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Testimonials to the changing
landscapes of short-form writing
in the contemporary Middle East
April, 2011
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Shahadatis a quarterly online series designed to provide a platform for experimentation and promotionof short-form writing on the web, Shahadat features stories, vignettes, reections, and chronicles
written by young or underexposed writers from the Middle East and North Africa onArteEast Online
in translation and the original language of Arabic, Farsi, or Turkish.
ArteEast is a leading international arts organization presenting work by contemporary artists from the
Middle East, North Africa, and their Diaspora. Founded in 2003 as a New York based not-for-prot
organization, ArteEast supports and promotes artists by raising awareness of their most signicant
and groundbreaking work and by bringing this work to the widest possible audience. We do this
through public events, art exhibitions, lm screenings, international touring programs, a dynamic
virtual gallery, and a resource-rich website. Partnering with some of the most prestigious cultural
institutions around the world--such as The Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the Sharjah
Art Foundation--ArteEasts lm, visual arts, and literary programs reach thousands of new audiences
each year.
The organization is committed to bringing the highest quality and form of artistic content on multiple
platforms. Our innovative use of technology and partnerships to present programs that are highly
mobile, rather than bound to a particular physical space, make us one of the most nimble, cutting-edge
art organizations today. ArteEast is also consistently providing relevant context so that audiences can
fully appreciate the work that is being presented. www.arteeast.org.
The photographs reproduced in this issue are held under Creative Commons license or the rights
were expressly granted for the purposes of publication here by the photographer. Photographers are
credited for each photo, along with the date taken, if available. Dates, when printed, were provided
by photographers. All dates 2011. Links toFlickr streams and other online material are available in
contributor bios located on page 34. All commentary and translations are original.
April, 2011. New York, New York.
One people, one plight. Photo: Sarah Carr, January 7.
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Signs of the TimesThe Popular Literature of Tahrir
Protest Signs, Graffiti, & Street Art
Curated by Rayya El Zein & Alex Ortiz
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In the bitter doldrums of early February, Id relish
the commutes that spit me out in Harlem with
time to spare. Savoring the extra minutes before
having to momentarily put Egypt from my mind,Id tap my way to the live Al Jazeera stream from
Cairo and cradle the increasingly familiar, grainy
image of Tahrir Square in one palm. Leaning up
against frozen banisters on icy sidewalks, February
sported a less brutal cold than usual. Dare I say
it? Pictures, feeds, and video of Egyptian protesters
somehow warmed gloveless ngers. The nomadic
nature of the teach and work schedule of a graduate
fellow t the structures of changing media and a
smart phone ensured I could have the Revolution
with me, wherever I was. But evolving forms of
journalism and the specic culture of Cairos Tahrir
Square also ensured that the primary medium of the
information I would receive would be visual. Indeed,
the palm-sized screen not only relays information; it
often relays information visually. Following political
developments in Egypt became, specically,
watching them.
It should be obvious that the fact that I and
thousands of others watched and followed EgyptsRevolution on computer and mobile screens does
not imply that the abdication of Mubarak was a
moment that owes its legacy to social media or
the Internet. However, the activity of watching this
political and social movement was directly related to
the unique and specic culture of resistance that it
embodied. The effectof the January 25 February
11 Revolution (the symbolic success of removing
Mubarak from power and the encouragement of
political mobilization in half a dozen other countriesin the region) and its affect (the resurgence of a
communal rejection of fear and the embrace of
a collective hope for a more dignied future) are
almost as indiscernible from each other as the
terms themselves.
Assessing the framework of how the Revolution
was watched becomes more grounded when we
consider that both protesters and Mubarak seem
to have been keenly aware of the potent politics
of being seen. The regimes constant and bruta
crackdowns on journalists and their equipmentreect an anxiety about the infectious power of
specically seeing resistance. And Tahrir protesters
were constantly aware of the potential and the
danger of being seen or remaining hidden. At
night, panicked voices described what they feared
others couldnt or wouldnt see. And in daylight
an outward, visual embodiment of resistance, a
performance of deance, was made apparent
in cultural activity. When we -- abroad and in
Egypt -- watched Tahrir as its peaceful occupation
progressed, we were increasingly watching a
particular culture of resistance.
