Immediately after the removal in 2013 of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Government, one of the newly re-instituted military regime’s first moves was a tat’hir (purification) programme to purge Cairo’s streets and public spaces of all traces of fawda wi sawra (revolutionary chaos). This involved not only sweeping up the litter and debris from all former protest sites, and painting over the plethora of posters and revolutionary graffiti covering many of the city’s “Walls of Freedom”. It also included clearing away the revolution’s ‘human detritus’ - the protestors, squatters, and the large numbers of predominantly young and aspiring Egyptians who, faced with the collapse of the economy in the post-Mubarak turmoil, had taken advantage of the disappearance from the streets of most of the police to move into street-trading - hawking anything from cheap plastic jewelry and modish sunshades to snacks and nibbles..
Street art of the Egyptian revolution. Egyptian Chronicles. All rights reserved.
