Mural artist Ammar Abo Bakr is one of Egypt’s best-known revolutionary artists. We were so deeply touched by the story he told to us that we decided to publish it in its full length. It helps to understand the confusing situation in Egypt, and is definitely worth reading every single word:

The newspaper of the revolution

What we did in Egypt in recent years was not about presenting art, at least it wasn’t to me: We used walls as a newspaper.

We learned to do so out of a need: The TV presenter and satirist Bassem Youssef was a doctor, but then he learned to use YouTube. Mosab El-Shamy Rassd was studying medicine, but then he took his camera and took to the streets.

Me, I was a fine arts assistant professor. I left the faculty to report on the revolution on the city’s walls.

January 2011: Friday of Anger

The revolution in Egypt started on 25th January 2011, but the big day was on the 28th.

On this “Friday of Anger”, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest against autocratic president Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, who had been in office since 1981. Under his leadership, the repression of the people, corruption and abuse of authority were the orders of the day.

The protesters gathered on Tahrir Square in central Cairo, and their frustration exploded. Many lost their lives in violent clashes with the security forces.

Of course, no official newspaper reported about what occurred that day – every journalist was afraid of being punished or prosecuted. But people began writing on the walls: “We want to topple the regime.” Suddenly, all kinds of information was on the walls. And from the first day on:

The walls demanded that president Mubarak step down.

During the first year of the revolution, in 2011, the wall on Mohamed Mahmoud Street was quite low. But on 25th January 2012, it was made higher to stop the demonstrators from jumping on it to look out for the police. Making it higher and the surface smoother was supposed to hinder the revolutionaries. But this was our chance: now it was a big and very stable wall – perfect for our art!

Shortly afterwards, something terrible happened: 74 football fans from the Al-Ahly Ultras were killed in just one day in the Port Said stadium. The media said it was a fight among football fans. But it wasn’t.

The Al-Ahly Ultras were a kind of people’s army of revolutionaries. Each time they came to Tahrir Square, as I remember, they arrived with at least 5,000 people at a time, all shouting with one voice. Football in Egypt has long served the regime’s interest by pacifying people. But instead of using football to keep people quiet, the Al-Ahly Ultras used it to rally crowds and make their voices heard.

During the matches, they held up huge banners criticising the military and showing everyone who was arrested or had died. Imagine tens of thousands of people in the stadium chanting “down with the military”.  And everybody watching the match on TV heard them shouting “down with the military”.  Of course, the police, the military and the Islamists wanted to get rid of them.

That’s why they destroyed these young people. After the match, they closed the doors, turned down the lights, and 74 were killed in clashes, with many stampeded to death. One of the youngest was Anas, just 15 years old. No one could escape; no one could see nor take any videos. But people were messaging from inside the stadium: “They killed our friends.”

When I received these messages, I felt something really dark had happened. I had just come to Cairo from Luxor to buy some materials and was supposed to go back afterwards. But I decided to stay and paint. I stayed from February to April.

Together with other graffiti artists, we occupied Mohammad Mahmoud Street for these two months. 

During this time, we painted what became known as the martyrs’ gallery: the portraits of the victims of Port Said, a metaphoric tomb for our fighters.

The situation in Egypt has become very confusing. In the 2014 presidential elections in April, the former head of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was elected president. Many artists in Egypt support Sisi. The killer. You know, when the security forces rule the country, you’ll never see the crimes.

In November 2013, a very close friend of mine died: Bassem Mohsen. Bassem had lost his eye in the Mohamed Mahmoud Street clashes back in November 2011. He was arrested during military rule; he was arrested during Morsi’s rule, and ultimately died in December 2013. The police killed him during a demonstration called for by the Muslim Brotherhood, therefore he is said to have been an Islamist. But I knew Bassem well, and he was not: he only fought the police.

Bassem was with us when we painted the pink camouflage mural back in December. He was happy that night. Only a couple of days later, he died.

Therefore, on 1st January  2014, I decided to paint a martyr again. I wanted to paint Bassem, but I decided he should look completely different. I actually loved doing this on New Year’s. Everybody was drunk, so I could paint. I started at 4am, and they didn’t stop me until 6am. I told a police officer that I didn’t like the pink camouflage, because it made jokes about the army. “Why don’t you let me paint a nice portrait of our martyrs? People will like it!” I said. And he agreed. Of course, I didn’t tell him that this martyr had just recently been shot by the police! He let me stay another two days to finish the portrait.

I wanted people to really appreciate this portrait. People don’t know that the image actually shows someone who hated the police and the Islamists. But they love it.

And Bassem too doesn’t know that he’s here now, on the pink camouflage. But he would have loved it! For me, he represents the real revolution. He was 19 years old when he died, and 16 when the revolution started.

The last thing I painted was the fish on his dead eye. Fish are a sign of eye-opening. It says:

Although he’s dead, he will be watching you.