8 - Icons of Revolutionary Upheaval: Arab Spring Martyrs

Summary

Abstract

Friederike Pannewick examines the public memorialisations of the martyrs of the Arab Spring in Egypt as expressed in graffiti and murals in Cairo. The state tried to censor and destroy them, but the memorial spaces were re-appropriated by the public and functioned as visual narratives of the history of the revolution. This artwork not only aimed at counteracting forgetfulness through public remembrance, but also enshrined the remembrance of more than once unpunished crimes and tragic events. The commemoration of these martyrs oscillates thus between personal efforts to cope with inescapable suffering and political strategy. From the perspective of previous commemorations of martyrs in Arab contexts the remembrance of the Arab Spring martyrs displays a major shift: this time the Arab citizens themselves engaged in self-empowerment and establishing and defending their own national history, instead of the political or religious institutions. In addition, a semantic transformation took place through a reconfiguration of religious ideas in the context of secularised modernity that transcends the particularities of specific groups and simultaneously builds on Muslim and Christian imageries.

Keywords: Arab Spring, public memorialisation, contestation, art and martyrdom, self-empowerment and national history

The death toll since the political and social upheavals broke out in the Arab world in 2011 is considerable. For relatives and friends as well as the various protest movements these deaths demonstrate the brutal violence of the relevant political opponent being held responsible for these acts. Many activists trying to lend tragic death some meaning emphasise the sacrificial character of these cases of death. This chapter will look at the diverse aesthetic forms of expression employed to publicly memorialise these martyrs of the Arab Revolution.

As in all martyr narrations, the victims are idealised, but their death is nevertheless more than once exploited within the struggle for political interpretive predominance. Whatever the political tendency, what is common to all is the imperative to counteract forgetfulness through public remembrance. To represent the martyrs as visible and ubiquitous as possible in the public sphere should enshrine remembrance of more than once unpunished crimes and tragic events, as if the extinction of remembrance would mean the cancellation of these acts while providing cover and forgetfulness to the perpetrators. The commemoration of the martyrs oscillates thus between personal efforts to cope with inescapable suffering and political strategy.