Egypt's Revolutionaries: Platon Style

Photo © Platon-Courtesy The New Yorker

The month of Ramadan has dawned on the Islamic world, and I thought I'd mark the event by posting Platon's images of the Egyptian revolutionaries, and in so doing wishing the Egyptian people a future they want and certainly deserve.

Be sure to view the accompanying short videos. You'll first have to suffer Goldman Sachs adverts, but just close your eyes while they play.

According to the news, Hosni Mubarak, his two sons, former interior minister Habib el-Adli, six of his aides and businessman Hussein Salem, are all charged with being involved in the killing of protesters during the 18-day revolt.

I'm not optimistic that the trial will be a speedy one, nor thorough. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's postponed for a myriad of reasons...but the Egyptian people will eventually get justice. They must.

Mugur Vărzariu: Egypt Adrift

Photo © Mugur Vărzariu-All Rights Reserved

Mugur Vărzariu is a photojournalist based in Romania whom I met at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul. I discovered he started as a photographer less than four months ago before attending the workshop, and it seems he has been extremely busy since then.

He traveled to India, Syria, Libya as well as Cairo, where he documented facets of the Egyptian Revolution in a photo essay titled Egypt Adrift, which is perhaps an apt description of the current development. I hope he's wrong, but so far it does appear that the ideals and values of the youth of Tahrir may be tossed to the side by the current "transitory" authorities.

One of the photographs in his Egypt Adrift essay is of a red car, with hood open...presumably stalled and needing fixing. It made me laugh, since the graffiti on the left of the frame says "The Central Security Forces robbed this store" with an arrow pointing to the shuttered store. The Central Security was the much hated entity used in suppressing any dissent, and was used to brutalize those who didn't toe the ex-regime's line.

I wonder what Mugur, being from Romania which suffered greatly under Nicolae Ceaușescu, felt documenting the Egyptian Revolution, which has some parallels to his country's December 1989 overthrow of its own dictator.

Marty Stalker: Egypt-After The Revolution

Here's an impressive documentary on Egypt during the heady days immediately following the revolution, filmed by Marty Stalker. Marty is a writer/director living in Northern Ireland with a passion for film-making. He recently graduated from the Lights Film School in New York City.

His Vimeo page informs us that the documentary was filmed on the Canon 5D Mark II with Zeiss compact prime Lenses in March 2011, and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 with Magic Bullet Mojo.

You can read Marty's notes on its production on his Scattered Images website.

The yells of the crowds one hears in the opening few moments of the movie are interesting since these are "Here's The Thief" (presumably about Mubarak), and "We Want Our Money". I liked how grainy black & white newsreel-like clips were inserted among the main colored movie. I am certain you'll be impressed by Dr Kamal Aboumagd, the wise constitutional lawyer, a gentleman who, in his demeanor and style, exemplifies the Egyptians of yore.

Well done.

The Revolution Thru The Lens of Fady Ezzet, An Egyptian Photojournalist

I've featured the work of young Egyptian photojournalists working for the local newspapers, who not only documented the Tahrir uprisings, but who also participated in the revolution.

For why I'm doing this, you can read my earlier post The Revolution...This Time Through The Lenses Of Home-Grown Egyptian Photojournalists.

This is the fourth and last part in the series, and is the work of Fady Ezzet, an Egyptian photojournalist who also works for El Shorouk Newspaper. He graduated from Cairo University, and is a full time photojournalist.

Having followed the series, I noticed that Fady's images are more in the thick of violence than the others. I presume being a male allowed him to take more risks than the other three women.

For each slideshow in the series, I chose the popular "Enta Omri" or "You Are My Life" from the repertory of the legendary Um Kulthum, the Egyptian singer who was the incomparable voice of her country. I owe the idea to a wonderful multimedia essay titled Spring by Shirin Neshat in the New York Times, who also used it as a metaphor for the revolution.

The Revolution Thru The Lens of Lobna Tarek, An Egyptian Photojournalist

I've started to feature the work of young Egyptian photojournalists working for the local newspapers, who not only documented the Tahrir uprisings, but who also participated in the revolution.

For why I'm doing this, you can read my earlier post The Revolution...This Time Through The Lenses Of Home-Grown Egyptian Photojournalists.

This is the third part in the series, and is the work of Lobna Tarek, an Egyptian photojournalist who just started to work for El Shorouk Newspaper a few months ago. She holds a degree in Communications from Cairo University, and at just 22 has taken up photojournalism as a full time career.

