Shahadat January25 FINAL

8/7/2019 Shahadat January25 FINAL

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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.
http://www.arteeast.org/http://www.arteeast.org/


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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



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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


No dialogue with Mubarak and his accomplices

Photo: Hossam el-Hamalawy; February 1.Mubarak is a liar


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!


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


The unborn children in their mothers stomachs

cry out, Get out Mubarak


Sit-in and strike until he leaves.

Photo: Jano Charbel; February 11.

Im a dentist here to extract Mubarak.


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.


Mubarak: Expiration date January 25, 2011


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.



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


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



25/3825

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.


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.


27/3827


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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.


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/


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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/#!/rayelz


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Many thanks to our generous supporters:


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Title graphics by Rima Farouki

Documents

Shahadat January25 FINAL