Litrature review

POLITICAL SATIRE IN EGYPT DURING THE LAST DECADE: A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

Dr. Hesham Hasan (*)

1.1. Definition of Satire

Satire is a type of discourse for face-to-face and written interaction, we associate it with written discourse in this paper. This is because satire is meta-discourse, that is, discourse about discourse. Satire aims to ridicule, to prick pretensions, to expose hypocrisy, to point fingers at corruptive practices. Hence, the purpose of satire is to expose folly, lies and moral or political corruption. The targets of satire are often governments, politicians, the military or the church, the upper or middle classes, the class system or the conventions of social life. In most satires, the satirist has succeeded in keeping the target in focus and in the foreground. The character of the satirist is established to be that of a “bluff-hater, cheat-hater, liar-hater, vanity-hater, but also that of a truth-lover, beauty-lover, simplicity-lover” (Elliott, 1960: 273). Description of the malaises the satirist attacks is clear- cut in the following excerpt:

Satire everywhere attacks evil arrogant and triumphant, pride victorious and riding for a fall. It attacks those conventional respectabilities which are really hidden absurdities or vices blindly accepted by thoughtlessness, habit, or social custom, it attacks foolishness foolishly convinced that it makes sense, grinning and unrepentant in its folly. It attacks stuffed shirts, hypocrisies aping merit, puffed and blown-up insignificances like the frog trying to swell into an ox, counterfeit passing for true. The merely foolish, satire may be content to ‘’take down a peg or two”; the dangerous and vicious it would reduce to ruin. But in both the important thing to note is a kind of unmasking. The foolishness shown up is a foolishness that usually passes for sense. The ugliness revealed in its true colours has masqueraded as merit (Johnson, 1945:8).

Verbal aggression is a basic element of ritual satire. The verbal means of such aggression include, among others, invective, abuse, the diatribe, the curse, and the lampoon. Invective is a general term indicating direct verbal attack on a person, place or thing through the use of vituperative language or ridicule, often in verse form. Abuse and billingsgate are direct, usually spontaneous, verbal attacks, usually against a person. A diatribe is the term used to describe a particular work of verbal attack, usually against a group, an institution, or kind of behavior. It is often abusive or at least bitter or polemical. Lampoon may be thought of as a specialized version of invective in that it is a satiric attack on an individual. (Test, 1991:100-121). Having known the subtle nuances of these words, they are employed in the research as synonymous with satire.

Satire has two main methods. The method of Dickens is to attack furiously with blunderbuss or cudgel. That is direct satire. The other is more roundabout. Instead of meeting the foe upon the field it may pretend to be neutral and undermine him by suave and diplomatic ways. It may masquerade as a friend or as one of his own defenders and insidiously destroy his faith in himself. Such is the strategy of Jane Austen. It is indirect satire. Direct satire is the more obvious of the two, just as a blow is a more obvious expression of resentment than a gift of poisoned fruits. That is why invective is the simplest of all the weapons of direct satire. It is the bludgeon and battle-ax beaten into words. It is the weapon we most instinctively seize when any restraint denies the resort to force. Irony is one of the most powerful devices of indirect satire. It is a kind of dissimulation, and the ironist a dissembler (Johnson, 1945: 13-24).

1.2. Motives of Satire

The ingredient that activates and directs the elements comes alive itself with a satirist making a judgment, turning satire into a weapon, blunt or penetrating, combining judgment with the other elements in a unique mix. As a weapon, it has been used for the worst of motives; it has been used for the best of reasons. It has been used by malicious, envious, and spiteful persons, and it has been used by idealistic and moral persons. It has been used by all persons in all walks of life, all kinds of cultures and systems of government, in countries all over the world. It has been used to attack governments and to bolster governments, it has been used to attack religion and to defend religion (Test, 1991:28).

If satirists for the most part are not committed to a set of political principles, neither can their work be said to have had much effect on the world of practical politics, either to support tradition or to subvert it. Political satirists have persuaded themselves that if they could not reform the wicked, they could at least deter them by striking fear into their hearts. Among other readers political satire may induce a kind of skepticism or detachment, even a weary cynicism, about politics and politicians (Griffin, 1994:152-158). This is clear in the satire that followed the invasion of American troops to Iraq and there are enough reports for the audience to relate about the American malpractices in Iraq after invasion. It is narrated from Baghdad that officials are taking bribes for favors, giving jobs to their relatives, taking money under the table from contractors. This means that the war is less than a week old, and they already have an American-style democracy (Blake, 2007:17).

Most Americans have:

Scant respect for politicians --- at least until they are in the White House; then they ascribe to them a degree of wisdom and virtue that shocks us all when we posthumously learn of their feet of clay. John F. Kennedy, the wittiest of the century’s presidents and candidates, knew how Americans feel about their politicians. “Mothers may still want their sons to grow up to be President,” he said, “but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process” (Gardner, 1988:232).

This paper discusses political satire as expressions of resistance in popular media. That is because satirical discourse was a discourse that people used to make fun of their rulers, mock them and relieve themselves from the regimes’ oppression. Political satire created:

Laughter and a sense of relief accompanied with freedom for the oppressed subject. Political satire created a space of freedom through this counter-hegemonic project raising the political consciousness of the disempowered people and taking part to an expression of resistance, which did not have immediate or directly connected effects in the relation to power. Political satire initiates laughter, can initiate resistance and can make people feel free from the ideological oppression of the master discourse, but is unable to subvert the regime on its own (Mascha, 2008:82).

1.3. Satire and the Press

The Press is often seen as the watchdog of the society, which uses language as a tool to express its feelings about how the society runs at any particular period. It manipulates the language and employs its power to point at, expose and ridicule the ills of the society and the perpetrators of such ills. Satire is a writing that is critical of the evil in the society. Satirists employ humour as a tool for achieving their goal of improving the society. This paper looks at how Egyptian satirists in the newspaper medium manipulate their linguistic skills to achieve their goal as the watchdog of the Egyptian society. Specifically, it looks at the various linguistic devices used in newspaper discourse to attack and ridicule corruptive, criminal and scandalous acts in the Egyptian society. Extracts considered to be satirical in the context of their use were elicited from the book of Qandīl “Against Mubarak”. ʼAbdel ḥalīm Qandīl is a Nasserist writer and a prominent editor of chief for several opposition newspapers in Egypt; he is known for his biting criticism of the ruling regime, particularly Mubarak and his family; during the last decade he wrote the most vocalic satiric articles; he collected them in a book entitled ”Against Mubarak” from which the data of this paper is taken. The social, political, historical and pragmatic contexts in which such forms occur play prominent roles in interpreting them and determining their consideration as satire (Taiwo, 2003:19-20).

