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(See more at http://www.robinwyatt.org/photography/journal/cairos-graffiti-painting-revolutionaries/.)
If it were not for the combined forces of Egypt’s youth and social media, how far would this country’s revolution have got? Much has been made of the ‘Facebook and Twitter revolution’ (just a quick hashtag search for ‘Tahrir’ will see your Twitter client explode with chatter, even now). Events in Tahrir Square and beyond were regularly populated by thousands of young converts to activism who had known nothing but Hosni Mubarak‘s rule; social media enabled them to communicate and rapidly organise and respond. I remember my own days as a spirited young idealist (not that I’m yet old!), eager for political reform. I can only imagine how the potential of social media to organise the masses would have blown my mind, ten to fifteen years ago. And I was living in a so-called progressive liberal democracy!
Last weekend, I had the privilege of meeting with ten young people from Nasr City in Cairo who are part of an almost 1,000-strong band of youngsters, who have contributed to the revolution through a group organised on Facebook. They are graffiti artists, and call themselves ‘Freedom Painters‘. My idea of graffiti artists from growing up in the UK in the 1980s and ’90s was of rough-cut hooligans, living on the margins of society, who deface public and private property as a means of rebellion or simply as a way of sticking their middle finger up at ‘the system’. Well, I suppose that’s what these young Cairenes have been doing too, in a way… but it’s more productive, and they are certainly not scruffy renegades. They are educated, talented students with a burning desire to see human rights, democracy and progress in the country they love. Like me, they are visual peacemakers.
The following is an audio slideshow from my time spent with them by the roadside in Nasr City, Cairo, where they showed me some of their handiwork and shared insights into their motivation, experiences, hopes and vision for the future.
With sincere thanks to Umar El Hassan, Noha Ahmed, Dina Nagy, Salma Sherif, Noran Morsi, Isra El Ghazali, Ahmed Sherif, Mohamed Atef, Abd El Rahman Ahmed and Riham El Hawary from Freedom Painters, and to Hend Ismail for assisting me with photography and Arabic translation.
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