, a museum built to honor their “contributions” to society (cutting asides mention an Ivanka Trump presidency in the US, Steve Bannon’s scorched earth legacy, and compound interest) is threatened by terrorist attacks, and their brethren in Egypt aren’t necessarily interested in a show of solidarity. While climate change and the dissolution of communities are still challenges citizens must contend with, we as readers are granted a reprieve from the darkness by the silliness of it all.
Egyptian authorities have tried to forcibly disappear the memory of 2011 from every sphere of public life. Strange looking monuments have been erected at Tahrir Square and other areas of intense upheaval to commemorate the important role of the police and military in everyday life, while eradicating memories of civil disobedience. If 2011 is brought up in media circles, it’s usually within the context of a murderously chaotic time that nearly derailed the country. Egyptians are asked to quietly acquiesce to every unreasonable demand and tax hike, for the sake of an elusive sense of stability. Despite this, the government cannot undo the cultural impact of 2011, no matter how hard they try. People still remember, and the archives of that time remain largely accessible in the digital sphere. While the stories featured in Egypt + 100 are undoubtedly dark and even apocalyptic, they do point to one incontrovertible fact: People will hold onto the rebellious spirit of 2011, and it will continue to haunt both Egyptians and the security apparatus of the state for decades to come.
Yasmin Desouki is an audiovisual archivist, writer, and curator.
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