by Raul Alonzo
The uprising in Egypt has defied all preconceived notions that the power of popular protest had been marginalized and that the great revolutions of yesteryear were simply motifs of a historical narrative. Like wildfire, the 2011 Egyptian Revolution ignited following the ouster of Ben Ali in Tunisia, in one of the defining flares of what has been called the Arab Spring.
As people took to the streets to demand an end to the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, who had maintained control of the country with the blessings of the U.S. government since 1981, the aspirations for liberation that materialized began to coalesce into a defining cultural expression. With the growth of street protest, came a growth in street art as graffiti artists emblazoned walls with images of social commentary, jarring depictions of those in power and memorials to those martyred during the uprisings.
A Culture of Resistance
In these months of post-revolutionary Egypt (or second-wave revolutionary Egypt in the words of many of it’s participants) a renaissance has grown amidst feelings of jubilation. Festivals celebrating the goals of the revolution, like El Fan Midan, draw crowds to witness innovators in visual art, music, poetry and prose. Anti-government sentiment runs strong through political literature and music – such as the artists of the Shaabi genre, a sort of Egyptian hip hop that emerged from the slums and took root as a favorite amongst the country’s youth.
The outburst of such a cultural display can be interpreted as the effects of pent-up desires, conditioned by years of repression under the 31-year State of Emergency, finally being loosed. Much of this was first encapsulated in the graffiti that began appearing during the January 25th Uprising.
According to Waleed Rashed, writing for Smithsonian:
“Graffiti was a rare sight until two years ago, when artists began documenting the crimes of our regime. The artists – some acting on their own, others as part of an artistic collective – remind those who take political stands that nothing escapes the eyes and ears of our people.”
Some of the artists that define the growth of this new movement include Sad Panda, Ganzeer, El Zeft, Nazeer and Keizer – sharing commonalities with other street artists from around the world, such as Bansky and Shephard Fairey, with a distinct style embodied by the concerns of working class Egyptians.
As part of the uprising was facilitated by the utilization of social networking (that is, until the government shut off the Internet), artists have utilized the web to forward the ongoing revolution. Ganzeer founded the website cairostreetart.com where users can tag sightings of new work on a map of Cairo. Along with El Teneen, Ganzeer also established the blog magazine “The Rolling Bulb,” which combines the revolutionary art movement with street journalism. The WordPress blog Suzee in the City gathers graffiti works from a number of artists in one location.
Some examples of the captivating nature of the work can be found in such pieces as El Teneen’s “Checkmate,” in which all the pawns reside on one side of a red-and-white chessboard with the king toppled across from them. Keizer, who dedicates his time fully to producing street art, is known for incorporating aspects of pop culture and including English phrases reserved for the purpose of “[attacking] the upper echelons of society.”
To come upon a large ant silhouette on any of the walls in Cairo is to encounter the work of Keizer. As he says of the ants on his website:
“The ant symbolizes the forgotten ones, the silenced, the nameless, those marginalized by capitalism. They are the working class, the common people, the colony that struggles and sacrifices blindly for the queen ant and her monarchy. Ants are devoted, dedicated workers. They cooperate, organize, delegate, and put themselves first in the line of danger and duty. Under-appreciated and ruled, they receive and expect no reward for their efforts, toil and struggle…”
But apart from the guerilla street art on the walls that bear witness to the ongoing revolutionary process, elaborate and complex murals also appear: glorifying in vivid coloring and divine symbolism the passing of martyrs and the immortalization of the battles seen on the streets of Egypt.
A point of coalescence for this new artistic movement was Muhammad Mahmoud street, where one of the most violent clashes between the security forces and protesters would occur.
The Battle of Muhammad Mahmoud
Leading directly into Tahrir Square, Muhammad Mahmoud street is like a conduit feeding lifeblood into the heart of revolution.
November of 2011 saw some of the most violent street clashes since the uprising earlier that January. Since then, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), an unelected body of 21 military officials headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, had taken power after Mubarak stepped down.
Beginning as a peaceful sit-in by the families of those killed or injured in the uprising, the Muhammad Mahmoud sit-ins expanded after security forces engaged in heavy-handed tactics, that eventually drew more and more protesters.
Dust filled the air, along with the loud cracks of the SCAF guns. Shouts were raised as fleeing protesters came upon the bleeding bodies of their comrades, holding them up and invoking the cries of God and liberty. Police sirens sounded off the walls of the nearby American University buildings as triumphant shouts were raised by protesters hurling bricks and debris at the security forces.
