Supporters of Egypt's army chief, Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is expected to run for the presidency in the upcoming election, hold military boots on their heads in a sign of support for military rule. Mahmud Khaled/AFP/Getty Images

Last month at a rally for Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo, children could be seen throughout the crowd balancing boots on their heads for the cameras. This is the latest visual metaphor in the streets of Egypt and Syria: the jackboot. The message: total submission to the new military regime.

In Syria supporters of President Bashar al-Assad announce their loyalty to the government using the same symbol with a floral twist. A monumental pro-regime jackboot statue in the devastated city of Homs is filled with huge colorful blooms, while the most frenzied pro-regime Syrians favor putting real military boots full of flowers on their heads, sometimes even kissing the boots.

In the fast-moving semiotic arena of the last three years of upheaval in the Arab world, this is one of many iconic images that have emerged in the lexicon of the Arab street for the attention-deficient global press — Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, which sparked the uprisings; the “Dégage!” (Get out!) slogan that forced Zine el Abidine Ben Ali from Tunisia; the tweets and video clips of the long-gone Egyptian revolution of #Jan25. Three years on, these powerful symbols of popular resistance to authoritarianism are spent, and the disturbing kitsch of fascism has taken their place.

A verbal corollary is the “terrorist” label. The Palestinians have fought for decades against the demonizing label used indiscriminately by the U.S. and Israel, but now Middle Eastern governments have seized on “terrorist” with gusto to dehumanize and make scapegoats of their domestic opponents. The Assad regime staved off effective international action for its massive crimes against humanity by portraying its civil opposition as a monolith of terrorism. In Egypt the anti–Muslim Brotherhood witch hunt purports to ascribe all the evils of a deeply flawed system to this “terrorist” minority.