Tahrir protesters expressed this culture in a variety
of ways. Protesters held signs declaring identity
and resistance that display an exponential capacity
to riff, elaborate on, and embellish the basic
articulation of political demands. They gathered
in the millions, sustaining each other with song,
comedy, murals, and memorials. In these creative
gestures, Egyptian protesters invited others towatch them and implicitly, to join them. Creative
output actualized the political revolution.
Fear is a cultural product. Pride is a cultural product
Humor is another. Which is not to say that any o
these three are caused by culture, rather, that they are
given specicity by collectively expressed behavior
Neither fear nor pride exists in lived situations
except as enacted by human bodies. Fear is not
a political tool unless someone is afraid that is tosay, unless people, subconsciously or consciously
perform fear by cowering, staying silent, or actively
or passively encouraging peers to do so. Likewise
but inversely, as more than a decades worth of the
work of activists and agitators in Egypt can attest to
Revolution does not happen unless it is enacted
unless people physically embody resistance
by taking to the streets, unless they buoy each
others courage with humor and music, unless they
From the Curators:
Watching a Revolution
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of as somehow less serious than straight politica
activity, are nevertheless the outward realization of
resistance, the very embodiment of Revolution.
We have proposed in these pages a site-specic
examination of a spike in one kind of cultura
production, specically literary and visual, in Egyptin Cairo, mostly in Tahrir Square from January
25 through February 11, 2011. While the media
gorges itself at break-neck speed on one after
another breaking story, we look back to examine
the effect of affect, or the seduction of a specic
kind of Revolutionary energy as it was expressed
through protest signs and grafti in Tahrir. Fo
weeks, Egyptian protesters gripped the attention
of political and apolitical people around the world
but caught politicians off guard. And for the rstime in a generation, from Beirut to Madison, we are
beginning to see apathy abate. Whatever the actua
political reality of uprooting Mubaraks regime
watching Egypts Revolution has already done
something. To be a spectator, we are all the more
convinced, is anything but a passive enterprise.
~Rayya El Zein, New York City
outwardly perform resistance for themselves and
for others. Indeed, thats what, in one sense of the
word, Revolution is. The slow, lasting change of
political systems is only sometimes related.
That the ideas and emotions surrounding the
Egyptian Revolution seemed to be contagiousshould not imply that one event caused another. The
Egyptian protester holding a sign that said Thanks
Tunis did not imply that the self-immolation of a
Tunisian fruit-vendor convinced Mubarak to step
down. Rather, what that sign acknowledges is an
exchange of cultural attitudes surrounding political
activity and engagement.
This exchange is continuing to spark, grow, and
evolve across the Middle East and it owes aconsiderable growth in momentum to the visibility
of the culture of resistance in Tahrir Square in late
January and early February. The eagerness that
protesters in Cairo displayed to communicate
visually to and with each other created a massive
creative cultural output, one that very much
deserves the careful attention of cultural critics,
poets, and visual artists alike. Creative activities
like grafti and poetry, which may still be thought
My name is Khaled Said. This refers to the young Egyptian man brutally murdered by Egyptian police in June 2010. Pictures of his mutilated body and
his story were behind the Facebook page We Are All Khaled Said that encouraged Egyptians to protest on January 25. Photo: Sarah Carr; February
15.
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The texts and images you see here that came
out of the 18 days of the Egyptian Revolution areemblematic of a kind of popular literature heretofore
unseen in Egypt a vivaciously dynamic, active, and
evolving expression of the hopes, fears, demands,
complaints, anger, and energy of the Egyptian people
in their quest to overthrow a dictator who had ruled
them for 29 years.
There were several signicant challenges faced in
translating such works. Each and every one of these
signs, posters, banners, or street art deserves a morelengthy and detailed explanation than can be given
in the accompanying caption space. This is true for
both the textual content of the images, and perhaps
more importantly, their contexts, temporal and
cultural. For instance, several of the signs presented
here contain subtle but implicit references to television
programs, songs, and other cultural phenomena that
are impossible for the English reader to discern but
are immediately understandable to Egyptians. We
should not be surprised; a new genre of popularliterature inevitably builds off of the shared cultural
heritage of the people composing it. Moreover, each
text is embedded within a particular moment in time,
either acting upon or reacting to the ow of events.
