As I made clear in my last few posts, September was a rather bleak month. That is not to say, though, that it didn't have its bright spots. One of these was my visit to Mohamed Mahmoud St., just off Tahrir Square, where bloody clashes occurred between protesters and police in November 2011. Thinking of the recent history is sobering, but aside from this infamous confrontation, the area has been known since the beginning of the revolution for its colorful murals. The outer walls of AUC's Tahrir campus are some of the best known. About two weeks ago, municipal authorities painted over the anti-SCAF (military council) and pro-revolutionary murals as they had done occasionally since January '11 but not for some months. Overnight, the walls were repainted. A few days later I went and took the following photos, among others. Some are done by very skilled artists, others by amateurs.
This is the most prominent mural of the new set. The three faces in the upper lefthand corner are Mohammed Badie (General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood), Field Marshal Tantawy, and Mubarak. "Elly kalaf mamatsh", the slogan written beneath, means "he who is appointed never dies." This same image, painted before the Ikhwan assumed so much power and thus omitting Badie, occupied this spot prior to the city's paint job last month. The artist facing down police brutality with his paintbrush is a new addition. The red and white text beneath the line of policemen reads: "Hey regime that fears the paintbrush and the pen; that oppressed and tread upon those who were oppressed; if you walked soundly you wouldn't fear what was drawn; the best you can do is fight walls and conquer lines and colors; but inside you are a coward; you will never build what has been destroyed."
On the right, the red and yellow graffiti reads "Nifsy akon shaheed" -- "I want to be a martyr." This is martyr in the revolutionary sense of the term, as all those killed in the Jan. 25 revolution are referred to as martyrs. (The metro stop Mubarak, for instance, was officially renamed Shohadaa', or Martyrs. In English the word has somewhat different connotations I think and that can throw us off a bit.) Batman, meanwhile, threatens: Don't erase our graffiti again, you son of a bitch.
Here, the upper slogan reads "Glory to the martyrs" while the lower says "Retribution". The yellow spray can says "Erase and I will draw again" and the blue one "Either we will get their rights or we will die like them," also a reference to the martyrs of the revolution. ULA7 is a variation of UA07, the tag for the Ahlawy Ultras. These are the soccer fanatics for the Ahly team who are now known especially from the match in Port Said in February of this year, when 73 were killed and 1000 injured in a riot and stampede. Many people blamed the security forces for intentionally failing to intervene and thus creating a distraction from their own abuses.
In the time that my friend and I were inside the AUC campus accomplishing a little homework, this mural went up using stencils. The film strip shows the faces of various revolutionary martyrs, while the red slogan reads "Ya rabb takon mabsoot fe makanak" - "I hope you are happy in your place." This is a line, we were told by the artists, taken from a song about those killed last year, and refers to their place in heaven.
And here is another man at work on a new mural...
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