Imagine having just joined the profession and being plunged in a historic and momentous event within weeks of starting her career!

For each slideshow in the series, I chose the popular "Enta Omri" or "You Are My Life" from the repertory of the legendary Um Kulthum, the Egyptian singer who was the incomparable voice of her country. I owe the idea to a wonderful multimedia essay titled Spring by Shirin Neshat in the New York Times, who also used it as a metaphor for the revolution.

The Revolution Thru The Lens of Heba Khalifa, An Egyptian Photojournalist

I've started to feature the work of young Egyptian photojournalists working for the local newspapers, who not only documented the Tahrir uprisings, but who also participated in the revolution.

For why I'm doing this, you can read my earlier post The Revolution...This Time Through The Lenses Of Home-Grown Egyptian Photojournalists.

This is the second part in the series, and is the work of Heba Khalifa, an Egyptian photojournalist who started to work for Al Shorouk Al Gadeed in 2008. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from Helwan University, and worked in social programs for underprivileged children before taking photojournalism as a full time career. She's the recipient of the Mohammed Mounir Award for Visual Arts, Youth Salon, Egypt (2007), and a Scholarship to Study Graphic Art, Salzburg Summer Academy, Austria (2007), and participated in the Workshop in Visual Storytelling, Egyptian Supreme Council for Journalism (2010).

For each slideshow in the series, I chose the popular "Enta Omri" or "You Are My Life" from the repertory of the legendary Um Kulthum, the Egyptian singer who was the incomparable voice of her country. I owe the idea to a wonderful multimedia essay titled Spring by Shirin Neshat in the New York Times, who also used it as a metaphor for the revolution.

The Revolution Thru The Lens of Eman Helal, An Egyptian Photojournalist

As I wrote in my earlier post The Revolution...This Time Through The Lenses Of Home-Grown Egyptian Photojournalists, I am starting to feature the work of young Egyptian photojournalists working for the local newspapers, who not only documented the Tahrir uprisings, but who also participated in the revolution.

The series start with the work of Eman Helal, an Egyptian photojournalist who started her career at El-Shourouk (a local newspaper) a few years ago after graduating from the College of Communications. A 25-year old, she covered the daily uprisings in Tahrir square and in Cairo, showing not only talent but also determination.

I chose a popular song from the repertory of the legendary Um Kulthum, the Egyptian singer who was the incomparable voice of her country, to accompany the series. The song is "Enta Omri" or "You Are My Life". I owe the idea to a wonderful multimedia essay titled Spring by Shirin Neshat in the New York Times, who also used it as a metaphor for the revolution.

The Revolution...This Time Through The Lenses Of Home-Grown Egyptian Photojournalists

Photo © Eman Helal-All Rights Reserved

Since the recent effort by BagNews's Assignment Egypt (Analyzing News Photo From the 18 Days Revolution) wasn't about featuring the work of Egyptian photojournalists, I thought I'd solicit submissions from young home-grown Egyptian photojournalists working for the local newspapers, who not only documented the Tahrir uprisings, but who also participated in the revolution...in their revolution, for this blog instead.

These photojournalists are far from being "khawagas" (a colloquial nickname for non-Egyptians), they are not well-known in the Western media, they are -to borrow a word from the US military- "grunts"...hard-working people with little support except their own small local network, and who've been mistreated and distrusted by the Mubarak authorities. They've worked, and continue to work, under difficult circumstances. The foreign photojournalists who "parachuted" briefly into Egypt at the first whiff of civil disturbances did a great job documenting the revolution, but they were still "parachutists'...they were not indigenous to the revolution....sure, they documented it with a good photographic eye...sure, some of them were badly beaten by pro-regime thugs...sure, their photographs were plastered on pages of major newspapers and magazines...but they can never understand the revolution as these young local photographers did.

I know that featuring the work of these Egyptian photojournalists here may start the ball rolling, and could soon lead to larger venues where their talent can be better appreciated...I also know that generous photographers such as Eric Beecroft, John Horniblow and Michael Robinson Chavez are planning such venues. When I have all the details I'll announce them here.

In the meantime, I will feature the work of a handful of these young professionals on The Travel Photographer blog during the coming week.

Trust me...they are not marquee names, but their work is as good as that of the world-famous photojournalists.

