campfire : everyday life in tahrir square

stare xv

this portrait was the result of a very lengthy discussion about this man’s experience of the 2011 egyptian revolution. i tried to capture some of the complexities of these stories in an earlier post, this demolished room

egypt has been on my mind

man

it’s been some time now since i’ve left egypt.

i was editing some work today and found this. this one. this photo.

i think back to the night of the one year anniversary of the egyptian revolution and wonder about that place. that slice of time, that moment where there was the hope that perhaps something still might change. that a young man could get up and spit his words and have the crowd listen. like the revolutionaries could defeat the deep state.

and i’ve been following the news, listening, reading. seeing the same images. wondering, wondering, wondering.

rock throwing, tunisia

i thought about trying to revisit the revolution.

to assess, somehow, what the passage of time had done, or revealed, or not. either way.

there were snippets of conversations - in a car, in a cafe, with a taxi driver.

but somehow it was all a little vague, a sense of wondering, of waiting, of not yet, of soon and shortly and nearby.

so we passed the afternoon throwing rocks at the sea,

though i never did see the splash

so did anything happen here during the revolution?

no, not really. i got drunk the night before and was still drunk in the morning when my friends woke me to tell me the news. that mubarak had stood down.

what did you do?

i ran out into the main square screaming obscenities against the government, but everyone told me to go back inside. 

and?

that was it. except that night, a crowd gathered outside one man’s house and they demolished the front of the house.

the front of his house?

the council had wanted to widen a particular road for a very long time, and all the other houses had agreed, so everyone had demolished the front of their own homes. except one man, he wouldn’t agree. 

that night everyone came and demolished the front of the house for him. and now the road is wider. 

that’s what happened here during the revolution.

–

see this, this demolished room? this room we are sitting in?

yes.

the muslims came at night and destroyed it, during the night of the revolution.

why did they destroy it?

they destroyed it because i am the only christian man in this town, and they want me and my family to leave. they thought i wanted to build a church, but i don’t. they thought that they could scare me.

are you scared?

only from god. they don’t scare me, and i won’t leave.

and now, what will you do?

now? 

now.

now, i sell cigarettes from this room.

this demolished room.

wolves, fucking

i found him, by chance, around the corner from his first mural, beginning work on his second.

do you want to see something secret?

of course.

obscured from the street, the recess smelt of piss and shit. a convenient place, it seemed, to relieve oneself.

the painting was of two wolves fucking, their tongues extended with pleasure. 

this, this. this is the secret.

this is sadism. these are our problems, this is the reality that the government wants to hide. they show one picture, but its not like that. if you know, if you open your eyes, if you understand, then it is no secret.

and with that, i knelt, and recorded it in light. 

because that which is hidden is easily found.

–

hattip to alaa, whose work is mind-bending.

quarters

in graff - the maspero building, the home of the egyptian state radio and television broadcast networks, and the word ‘liars.’

passerby

tahrir square is a place much smaller than i had imagined. 

the protesters, the passersby, the undercover security agents, the homeless, the thugs, drug dealers, revolutionaries, counter-revolutionaries, tea-sellers, flag merchants, newspaper vendors, readers, journalists, photographers, gawkers, hustlers and prostitutes all have their place. neither through agreement nor disagreement - but because of the way the square, in as much as it is a roundabout - is.

the last few weeks, for those more or less residing permanently in the square, has seen a shift inwards. a sense of, well, needing to reinforce before the army, or paid thugs, or counter-revolutionaries, or state security, or riot police arrive. a seige mentality of a most perfectly paranoid state. where every action and non-action is analysed, and always at fever-pitch.

and there, demarcating the pourous boundaries of a protest tent cluster, was a fence of heavy plastic. making him all but a shadow. 

pastries

those pastries we ate last time - where did you get them?

at the protest.

i want some now, can we go and get them?

no.

why not?

i’ve only seen them at the protests. they don’t exist anywhere else.

that’s impossible. how can that be?

i don’t know. but the revolution lives on these. at every protest, these pastry sellers materialise. and we all eat. it’s like the revolution happened only because of these pastries.

and one million cigarettes, all smoked into the dirt.

naughty boys

egyptian riot police sneak cigarettes whilst guarding the syrian embassy, cairo.

in line

friday 16 february, 2012 protest outside the syrian embassy, cairo

reflections on tahrir

protestor in an upscale cafe, tahrir square

watchful gaze

field marshal tantawi, chairman of the supreme council of the armed forces. the leader of the military junta in charge of egypt. a deeply hated figure.

–

watching the walls in and around tahrir square has been deeply fascinating.

the speed at which walls are painted, repainted, signed, tagged, stenciled, changed, modified, built, extended, fortified, destroyed, relocated and deployed provides a fascinating insight into how public urban forms - often through objects considered permanent and unchanging - are contested by deeply opposing forces.

as a small taste, compare the above photo taken on 27 january with the photo taken no later than 1 february which appears at the wonderful uprisingsintranslation tumblr here. enough time for tantawi’s image, quite simply, to be defaced.

the message is fairly clear.

prayers of rage

one year anniversary of the ‘friday of rage’, friday 27 january 2012

ultra boys

mohammed mahmoud street, 25 january 2012. one year anniversary of the egyptian revolution.

often the most vocal chanters at protests, full of energy and an itching to fight. birthed in football stadiums, brutalised by the police and now, involved in the revolution. often appearing in the front lines during violence with police and military.

still attending protests.