Satire is one of the major ways through which societal ills are ridiculed by writers and social critics. This paper examines how the Egyptian writers employ their creative potentials by manipulating words through morphological and lexico-semantic processes in order to ridicule the vices in the society. The President of the nation, politicians, and the police are the major targets of satirist. The paper identified some linguistic processes used to convey satirical expressions in Egyptian newspapers such as: metaphor, metonymy, phonological coinage, new word collocation, blending, new derivation, poetic register, religious register, allusion, colloquialism, and satirical irony.

Satire is not only practised by journalists, newspapermen, critics and men of letters such as Swift but also by specialized magazines such as the case of the Private Eye, the satirical British magazine, whose creators and practitioners are distinguished from Swift and described as:

Merely unruly children to whom authority is a schoolmaster, who, when his back is turned, can be pelted with paper darts and mocked with mimicry and funny faces. Such subordination can easily be laughed off, boys will be boys. With Swift it was different. He understood too well what he was attacking. When his trumpet sounded, the walls of Jericho really did tremble (Carpenter, 2000: 198).

Through political parody and satire, ordinary Egyptian people could at least temporarily escape their burdens and misery, and recover some of the individual dignity the government had taken from them (Schauwecker, 2003, 127).

1.4. Satire and Truth

The great criteria of satire are always truth and sanity. Even the minor satire of deriding foibles, affectations, crazes, and fashions strikes its sparks from the flint of fact. But satire may deepen into being a criticism of humanity and of life itself. When it does, it depends for its dignity upon the principles it invokes, and upon the depth, breadth, and sanity of the satirist’s vision. Grace, wit, and virtuosity are all delightful adjuncts without which the would-be satirist may find himself only would-be. Flippancy, shallowness, and insincerity, however, are fatal. The great satirist sees straight, he sees far, and he sees deep. That is what makes him great. It is also what makes satire valuable. Not that we want satire all the time, or that everything is in need of being satirized. Men and God’s world need to be praised and loved, too, and deserve to be. But sometimes they need to be knocked off their perch, and even, on occasion, to have their blocks knocked off. They need to have their eyes opened to their own blindness and foolishness. And when they are mean, cruel, or revengeful, their failings need to be beaten to a pulp (Johnson, 1945:36-37). And so the satirists lie in wait for us in all sorts of unlikely places, masquerading as novelists, newspaper columnists, like Qandīl, love poets, and even as historians, economists, philosophers. “If men were angels,” James Madison famously observed,” no government would be necessary.” And if politicians were angels, no satire would be necessary. That they are not is only to be expected--- the people they represent aren’t angels, either (Peterson, 2000: 207).

1.5. Satire in the Arab World:

Satire in the Arab world was not a common practice because of the oppressive regimes; however, men of letters who went into exile had a window of opportunity to satirize the conditions of the Arabs. This is clear in what Adonis noted: “We live like a human block without shape; as a deaf human fog….each one of us is shapeless fog and a person without form” and he depicted the Arabs including himself who are living under the yoke of their totalitarian regimes in one of his works saying:

We are erased figures…figures that have been erased by the national interest…we are millions of severed tongues heaped up behind closed doors, inside closed mouths, in closed toilet rooms…millions of plugged ears, hearing the same words, the same expressions….millions of minds thrown in the backyards of houses, in deserted fields, on dead pavements…what is left of the figure whose tongue, nose and eyes and means of thinking have been erased?... A pale shadow without form and features… this is our existence. Let us put up mirror and gaze into its depths and corners. There is nothing; a pale shadow on the backside of the national interest (cited in Masud, 2006: 62).

It was quite recent when writers like Qandīl and his likes took the lead and summoned their courage to satirize and criticize the regimes in their writings in public without pseudonyms. This generation of satirists is the vanguards and forerunners of the Arab Spring.

2.1. Impetus of Satire

Satire requires an impetus, which emanates from a perceived disapprobation, by the satirist, of some aspect of a potential satirical target. The impetus in our case in point is tremendous; for the corruption of the ruling regime in Egypt was deep and assumed tremendous proportions. A satirist like Qandīl found himself tasked with the duty of laying bare the unethical line of conduct of people in power.

2.2. Triad Discursive Positions of Satire

The theory that will be applied in this paper is the theoretical model of Paul Simpson (2003) which he postulates for the analysis of satirical discourse; it is presumably the only model of analysis for satirical texts and perhaps the most elaborate, detailed and in-depth account of satirical text constituents. Though Simpson’s book is difficult, it is however a breakthrough in the field of satire and humour. At the outset, Simpson determines some discoursal positions. He argues that as a discursive practice, satire is configured as a triad embodying three discursive subject positions. These are the satirist (the producer of the text), the satiree (an addressee, whether reader, viewer or listener) and the satirised (the target attacked or criticized in the satirical discourse). Two of these three participants, the satirist and the satiree, are ratified within the discursive event. The third entity, the target, is ex-colluded and is not normally an “invited participant” in the discourse exchange, even though the target is what provides the initial impetus for satire. The non-ratified, ex-colluded discourse participant that constitutes a satirical target may be an individual person, an episode involving human agents, an aspect of more fixed or stable experience or existence, or even, crucially, another discursive practice (Simpson, 2003:8).

The satirist’s humor fosters communal bonds with the reader; so does his invitation to join in the attack. The satirist thus conjures an ‘in-group’ consisting of speaker and audience, and an “out-group,” the satire's victim. The satirist often licenses his aggression by claiming to speak on behalf of common sense, which the reader would naturally share (Newman, 2008, 17).

The first trio discoursal subject positions in our data is the satirist, Qandīl, an editor in chief of ṣawat Al ʼUmmah opposition newspaper. It was sometimes closed because of his articles which launched invective and vituperative verbal attack against the head of state in Egypt; the satirized are the president, his cronies, the ruling party, his ministers and his family members who were behind- the -scene manipulators of Egyptian politics last decade. The satiree is the Egyptian people in general and the intellectual elite in particular.

2.3. Discoursal Prime of Satire

The creation and dissemination of satirical discourse is through constituting prime and dialect. First, a satirical text functions through the instantiation of a discoursal prime. A prime activates a real anterior discourse event, but is not limited to another specific text, or another genre or register of discourse. The prime is in this sense an “echoic” utterance to the discourse. In this context, Simpson (2003: 8) explains the working and mutual relationship of ironic phases in satire. The first phase, the prime or echoic irony, involves the current context, and functions by echoing some sort of other discursive event, whether it be another text, genre, dialect or register.

