The City of al-Zaman al-Gamîl: (A)political Nostalgia and the Imaginaries of an Ideal Nation

This article examines online communities dedicated to remembering Egypt’s
“good old days” (al-zaman al-gamîl). It focuses on communities that frame
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through historical or political periodization. Based on forty-eight months of
observation of Facebook communities centered around this discourse and analysis of descriptions of this “better past” provided by thirty-two of its members,
the article presents some of the features of this nostalgia for an ideal nation, city,
and citizen of the past. It argues that this nostalgic discourse is primarily a
means of negotiating ideal social imaginaries that correspond to the ideals of
the Egyptian conservative middle-class rather than merely a form of escapism
or resistance to the bleak neoliberal authoritarian present. It investigates some
of the moral and aesthetic values that shape these ideal social imaginaries by
outlining the features of what they describe as a “stable society” and the roles
of the state in maintaining and restoring this imaginary of the “good life.” As
such, the article contributes to broader discussions on how imaginaries of the
nation are articulated through nostalgic discourses on social media.