Almost two years after the inception of the so-called “Arab Spring” some of its primary constituencies remain enigmatic. To a certain degree, this is an effect of previous scholarly interest in various regimes’ strategies for maintaining their monopolization of critical resources, and, ultimately, of state power. The literature on “durable authoritarianism” has taught us much about autocratic longevity and the structures and dynamics that underpinned the management of the populace, as well as marginalization of challengers in a variety of regimes throughout the region. As some scholars have recently observed, however, the focus on authoritarian regimes’ staying power led to overestimations of their strength and, correspondingly, to underestimations of their publics. Of course studies of social movements, resistant populations, and opposition groups are plentiful and trends like the growth of Islamist groups have received copious attention.

As protestors filled Tahrir Square in Cairo in January 2011, Western diplomats, academics, and political pundits were searching for the best political analogy for the promise—and problems—for the Arab Uprising. Whereas neoconservative skeptics fretted that Egypt and Tunisia might go the way of post-revolutionary Iran, Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright praised Indonesia's democratization as the ideal model for the Arab Spring. During her 2009 visit to Indonesia, Clinton proclaimed: “if you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia.” Certainly Indonesia of May 1998 is not Egypt of January 2011, yet some comparisons are instructive. Still reeling from the Asian financial crisis of 1997, middle class Indonesians were fed up with corruption, cronyism, and a military that operated with impunity.

The situation in Syria has continued to deteriorate. The government has increased its aggression against the people, and outside elements with unclear motives have joined the opposition. On 21 August, the people of Ghuta suffered a chemical attack, and over a thousand died dreadful deaths. Despite his assertion in a cocky interview with Charlie Rose that he has not deployed his chemical arsenal, Bashar Al Assad is now apparently cooperating with the UN investigating team. Meanwhile, artists continue to respond to the violence with images, cartoons and films.

Laila Soliman's prophetic words in Lessons in Revolting, “this revolution is far from over” (2011) have come to fruition. The ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government by a military takeover on 3 July 2013 (after only one year in power) has added another chapter to the uprising's trajectory. While the revolution inspired dramatic protest and equally spectacular creative expression in the form of experimental theatre, music, art, spoken word, and other forms, many Egyptian artistes and cultural critics have bemoaned a general stymying of artistic synergies at the state level due to a series of interconnected factors. They have attributed this attrition to “budget limitations, recurring safety problems, the so-called ‘religious eye’ that defied Egypt's cultural identity— particularly during the year when power was in the hands of the former president Mohamed Mursi—and a cabinet filled with either the Islamist factions or their sympathizers” (Metwaly 2013).

During and after the January 2011 revolutionary protests, Egypt witnessed the surge and spread of graffi ti and street art activities. The story of graffi ti in Egypt is usually rendered as voices of dissent, modes of symbolic resistance, or expressive force of anger, solidarity, and commemoration. While it is true that the collapse of the state security services and the liberation of public space after the 2011 had fostered the growth of artistic revolutionary expressions, the story of artistic production implies more than politics of cultural representation. Rather, these artistic expressions are usually grounded in the formations, expansions, and contractions of social groups that keep on negotiating their identities, networks, capacities and limitations.

By comparing pre- and post-2011 Tunisian theatrical scripts and performances, this report analyzes instances of resistance to political oppression. The Tunisian theater provides space for free expression against the way in which the Tunisian government has handled its power, especially with regard to Islamic terrorism, not only before but also after the revolution. The present report also suggests that the pre-revolution plays represent resistance to the Tunisian pre-revolution regime that stifled political, religious, and cultural free expression. Despite the new political plurality that sprang up in 2011 in reaction to the revolution, however, resistance to the post-revolution political system also forms the central focus in the later plays that highlight oppression.

In the more than two years that have passed since the “post-Mubarak” era began, few plays have directly addressed the revolution that began in Egypt on 25 January 2011. A signifi cant exception among others is Mohamed el- Gheity’s Ward al-Ganāʾin or The Rose Garden (2011). Such plays have generally been commercially successful. Many Egyptians now think of themselves as revolutionaries; in the fi rst years of the Arab Spring, they liked to see revolution everywhere—in the streets, theater, newspapers, television—anywhere. Such responses from the public in turn upset the government, which often tries to stop such performances, and to allow only those theatrical entertainments that do not tackle political issues directly.

The delineation and comprehension of the Lebanese political map can often be an exercise in futility. On almost any given day, one can just scour the headlines of the Lebanese press and observe the presentation of Lebanese domestic politics in the context of regional/extra-regional developments or its literal interaction with external actors/states. For example, on 6 May 2010, two of the leading Lebanese dailies, As-Safir and Ad-Diyar, carried distinct front page headlines which captured this reality. The leading As-Safir headline proclaimed, “The return of Junblatt from Riyadh: Mutually confirms the importance of peace with Syria.” The leading Ad-Diyar headline stated, “Municipal Elections move forward under the auspices of a Syrian-Saudi-French understanding.“

The demarcation of borders in the Middle East undermined the position of the Shia community in Lebanon. The French and the British agreement on the border between Lebanon and mandatory Palestine in the early 1920s reduced the size of mountainous region of Jabal ʿAmil. Among the Shia, the Jabal ʿAmil was historically known as the area extending from the Awali River in the north down to Acre, Tarshiha, and Safad in the south, and from the Mediterranean in the west to the Hula Lake and up to the Taym, south of the Biqaʾ Valley in the east. In 1924, an area of about 250,000 dunums (an Ottoman unit of land measurement), including several villages and the Hula Lake, was detached from the Jabal ʿAmil and added to mandatory Palestine. This act severely disrupted the socioeconomic life of the region, particularly around Marjaʾyun. Shia anger over the loss of land was reinforced by the fact that in modern Lebanon the Jabal ʿAmil became known simply as “the South,” which the Shia took as an insult to their historical heritage.

In 1957 and 1958, Lebanese Armenian political parties, through the medium of their newspapers, rearranged the Armenian neighborhoods of Bourj Hamoud and Corniche al-Nahr as Armenian territories, separate from, and often in opposition to, the Lebanese state. These Armenian parties, in vying with one another for authority over this territory, fashioned Armenian enemies of one another. The internal Armenian enemy of the Armenian nation was constructed from within the national space of Lebanon. The power struggle within the Armenian community in Lebanon challenges the placement of Armenians in the historiography of Lebanon, which considers them as refugees and therefore non-Lebanese or temporary residents of Lebanon as well as passive, impossible political actors.