2.4. Text Internal Dialectic

The constitution of the prime as echoic discourse is one of the three principal ironic phases in the creation of a satirical text. The prime, however, needs to be supplemented with another key device that operates within the satirical text. This is a text internal dialectic. The dialectic is so-named because:

It functions as an antithesis which induces a collision of ideas or appeals to a line of reasoning that falls outside the straightforward. Both the prime and dialectic components are abstract constituents, best thought of as elements of structure or as structural slots in discourse. It follows then that the prime and dialectic elements of structure are expounded by specific features of the discourse of satirical texts, some of which are sketched below. Whereas the textual exponent activated by the prime is interpreted through a framework of general knowledge, the dialectic is accessed through a framework of knowledge of typical text structures, such that a schism or fracture occurs between these two frameworks.(ibid:9)

This oppositional relationship, between the prime and dialectic elements of structure, is what constitutes the second ironic phase in satire:

While the second, dialectic (or oppositional irony) ‘‘is a text-internal (as opposed to intertextual) element which is normally positioned after the prime. . .’’. Prime is echoic and parodic, and what is crucial to it ‘‘is that it involves a repositioning or realignment in discourse of the utterer or speaking source, such that there is some masking of the genuine originator of the text from the ersatz discursive position adopted by the text’’. Dialectic, essential for satire, is a ‘‘type of irony that engenders a discursive ‘‘twist’’, whether it be through implicature. . . or through some broader incongruity-generating strategy’’. In other words, the satirical text must both echo (refer to or parody) some actual text or textual genre and contain a textual incongruity which triggers the satirical reading. The problem is that calling the second phase ironic is rather counter-intuitive since what it involves is simply incongruity or opposition (Chłopicki, 2009: 859).

Simpson draws the demarcating lines between the prime and the dialectic; however, the boundaries between prime and dialectic are not well-defined and the distinction is hazy; so the description and the determination of the beginning and the end of prime and dialectic are left for intuition and the discerning capabilities of the analyst of the satirical text. In this context, Simpson crucially postulates that:

The amount of conceptual space between prime and dialectic –that is to say the degree of transformation, distortion or opposition – is an important determining factor in the process of uptake of a satirical text’’. That is probably to say that the more different the prime and dialectic are, the more likely the reader is to understand that the text is a satire. Nonetheless, while the notion of the degree of opposition is understandable in humor research as a term, the degrees of transformation and distortion remain just descriptive metaphors and do not add much to defining conceptual space. Moreover, since both the prime and dialectic involve an opposition of sorts, although on different levels of discourse organization (text-external and text-internal, respectively, but the distinction cannot be rigid either), calling for a conceptual space between the two phases appears rather confusing (esp. that the prime seems to have a different ontological status—it’s ‘‘a type of textual monitoring’’ (ibid: 860).

3. SMUT Model of Satire

Simpson develops his theoretical model and sketches satire’s discoursal properties in the form of four principal components. The four components are: setting, method, uptake and target, drawn together by the rather glib acronym “SMUT”. The following sections give a detailed account of these elements with illustration of examples to shed light on the theoretical complexities of the model.

3.1. Setting of Satire

Setting is essentially a nonlinguistic component covering the preparatory preconditions necessary for the construction of satirical discourse. Setting is the first component in Simpson’s model; it is the surrounding contextual conditions that help construct the satirical discourse. The setting in this research is as follows: Mubarak has been ruling Egypt for thirty years; his iron-fisted rule was marred with dictatorship, corruption, cronyism and low living conditions of the people; Mubarak’s aspirations were lofty, he wished to transfer power to his son Gamāl by any means; his son was brought to the centre stage of Egyptian politics. The Egyptian elite realized the intentions of the ruling family and they launched a movement opposing the transfer of power from father to son; this movement is called “kefāya” ‘enough’; namely, it is enough to have Mubarak for thirty years and we do not accept his son to follow his father’s footsteps in seizing power. And enough is enough, for conditions in Egypt were boiling because of the poor economic levels and the bad performance of the Egyptian government in redressing the worsening living conditions of the people which move from worse to the worst. Qandīl, the satirist, is the coordinator and the mouthpiece of this movement and the most demagogue and fiery member. He was fully conscious of the malpractices and the vices of the ruling family; he was aware of all the transgressions and violations they were involved at; Qandīl launched a journalistic campaign against the president and his family in which he wrote hundreds of articles vilifying and criticizing the president sharply with his pen; he called this campaign “against the president” in which he collected his articles in one book that carries the same title. I selected some of these articles, the most vituperative ones, for analysis.

The satirist faces comparable problems today. In democratic countries, he attacks individuals only at the risk of grave financial loss to himself and his publisher; in totalitarian countries the satirist risks death. No matter how carefully he may choose his target, a shift in governmental policy may undo him completely: what one day seemed worthy of the most extreme denunciation may the next day be sacrosanct. It is a harrowing occupational hazard (Elliot, 1960:262). In effect, Qandīl lost his post several times because of the oppression of the regime to him.

3.2. Method of Satire

Method, the second of the SMUT model’s four components, marks a linguistic stage proper. Method consists of two stages or phases of linguistic analysis. While the concept of incongruity remains the hub of the joke satirical text, it is bounded by two other phases, resulting in the following three temporally ordered stages in the production of a comic satirical text:

· Setup

· Incongruity

· Resolution

The concept of incongruity remains largely semantic in its conceptualization; then the existence of a setup phrase is postulated to precede the incongruity phase chronologically. The setup prepares the groundwork for the satirical joke by establishing a context which is congruent with the experience of the receiver of the text. The setup is a necessary preliminary to the incongruity. The setup phase supplies the “order” or “congruity” in the satirical humour stimulus (Simpson, 2003: 37).

3.3.Uptake of Satire:

The third of the SMUT model’s four components is uptake. Like the setting stage, uptake encompasses the understanding of the illocutionary force and content of the utterance by its addressee, and the perlocutionary effects on the addressee brought about by means of uttering the sentence, such effects being special to the circumstances of the utterance. The concept of perlocution in satirical discourse relies heavily on inferencing by the satiree; an inferencing which requires the resolution of the incongruity created in the method stage along with an identification of the component which constitutes the fourth element of the model, The satirical target realises four subtypes, best thought of as interlocking domains or zones rather than discrete units (ibid:70).