POV: Analyzing Photos of The Egyptian Revolution

First, let me share this anecdote from the 2010 Istanbul Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. Mohammed "Mikko" Hassan, the late young Egyptian photojournalist, told me he had to borrow a lens from a friend so he could produce the kind of imagery expected of him at the workshop. Yes, young photojournalists in Egypt who work for local newspapers have to share lenses when covering assignments because they can't afford to have their own. This is not unheard of amongst non-Western photographers.

I remembered Mikko's words when I saw BagNews Salon was hosting an online panel this coming Sunday to discuss the media’s visual framing of Egypt's revolution. I expected and hoped it would involve the work of some of the young Egyptian photojournalists who are Mikko's peers, and who covered it for the local Al Masry Al Youm, Al Shorouk newspapers to name but a few.

Regretfully, this didn't seem to be the intent of the organizers.

As Michael Shaw of BagNews writes in response to my comment on its website:

"Instead, we looked to those with particular cross-cultural media expertise (Michelle Woodward of Middle East Report is certainly that) as well as others with deep experience reading media photos with cultural sensitivity (Campbell), as well as visual academics with an eye on on visual semiotics, in general, to articulate how the (largely Western) media created its own narrative of the story."

Perhaps a bit too heavy-handed on the defensive prose there, but fair enough. On the other hand, does it seem too "clubby" to only showcase the work of photojournalists who are already reasonably internationally well-known, and not include the photographs from those who work for Egyptian newspapers, who borrow cameras and CF cards from each other because they can't afford it otherwise, and who were beaten when they covered any anti-government demonstrations......including their revolution?

To be fair once again to Mr Shaw, he took the time to explain he didn't think the event would be the optimal venue for such photographs, but suggested that the BagNewsOriginals section might be a better fit for such work. Perhaps he's right...and it's certainly his prerogative to keep the public event within the panel's Western comfort zone.

In any case, my readers can make up their owns minds by visiting BagNews Salon and The British Journal of Photography.

Having said that, I must say I'm discomfited. Not by Mr Shaw's stance, but at having received no reaction from a couple of Egyptian photojournalists whom I asked to submit work to BagNews in time for the event. If they're unwilling to stand up and make their presence known, how can they break into "the club"?

On the plus side, I hear efforts are being made by generous photojournalists like Michael Robinson Chavez (and others) to bring the work covering the revolution by young Egyptian photographers to Visa Pour l'Image in Perpignan.

I hope they grab the opportunity.

POV: Egypt's Iconic Revolutionaries

Photos © Kim Badawi-Courtesy The Independent

The Independent newspaper has featured the photographs of some of the young Egyptian revolutionaries who, against all odds, overturned a despised regime in a matter of days. It is these young people who made history, not only their own country's, but of the world's.

These are the young men and women who led a populist uprising against Mubarak and his repulsive henchmen and sycophants...these are the young men and women who took the West's proclaimed democratic values as their own, and fought for them...not only paying lip service, not mouthing bromides...but with real action, risking their lives and futures. These are the young men and women who are the future of Egypt, and who'll take it to where it deserves to be...these are the young men and women who will accept no foreign influences...these are the young men and women who scoffed at the naysayers who described them as nothing more than errant juveniles, and who give the finger to the sclerotic and biased Western pundits who see Islamist bogeymen everywhere...these are the young men and women who have shown us that the people of the Middle East want democracy...their own democracy, not one imposed by others...these are the young people who must be immensely proud to be Egyptians.

I was also amazed by reading this, from The New York Times (March 6, 2011):

Egypt’s popular revolution was the work of men and women, bringing together housewives and fruit sellers, businesswomen and students. At its height, roughly one quarter of the million protesters who poured into the square each day were women. Veiled and unveiled women shouted, fought and slept in the streets alongside men, upending traditional expectations of their behavior.

Jonathan Owen's in his accompanying article calls these photographs "Portraits of Courage", and indeed they are.

Finally, about the photographer. Kim Badawi, a 30-year-old documentary photographer of French-Egyptian descent, endured beatings, bullets and tear gas to find out what these young revolutionaries went through, and these portraits are his work.

TIME Magazine: Egyptian Youth

It's not often that I'm in agreement with TIME magazine's cover choices, but I am with this one. The photograph is of Egyptian activists in Cairo who made history, and is by Finlay MacKay, a Scottish photographer.

The uprisings in the Arab Middle East are defining moments for the youth of these countries...while some mistaken pundits in the West are still trying to define the uprisings as having Islamic (or even Islamist) connotations, these are the same old tired cliches we've heard over and over again since September 11, 2001.

These are the faces of Egypt...look at them carefully. These are its future.

