Adam Shatz concludes his article in the LRB by saying ‘if the Egyptian movement to be crushed it will be, in part, because of the conviction that ‘we are not them’.’ Egyptian men and women, Arabs and Muslims have been portrayed as other and inferior for so long that their uprising took the world by surprise. Neither the think tanks in Israel or USA predicted the spread of mass civil unrests in different parts of the Arab world. The lack of respect for Arabs and Muslims in the corridors of power and the way they are daily reduced and deformed on the pages of newspapers are some of the reasons behind that.

In 2007 The Guardian’s research into one week’s news coverage showed that 91% of articles in national newspapers about Muslims were negative. The London mayor, Ken Livingstone, who commissioned the study, said that the findings were a ‘damning indictment’ of the media and urged editors and programme makers to review the way they portray Muslims. Livingstone said. ‘I think there is a demonisation of Islam going on which damages community relations and creates alarm among Muslims.’

According to Sander Gilman ‘such images both result from and result in action. Our fantasies about difference, our anxieties about our status, can result in medical theories about the Other which relegate human being to the status of laboratory animals (in Auschwitz or in the America South); in racial theories that reduce the other to the status of exotic, either dangerous . . . or benign.’ Writing of stereotypes and pseudoscientific theories that were commonly used in colonial discourse turned ‘Muslims’ regardless of their race, ethnicity, culture or language into laboratory animals and made places like Camp X possible, where the suspects, who were never put on trail and found guilty, are treated like animals.

Muslims are perceived as either ignorant and rich or bloody thirsty terrorists. Arabs, marginalised, demonised, racially abused in the West, treated as backward by many of the Israelis revolted against their oppressors. Egyptians got sick of their corrupt, brute dictator who doesn’t allow free speech, elections and tortures and imprisons and even ‘disappears’ his political opponents

The initial reaction by the BBC was to ignore the news in Cairo, concentrate on Sharm el-Sheikh and British tourists and the whole ‘Egypt conflict’, as they called it, would go away. Many western commentators and journalists stated that the Egyptians and are not ready for and/or deserve democracy. The arguments can be summarised as such: democracy is for white people, Christians, Jews and Israelis and Muslims and Arabs do not deserve it. Cohen, cited by Adam Shatz, and some websites like Israel National News referred to the people in Tahrir Square as ‘mob’ conjuring up images of the dangerous and unruly Ottoman savage outside the walls of Vienna in 1529. Richard Cohen argued in the Washington Post that the west had to choose between two alternatives: human rights or history:

Those Americans and others who cheer the mobs in the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities, who clamor for more robust anti-Mubarak statements from the Obama administration, would be wise to let Washington proceed slowly. Egypt and the entire Middle East are on the verge of convulsing. America needs to be on the right side of human rights. But it also needs to be on the right side of history. This time, the two may not be the same.

If 9/11 hardened the Muslim Christian binaries and turned Arab dark features into triggers for alarms everywhere, at shopping centres, trains stations and airport 25/1 in Egypt softened those binaries and blow up static, ahistorical and clichéd representations of the Arab. The cracks between western propaganda and reductionism, for most of the reports in the British press were found ‘inaccurate and alarmist’, and flesh and blood Arabs and Muslims began to show. Egyptians, who have similar dark features to Mohammed Atta, proved to be genial, peace loving, press savvy, able to use social networks for maximum effect and steer media representations of their civil disobedience. Aljazeera’s live coverage is punctuated by the crowds shouting silmiyyeh ‘peaceful revolution’. Suddenly a shift in paradigms occurred and was reflected in the tone and content of the coverage. The fossilised image of the evil Muslim that can be traced back to the defeat of Moors in Spain and beyond was shaken. For the first time in a hundred years or more Arabs began to respect themselves and make their own history not Cohen’s. As a result some of the writing in the press on the revolt was tinged with admiration on this side of the divide. New formations are evolving in the western mind and psyche as we speak. This is one of the many triumphs of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. It also shows that peaceful resistance and dialogue are far more superior weapons to violence and terrorism.