3.3.1. Uptake: Episodic Target

The first type is episodic, where the target is a particular action or a specific event that has taken place in the public sphere.

3.3.2. Uptake: Personal Target

The second is personal target where the object of attack is, unsurprisingly, a particular individual, though by imputation that individual’s personality is often projected as some stereotypical or archetypical trait of human behaviour.

3.3.3. Uptake : Experiential Target

An experiential target is directed towards more stable aspects of the human condition and experience as opposed to specific episodes and events.

3.3.4. Uptake: Textual Target

Textual target spotlights the linguistic code itself as its principal object of attack. In other words, this last form of satire appears to turn discourse inwardly upon itself and to this extent is best considered as meta-discourse. Of course, a single satirical text may realise multiple targets, so discussing a text in terms of its perceived target is largely a question of balance and emphasis; while the principal impetus may, for example, be from one particular subtype, the flexibility of the concept of target is such that this can be expanded outwards to cover the other three (Simpson, 2003: 71).

The discourse of satire plays a crucial role in distinguishing the author’s attitudes toward primary and secondary audiences. Satire ratifies speaker and addressee as an ‘in-group’ while it excludes an ‘out-group’ which includes both those it satirizes and those simply unequipped to understand its jokes and ironies (Newman, 2008:115).

4. Satiric Linguistic Innovations in Qandīl’s Style

This section will look into the satirical linguistic innovations that Qandīl introduced into the Arabic language lexicon through his satirical writings; A satirist’s intention, according to Highet (1962), is to shock his readers by forcing them to see a sight they had previously “missed or shunned”. He first creates awareness of the truth, in the readers’ minds before moving them to the feelings of protest. Highet further claims that most satirists create those feelings by careful choice of language, employing accurate descriptive words mainly to surprise and disturb the reader: “Brutally direct phrases, taboo expressions, nauseating imagery, callous and crude slang” are essential parts of the vocabulary of almost every satirist” (cited in Alkodimi and Omar, 2010).

The linguistic innovations I have detected in his writings are confined to the following phenomena: phonological coinage, new word collocation, blending, new derivatives, poetic register, religious register, allusion, colloquialism and irony.

4.1. Phonological Modification

A common feature of many jokes or satirical remarks is that they seek the quickest route, or optimal shortcut, to scathing criticism of an opponent. The shortcut might be a single striking word or a slight parodic modification of some familiar phrase or notion. When the shortcut succeeds, the hearer or listener is provoked to laughter.(Schauwecker, 2003:128).

4.1.1. Transformation of the ق qa Sound into theك ka Sound

وأن ترهن السياسة الإقتصادية بنصائح صندوق النكد الدولى المحكوم بالتوجهات الأمريكية

(Qandīl, 2006:165)

(The economic policies are contingent on the tips and regulations of the American-controlled IMF international monetary fund. ( my translation).

This is a satire mixed with humour; Qandīl is criticizing the economic policies of the government and how the government draws up its economic plans in accordance with the guidelines of the International Monetary Fund, an institution which is governed and ruled by the American Administration. This is the introduction of the prime phase of satire which contains the core of the satire. Out of satiric humor, Qandīl replaces the ق qa inالنقد ʼannaqd which means monetary to the ك ka in the Arabic word to become النكد ʼannakad which means chagrin. The humorous effect produced is that if the regulations of this fund are followed by the Egyptian government, we will have annoyance and chagrin rather than money and financial transactions. This is the dialectic phase of satire which derives its satire from the internal structure of the text; the change of the phonological sound results into the change of the meaning of sentence; the abidance by the regulations of the Monetary Fund will bring about losses and harm to the economy. This stands in opposition to the opening premise that if we follow the instructions of such an internationally accredited institution we will introduce reforms to the economy; the satire reveals the true face of such an institution.

4.1.2.Transformation of the د da Sound into the ض ḍa Sound

شجرة الضر šajarat ʼaḍḍur

(Qandīl, 2006:17)

This is a humourous satirical reference to the Egyptian first lady, Suzanne Mubarak; there is also a cultural allusion in this for the wife of the Sultan of Egypt شجرة الدر šajarat ʼaddur who was so powerful a woman that she concealed the news of the death of her husband from his army during the battle with the French invaders and got married to the commander of the army and ruled Egypt with an iron fist. There is an identical similarity between this woman and Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of Mubarak, who is the de facto ruler of Egypt during the last ten years. Such a similarity introduces the first ironic phase of satire, i.e, the prime phase which elicits such simile from the general knowledge of the Egyptian society. Suzanne Mubarak was responsible for the appointments of the ministers and high-ranking officials; she was the mastermind of the transfer of power from her husband to her son; she was behind all the underground policies and ill-gotten gains and the illicit dealings of the ruling regime; her rule does great harm to the entire country; this is why the satirist humorously and bitterly called her شجرة الضر šajarat aḍḍur transforming the sound ""د‘da’ into the “ḍa” to mean or denote harm. This change of sound initiates the second phase of satire, that is, the dialectic phase which is an oppositional irony; Suzanne Mubarak was similar to the شجرة الدر šajarat adur in her dominance of the country but she was not doing good to her country as this woman; on the contrary, she is doing harm to the country.

4.1.3.Transformation of the ر ra sound into the ع ʻa sound

السيد سمير عجب مجرد بائع روبابيكيا، ويعرف بطبيعة النشأة كمخبر حقير، أن كتاباته تستحق مصيرها المحتوم فى أقرب مقلب زبالة

(Qandīl, 2006:737)

(Mr Samīr Ragab is a seller of junk stuff (an expression of belittlement in the Egyptian culture), he knows, by the nature of profession as a mean secret police detective that his writings should find their way to the closest garbage basket.)

Samīr Ragab, the journalist, whose name is changed into ʻagab which means he is a person who causes people to wonder; he is a seller of junk stuff (an expression of belittlement in the Egyptian culture), he knows, by the nature of profession as a mean secret police detective that his writings should find their way to the closest garbage basket. Mr Samīr Ragab( whose name is metamorphosed into ʻagab); this transformation results in sarcasm and irony for the word ʻagab in Arabic denotes the provocation of the feeling of astonishment and surprise; what ʻagab means is that Samīr is a very peculiar person and his acts cause people to wonder; so the change of the first letter of his second name from ر ra to ع ʻa ʻagab means literally surprise and astonishment at his acts and gives the impression that he is the kind of person whose acts are nothing but absurd. This satire is a reflection of the third of the SMUT model’s four components, that is, uptake and personal target; where the object of attack is a particular individual. The attack centers on the fact that Samīr ʻagab is a journalist whose writings are insignificant and he keeps contact with the secret security personnel to tip them off with information about his associates; his writings are not highly appreciated and deserve no acclaim.