POV: Missed Opportunity?

Photo © MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images (Via denverpost.com)

As readers of this blog know, my In Search of Sufis of Gujarat Photo-Expedition coincided almost perfectly with the revolution in Egypt, and I was torn between my commitment to its participants to continue leading it as if nothing was happening in my homeland...and flying off to Cairo and cover the events as best I could.

I stayed on. It was a difficult decision and certainly a missed opportunity to get involved in Egypt's historic moments, but I had a commitment to the group of photographers who chose to accompany me on this trip.

Had I sensed that I needed to be there because of dangerous turn of events, I would have taken leave of my group, and I know they would have understood and supported my decision to be in Cairo instead. But that did not happen and all was safe. Was it a missed opportunity for me to cover the events at Tahrir Square? Of course. But it was not meant to be. Had I not have a commitment to fulfill, I'd have been amongst the first to be there.

I was asked by a number of well-wishers, friends and acquaintances whether I'd return to Egypt and take part in the restructuring that is bound to happen. As much as I'm flattered by the thought, I've been away from Egypt for too long...it's up to the younger generation to remodel their country in the shape and form they want it to be....and I know they will eventually succeed. Once freedom is tasted, there's no turning back.

Perhaps it won't be an Utopian democracy...there'll be disappointments...it'll be imperfect...but it'll be theirs, and they deserve it after 60 years of deprivation, humiliation, and inequality.

Egypt Is Free

Photo © Ed Ou For The New York Times

Egypt Is Free! is the headline in the Indian newspapers here in Ahmedabad...and what a welcome sight it is after two weeks of non stop traveling in Gujarat on the In Search of Sufis Photo~Expedition. Infrequent internet connections, and non existent English news channels on hotels' television meant that detailed news of the historic events in Cairo were sparse.

It's with jubilation that I learned of Mubarak's resignation and the fall of his regime...but as importantly, I'm ecstatic the young Egyptians have more than regained their pride, and their place in history. As many have said, this is a historic and momentous event which will certainly portend freedom for the millions of the Arab youth in other countries. The hard work to establish a working democracy will start soon...and that also will be a test for the fortitude of these admirable Egyptians.

I've seen the phenomenal photo coverage in all the dailies; The New York Times, MSNBC, WSJ Photo Journal, The Big Picture and the rest of them...the excellent work by Ron Haviv, Michael Robinson Chavez, Ed Ou and many others.

However, I cannot help but wonder why haven't the photo editors of these newspapers/magazines also featured the work of Egyptian photojournalists who covered the events as well? Why not give a chance to these young photographers to show how they document their own revolution? They also need the exposure...and it's their revolution after all!!!

A New Dawn In Egypt?

Photo © Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

It's surreal to be at the cusp of starting on a photo~expedition while my country of origin is experiencing an unprecedented massive popular uprising to get rid of the current regime of Mubarak, the Egyptian president....who announced that he would remain as its leader but sack its government.

There are a number of thoughts that come to mind. This is a real organic grassroots popular uprising in Egypt against an extremely unpopular and corrupt regime. The Egyptians participating in the uprising are secular, young, educated and less so, and are technological-savvy. There are no signs of religious ideology, of Islamist influence, in these demonstrations.

I sensed that many of the Western pundits are shocked (and possibly disappointed) that there is no whiff of Islamic extremism in the demonstrations...this pulls the rug from under the Western (and the current Egyptian leadership) interests who would like to characterize the uprising as another Iran.

While Mubarak signaled his decision to stay in power, it's not up to him any longer. It's the Egyptian youth who will decide the course of the nation...as it should be.

It's an unparalleled opportunity for the United States to support the Egyptian people in its quest for democracy, and eliminate all anti-Americanism feelings in the whole region by doing so. Imagine if the US administration unequivocally declares its support for the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt!

Incha' Allah there will be a new dawn for Egypt and its people.

(Posted from Delhi)

Marty Aim: The Zabaleen of Cairo

Photo © Marty Aim-All Rights Reserved

I found Marty Aim's The Zabaleen photo essay to be timely in view of the New Year’s attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, that killed more than 20 people.  I saw it mentioned on Facebook, and decided it would jump the weekly queue in being featured.

Marty Aim is a New Zealand-born documentary photographer, currently based in South East Asia. He holds degrees in Visual and Social Anthropology. His clients include the British Museum, Time and the Discovery Channel. He's also an alum of The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop.