As such, it is important to not only read these texts as
representative of the thoughts and feelings of Egyptian
protesters, but also as a concrete and immediate
political intervention. In addition, the internal rhyme
and rhythm of the Arabic language and in particular
the Egyptian dialect can turn the slogans scrawledand painted across these signs into wordplay, refer
to the long tradition of Arabic poetic meter, or evoke
a somber and sacred line from a holy religious text.
All of these linguistic specicities never quite make it
through into English.
That being said, something about the images you
see now made them immediately understood by
millions around the world as they followed news of
the Egyptian revolution. For example, you didnt
need to know Arabic to eventually pick up on thesignicance of the now-famous chant es-shaab
yoreed isqaat el-nizam. Rather, the signs of revolt
in Egypt became discernible as soon as they were
transmitted globally. In the public expressions of
discontent and uprising that have occurred since
January 25, 2011, people from Benghazi, Libya to
Madison, Wisconsin have composed their own
popular literatures that embrace, draw inspiration
from, and build upon the Egyptian canon. And
in post-Mubarak Egypt, the newborn legacy ofunbridled and creative public expression continues
to play a decisive and galvanizing role in the re-
imagining of a country.
~Alex Ortiz, Cairo
A Note on Translation
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Get out you moron, you blockhead, you oaf! Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
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March to Tahrir Square.
Photo: Ramy Raoof; January 31.
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A gallery of protest signs in Tahrir. Photo: Kodak Agfa, February 10.
Leave Note: Because this word straddles both literary and spokenArabic, we have chosen to render the demand of the protesters for thedeparture of former President Mubarak throughout these pages in itsliteral meaning of Leave. Another possible translation, and one that is
perhaps more applicable when the slogan occurs in speech, would be Geout. Despite the range of registers associated with this word, it representsthe fundamental and unifying demand of the January 25 Revolutionaries.Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 1.
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Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.
The youth will carry you out with their hands. Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
Free people Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 30.
If you love your country, leave and have mercy on your people.Hey Hosni, ying ace, whered you get that 70 billion?Photo: Sarah Carr; February 11.
No to Mubarak
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 29.
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Changing the Narrativeown distinctive cultural imprint
The masses holding prote
signs become distinguishable
groups with particular deant
tones and focused irreverence
These concurrent expression
of awareness and identityaccompany the deance of
breaking curfew to be present
in Tahrir. They locate further
development of a distinct culture
of political resistance.
demands or positions in direct
response to other, presumed
dominant, narratives. Protesters
write over the regimes narrative,
reclaim knowledge, and actively
assert their truths. Rhetoric
in these examples directlychallenges the narratives of state
TV, presumed perceptions of
the international community, or
rewrites Mubaraks personal,
political, and military history. It
is here that much of the protest
energy begins to develop its
The central goal of protest
signs anywhere is to articulate
the demands of the protester
holding it. Protest signs in
Cairo were no exception and
a large percentage of posters,
banners, and grafti articulatethe demands of protesters, from
the most basic: Down with the
Regime to the most specic (see
next page). Particularly notable
this year in Egypt, however,
was the number of examples
of protesters who articulated
The street sign previously reading Street of the
Peoples Assembly now reads The Peoples StreetPhoto: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 9
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A message to Egyptian television: We wont believe your lies, you agents of
the regime!!!!! Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
Left: Leave you (bleep!) son of a (bleeeeeeeeeeeeep!); right: I am Egyptian
til death; Freedom for Egypt Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 3.
Left: The peoples demands: 1) The downfall of the president 2) Dissolution of the
government 3) Dissolution of the parliament and Shoura Council 4) Founding of a board
of trustees 5) Amending the constitution 6) The prosecution of the government and all
its gureheads 7) Freedom and dignity (Signed) the people of Egypt. Right: Muslims,
Christians, we are all Egyptians. We want justice and equality.Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.
Left: No to state security, emergency law, torture Right: We
want dignity not the sustenance of torture Photo: Ramy Raoof;
February 4.
Were not leaving til you leave; where is your dignigity? You sonofa...!