4.2. Lexical Coinage

4.2.1.

ʼaḥzāb ʼalʼanābīb – ʼalmidūnīrātأحزاب الأنابيب- المديونيرات

أى أننا بصدد أوكازيون رئاسى، وفرصة سانحة لترقيات طبقية مفاجئة،فرصة لانتقال رؤساء أحزاب الأنابيب من طبقة المديونيرات إلى طبقة المليونيرات.

(Qandīl, 2006:742)

(We have a chance for sudden stratal promotions; a chance for moving the heads of the insignificant parties from the class of the indebted to the class of the millionaires.)

We are about to face a golden chance for people to climb the political ladder; a chance for a sudden jump for people from class to another, and another transfer for the heads of the cartoon parties from the category of debtors to that of millionaires.The coinage of the أحزاب الأنابيب ʼaḥzāb ʼalʼanābīb means the cartoon parties that have no weight in handling politics is an introduction of the fourth element of SMUT uptake and its subcategory textual target which is a metadiscourse, that is about the text. The coinage of the term المديونيرات ʼalmidūnīrāt, which is originally derived from the term of المديون ʼalmidūn, literally means “debtor”. It is pluralized along the pattern of the term المليونيرات ʼalmilūnīrāt which literally means millionaires, and is a reflection and a criticism of the abrupt rise of a class from the bottom to the top of the society. Such a phenomenon shows that the tidal wave of social ascendency is abrupt and without the due course of crossing the strata barriers. This promotion for the heads of the cartoon parties and their transformation from low-bracketed incomes categories into high-bracketed ones, and their financial change from debtors into millionaires shows the illicit policy of embezzlement and graft from the government coffers. Such illegal and unauthorized enrichment of people sheds light on the rotten practices of the ruling party, its lack of integrity, and its inefficiency in leading the country.

4.2.2.

المتثاقفين ʼalmutaṯāqifīn

مع كل هزيمة لأمريكا فى العراق تصفر وجوه المتثاقفين العرب من ماركة جماعة المارينز

(Qandīl, 2006:502)

(With each defeat of America in Iraq, the cultured Arabs who claim to be learned and belong to the so-called American-affiliated groups (literally the marines group)turn red.)

ʼalmutaṯāqifīn is a humourous use of the term. المتثاقفينThe coinage of the term is done with the insertion of the ت , ta and ا, ā to the original term which shows affectation of being cultured, well-read and learned person. It is an affectation form of the genuine term المثقفين ʼalmuṯaqqafīn,i.e. those who are knowledgeable and cultured. The act to be satirized is the assuming knowledge of those people, and another act which is bitterly and equally satirized is the change of feelings of those people into sadness when they get to know that the American troops are defeated.This means that those are not originally cultured people but rather pretend to be as such, and they are from the marines group. This is the fourth element of SMUT and its first category episodic target.

4.2.3.

فرق حسب الله النبى بوش - كتائب المارينز

(They are from the class of the Marines group who have affiliation and loyalty to the Americans.)

أن هذه الأمة تدخل القبر، بل الذين ماتوا هم جماعات الحثالة الثقافية من"كتائب المارينز" وفرق "حسب الله النبى بوش"(Qandīl, 2006:354)

(This nation is entering the grave, and those who died are the groups of cultural mobs from the American-affiliated groups(the marines groups) and the groups of ḥasaballa ʼannabi Buš.)

katāʼib ʼalmārīnzكتائب المارينز is another term which shows the belonging and loyalty of this group to the US. And the coinage of firaq ḥasaballa ʼannabi buš فرق حسب الله النبى بوش is again a coinage which shows that these groups are chorus groups. The name is derived from the popular musical troupes which hymn their tunes in popular districts on jubilant occasions like weddings, and this had gone down in the linguistic colloquial lexicon of Egyptians as a denigrating act or a mark of groups which echo the opinions of others. They are usually positioned in the sidelines of any festival or momentous event. Connecting these troupes to president Bush is very indicative of the fact that they are affiliated to the American policy and tactics and they are puppets in the hands of the Americans toeing the line of the Americans and following the orders they are dictating. The satire lies in the fact that the nation is losing itself; it is losing its value when it is following the dictates of the Americans. And the satirist specifies this category which has already lost itself; those who are mimicking and imitating the Americans. This satire again is another subtype of Uptake; namely, the experiential Target where the target is directed towards more stable aspects of the human condition and experience as opposed to specific episodes and events.

4.2.4

أحزاب بير السلم ʼaḥzāb bīr ʼassillim

(The basement parties) بير السلم bīr ʼassillim is an attribute to the cartoon-like and good for nothing parties which have no weight in the political arena.They are overshadowed and overpowered with the powerful and popular parties. This is almost a stable aspect of the political life in Egypt to find parties which have no leverage in the political arena and they are puppet parties rotating in the orbit of the bigger parties. This satire is again a reflection of the third subtype of Uptake that is experiential target.

4.3. New Word Collocation

سيكون بوسع القوى الوطنية نقض الإعتراف بشرعية الرئيس مبارك لوجرى تمديد رئاسته لثلاثين سنة بنظام الإستفتاء إياه،ووقتها لن تنفع اليمين الدستورية التى أنذرنا بها الممتلئ ديمقراطيا كمال الشاذلى ... ولا هوجة مبايعات أحزاب بير السلم

(Qandīl, 2006: 658)

(The national powers could consider the legitimacy of president Mubarak null and void if his term of office could be extended for thirty years through the so-called referendum; in this point of time, the constitutional oath which the democratically-oriented Kamāl ʼEl šāzli, whose obesity is a mark of his conviction in full democracy, has threatened us with, will be fruitless; Also the trend of approving the cartoon parties will be nothing.)

4.3.1 New Collocation الممتلئ ديمقراطيا Uptake: Personal Target

الممتلئ ديمقراطيا كمال الشاذلى ʼalmumtaliʼ dimuqrāṭiyyan

The coinage of this compound adjective is a humorous attribute to jest at his obesity and ridicule the fact that he raises the slogan of democracy, so his fatness is due to his absorption of democratic values and principles. Sarcastically enough, his practices are undemocratic.

