Sisi, the guardian of sexual morals

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25 June 2016, Solidarity with Egypt's LGBTs in Prison – A Man with a Message at London's LGBT Pride in the Square. Alisdare Hickson/flickr. Some rights reserved.During a Mashrou’ Leila
concert in Cairo last September members of the audience raised a rainbow flag. A few days later, after images
had gone viral, a campaign of repression by the Egyptian regime followed.

At least 75 people were arrested under Egypt’s repressive
and vague laws of promoting “debauchery.” Sixteen men were then sentenced to
three years for “inciting debauchery” and “abnormal sexual relations.”

The tactics the regime
used were designed to humiliate and torture. The “suspects” had to undergo forced anal examinations to medically ascertain whether they
were indeed homosexual. A procedure that has no medical or biological
foundation. 

This wave of
repression was accompanied by intense public debate about the rights of the LGBT community in Egypt; a debate that was anchored in the morality of the middle
class, and its Victorian views of sexuality.

In a country that is
suffering from economic and social crisis, soaring inflation and a plethora of
security challenges, the latest of which has claimed the lives of 305 civilians, one would expect that such issues would not
garner much attention.  

Some commentators claimed
that this debate was hyped up in order to serve as a distraction from the
rapidly deteriorating economic and security situation in the country.

the role repression plays in cementing the regime’s position as the middle class’ guardian of sexual morality.

However, this view
ignores the place sexuality occupies in relations of power as well as the role
repression plays in cementing the regime’s position as the middle class’
guardian of sexual morality.

In order to understand
the views that the Egyptian middle class holds on sexuality, one needs to
understand its historical evolution.

In his ground breaking
book “Desiring Arabs”, Joseph Massad examines the evolution of the
views on sexual practices in the Arab world by exploring Arab literature,
poetry, and language. He convincingly argues that even though homosexuality was
always forbidden by Islam, the dominant faith amongst the Arabs, the category
of “homosexual” did not appear in the Arab view of sexuality until later
colonial encounters with the west.

As such, the binary
view of homo and hetero did not exist. Sexual practices were seen as more
fluid, and homosexuality was tolerated as long as it was not defined as an
exclusive identity openly declared as a separate “otherness.”

Massad also argues
that the sexual morals of the Arab intellectual and middle class, with their
views on homosexuality and sexual purity, were imported from the Victorian
west, in an attempt to emulate the colonizer and become “modern.”

Thus, the incident of
the rainbow flag and the public debate that ensued, especially amongst the
Egyptian middle class, is more logically consistent within this context.

This class, in an
attempt to create a hegemonic position for itself of moral and intellectual
leadership, perceived the raising of the rainbow flag as a direct attack on its
Victorian values of sexuality, and by extension an attack on its position in
society.

The middle class perceived the raising of the rainbow flag as a direct attack on its position in society.

This class views itself
primarily as heterosexual and male, with all other variations being seen as
abnormal and most importantly immoral.  

This class is
attempting to create a mythological place, an extension of its class values, an
“imagined community” in the words of Benedict Anderson.

This mythological view
is not anchored in the reality of Egyptian life, especially that of the urban
and rural poor who have a much more fluid view on sexuality with a myriad of
sexual practices that would be condemned by the middle class. For example, the prevalence of underage marriages in the countryside and
among the urban poor, some indicators suggest that this figure reaches 80
percent.

The reactions of the
middle class are a continuation of its isolation from reality and their
inability to convert class views to national views – a failure of hegemony.

In order to contrast
the reaction of the middle class to the rainbow flag as opposed to other
possible causes of outrage, one only needs to look at the case of the street
children in Cairo, who numbered 600,000 based on the estimates of UNICEF in 2007.

These children are victims
of continuous sexual abuse, violence and rape, which has resulted in the spread
of HIV, child pregnancies and a plethora of social problems. This persistent
problem, which one would imagine would outrage a conservative middle class, has
failed to garner a similar public reaction. This can be attributed to two
reasons.

First, unlike the rainbow flag, it is not an open attack on the sexual morals of the middle
class. It is tolerated as it does not defy their attempts at hegemony.

The second reason is
the constant demonization of the urban poor. Back in 2014, an op-ed in Al Masry
El Youm called for a security crackdown on street children, labelling them
“stray dogs” and proposing that they should be killed as a solution to
the problem.     

On the other hand, the
repression launched by the regime, when viewed within this context and relations
of power, can be understood at a deeper level than a simple diversion tactic,
even though this explanation has its merits.

The regime has presented itself as the purveyor of middle class views on modernity against “backward” Islamists, the rural masses and urban poor.

The regime has
presented itself not only as an anchor of stability stemming the tide of social
and political turmoil, it has also branded itself as the purveyor of middle
class views on modernity against “backward” Islamists, the rural masses and urban
poor.

The regime is
preserving the “imagined community” the middle class has created for Egypt and
what it means to be Egyptian, which includes their views on sexuality.

The regime is placed
as the protector of sexual morals, and by extension is responsible for the repression
of what are deemed “unnatural” or “perverse” sexual acts.

The regime exercises
this power through its ability to manipulate discourse and by direct physical
repression. It changes and manipulates the discourse by classifying
homosexuality as promoting “debauchery”, even though homosexual acts are not
illegal in Egypt, however, the term “debauchery” is vague and flexible enough
to be used for the repression of the LGBT community as needed.

Another approach is
the promotion of myths surrounding homosexuality, the most notable of which is
the argument that acts of homosexuality have a physical manifestation that can
be detected through physical examinations; a medical fallacy and propaganda
tool used to feminize homosexual men. 

The other avenue is
direct physical repression of those accused of homosexuality, and in some cases
their public humiliation and shaming; making their private sexual practices
into a public spectacle, turning them into a fetish. Some individuals, for
example, were arrested for carrying condoms, as this supposedly provided evidence of their
intent to carry out acts of “debauchery.”

In conclusion, the notion
that the repression of sexuality in Egypt stems entirely from the regime is not
wholly accurate. Even though the regime plays an integral part in this
repression, it is more of a societal phenomenon stemming from the colonial
legacy of imperialism combined with the position of the middle class within the
Egyptian polity.

One could argue that
the repression of homosexuality will continue regardless of the nature of the
regime in power and that this type of repression is indeed not driven from the
top, but rather by the middle class in its attempts to create its version of
“modernity.”