Saturday, Aug 02, 2008
Gulf News
Cairo: "Boycott US and British goods"; "Islam is the solution"; "No jobs, but there is frustration and favouritism". These and similar phrases are painted on walls of many public buildings and private properties in this predominantly Muslim country.
Over recent years, walls in Egypt have been increasingly covered with graffiti, which tackle a wide range of issues from politics, economic woes and healthcare. The wall of the Umm Al Masryeen Hospital, a government-run medical institution in Giza, south of Cairo, is painted with a graffito reading: "Avoid drugs to protect your health, money and family."
On another wall of a public building in Central Cairo, a phrase, urging national unity, reads: "Muslims and Copts are one people despite religious differences." In the past few years, recurrent tensions between Egypt's Muslims and Christians have sometimes flared up in tragic clashes. The latest incident occurred last May when one Muslim was killed in a dispute between Muslim nomads and monks of a monastery in Minya, some 250km south of Cairo, over a plot of state-owned land.
"Writing on walls is a global phenomenon, which is not limited to Egypt," said Fat'hi Hassan, a psychiatrist. "It works as an outlet for frustrated youths to vent their pent-up feelings," he told Gulf News. According to Hassan, graffiti in Egypt target high unemployment rates, price hikes and feelings of alienation. Around 40 per cent of Egypt's 78 million population are believed to live under the poverty line.
Family ties
"This phenomenon is also due to weakened family ties because of the prevalence of materialism and the fast-paced life," explained Hassan. "Parents striving to make both ends meet now rarely sit down with their children."
"Graffiti has become so pervasive that walls of public toilets are sometimes disfigured with immoral phrases," says Fawzia Hamed, a commerce school pupil. "These phrases speak about love affairs and sex." She suggests that the government sets up a panel of specialists in economics, sociology and psychiatry to examine the writings on walls in order to "learn about the actual problems of young people."
While disparaging the trend, Mahmoud Abdul Fatah, a law student, sees logic in it. "Young people feel suffocated because they are the main casualties of Egypt's economic hardships. And when they try to [illegally] immigrate to Europe, they perish on shipwrecks," Abdul Fatah told Gulf News. "Without giving vent to their frustration, they would drop dead."
Expressive
To Adham Bakri, an Egyptian photographer who recently held an exhibition of photos about wall writings, graffiti tells a lot about society. "Few people pay attention to the words written on walls," he said.
"The reason I decided to capture these writings on my camera and display them in public is because they are richly expressive." With the surge of Islamism in Egypt, walls of buildings have also turned into a forum for dissemination of religious counselling. "The hijab is an Islamic duty," reads a graffito painted on the wall of a school in a poor district north of Cairo.
Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.
