In fact, when activists managed to reach out to citizens on the ground, they succeeded to undermine the counter-revolutionary narrative and the regime’s collective memory field. A prominent example is the activists’ 2012 campaign: Askar Kazeebon (Lying Military) whose modus operandi was to broadcast videos and documentaries to pedestrians that falsify the military’s accounts of various events and expose the soldiers’ crimes and human rights violations that official and regime-friendly media ignored. [...]
Under the disguise of renovation, the walls of revolutionary graffiti were repainted, CCTV cameras were installed in central spaces, and governmental offices were relocated away from the heart of Cairo. Some, like Schindehutte, view al-Sisi government’s new administrative capital as a project with which government buildings ‘will be spatially removed from the memory of resistance.’ [...]
One of the prominent monuments in revolutionary Cairo was the building of the former ruling party: The National Democratic Party (NDP). A historical building on the Nile Corniche adjacent to Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Museum. On January 28, 2011, during the protests, the building was set ablaze. The arsonists remain unknown, yet, the burned building became a symbol of the revolution’s triumph over the regime. To destroy this monument’s ability to stimulate people to remember this victory, the regime demolished it. And so did the regime with the first memorial to the January 25 martyrs that was constructed by the protesters, in Tahrir Square, immediately after Mubarak stepped down .
No comments:
Post a Comment