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
Left: Hey ying ace, Your nal mission: Saudi Arabia. Over and out Note
This sign references an old jingoistic slogan that gloried Mubaraks standingas an air force pilot during the October War and refashions it into biting
mockery against Mubarak. Right: No to the burning of institutions, no to
destruction, no to Mubarak Photo: Hossam; el-Hamalawy; January 29
7a
7c
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Our demands: 1) The downfall of the president 2) Dissolution of parliament and Shoura Council
3) The immediate end of Emergency Law 4) The formation of a transitional unity government 5) An elected
parliament to amend the constitution for presidential election procedures 6) The immediate trial of those
responsible for murdering the martyrs of the Revolution 7) Speedy trials of corrupt ofcials and those who
have stolen the nations wealth. (Signed) The protesting youth of Egypt
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 4.
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Note: In Egyptian dialect, the word for bread, aish, is the same word used
in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic to mean life. This sign plays of
of the double-meaning of the word aish for Egyptians. Photo: Jehan Agha.
Photo op with the Pres the tag on the donkey reads Mubarak
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 4.
No dialogue with Mubarak and his accomplices
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.Mubarak is a liar
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 6.
If Mubarak were a monkey hed have more
humanity Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
Hosni, you germ: the peasants of Upper Egypt will
beat you with shoes Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy,
February 11.
I want internet!
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
The people know everything. All of the thugs are
hired by the police and the government.
Photo: Kodak Agfa, January 29.
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Might of the MundaneProtest literature in Cairo wasnot conned to the dry or simple
expression of political goals.
Indeed, the culture of Tahrir Square
was encouraged by a framework
of assurance that increasingly
allowed individuals to deviate from
or embellish the basic framework
of articulating political demands.
Under the huge banner that
shouted in bold, red text LEAVE
(see page 10) individuals were able
to hold smaller pieces that jabbed,
Leave, my arm hurts. Leave,
I miss my wife, etc. This kind of
self-aware humor likely buoyed
participants facing the simple act
of endurance needed to maintain
Tahrir Square. Protest energy thus
fed itself; protest signs that clearly
stated political demands created
a space within which related butless specic creative energy could
ourish.
To suggest that the Revolution
affected the daily life of Egyptians
is an understatement. However,
the way Egyptian protesters
incorporated aspects of basic
living into protest energy is unique
to this movements culture of
resistance. Pots become helmets,
and as the occupation of Tahrir
Square stretched from hours to
weeks with some protesters
sleeping and eating in the Square
the boundaries between public
and private, and between home
and politics become obsolete.
This gathering of images locates
a cultural production that uses
Leave! I miss my wife; married only 21 days
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
quotidian life as a further expressionof political energy. The popular
proliferation we saw in the rst
section becomes personal and
with it came the bold declarations
of the end of fear. The blurring o
political and daily life thus furthers
poetic expressions of identity and
resistance.
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Above: The lovers of the day, with regards from
Facebook underneath: The kids have grown up
Hosni! Note: this latter sign references a 1979 playby Samir al-Asfour. Photo: Sarah Carr; February 9
Left: My new address - Madinaty - Tahrir Square
Note: Madinaty is a planned, gated community on
the northeast outskirts of Cairo. One of a string o
elite gentried housing projects in the greater Cairo
area, it is emblematic of the growing class difference
in Egyptian society. Madinaty (a word meaning my
city) was built on public land bought by an NDP
business tycoon below legal value. Photo: Ramy
Raoof; February 4.
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Have you seen this child? Little Mohammed Hosn
Mubarak (age 86) has gone missing from the
nation. Whoever nds him him please return him
to his family in Jeddah or Tel Aviv
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.
The unborn children in their mothers stomachs
cry out, Get out Mubarak
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.
Sit-in and strike until he leaves.
Photo: Jano Charbel; February 11.
Im a dentist here to extract Mubarak.
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
Leave, my hands starting to hurt Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 8.
I dont know why the Revolution happened! I was
in the bathroom when it started, says the tyrant
Mubarak Photo: Sarah Carr; February 9.
Mubarak, were sorry; Your credit has been depleted (signed) Egypt-Phone.
Note: Egypt-phone is a play on a dominant mobile company in Egypt,
Vodaphone. Photo: Ramy; January 31.
Mom told me not to leave til he does
Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 10.
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Forgive me, Lord, for I was afraid and silent Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
Oh, President: Im not afraid to die. Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 7.
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Protesters found still other ways of
building upon the basic structure
of articulating political demands.