The Zabaleen are an occupational community of Christian Copts who have functioned as Cairo's informal garbage collectors for at least 80 years.  In colloquial Egyptian, Zabaleen means "garbage people" or pig-pen operators. The community is spread over half a dozen settlements in greater Cairo, and are estimated to be close to 80,000 people. The largest settlement is Mokattam Village, better known as "Garbage City," which is situated at the foot of the Mokattam Mountains, east of Cairo.

Many sources agree that the Zabaleen have created one of the most efficient recycling systems in the world, which is estimated at recycling up to 80% of all the collected waste. These are good people...the salt of the earth kind of people...hard working and largely self sufficient, but discriminated against in many ways because of their religion and their occupation.

It's funny...I still recall the daily sound of the Zabal's donkey-cart stopping outside my childhood home in a Cairo suburb, collecting the garbage and the trash. Efforts by the Egyptian government to replace the garbage collectors with modern local and foreign companies have essentially failed.

By all means, explore Marty's galleries. I did and was rewarded with the terrific photograph of girls in a Muslim school in Thailand's Narathiwat province. You'll know which one I mean the second you lay your eyes on it....really terrific.

The Coptic Man on "Tiananmen Square"?

Photo © Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

A photograph by Amr Abdallah Dalsh, a Reuters photographer, stopped me in my tracks. It shows an Egyptian young man (presumably a Christian Copt) menacing or hurling a piece of iron at the cowering Egyptian police. This came about as a consequence of the heinous bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria on New Year's Eve which killed 23 and injured 100.

Egypt is still reeling from the violence, and its government has quickly blamed external Islamist terrorism, promising to bring the perpetrators to justice.  I'm not holding my breath on that eventuality, and neither are the Copts, who have been subject to discrimination at all levels in their very own country.

High on the Copts' grievance list is Egypt's policy to make it extremely difficult for them to build churches.  The country's prime minister recently rejected demands for Copts to be free to build churches, claiming that the government will make sure that there are enough worship places for both Muslims and Christians. A joke.

And this is one of our so-called stalwart allies in the Middle East. Another joke.

But let's go back to the photograph for a minute. A half-naked man confronting a phalanx of well armed, well protected security forces...and seemingly single-highhandedly making them cower like rats. This is truly an example of a picture being worth a thousand words.

Photograph courtesy Reuters Full Focus Blog

NPR: Cairo And The "Disconnected"

This touches on photography/multimedia only tangentially, so unless you're into Middle Eastern-international politics, you may want to skip all the stuff below and just click on the movie.

A number of media outlets are gingerly covering Egypt's political scene due to the imminent parliamentary elections. I say gingerly because Egypt is a so-called major ally in the "war against terror" or whatever it's called these days, so it wouldn't be politic or in our national "interests" to criticize its ossified and corrupt regime. Why the United States aligns itself with despots in the Middle East and elsewhere will always be an anachronism.

NPR has featured a number of short articles and some multimedia for the occasion, and I found this one titled In Cairo Slum, Little Hope For Change to be an exemplar of what the current situation is in Egypt. I say "current" but that's not really correct. It's always been that way, and it'll continue to be that way, perhaps get even wider...a profound disconnect and an immense gap between the poor and the elite. Trust me...I know that for a fact.

An Egyptian investment banker (I'm not sure how he can be one with such an atrocious spoken English) complains that his children are disconnected from the rest of Egypt because they go to American schools, wear Western clothes and barely speak Egyptian Arabic. Well, I've got news for him....the "disconnect" has been prevalent since the Pharaohs.

Every dog has his day as the saying goes...so going back in modern history, it was the Ottomanophiles, then Anglophiles and the Francophiles who were the elite class, and disconnected from the people. Identical to the Tsarist elite in Russian who would only speak in French, the Egyptian elite would live in bubbles of their own making, separated from the "non-elite" and the rest of their compatriots. To a lesser extent, the time for the socialist Nasserites and Sadatites came and went. Now, it's the turn of the Mubarakphiles...the business cronies, the oligarchs, and the corrupt corporate/political alliances who form the recent elite....but these will also vanish when their time comes, only to be replaced by a hungrier demographic. We've been there before, and it's only a matter of time before the cycle repeats itself. A class will just replace another class. And by the way, claiming to have Turkish ancestry (some extremely tenuous and others grossly made up) is currently a de rigueur affectation for many of the newly minted Egyptian wealthy class. Go figure. Having Turkish heritage was once viewed as being regressive, not authentic and even unpatriotic. I know that for a fact as well.

