Testimonials to the changing

landscapes of short-form writing

in the contemporary Middle East

April, 2011

1
 “One people, one plight.” Photo: Sarah Carr, January 7.

Shahadat is a quarterly online series designed to provide a platform for experimentation and promotion
of short-form writing on the web, Shahadat features stories, vignettes, reflections, and chronicles
written by young or underexposed writers from the Middle East and North Africa on ArteEast Online
in translation and the original language of Arabic, Farsi, or Turkish.

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organization, ArteEast supports and promotes artists by raising awareness of their most significant
and groundbreaking work and by bringing this work to the widest possible audience. We do this
through public events, art exhibitions, film screenings, international touring programs, a dynamic
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institutions around the world--such as The Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the Sharjah
Art Foundation--ArteEast’s film, 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
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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 to Flickr 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.

2
Signs of the Times
The Popular Literature of Tahrir
Protest Signs, Graffiti, & Street Art
Curated by Rayya El Zein & Alex Ortiz

3
From the Curators:
Watching a Revolution
In the bitter doldrums of early February, I’d 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,
I’d 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 fingers. The nomadic
nature of the teach and work schedule of a graduate
fellow fit 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 specific culture of Cairo’s 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, specifically,
watching them.
It should be obvious that the fact that I and
thousands of others watched and followed Egypt’s
Revolution 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 specific culture of resistance that it
embodied. The effect of 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 countries
in the region) and its affect (the resurgence of a
communal rejection of fear and the embrace of
a collective hope for a more dignified 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
4
consider that both protesters and Mubarak seem
to have been keenly aware of the potent politics
of being seen. The regime’s constant and brutal
crackdowns on journalists and their equipment
reflect an anxiety about the infectious power of
specifically 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 couldn’t or wouldn’t see. And in daylight,
an outward, visual embodiment of resistance, a
performance of defiance, 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 to
watch 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 of
these three are caused by culture, rather, that they are
given specificity 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 to
say, 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 decade’s 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
other’s courage with humor and music, unless they
“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.
outwardly perform resistance for themselves and
for others. Indeed, that’s 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 “contagious”
should 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 a
considerable 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 graffiti and poetry, which may still be thought
of as somehow less serious than “straight” political
activity, are nevertheless the outward realization of
resistance, the very embodiment of “Revolution.”
We have proposed in these pages a site-specific
examination of a spike in one kind of cultural
production, specifically literary and visual, in Egypt,
in 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 specific
kind of Revolutionary energy as it was expressed
through protest signs and graffiti in Tahrir. For
weeks, Egyptian protesters gripped the attention
of political and apolitical people around the world
but caught politicians off guard. And for the first
time in a generation, from Beirut to Madison, we are
beginning to see apathy abate. Whatever the actual
political reality of uprooting Mubarak’s regime,
watching Egypt’s 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
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A Note on Translation
The texts and images you see here that came the Egyptian revolution. For example, you didn’t
out of the 18 days of the Egyptian Revolution are need to know Arabic to eventually pick up on the
emblematic of a kind of popular literature heretofore significance of the now-famous chant “es-sha’ab
unseen in Egypt – a vivaciously dynamic, active, and yoreed ‘isqaat el-nizam”. Rather, the signs of revolt
evolving expression of the hopes, fears, demands, in Egypt became discernible as soon as they were
complaints, anger, and energy of the Egyptian people transmitted globally. In the public expressions of
in their quest to overthrow a dictator who had ruled discontent and uprising that have occurred since
them for 29 years. January 25, 2011, people from Benghazi, Libya to
Madison, Wisconsin have composed their own
There were several significant challenges faced in popular literatures that embrace, draw inspiration
translating such works. Each and every one of these from, and build upon the Egyptian canon. And
signs, posters, banners, or street art deserves a more in post-Mubarak Egypt, the newborn legacy of
lengthy and detailed explanation than can be given unbridled and creative public expression continues
in the accompanying caption space. This is true for to play a decisive and galvanizing role in the re-
both the textual content of the images, and perhaps imagining of a country.
more importantly, their contexts, temporal and
cultural. For instance, several of the signs presented ~Alex Ortiz, Cairo
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 popular
literature 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 flow 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 scrawled
and 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 specificities 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

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“Get out you moron, you blockhead, you oaf!” Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.