4.3.2 المشوهين روحيا ʼalmušawwahīn rūḥiyyan, Uptake: experiential target

عبقريات التزوير التى اختص بها الله خلقه المشوهين روحيا فى وزارة الداخلية المصرية

(Rigging elections is the art of the spiritually distorted people who are personnel in the security forces of the interior ministry.) (Qandīl, 2006: 659)

The coinage of the term المشوهين روحيا ʼalmušawwahīn rūḥiyyan shows that the souls and spirits of those who work at the security apparatus and are members of the police force, especially those who are involved in rigging elections or suppressing protesters or torturing the prisoners, are those people who have maimed and distorted spirits and souls. This is the fourth element of SMUT uptake and its subcategory the experiential target; what is satirized is the rigging process of the elections and the persons who perform this act of rigging whom he called المشوهين روحيا .

4.3.3.المحسود على صحته وشبابه

ʼalmaḥsūd ʻalā ṣiḥatihi wa šabābihī Uptake: Personal Target

فتقارير محكمة النقض أم المحاكم المصرية انتهت إلى بطلان اجراءات التصويت والفرز فى عشرات الدوائر،وبينها دائرة المحسود على صحته وشبابه كمال الشاذلى

(Qandīl, 2006:660)

(The reports of cassation court, the mother of all Egyptian courts, ended up rescinding the voting and counting procedures of ten constituencies including that of Kamāl ʼel šāzli who is envied for his health and youth.)

The term المحسود على صحته وشبابه كمال الشاذلى ʼalmaḥsūd ʻalā ṣiḥatihi wa šabābihī is a humorous term which shows that Kamāl ʼel šāzli, who is a prominent member of the ruling party, is a person with a well-built physique; the writer satirizes the fraudulent elections and satirizes ʼel šāzli physically for he is known to be the main instigator behind rigging the elections, especially in his constituency; the writer humorously says that he looks as if he is in the prime of his youth and in a very powerful and good shape.

4.3.4 حليقة العقول ḥalīqat alʻuqūl Uptake: experiential Target

جرى احتجازنا فى زنزانة بالشارع ....سور حديدى دائرى من عربة أمن وثيران بشرية حليقة العقول

(Qandīl, 2006:734)

(We have been detained in a cell in the street….a circular iron-made fence formed by a security truck and some security personnel who are hare-brained and do not use their brains.)

The coinage of the adjective حليقة العقول ḥalīqat ʼalʻuqūl, which is derived originally from the term of حليقة الروؤس ḥalīqat ʼalruʼūs, is humorously indicative of the fact that those police officers do not use their brains. This is a satirical reference for the security police forces and the police officers who are the tools of suppression for the callers of freedom and rights in the hands of the government; they follow the commands and instructions of their senior officers and their commanders absentmindedly; they do not even thrash out these orders and commands which mean sometimes beating, intimidating, torturing and arresting people who have all the rights to stage a sit-in or a demonstration. We were imprisoned in a cell in the street with a circular iron fence formed by the police truck and bull-like men who do not use their brains.This is again a representation of the fourth element of SMUT and its subcategory, the experiential target.

4.3.5.الحرام الدستورى ʼalḥarām ʼaddustūrī, Uptake: experiential target

والأمة كلها تعيش كلها فى الحرام الدستورى

(The entire nation experiences acts, decrees and lines of conduct from the ruling clique that are not characterized by nothing but unconstitutionality.)

The collocation الحرام الدستورى ʼalḥarām ʼaddustūrī is new and repeated in the satirical writings of Qandīl which show that all the acts and decrees and lines of policies which the ruling party and the government follow are unconstitutional and illegal.

4.3.6.عجائب الدنيا السياسية السبع ʻajāʼib ʼaddunyā ʼassiyasiyya ʼassabʻ

فلا هى حزب يطلب ترخيصا من لجنة الأحزاب التى هى إحدى عجائب الدنيا السياسية السبع فى مصر

(Qandīl, 2006:697)

‘’The party committee for issuing the licence of formation of parties is one of the seven wonders of political life in Egypt.”

The parties committee which gives licence for the formation or authorization of parties; this committee is عجائب الدنيا السياسية السبع, one of the seven wonders of political life; the collocation of the seven wonders with political life is an intensification of the unusual nature of this committee.

4.4. Blending :

Uptake: Textual Target spotlights the linguistic code itself as its principal object of attack. In other words, this last form of satire appears to turn discourse inwardly upon itself and to this extent is best considered as meta-discourse.

وبوش وشارون ليسا سوى رأسين أو رئيسين لأفعى واحدة هى "إسرائيكا"

(Qandīl, 2006, 505)

“Bush and Sharon are not but two tops and heads for a single snake which is "إسرائيكا". ʼisrāʼīkā is a blending word for the two names of the two famous countries, America and Israel, the first part of the word ʼisrā and the second part of the word of Americaʼīkā. The employment of this blended item is an indicator of the fact that the two countries are one entity and they have common interests and shared goals; they are both united in their evil intentions. The two halves of the name; the first part of the name of Israel ʼisrā and the second half of the name of America ʼīkā is formed together to have this humorous blending of إسرائيكا ʼisrāʼīkā.

4.5. New Derivation: New Derivatives

Morphological and lexico-semantic process is underway and a tool that is employed abundantly by Qandīl, the satirist, in order to drive his message home to his readership, he resorts to these techniques to whet the satirical appetite of the readers; after a set of stereotypical acts and moves of Mubarak which were mere routine activities and just cosmetic overhaul of the rotten malpractices of the incumbent regime. He writes commenting sharply on this coining of a new derivative modifier:

وهذه من المحفوظات الفسادية التى حلت محل الأناشيد الوطنية

(Qandīl, 2006:112)

(These are corrupt records;The records of corruption replace the national anthems.)

The satirist, Qandīl, proved to be very artful in his employment of the new derivative forms, especially the adjective forms derived from noun forms with the addition of the ية iya such as الفساد ʼelfasād, corruption, الفسادية ʼelfasādiya, corruptive, النفاقʼelnifāq, hypocrisy, النفاقيةʼelnifāqiya, hypocritical, الباز ʼelbāz البازيةʼelbāziya. Qandīl is also clever at the formation of the new derivative form with the addition of the ى ī to the noun forms such استيطان ʼistīṭān, occupation, ʼistīṭānī, occupational,الإغتصاب,ʼeliġtiṣāb,usurpation, ʼeliġtiṣābī,usurpational,صفر ṣifr, zero, صفرىṣifrī, zero point.

