Of martyrs and men : a comparative psychosocial analysis of the murders of George Floyd and Khaled Said as turning points for widespread social movements

Abstract

The 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests were two recent watershed moments of the power of social movements. Both movements were born out of acts of state sanctioned violence with the deaths and subsequent martyrdom of Khaled Said in Egypt and George Floyd in the US. These deaths arguably served as the turning points for mass mobilization within their respective contexts due to the trauma which had been afflicted upon these populations over the years. This paper will examine the similarities and differences between these two movements, examine the role of trauma in fueling these movements and examine whether the deaths of these two men were indeed the turning points for mass mobilization in these movements. By analyzing and comparing these two cases which had not previously been linked together, the goal of this research is to inform the analysis of future social movements, potentially predict their outbreak and contribute to the field of conflict analysis and resolution.