7
 Mass Production
More than myriad examples of humor,
pathos, or wit expressed in protest signs on
the streets of Cairo, the archivist trolling the
Internet for photographs of the revolution in
Tahrir Square must first contend with myriad
examples – period. Before finding the
pieces that initially evoke the qualification
“literature” as opposed to more “typical”
protest material, the sheer quantity of
photographs capturing protesters who hold
signs is staggering. Technology certainly
has something to do with this phenomenon.
Our increased capacity to “share” through
the Internet makes the archiving of one series
of events the task not of a small team but of
dozens. This massive body of production
isn’t limited to smart phones or high speed
Internet connections, however: it is not only
the number of photographs of protesters
holding signs, but truly the number of
protesters holding signs that is staggering.
At times it even seems as if the signs were
printed en masse. If the production appears
rote, however, it hardly suggests that
holding such signs was devoid of creativity.
Protesters didn’t waste space, using their
bodies as canvases, hanging from lamp-
posts, and converting symbols of power
(trucks and tanks, notably) into screens for
the projection of revolutionary energy. We
begin to see poetry here, as anywhere, not
in the message, but in its expression.
March to Tahrir Square.
Photo: Ramy Raoof; January 31.

8
9
“Leave” Note: Because this word straddles both literary and spoken perhaps more applicable when the slogan occurs in speech, would be “Get
Arabic, we have chosen to render the demand of the protesters for the out.” Despite the range of registers associated with this word, it represents
departure of former President Mubarak throughout these pages in its the fundamental and unifying demand of the January 25 Revolutionaries.
literal meaning of “Leave.” Another possible translation, and one that is Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 1.

A gallery of protest signs in Tahrir. Photo: Kodak Agfa, February 10.

10
“If you love your country, leave and have mercy on your people.
Hey Hosni, flying ace, where’d you get that 70 billion?”
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 11. “Free people” Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 30.

Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.

“No to Mubarak” “The youth will carry you out with their hands.” Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 29.

11
 The street sign previously reading “Street of the
People’s Assembly” now reads “The People’s Street”

Changing the Narrative

Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 9.

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 graffiti articulate
the demands of protesters, from
the most basic: “Down with the
Regime” to the most specific (see
next page). Particularly notable
this year in Egypt, however,
was the number of examples
of protesters who articulated
demands or positions in direct
response to other, presumed
dominant, narratives. Protesters
write over the regime’s narrative,
reclaim knowledge, and actively
assert their truths. Rhetoric
in these examples directly
challenges the narratives of state
TV, presumed perceptions of
the international community, or
rewrites Mubarak’s personal,
political, and military history. It
is here that much of the protest
energy begins to develop its
own distinctive cultural imprint.
The masses holding protest
signs become distinguishable
groups with particular defiant
tones and focused irreverence.
These concurrent expressions
of awareness and identity
accompany the defiance of
breaking curfew to be present
in Tahrir. They locate further
development of a distinct culture
of political resistance.

12

“A message to Egyptian television: We won’t believe your lies, you agents of
the regime!!!!!” Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
“We’re not leaving ‘til you leave; where is your dignigity? You sonofa...!”
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.
Left: “The people’s 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 figureheads 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.
7a
Left: “Leave you (bleep!) son of a (bleeeeeeeeeeeeep!)”; right: “I am Egyptian
til death; Freedom for Egypt” Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 3.
7c
Left: “Hey flying ace, Your final mission: Saudi Arabia. Over and out” Note:
This sign references an old jingoistic slogan that glorified Mubarak’s standing
as 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.
Left: “No to state security, emergency law, torture” Right: “We
want dignity not the sustenance of torture” Photo: Ramy Raoof;
February 4.
13
“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 officials and those who
have stolen the nation’s wealth. (Signed) The protesting youth of Egypt”
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 4.