Images and drawings became a
colorful way to embellish political
positions and further satire and
commentary. The presence of visual
imagery may seem to be the most
obvious entry to arguing that protest
material becomes art, as grafti
artists and illustrators use their skills
to literally bring color to the grays
of political life. But the intersection
between visual urban culture and
literature is an especially rich site for
examining the exchange not only
between politics and aesthetics but
between different kinds of cultural
production. The short-form literature
developed and articulated in and on
Tahrir Square is especially related to
the visual aspects of its production.
The truism about the worth of
images in words is well-known. But
Words & Images
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From left to right: Mubarak speaks Oh, brothers, hitting with shoes is
a sin, the people of Egypt say Well do you like Bush; A palm reader,
she says to Mubarak I see in your future a long journey to Germany;
Goddamn your house to hell, Ahmed Azz.
Photo: Jano Charbel; February 8.
these protest energies prove that
the relationship between the literary
and the visual is anything but linear.
Furthermore, that the equation
between words and images falls
apart when the word itself is an
image is not unique to Egypt or to its
Revolution. Indeed, the appearance
of these intersecting energies in
Tahrir denitively places the cultural
production of Egypts Revolution
at the forefront of contemporary
discussions concerning changing
forms of literature worldwide and the
increasing inter-disciplinary nature
of creative energies, be they primarilymusical, visual, of performance, or
literary. The exchange between
image and word in protest signs
and grafti prove that the cultural
production of Egypts Revolution
is not only decisively aesthetic but
decisively of our contemporary
moment.
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The lessons over, stupid! Note: This is a
reference to a well-known play by Assayed Raddi.
Photo: Ramy Raoof; January 31.
Mubarak: Expiration date January 25, 2011
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 8.
Right: the People; left: the Ruler
Photo: Sarah Carr, February 10.
Left: Leave, leave you who sold the land and the Nile; Right: Check, checkmate Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
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The door says, The National Democratic Prison the brides dress says
Egypt Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 1.
Left: Me; right: Egypt Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 1.
Photo: Gilad Lotan; February 4.
In the trash can of history Photo: Ramy Raoof, January 31.
Left The National Democratic Party to the trashcan of history; Middle
The laughing cow Mooobarak; Right: Peoplebook. Note: In Arabic, this
wordplay on Facebook emphasizes the social rather than social-networking
basis of the Revolution. Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 4.
Photo: Ramy Raoof; January 30.
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The Army must choose: either Egypt or Mubarak Photo: Jehan Agha.Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 3.
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 11.
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1. Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.
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If Egyptian protest energy
displayed an interest in illustrating
political aspirations and positions
through images, a prominent
strain of it again acknowledged
an international viewership byattempting to illustrate demands
through literal translations. Signs
quipped in English, French, Hebrew,
and other languages reect a
range of creative choices. These
energies build upon a trajectory
we have sketched above. The
massive output of protest energy
created space for protesters to
articulate individual, personal
aspects of the revolution as itaffected daily life. A combination of
images and translations now made
those individual perspectives
internationally readable. The
interplay of all these energies
created the specic affective
dynamics of the literature of Tahrir.
Top: Your love is freedom Note: This is the
tle of a famous song by Mohammed Mounir.
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 11.
Middle: Photo: Hossam al-Hamalawy;
February 27.
Bottom: We want our rights
Photo: Hossam al-Hamalawy; February 24.
Translatingthe Revolution
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Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 29.
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Productive Memory The photographs in the pages above are
colored by a certain celebratory energy.
Protesters seem to be almost exultant in their
adamancy. But a rich and complex dialogue
between loss and gain and between past
and future could be seen at the heart of the
expression of Egypts revolutionary culture. Of
course the end of Mubaraks regime is only
the beginning of a revolutionary political process
in Egypt. But even before the huge symbolic
closure that came with the announcement of
his resignation, the culture of the Revolution
was steeped in an invested dialectic between
endings and beginnings. Indeed, an impetus
for mobilizing protest energy on January 25th
may be located in the commemoration of the
murder of the young Khaled Said at the hands
of Egyptian police. Throughout the protests
commemoration of protesters killed and
wounded took on a variety of creative forms
The creativity implemented in commemorating
victims of violence is a key part of the affect o
the Revolution and a productive cross-section
of the literature and visual imagery produced
and displayed in Cairos streets.
