Letters from imprisoned dissidents: to the names of Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, Wole Soyinka, Václav Havel, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the 2000s have surely added that of Alaa Abd el-Fattah.
Centuries shift, technology changes, regimes fall and rise, means of communication transform—though oppression's instruments endure. Yet the plea from prisoners remains constant. "Paper and pen. Nothing more. Nothing less." In an age dominated by the Internet and the virtual realm, a computer scientist, a digital activist, a dissident who shaped Egyptian opposition in the decade before the 2011 Tahrir Square uprising, makes this same demand of magistrates and jailers: paper and pen. He asks with unwavering persistence. He never forgets to ask for paper and pen even as he demands truth and justice, dignity, an end to torture and humiliation for all Egyptian prisoners. So writes Paola Caridi in her introduction to You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, published by Hopefulmonster (2021, translated by Monica Ruocco), a collection of writings by the Egyptian blogger and activist.
These pieces by Alaa Abd el-Fattah are at once universal and intimate—faceted tiles of a mosaic that reflects deeply on courage, dignity, freedom, and integrity. Situated within a long history of dissidence and suffering, they compose above all a portrait of one man.
A man who is a son—of a beloved father, Ahmed Seif al-Islam, himself a dissident marked by years of imprisonment and torture, a pioneer of human rights law (he would die in 2014, worn down by his years in the front lines and by the knowledge that his children were in prison); and of a mother who embodies love, commitment, and persistence. A man who is a brother—to two sisters also deeply engaged in politics (Mona was born while their father was imprisoned). A man who is a husband—together with his wife Manal Hassan, Alaa helped create the first Arab blogosphere, an aggregator of blogs publishing posts from Egyptian virtual diaries. A man who is a father—imprisoned for his ideas and his work when his son Khaled is born.
Among the reflections in You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, those on prison, the penal system, its function and purpose, strike hardest. Prison as a spark in an inflammable barrel; a machine that feeds a vicious spiral, condemning not just the crime but the person. The risk for the prisoner is becoming like the jailer; the strength lies in glimpsing the abyss without falling in.
« Improve your democracy: that has always been my answer to the question "How can we contribute?" » — Alaa Abd el-Fattah
« Improve your democracy: that has always been my answer to the question "How can we contribute?" » — Alaa Abd el-FattahThe unarmed revolutionary wants to change the system using its own tools. If the ground where he grew gave him far more than it took away (or will take away), Alaa Abd el-Fattah sees the great contradictions history has handed down, and those of our own moment, but also the opportunities a time of profound crisis can offer. His pages hold courage, and the capacity to see what still needs learning ("How do I transform from a thorn in the side of the unjust into a support for all those treated unjustly"). There is clarity about the ultimate purpose of radical commitment ("From a decade of rage I learned a few simple lessons, the most important being that every step on the road of struggle or debate is an opportunity to understand, to build networks").
Yet his pages also hold fatigue and doubt ("The guilty repent and make amends. But what can the innocent do to escape the same fate?"), frustration with a revolution "so fragile that a stray bullet could silence it." But at the same time "so strong that an embrace can save it."
And there is disability in Alaa's pages too, particularly autism, which he encounters and examines. "I begin writing texts about the loss of the ability—or the inability—to speak with a generation gradually losing every capacity to shout slogans. Or I write about the difficulty of communication. Autism is not a psychological disease that develops from trauma. It is a well-known and well-documented condition, linked mainly to learning difficulties and the strategies we develop to face them."
He speaks of his country, Alaa Abd el-Fattah; but he also speaks to us, to our daily choices, and entrusts us with tasks: defend complexity and diversity; reclaim our right to be creators, not consumers; "Improve your democracy: that has always been my answer to the question 'How can we contribute?' If human rights retreat in a context where democracy has deep roots, that will surely be used as a pretext by societies where rights are more fragile, societies that will feel justified in committing even worse violations."
It is a kindness that this book was published by a secular press in the series "The Room of the World"—a phrase belonging to a Pope. To Paul VI, who spoke of light "by which the room of the world takes on proportion, form, beauty and shadow," an embodiment of how reality is complex; of how dissidence is complex. But it is a fist—the fact that today Alaa Abd el-Fattah faces grave danger in the prison where he is held, having gone over 100 days on hunger strike.