Protesters organized their own medical units, with injured comrades brought back from the battle line on the backs of motorcycle “cavalry.” A BBC story found that some had reported people coughing up blood and collapsing from the intense amount of tear gas being pumped into the air. Cairo, that day, was truly a war zone.
One of the more brutal tactics undertaken by the security forces was that of the eye snipers. On many of the wall murals found around Muhammad Mahmoud are the grim faces of men and women donning an eye patch or bandage. These are the faces of those who had their eyes blinded by the rubber bullets of security force snipers.
And to accompany them, are the faces of many of the over 40 people killed in the clashes with the security forces that day, as well as those from the beginning of the uprising. People from all walks of life: lifted up into the heavens through the imagery painted by their peers. They line the streets, their portraits in hues of green and blue – their faces fixed in peaceful, jovial, expressions. Immortalized how their loved ones and comrades remember them.
Muhammad Mahmoud, in the aftermath of these clashes, saw it’s walls adorned with many representations of this type of imagery – a sort of hall of collective recollection. All Egyptians remember the days of fiercest fighting, and many found at Muhammad Mahmoud today are eager to share their stories.
An Invocation on the Walls
Art as a form of remembrance, art as a form of resistance. Art as liberated expression. All such forms are found on the walls throughout revolutionary Egypt. And as the people move into the next phases of the process, the art serves as a reminder of just how far they have come. As Rashed noted:
“People singing revolutionary slogans come and go, but the graffiti remains and keeps our spirit alive.”
The murals found on Muhammad Mahmoud serve not simply as a form of remembrance for the over 840 martyrs who died during the first wave of the revolution (which now stands closer to over 2000), but as a means to inspire the people to continue on with their protests. A popular chant echoed by those seeking justice for their comrades declares “we will get their rights, or we will die as they have.”
And, as such, the imagery of the artwork injects itself into the lives of thousands every day in Cairo. The murals lie right across the street from the Mogamma, the main administrative building in the capitol, and form a corner of Tahrir Square with their depictions painted along the wall surrounding the American University of Cairo campus. One of the main exits from the Sadat Metro Station opens up right next to the murals, themselves. Across the street from them are also many western fast food restaurants, including McDonalds and Pizza Hut, so they are plainly visible to American tourists as well. Thousands of people from all walks of life behold the art daily.
Several attempts have been undertaken to remove the graffiti and murals by the SCAF, but each time only proves futile as people, not simply those denoted artists like El Teneen and Keizer, but ordinary people continue to turn to street art to document their collective historical strides.
The SCAF will try to jail these people, like when Ganzeer was arrested with two others setting up posters ahead of protests. “People forget that the streets belong to the people,” Ganzeer said in a Christian Science Monitor interview. “They think that they’re some kind of official government-controlled entity. I think it’s important to remind people that they’re not.”
In the days after Mubarak’s removal, the SCAF set up roadblocks on several streets leading into Tahrir, including Mohamed Mahmoud. Large concrete bricks towered over the streets, disrupting the daily traffic of the citizens.
Like the setting of a silent overnight snow, the following day many of the roadblocks were covered with the markings of graffiti artists. Some were brief memorials to the fallen (“R.I.P. Anas”) while others were more complex, such as the large yellow smiley painted across the length of the roadblock on Qasr al-Aini Street or the wall of the Sheikh Reihan Street roadblock, which was painted in a way to make it appear that the road continued on beyond it.
As it stands now, the task for many is to deepen the gains of the Revolution and further the break with the remnants of the old regime. In recent months this has continued to galvanize revolutionary youth movements, like with the Tamarrud – a campaign to gather signatures for a document expressing the Egyptian people’s lack of confidence in the presidency of Mohamed Morsi and a call for early presidential elections.
The urgency of such actions is to further the momentum of the people, on the paths created by the sacrifices of those martyrs found on the walls of Muhammad Mahmoud. Without the conscious action of the people, the effects of the counterrevolution will seek to head off such gains.
When the SCAF sought to repaint the walls of Muhammad Mahmoud in preparation for the celebrations of the January 25 uprising, a day later the walls were again adorned with graffiti, the mutilated faces of those who had lost their eyes, and the faces of those martyred. An inscription read shaaria uyuun al-hurriyyah the “street of the eyes of freedom.”
The message was clear, and asserted plainly: it is the people who will win the revolution.
This installment of the Art as Resistance series originally appeared in Strike Magazine # 4.
Raul Alonzo is a writer and aspiring journalist from Corpus Christ, TX. His work has appeared in issues 2 and 3 of the local left publication Volume, Red Wedge Magazine, Socialistworker.org, and the Delmar College Foghorn, where he served as managing editor. Raul is a member of the Corpus Christi branch of the International Socialist Organization.