The martyrs clothes; below: Why were they killed? Note: The text in the bottom sign is a reference to the Quran. Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
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Left: We wont wash their blood
from our white coats Note: This sign
was written by doctors.
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
Below: From right to left: Oh freedom
where are you? The blood of the
martyrs lies between us; Martyrs
Square; Oh, martyr, rest in peace
we will prosecute the butcher.
Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 10.
Bottom left: No change without
sacrice Photo: Ramy Raoof;
February 1.
Bottom right: No, Im not the hero.
The martyr is the hero. Photo: Sarah
Carr; February 11.
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We demand the prosecution of those responsible for the deaths of these martyrs Note: Each yer contains a different name. Photo: Sarah Carr; February
25.
In memory of the martyrs of the Revolution Photo: Sarah Carr; February11. The martyrs blood isnt cheap Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 8
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Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 8
Photo: Hossam; date
Evolution of a RevolutionOn March 29, 2011,
accompanying an article about
an explosion that killed dozens in
Yemen, Lebanons daily English
paper The Daily Star printed a
photograph of a young man, his
mouth wide open in a scream,
holding his shoes towards thecamera at arms length. On the
soles of both, was writtenirhal-
that succinct repeated slogan of
Arab protesters across the region
since January. As revolutionary
energy spreads, and in the
shadow of NATO airstrikes on
Libya, we are surely witnessing
a channeling, splintering,
and transmogrication of
revolutionary energy. WithinEgypt itself, the protest energy
weve been highlighting in these
pages branched at Coptic,
labor, womens rights, and anti-
corruption demonstrations and
continues to build and expand on
the examples of Tahrir. Across the
region, the military responses of
Muammar Qadda, Ali Abdullah
Saleh, Bachar al-Assad, and the
Saudi-led invasions of Bahrain
have had noticeable effects on
collective protest energy in the
region. Fear as well as resistance
are showing their faces in very
real ways in Bahrain, Libya, and
Syria.
The attention of the international
community to developments on
the ground, and the relationship
between protesters and their
governments in these places
is also changing. Diminished
is the jubilant anticipation of
Tahrir, in Cairo and abroad,
despite it being the focal point
of continued protest energy,despite continued threats to
basic human rights, and despite
the continued dubiousness of
certain claims to power. These
evolutions should remind us
perhaps that while a photograph
may capture a moment, political
and artistic energies dont stand
still.
Reecting on the images
collected above and the
framework weve suggested
here, we are confronted with the
idea of having created an archive
- the impetus of which was
largely the production of feeling
and the already dubious natureof memory and its perspective
Pursuing the question of how
the idea of Egypts Revolution
sparked imaginations across
the region, we have pointed
to aspects that illustrate the
specicity of the literary and
visual cultural production of 18
days in one city-square. We
have not provided a day-to-
day chronology of the January25 through February 11 period
nor have we attempted a
historicization of these protests
and their cultural production
in terms of the protests that
preceded them in Egypt in 2006
2008, and 2010. Critics of this
piece will already have noted
that in pretending to critically
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Either I live in my country in dignity or I die a martyr in the name of my Lord. Photo: Sarah Carr;
March 10.
These students demand an end to private tutoring, the development of education and a delay of
highschool diploma examinations. Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 27 (the rst day schools
reopened after the Revolution).
77
understand the romance with
Egypts Revolution, this exercise
nonetheless recreates it.
But this central question
how the protesters of Egypts
Revolution came to encourage
others, and how that cultural
production continues to affect
the type of energy seen on the
streets of Cairo and around the
world is only the rst part of
a discussion, and necessarily
an archiving, of the emotional
history of these events for an
entire generation. A history of
Egyptian cultural production
related to political protests is the
work of a future project. Further
critical analysis of how collectively
shared emotions, pride,
courage, humor are capable
of functioning as weapons of
political resistance is the work
of other scholars and criticstoday and tomorrow. However
it happens, however protesters
reach an audience, speaking
up, speaking out, and building
platforms for creative expression
are not only contagious, they
become habit. Revolutionary
energy will dip, will continue to
change, will encourage at times,
will disappoint at others. But we
are sure we have much to lookforward to.
