Feminist Street Art of Cairo

You can't break me

 The best of girls 

(literally it says "six girls" but colloquially it means the best/queen of girls and it's a reference to the "blue bra girl" who was assaulted in Tahrir a few months ago)

Women carrying kegs of gas/oil on their shoulders 

(oil is used as fuel source in many Egyptian homes to provide lighting; implication is that women are the backbone of the uprising)

No to harassment 

Justice

Revolutionary Street Art of Downtown Cairo ('Abdeen)

The dancing Egyptian army

You can't break me

 Bullshit/fuck/shit! (A7a is an Egyptian exclamatory curse word with no real English equivalent- it's just something you yell when you're angry)

Justice

Civil disobedience

The people are 'red line' (at their final limit- this is a reference to the Mubarak regime's old slogan "National security is red line" which was used to justify the emergency law)

The revolution continues

Tahrir. Here is your address (2km)

Overthrow the marshal (Tantawi- Chairman of SCAF) 

Glory to the martyrs 

No to the establishment

For the Muslim Brotherhood 

V for Vendetta 

"The rights of the martyrs are in our neck"
(people have a duty to continue protesting until freedom has been attained) 

You wear a suit, you wear boxers

Still, down with the military regime 

(statement against politicians who sell out their values and align with the military)

Killing causes death

Egypt can fly

The real revolution

ACAB ("All cops are bastards"- this is literally *everywhere* in the city)

Suzanne Mubarak as the head of a serpent
(people view her as extravagant and corrupt... the chief force behind Gamal Mubarak's "succession plan")

Depiction of Bashar al-Assad: Son of a lioness. Pretending to be a lion!

(double meaning- Assad is also the Arabic word for "lion"; and a "lioness" in Arab culture is symbolic for an 'oversexed' woman)

"The day I stop supporting (al-Ahly football club) I will surely be dead" 

(the chant of al-Ahly supporters before the Port Said massacre last year)

Revolutionary Street Art of Zamalek

For those of you who are not familiar with the Cairo layout, Zamalek is a large island neighborhood in the Nile. Across the river to the east is downtown Cairo (Tahrir) and to the west is Mohandseen (part of greater Giza). The residents of Zamalek tend to be either wealthy Egyptians or foreigners.

There is noticeably less street art here and a good proportion of it isn't even relevant to the protests ('free Palestine' statements, feuding between the football clubs 'Ahly and Zamalek, etc). Compared to the angry street art of downtown Cairo, it has much more of a positive and idealistic tone.

*On a sidenote, I discovered a tunnel- I've nicknamed it the 'tunnel of love'- where teenagers just hang out and confess their crushes in the form of graffiti

The political posters that hang in Zamalek support secular, liberal candidates such as Hamdeen Sabahi, Amr Moussa, and Khaled Ali.

25 of January. Equality. Freedom. 

(25 of January 2011 was the day the uprising began in Tahrir; the crescent and cross image represents unity between Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians)

Fly high with freedom

(reference to the martyrs of Tahrir)

A prisoner breaks his shackles through the power of social media- Facebook, SMS. 

(tribute to the important role that social media played in the uprisings)

A mocking depiction of the "eye sniper" 

(an Egyptian police officer infamous for aiming at the eyes of protesters in Tahrir)

No to harassment
(this image is all over Zamalek, Gezira, and downtown)

One of the longest surviving pieces of street art in Cairo- this tank once pointed at a bread delivery boy on a bicycle... except instead of carrying a platter of bread on his head, he was carrying the weight of the city. According to the artist, Mohamed Fahmy, this piece predicted a collision between Cairo's youth and the military regime.

(from right to left) Tahrir. Identify yourself with the revolution (2 km)

Tahrir. Here is your address

Tahrir. Come see us yourself (2 km)

"Hosni not Hussein," depiction of Hussein Tantawi 

(Chairman of SCAF and Commander-and-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forced)

Hamdeen Sabahi. One from (among) us. Image/character of the eagle

(the eagle was Sabahi's symbol on the ballots to accommodate illiterate people; Hamdeen Sabahi is a liberal activist and ex-presidential candidate before he was knocked out of the race in the first round of elections- he was extremely popular among the liberal, anti-Shafiq crowd as well as the Egyptian expat community)

Khaled Ali. Livlihood, freedom, and social justice

(Khaled Ali was also a liberal presidential candidate knocked out in the first round of elections. Some people blame him for splitting the liberal vote with Hamdeen Sabahi, who placed only several percentage points behind Shafiq)