How to become a political activist in Egypt

Now even YOU can become an activist by following these quick and easy steps!

• Features

| Written by EKT Team

Thu, 05/19/2011 - 18:37

After conducting extensive research and interviewing some 20 million active activists in Cairo alone, EKT can now finally publish this invaluable guide that will help anyone, including accountants, jumpstart their activist career.

Step one

Get a Twitter account. Give yourself a maverick username, ideally something with that includes the word “rebel”, “revolt”, “radical” or “rabies”. The world “monkey” also seems to work. (See suggestions below).

Begin tweeting. Send tweets that express outrage at any remotely political decision or event. It doesn’t matter what you direct your outrage at so long as you start your tweet with the hashtag “#WTF???” or end it with the more local “#A7A!”

Ideally, use both these hashtags with every tweet as this will make it clear to your follower(s) that you are very serious and concerned, even if you are only protesting against the fact that your horoscope said you wouldn’t get laid this month.

In fact, many an activist began their career by simply tweeting: “#WTF?!?! I forgot my keys in the car again! #A7A #DownWithTheNezam”

More generally, drop the f*** bomb a lot. You’re angry, remember?

Final note about tweets: Complain about the appointment of any person to any political position, no matter how good you think they might be. Don’t worry, they are bound to mess up at least once soon enough, at which point you can then you tweet: “#WTF! Told you so ya guys! #A7A #ImSoRight!” This has proven to be one of the most direct ways of gaining credibility among activists.

Step two

Create a Facebook page for a fake person and claim that they have been “detained” by the police and implore your Twitter followers to “like” the page. Presuming you named this fake person, say, “Ahmed Abdo,” you now have to start ceaselessly sending tweets that say nothing but #FreeAhmedAbdo #FreeAhmedAbdo #FreeAhmedAbdo. These types of tweets, aside from effective, really convey the activist in you. 

Step three

This one is a simple one: Never be seen anywhere without a Palestinian scarf around your neck. Make up some story about it – e.g. Maybe Yasser Arafat  blew his nose in it before dying, or perhaps you used it to strangle an Israeli commando at some point in the past.

Step four

Quit your day job. Day jobs are only for capitalist losers.

If you don’t have the cojones to quit, then tweet about how your boss is a capitalist, anti-revolutionary bitch. That should at least get you fired.

Having wealthy, capitalist parents helps at this point.

Step five

Fabricate a poor quality torture video and post dozens of links to it on the social networks.  Claim you videotaped it using a mobile phone which you hid, say, in your breast pocket or anal cavity. Lay some ketchup on the bathroom floor and film it for a few seconds while you violently shake the camera and make noises. Then just black out the lens and take a really loud dump while screaming from time to time. Done.

Example:

Done.

Step six

Once you have amassed a sufficient number of followers, all you need to do now is get arrested by the police. Ideally you want to get beaten up, but not so much that you look ugly after it – attractive activists get way more media publicity.

You also don’t want to spend too much time in jail – anywhere between 3 and 14 days is ideal. Any more than that and you will be forgotten, any less and it won’t be considered a “real” prison experience.

The easiest way to achieve this jail term is to attend a violent demonstration or  engage in public masturbation on a main road. However, this latter option remains largely untested.

(Alternatively, just disappear for a few days and when you “reappear” on Twitter you can claim you were in jail. Works like a charm.)

Step seven

Once out of jail, if you don’t already have a blog, you need to start one. Recount your experiences there and complain about how you had to poo in really nasty toilets, but also make jokes about it so that you appear brave and easygoing. Crying on TV at this point can also really help with your credentials.

And that’s it! You are now an officially recognized activist. Congratulations!

 

Suggestions for powerful Twitter usernames for budding political activists:

@Egyptianator
@TearGasLover
@AuthoritySlayer
@Egy-rebel2.0
@Hosni’sPimp
@VforVagina (good for feminist activists)
@RadicalGangsta
@FUCKTHIS!
@NezamDestroyer
@WankingWarrior666