rams of anarchy | door handle detail, anarchist squat, barcelona

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.

towards the light

between the first and second police van it is possible to discern a peaceful crowd of protesters. the vans are charging the crowd.

this is difficult to see, though not to imagine.

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

texture of violence | al shifa pharmaceutical factory, khartoum

early artefact from the war on terror.

al shifa pharmaceutical factory, khartoum

destroyed august 20, 1998 by united states cruise missiles. allegedly the site of chemical weapon manufacture. 

wall detail, souk al-arabi, khartoum

hat tip to ‘halfawi’ whose distinct graffiti is prolific throughout the alleyways off al-huriyah street. his drawings of khartoum street life often reflect the matter directly in front of him, and consequently, are usually found on the wall opposite to what is being depicted.

this wall, which forms the backdrop of a tiny alley cafe, contain major themes and characters from the two sudanese civil wars, that culminated in the creation of south sudan.

everyone i spoke with identified ‘halfawi’ as crazy.

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.’