Girls and boys being disorderly together – doing the Harlem Shake in Tunisia and Egypt

4 March 2013. A World to Win News Service. The electro-dance Harlem Shake may mean different things to different people, but in Tunisia and Egypt it has become a fun, daring and sometimes dangerous challenge to the social and moral order. For a few days at the end of February youth from throughout Tunisian society took to performing this dance, sometimes secretly and in small groups, sometimes in large crowds, and posting the videos on YouTube and other social networks. Shaking their bodies and heads madly, exuberantly thrusting their arms and legs and generally going wild to the same tune as millions of their peers around the globe, they wear everything imaginable: big brightly-coloured wigs, all kinds of masks (including the Occupy/Guy Fawkes face), mock full Islamic coverings or only their underwear. Sometimes the movements are sexual, sometimes not, but usually there are boys and girls dancing together. Tunisian flags fly alongside strings of balloons, feathers and more outrageous decorations. The venues are varied: elite arts and humanities schools, universities where Islamists and students clash regularly, secondary schools in housing estates (projects), football fields, the capital's main shopping mall, other coastal cities, and the streets of Sidi Bouzid, the impoverished town in the interior where the Arab Spring began. The original dance was invented by a Harlem man nicknamed Al B. and a new version went viral on Youtube in February. People all over the world have filmed themselves doing the Shake and posted the videos online. Islamists hate it and label it offensive to their religious beliefs involving the obligatory covering of the body and separation of the sexes. This is not how they think women should act. They also condemn the Shake as a "dance for Western criminals", presumably referring to the residents of the New York ghetto known worldwide as a symbol of Black culture. The dance's enemies include not just the self-proclaimed Salafist Islamists but also the "mainstream" Islamists of the governing Ennahda party and "secular liberals" such as Tunisia's minister of education. He is a member of the Ettakarol party whose presence in the government (and holding of the presidency) supposedly guarantees people's rights not to be forced to live according to religious dictates. The police have attacked and arrested people for publicly dancing the Shake. After dozens of school videos were posted in the space of a few days, the minister ordered an investigation, with the implication that people would be punished. More than 9,000 would-be dancers signed up for a mass solidarity Shake the next day, but the actual turnout was small. At least some non-Islamist media outlets expressed relief that youth had not pushed harder on the kind of issue – is it OK for girls and boys to have fun together? – many self-described secularists would rather avoid. They fear the very polarization that the Islamists seek, especially in the run-up to elections. In Sidi Bouzid a small group of students put up a clip of themselves doing the Shake in an indoor location (maybe a school boys bathroom) and all wearing masks. When the authorities at the secondary school forbid them from holding a big public performance with boys and girls together, the kids went out into the street and danced there. (Search Harlem Shake Sidi Bouzid on Youtube.) They were attacked by Islamists. The next day the attackers returned, driving the dancers back inside the school. The police, who like the Islamists were targeted by violent protests last December, did not intervene. The Shake quickly spread to Cairo. There, too, it became an act of defiance to the Islamization of society that even the liberals are going along with, as did the supposedly secular Ben Ali and Mubarak regimes that youth and other people brought down two years ago. It started with the posting of a video of Egyptians doing the Shake in front of the national symbol, the Giza pyramid. Police announced the arrest of four Cairo students for dancing in their underwear. About 70 people gathered in front of the headquarters of the Islamic Brotherhood, which now runs the government. Last December protesters tried to burn down the building, and the riot police came out to protect it. This time youth danced and chanted "Down with the guide", referring to the Brotherhood's leader. Some were disguised as Brotherhood members, others as Mickey Mouse.