And the new derivative taken from the word إسرائيل ʼisrāʼīl into الأسرلة ʼalʼasrala and from أمريكا into الأمركة ʼalʼamraka which shows that these groups have affiliation, belonging and loyalty to the American and Israeli lobbies. These new derivatives are intensifiers in the sense that they reinforce the meaning of these items through these newly formed and unfamiliar-sounding attributes. He was also satirizing the journalists who are currying favour to the ruling family and regime, leading among them, he believes, is ʼAnīs Manṣūr; he invented a new adjectival coinage from the word النفاق ʼannifāq, hypocrisy, النفاقية , ʼannifāqiyya, hypocritical, to describe ʼAnīs.

وقد أتيحت له بفضل مواهبة النفاقية ، رئاسة تحرير عدد من صحف ومجلات

(Qandīl, 2006:122)

(Thanks to his hypocritical talents he became the editor of chief of several papers and magazines.)

This is again a type of satire that is subsumed under the fourth element, the uptake and its fourth subcategory, the textual target which revolves round the text and about the text and the language and the newly-coined words are enough reflection of the satirical nature of the text.

4.6. Poetic register

الفعل أصدق إنباء من الكتب

(Qandīl, 2006:144)

(The act is more effective than books.)

Qandīl is quoting a verse from Arabic poetry. This is originally a poetic verse which is quoted to show that acts speak louder than words. And this poetic reference has an impact on the cultural denotations it carries, for acts speak louder than words. This statement highlights the fact that the ruling clique should practise what it preaches rather than giving hollow promises of reform, recovery of economy and rise of living standards and then ends up doing nothing.

4.7. Religious register

وما أنت بمسمع من فى القبور

(Qandīl, 2006, 147)

(The speech is directed to the prophet that he will not make those lying in graves hear).

This Quranic verse is quoted to show that these pleas for change and cries for setting things right vanish into thin air, and it is like building castles in the air.

4.8.Allusion

وفيها معنى زواج عتريس الباطل من فؤادة التى هى أمى وأمك ومصرى مصرك

(Qandīl, 2006:659)

(This has the reference to the illegal marriage of ʻatrīs to Foʼ āda who stands for my mother and your mother, my Egypt and your Egypt.) (Qandīl, 2006:659)

The marriage of ʻatrīs from Foʼ āda is illegal; this is a historical intertextual reference to a famous film in the Egyptian cinema which highlights the fact that the marriage of ʻatrīs from Foʼāda is illegal, which is a symbolic reference to this communion between Mubarak family and the rule of Egypt where ʻatrīs stands for Mubarak family and Foʼāda is my Egypt and yours.This is a reflection of the second element of satire which centers upon three main subcategories: the set-up stage and the incongruity stage and the resolution stage.

The set up stage lies in the image of marriage of these two cinematic figures whose marriage is known to be null and void. The incongruity lies in the fact that this image has nothing to do with the satirical discourse dominant in Qandīl’s writings and is irrelevant to the verbal attack on Mubarak’s family; however, Qandīl soon explains the tie-up and the harmony between these two images; that this is the intermarriage between Mubarak‘s family and the state of Egypt and this intermarriage is null and void much the same way like that of ʻatrīs and Foʼāda.

4.9.Colloquialism

والمشهد كله كراكيب وتشاطيب

(Qandīl, 2006: 495)

(The whole scene of the Egyptian politics and fait accompli is كراكيب وتشاطيب karākīb wa tašāṭīb, scribblings and scrawlings.)

The Egyptian political picture is described with scribblings and scrawlings and piled up heaps of junk things.

اللت والعجن ʼallat wa alʻagn is another colloquialism.

What is taking place in the Egyptian political arena is much gossip and many rumours. The talk of the politicians is nothing but insignificant stuff, which carries no weight and does not achieve any progress nor realize headway.

تنتظر يوم الحساب فى جرائم تجريف وتكويش على الثروة

(Qandīl, 2006: 731)

(They wait the Day of Judgement to be taken for account for the crimes of accumulation and piling up of money.)

The noun تكويش takwīš is a colloquial term which means accumulation of wealth and piling up of money by the coterie of Mubarak who siphon off the resources of the country by graft.

4.10. Irony

4.10.1. (ولا نعرف هل هى جمهورية أم ملكية أم مهلبية؟اقرأوا الفاتحة)

(We do not know whether Egypt is republic or royal or a hotch-potch of these ruling regimes.)

Rhetorically, Qandīl wonders whether this country is republic or royal or a mumbo-jumbo of political systems that are dictated by personal interests. Hence, Qandīl, gloomily though sarcastically, announces the death of such a state when he asks the readers to read the opening chapter of the Qur’ān which is recited, in the Egyptian traditions, to announce the mortality and the decadence of such a country because of the illicit line of conduct of its top officials and the malpractices of the ruling regime.

4.10.2.بيع الترام لهيئة التأمينات إلى حد بات يهدد بوقف صرف المعاشات فى مدى منظور

(Qandīl, 2006:439)

(The insurance and pension organization has witnessed malpractices: such as theft, negligence and public looting to the extent that pensions will not be cashed by pensioners soon.)

بيع الترام bayʻ ʼattrām is a colloquial idiom which means deception, and it is deeply rooted in the Egyptian culture; this term is employed when someone deceives another; and it literally means that the Cairo government-owned and state-run tram has been sold in a deal to a simpleton who buys something which is not originally for sale.This expression unveils the graft the government top figures practise in seizing the resources of such institutions like the insurance.

4.10.3.دولة سوزان dawlit suzān (Qandīl: 767) The state of Susanne

This is to engender irony for it is a commonplace practice that when this woman is pulling all the strings of the current affairs, things are named after her, for she is domineering and engineering all the domestic and local policies of the government and is responsible for the appointment of ministers and prime ministers. She was the mastermind of the scheme of handing power from father over to son. However, this naming carries the sense of humiliation and denigration for men who are overpowered and thrown into backroom politics by the iron woman.

5.Conclusion

Qandīl is a revolutionary figure in the world of satire in Egypt; he is the first vocalic satirist to the regime in this overt way. His articles are biting criticism to the personality of the president and his family members in pointblank terms; this is unprecedented in Egypt’s modern history which followed the legacy of the Pharaohs maintaining the belief that the president is an idol that can not be subject to criticism; he is faultless and above all godlike. Hence, criticism of the president and his policies to be voiced in public is prevented. In addition, acquiescence to pharaohs in the past; long years of current secret police service and threats of intimidation and torture to the public in the state prisons, made the public all the more desisting from denunciation and outcries of their rulers’ polices. This culture deepened people’s fear of saying anything against the president that might denigrate him, and this cultivated in people’s hearts fright and silence for long years. This is why the satire of Qandīl was against the norm, it broke the rule and set the process of satire in motion and freed the muzzled mouths of people.

