Revolution in parallel times:an Egyptian village's lived revolution

This paper explores revolutionary and rural politics through the case study of Al-Tahseen, a small village in the Egyptian Delta that witnessed an administrative secessionist movement in 2012 and a lineage of protests in 2008. The paper interrogates the relationship between politics at the rural level and the 25 January revolution in 2011, the 18-day mass protest that led to the ouster of long-time President Hosni Mubarak. Indeed, parallels can be drawn between the protest movement in Al-Tahseen and the 25 January revolution. While the villagers were not part of the latter, they watched it closely on television and modelled their sequence and choice of collective action accordingly. Al-Tahseen experienced its own local revolution which the villagers consciously differentiated from the 25 January uprising. Through this case study, I explore how protest tactics shift with changing political regimes, and highlight the complicated ways in which rural lived experiences relate to the more popularly known 2011 revolution, which is often seen and described as an urban revolution.