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Anti-Qadda grafti in Tobruk, Libya. Photo: Patrick Baz, courtesy AFP/ Getty Images, February 24.
Road east from Ajdabiya, Libya. The grafti on the truck reads, God is great Photo: Patrick Baz courtesy AFP/ Getty Images; March 21.
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ContributorsKodak Agfa is Zeinab El-Gindy, 27 years old
and currently a full-time blogger in Egypt. Her
Flickr stream, hosting these and many other
photographs may be foundhere.
Sarah Carr is a British-Egyptian Cairo-based
journalist and writer who blogs at
www.inanities.org. Her Flickr stream hosting
these and many other photographs may be
found here.
Hossam el-Hamalawy is a journalist
photographer, and labor organizer with Egypts
socialist movement. He blogs at
www.arabawy.org. His Flickr stream hosting
these and many other photographs may be
found here.
Ramy Raoof works on utilizing online platforms
and digital devices in human rights, and helps
activists to maintain their privacy and security
online. He blogs at http://ebfhr.blogspot.com
His Flickr stream hosting these and many other
photographs may be found here.
Jehan Agha is an Egyptian New Yorker who
moved to Cairo in 2009. She is the Leadership
and Enrichment programs manager of theLotus Scholarship Program at the Institute
of International Education, Cairo. Her 2005
Masters thesis on identity formation in the Arab
diaspora may be found here.
Jano Charbels Flickr stream, hosting these and
many other photographs may be found here.
Gilad Lotans Flickr stream, hosting these and
many other photographs may be foundhere.
http://http//www.flickr.com/photos/96884693@N00/http://www.inanities.org/http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahcarr/http://www.arabawy.org/http://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/http://http//ebfhr.blogspot.comhttp://http//ebfhr.blogspot.comhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ramyraoof/http://http//www8.georgetown.edu/cct/thesis/JehanAgha.pdfhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/janocharbel/http://www.flickr.com/photos/giladlotan/http://www.flickr.com/photos/giladlotan/http://www.flickr.com/photos/janocharbel/http://http//www8.georgetown.edu/cct/thesis/JehanAgha.pdfhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ramyraoof/http://http//ebfhr.blogspot.comhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/http://www.arabawy.org/http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahcarr/http://www.inanities.org/http://http//www.flickr.com/photos/96884693@N00/8/7/2019 Shahadat January25 FINAL
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The photographs included in this document were largely taken
not just by happenstance supporters of political change, but by
journalists and activists who have risked more than their immediate
comfort to do the things that they do. Their work speaks for itself.
Conversations with Tarek El-Ariss, Hatim El-Hibri, Andrew Friedman,
Anmar El Zein, and others proved foundational during the process
of curating this piece. Kinda Akash and Rima Farouki provided
essential assistance with design and layout, the implementation
of which would not have been possible without the help of Leyla
Kaddoura, Nadia Farouki, and Andrew Johnston.
Ahmed Shawky provided critical assistance with Arabic to English
translations. Barrak Alzaid, Livia Alexander, and Andrea Aractingi of
ArteEast provided key structural and organizational support.
Oversights, missteps, and faults remain uniquely ours.
AcknowledgementsPhoto: Ramy Raoof; February 2.
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Rayya El Zein, co-curator, is working towards a PhD in Theatre at the
Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her research is increas-
ingly focusing on theories of spectatorship and historical studies of
audience behavior. She holds an MA in Performance Studies fromNYU and is currently a teaching fellow at City College in Harlem. She
tweets from @rayelz.
Alex Ortiz, co-curator, received his BA from Brown University in
2009, graduating with a double major in Comparative Literature and
Middle Eastern studies. He spent the 2009-2010 academic year as a
CASA I fellow in Damascus, Syria. He is currently a CASA II fellow in
Cairo. His academic and professional work include Arabic language
and literature, history, journalism, and literary and commercial transla-
tion. He tweets from @cairowitness.
Down with Hosni Mubarak Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 29.
http://twitter.com/#!/rayelzhttp://twitter.com/#!/cairowitnesshttp://twitter.com/#!/cairowitnesshttp://twitter.com/#!/rayelz8/7/2019 Shahadat January25 FINAL
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Many thanks to our generous supporters:
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Title graphics by Rima Farouki