Words of Qandīl were bombshells and sent shiver down the spine of the ruling regime, so much so that they kidnapped him and exposed him to harassment, insults and name calling at the hands of the state security men who threw him eventually in the desert of Moqaṭṭam after a volley of threats of another round of harassment if he repeated his satirical articles against the president. Qandīl proved to be not only an initiator of this trend of unflinching articles against presidents, but he turned out to be a creative maker and user of language and a creator of new expressions and words.

Qandīl was the instigator of other depressed Egyptians to voice their anger and give expression to their troubles; he was the coordinator of Kefāya, a political movement which has the courage to say the following to Mubarak: you have three terms of office and this is enough. Qandīl was the Saint of the 25 Jan revolution, as revolutionaries like to call him; for his writings prior to the revolution was a precursor of the revolt and an instigation of the public to translate their words of protests into acts and to take to streets to make their voices heard by all people. It was these words that ignited the spark of the revolution. Had it not been for the satiric writings of Qandīl, people would not have had the courage to say the following in public: down with Mubarak.

Qandīl’s satirical bombshells paved the way for other forces to join in. Qandīl satirized every corruptive facet of the society; he laid bare all the ills of the regime and brought their graft and ill-gotten gains to limelight; he never flinched to call a spade a spade despite all the threats and attempts to dismiss him from his jobs, Qandīl had the resolve to carry on with his lofty task which ended up with the downfall of the entire regime. The ire of the public was tremendous when Mubarak made an inkling to the fact that he might transfer power to his son. Qandīl’s movement and satiric writings caused the foiling of this attempt which could have come to fruition but for the efforts of those fighters for freedom. The words of Qandīl echoed in the hearts of the Egyptians who responded unhesitatingly to change the gloomy picture of the Egyptian politics into a brighter one with more democracy and transparency in the offing.

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Appendix 1

Symbols Used in Phonemic Transcription

ء	ʼ	ذ	ḏ	ظ	ẓ
ب	b	ر	r	ع	ʻ
ت	t	ز	z	غ	ġ
ث	ṯ	س	s	ف	f
ج	j	ش	š	ق	q
ح	ḥ	ص	ṣ	ك	k
خ	ḵ	ض	ḍ	ل	L
د	d	ط	ṭ	م	M
Long vowels	ā	Ī	ū	ن	N
				ه	H
short vowels	a	I	u	و	W
				ي	Y

الهجاء السياسى فى مصر خلال العشر سنوات الماضية من منظــور لغــوى

د/ هشــــام حســن(*)

يتناول البحث ظاهرة الهجاء السياسى: التعريف بها ودوافعها ، وعلاقة الهجاء السياسى بالصحافة، ويتتبع ظاهرة الهجاء فى العالم العربى، ويعتمد البحث نظرية سمبسون الفريدة (2003) فى الهجاء والذى يضع فيها نموذجا لتحليل الخطاب الهجائى والذى يشتمل فى الأساس على ثلاثة أطراف صاحب الهجاء والمهجو فى حقه والجمهور المستقبل للهجاء، وهذه الأطراف الثلاثة تتمثل فى بحثنا فى عبد الحليم قنديل، صاحب الهجاء، وهو رئيس تحرير صوت الأمة، والمهجو فيه وهو مبارك رئيس مصر وعائلته الحاكمة ولداه وزوجه، والجمهور المستقبل للهجاء قراء الصحف من المصريين ، وقد عمد قنديل إلى سلسلة من المقالات الهجائية له ضد الأسرة الحاكمة خلال العقد الأخير من القرن العشرين فجمعها بين دفتى كتاب سماه "ضد الرئيس" , وقد اتخذ الباحث من بعض مقالات هذه الكتاب مادة للبحث والتحليل ، وطبق عليها نظرية سمبسون فى التحليل الهجائى.

وتتكون نظرية سمبسون من أربعة أركان: خلفية مشهد الهجاء ، ووسيلة الهجاء ، واستقبال واستيعاب الجمهور للهجاء، والهدف المهجو فى حقه هل هو شخص أم حدث أم أوضاع ، أم هجاء لنص ما.وبالبحث والتدقيق اللغوى فى أسلوب قنديل الهجائى تبين أنه يستخدم الطرائق اللغوية الآتية فى الهجاء:

(*) أستاذ مساعد لغويات بقسم اللغة الإنجليزية - كلية الآداب - جامعة بنها .

1- التعديل الصوتى لبعض الحروف لقصد السخرية مثل صندوق النكد الدولى.

2- ابتكار كلمات جديدة مثل أحزاب الأنابيب وهى الأحزاب الهامشية، و المديونيرات وهى طبقة المديونين الذى أصبحوا بقدرة قادر مليونيرات.

3- ابتكار مصاحبات لغوية جديدة مثل كمال الشاذلى الممتلئ ديمقراطيا، و قوات الأمن والضباط حليقة العقول والمشوهين روحيا.

4- المزج اللغوى المبتكر بين كلمتين مثل إسرائيكا من إسرائيل وأمريكا.

5- الاشتقاقات اللغوية المستحدثة مثل الفسادية والنفاقية.

6- استخدام ألفاظ وتراكيب دينية وشعرية مع التعديل الطفيف مثل " الفعل أصدق إنباء من الكتب".

7- الإشارة الثقافية إلى بعض المواقف المعروفة مثل زواج عتريس الباطل من فؤادة.

8- ألفاظ عامية فى سياق فصيح مثل اللت والعجن.

9- السخرية مثل جمهورية أم ملكية أم مهلبية ودولة سوزان.

ثم تأتى الخاتمة والتى توضح أن قنديل كان قديس ثورة 25 يناير لأنه هو الذى أشعل فتيلها بهذه المقالات النارية والتى تعرض بسببها للفصل والاعتقال والاعتداء البدنى عليه .

إلا أن هذا كله لم يفت فى عضد قنديل والذى حمل مشعل الثورة حتى صارت واقعا ملموسا بفضل صدعه بالحق، وهو الأمر الذى يعكس خطورة الهجاء فى حدوث التغيير فى المجتمع .

(*) Associate Professor of Linguistics, English Department, Faculty of Arts, Banha University.