The prince and the minotaur: Egypt in the labyrinth of counter-revolution

This paper contributes to the study of Egypt’s 25 January Revolution and to a more general understanding of revolutions and counter-revolutions. I turn to Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony, passive revolution, and the Modern Prince to understand the weakness of revolutionary subjectivity. Moreover, I argue that the concept of prefiguration serves as a critical addendum to Gramsci’s discussion of a new emancipatory politics embodied by the Modern Prince. Conversely, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony helps us to understand the theoretical and practical limits of prefigurative politics. By presenting the Egyptian counter-revolution as a labyrinthine structure, the paper cautions against simplistic views of reaction and the lure of processes of ‘democratic transition’ and mass movements ‘from above’ that derail revolutionary agency from its key, emergent purpose: to develop itself into a social power able to construct the alternative society it imagines.