But back to the "disconnected"...which many of the privileged (some would describe them as spoiled) Egyptian youth are. Confused by a brainless embrace of a culture that is not theirs; an embrace made possible because their parents are the current moneyed elite and can buy into an ersatz Americanism; confused by their own dichotomy...seeing no conflict between binge drinking, heavy partying and then fasting Ramadan and claiming religiosity...but unable and unwilling to adopt American meritocratic values, its democratic values and work ethics.

Watch the multimedia piece...then shed a tear for the real people of Egypt who deserve infinitely better than the dismal life they're leading.

Mohamed Hassan: Photojournalist

Photo © Mohamed Hassan- All Rights Reserved

Mohamed Hassan Abd El Aal (Mikko Hassan) lived and worked in Cairo, and graduated from the Akhbar El-Yom Academy with an honor degree in Journalism. He worked as a press photographer in the daily newspaper El-Shorouk El Gedid. Apart from covering political issues, protests and demonstrations, he was interested in documenting the traditional manufacturing processes in Old Cairo. One of these features gleaned him first prize in the 2009 Annual Press Photography Competition of Egypt.

I met Mohamed (aka Mikko) at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul. He wasn't in my class, but approached me, rather shyly, and expressed his pleasure in seeing that one of the instructors was of Egyptian heritage. He told me that although he had seen my name on the roster of instructors, but had taken it for Lebanese. Mohamed participated in Guy Calaf's class, and had been awarded a scholarship.

I reviewed Mohamed's portfolio which, as he wrote in his biography, had photographs of his explorations in the deepest corners of Old Cairo. He did them during his one day week-ends, on his own time, deriving nothing of it except his own pleasure and self-improvement. I sensed his enthusiasm for photography, saw his talent and his eye for composition, and predicted to him that he'd be one of Egypt's best photojournalists.

It was not to be. His trajectory was very sadly cut short because of a fatal freak accident a few days ago. He will be missed by many.

The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop family reacts: Eric Beecroft, the co-founder of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, announced that a permanent full scholarship in Mikko's name will be made available, and his work is featured on the FPW's front page.

Masr: Javier Morgade

Masr is the Arabic word for Egypt...and it's also colloquially used for Cairo. So in Arabic, Egyptians are called Masr'yeen...which is confusing for non-Arabic speakers, but that's how it is. Egypt was borrowed from the Latin Aegyptus and from the ancient Greek Aígyptos.

Javier Morgade was filming in Egypt for an airline company, and was left with surplus footage for this short movie. It's a documentary made with a Canon 5d Mark II and a Glidetrack HD. It was edited in Final Cut Pro and graded with After Effects. The song is by a contemporary Egyptian singer and is titled ah men al forak, which loosely translated means "lamenting separation".

In my view (and I should know), Javier managed to capture in this short movie the essence of the Egyptian character, the kindness, humor, hospitality and generosity...even their occasional legendary intrusiveness. It saddens me to see the poverty in the alleys of old Cairo, but as always, it's mitigated by the Egyptian talent for being able to share setbacks, poverty, sorrows, and life troubles. No Egyptian is an island...and while they find enormous solace in their extended families and friends, neighbors and even casual acquaintances...they deserve better.

David Myers: City of The Dead

The City of the Dead is produced by David Myers, a part-time photographer who lives in Maryland and works in Washington DC.

The City of the Dead is a four mile long cemetery (a necropolis would be a better word to describe it) which extends from the northern to southern part of Cairo. It's called el-arafa by Egyptians, and is an area of tombs and mausoleums where people live and works amongst the dead. Its foundation dates back to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD, and has grown with time until it reached the equivalent of a fully functioning residential suburb of Cairo.

I watched this short photo essay, and it brought back childhood memories when, once a year during the Eid festival, I had to accompany my father to pay respects to our ancestors and forebears who were interred in our family's mausoleum. I still recall it being as large as a couple of basketball courts, with two house-like structures sheltering a number of mausoleums, made of marble or alabaster, and intricately carved with verses of the Qur'an. It is under one of those that my father rests, alongside his forebears. The marble gateway to the mausoleums is carved with the name of my grandfather...which is like mine.

This brought back the smell of dust to my nostrils...the Egyptian dust that is tamped down by hosing it with water...the green-grey color of the palm tree leaves...and much more.

I've been to many Islamic countries and heard the adan in all of them...but few of them come  close to beauty and purity of the Egyptian adan. Perhaps I am biased....