14
“Hosni, you germ: the peasants of Upper Egypt will “I want internet!” “The people know everything. All of the thugs are
beat you with shoes” Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy, Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1. hired by the police and the government.”
February 11. Photo: Kodak Agfa, January 29.

“Mubarak is a liar” “No dialogue with Mubarak and his accomplices” “If Mubarak were a monkey he’d have more
Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 6. Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1. humanity” Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.

“Photo op with the Pres” the tag on the donkey reads ‘Mubarak” Note: In Egyptian dialect, the word for “bread”, ‘aish, is the same word used
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 4. in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic to mean “life”. This sign plays off
of the double-meaning of the word ’aish for Egyptians. Photo: Jehan Agha.

15

Might of the Mundane
Protest literature in Cairo was
not confined 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
16
“Leave! I miss my wife; married only 21 days”
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
a space within which related but quotidian life as a further expression
less specific creative energy could of political energy. The popular
flourish. proliferation we saw in the first
section becomes personal and
To suggest that the Revolution with it came the bold declarations
affected the daily life of Egyptians of the end of fear. The blurring of
is an understatement. However, political and daily life thus furthers
the way Egyptian protesters poetic expressions of identity and
incorporated aspects of basic resistance.
living into protest energy is unique
to this movement’s 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
Above: “The lovers of the day, with regards from
Facebook” underneath: “The kids have grown up,
Hosni!” Note: this latter sign references a 1979 play
by 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 of
elite gentrified housing projects in the greater Cairo
area, it is emblematic of the growing class differences
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.

17
“Leave, my hand’s starting to hurt” Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 8.
“Mom told me not to leave ‘til he does”
Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 10.
“I’m a dentist here to extract Mubarak.”
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
18
“Mubarak, we’re 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.
“The unborn children in their mothers’ stomachs Have you seen this child? Little Mohammed Hosni
cry out, ‘Get out Mubarak’” Mubarak (age 86) has gone missing from the
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1. nation. Whoever finds him him please return him
to his family in Jeddah or Tel Aviv
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.
“‘I don’t know why the Revolution happened! I was “Sit-in and strike until he leaves.”
in the bathroom when it started,’ says the tyrant Photo: Jano Charbel; February 11.
Mubarak” Photo: Sarah Carr; February 9.
“Forgive me, Lord, for I was afraid and silent” Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.

“Oh, President: I’m not afraid to die.” Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 7.

19
 Words & Images
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 graffiti
artists and illustrators use their skills
to literally bring color to the grays
20
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
 From left to right: Mubarak speaks “Oh, brothers, hitting with shoes is
a sin”, the people of Egypt say “We’ll 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 discussions concerning changing

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 definitively places the cultural
production of Egypt’s Revolution
at the forefront of contemporary
forms of literature worldwide and the
increasing “inter-disciplinary” nature
of creative energies, be they primarily
musical, visual, of performance, or
literary. The exchange between
image and word in protest signs
and graffiti prove that the cultural
production of Egypt’s Revolution
is not only decisively aesthetic but
decisively of our contemporary
moment.

21
Left: “Leave, leave you who sold the land and the Nile”; Right: “Check, checkmate” Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.

“The lesson’s over, stupid!” Note: This is a “Mubarak: Expiration date January 25, 2011” Right: “the People”; left: “the Ruler“
reference to a well-known play by Assayed Raddi. Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 8. Photo: Sarah Carr, February 10.
Photo: Ramy Raoof; January 31.

22
 “In the trash can of history” Photo: Ramy Raoof, January 31.

Photo: Gilad Lotan; February 4.

Photo: Ramy Raoof; January 30.

The door says, “The National Democratic Prison” the bride’s dress says
“Egypt” Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 1.

Left “The National Democratic Party to the trashcan of history”; Middle:

Left: “Me”; right: “Egypt” Photo: Kodak Agfa; February 1. “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.

23
Photo: Sarah Carr; February 11. Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.

Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1. Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 1.

Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 3. “The Army must choose: either Egypt or Mubarak” Photo: Jehan Agha.

24
Top: “Your love is freedom” Note: This is the
title 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.

Translating
the Revolution
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 by
attempting to illustrate demands
through literal translations. Signs
quipped in English, French, Hebrew,
and other languages reflect 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 it
affected daily life. A combination of
images and translations now made
those individual perspectives
internationally readable. The
interplay of all these energies
created the specific affective
dynamics of the literature of Tahrir.

25
 Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 29.

26
27
“The martyrs’ clothes”; below: “Why were they killed?” Note: The text in the bottom sign is a reference to the Qu’ran. Photo: Sarah Carr; February 6.
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 Egypt’s revolutionary culture. Of
course “the end” of Mubarak’s 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
28
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 of
the Revolution and a productive cross-section
of the literature and visual imagery produced
and displayed in Cairo’s streets.
Left: “We won’t 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

sacrifice” Photo: Ramy Raoof;
February 1.

Bottom right: “No, I’m not the hero.

The martyr is the hero.” Photo: Sarah
Carr; February 11.

29
“We demand the prosecution of those responsible for the deaths of these martyrs” Note: Each flyer contains a different name. Photo: Sarah Carr; February
25.

“In memory of the martyrs of the Revolution” Photo: Sarah Carr; February11. “The martyrs’ blood isn’t cheap” Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 8.

30

On March 29, 2011,
accompanying an article about
an explosion that killed dozens in
Yemen, Lebanon’s daily English
paper The Daily Star printed a
photograph of a young man, his
mouth wide open in a scream,
holding his shoes towards the
camera at arms length. On the
soles of both, was written irhal -
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 transmogrification of
revolutionary energy. Within
Egypt itself, the protest energy
we’ve been highlighting in these
pages branched at Coptic,
labor, women’s rights, and anti-
corruption demonstrations and
continues to build and expand on
the examples of Tahrir. Across the
region, the military responses of
Muammar Qaddafi, Ali Abdullah
Evolution of a Revolution
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 don’t stand
still.
Photo: Hossam; date.
Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 8.
Reflecting on the images
collected above and the
framework we’ve 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 nature
of memory and its perspective.
Pursuing the question of how
the idea of Egypt’s Revolution
sparked imaginations across
the region, we have pointed
to aspects that illustrate the
specificity 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 January
25 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
31
understand the romance with
Egypt’s Revolution, this exercise
nonetheless recreates it.

But this central question –

how the protesters of Egypt’s
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 first 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,
“Either I live in my country in dignity or I die a martyr in the name of my Lord.” Photo: Sarah Carr;
courage, humor are capable March 10.
of functioning as weapons of

77
political resistance is the work
of other scholars and critics
today 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 look
forward to.

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 first day schools
reopened after the Revolution).

32
Anti-Qaddafi graffiti in Tobruk, Libya. Photo: Patrick Baz, courtesy AFP/ Getty Images, February 24.

Road east from Ajdabiya, Libya. The graffiti on the truck reads, “God is great” Photo: Patrick Baz courtesy AFP/ Getty Images; March 21.

33
Contributors
Kodak 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 found here.
Jehan Agha is an Egyptian New Yorker who
moved to Cairo in 2009. She is the Leadership
and Enrichment programs manager of the
Lotus Scholarship Program at the Institute
of International Education, Cairo. Her 2005
Master’s thesis on identity formation in the Arab
diaspora may be found here.
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.
Jano Charbel’s Flickr stream, hosting these and
many other photographs may be found here.
34
Hossam el-Hamalawy is a journalist,
photographer, and labor organizer with Egypt’s
socialist movement. He blogs at
www.arabawy.org. His Flickr stream hosting
these and many other photographs may be
found here.
Gilad Lotan’s 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.
 Photo: Ramy Raoof; February 2.

Acknowledgements
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.

35
“Down with Hosni Mubarak” Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; January 29.

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 from
NYU 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.
36
Many thanks to our generous supporters:

37
 Title graphics by Rima Farouki.

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