The State of Labor and Labor for the State: Syrian and Egyptian Cinema beyond the 2011 Uprisings

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Dickinson, Kay. 2012. The State of Labor and Labor for the State: Syrian and Egyptian Cinema beyond the 2011 Uprisings. Framework, 53(1), pp. 99-116. ISSN 0306-7661 [Article]

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On April 8th 2011, swift on the heels of several Arab insurrections and very much in the midst of others, the International Monetary Fund issued an economic assessment of the region. Given the prior “strong overall growth” of countries like Egypt and Tunisia, the organization confessed it had been caught somewhat unawares by this turn of events. Wealth, it admitted, could no longer be judged at averaged-out mathematical face value: “the IMF should have paid more attention to the distribution of income, not just aggregate results… [it will] begin incorporating more data on unemployment and inequality into its analysis.” The eyes of leftist observers might roll here; some “told you so”s over the inadequacy and callousness of neoliberal doctrines of accounting would not be unwarranted. But, beyond such easy, reactive rejoinders, the fact remains that work and wealth allocation have strongly affected the contours of each Arab community’s commitments to revolutionary change, and will continue to do so. Their diverse responses to “unemployment and inequality”, the kinds that have been negligently side-lined within the IMF’s factorings, will serve as a starting point for the following argument.

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