{"id":46212,"date":"2013-05-15T07:27:13","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T06:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=46212"},"modified":"2017-03-28T10:50:33","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T09:50:33","slug":"egyptian-artists-declare-war-on-sexual-harassment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=46212","title":{"rendered":"Egyptian artists declare war on sexual harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Circle

Circle of Hell was painted to raise awareness of sexual harassment and assault in Egypt. Photo: Melody Patry \/ Index on Censorship<\/p><\/div>\n

Since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak two years ago, artists have been active in breaking Egypt\u2019s age-old taboos around sexual violence, especially since sexual harassment has been on the rise<\/a>. In the period after the revolution, artists — including women — have covered the country\u2019s walls with murals and slogans, using them to amplify calls for change. Melody Patry<\/strong> reports.<\/p>\n

Merna Thomas, co-founder of the campaign Graffiti Harimi<\/a> explains that graffiti has become one of the most popular forms of activism, and Graffiti Harimi uses the art form to give women \u201ca voice\u201d in Cairo\u2019s public spaces. The project involves spray painting images of powerful female Egyptian voices alongside inspirational quotes. \u201cWomen didn\u2019t have a voice\u201d, says Thomas, \u201cmy hope is to open a debate within society, to start a dialogue, even unconsciously, with people who pass by our graffiti every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, two Egyptian artists — Mira Shihadeh and Zeft — painted \u201cthe circle of hell<\/a>\u201d on a wall near Tahrir Square. The image denounced a disturbing trend of violent gang rapes against female protesters —- where women are encircled in mobs of 200 to 300 men who fight, pull, shove, beat and strip them. The surge in more violent and organised sexual assaults has led to some local groups to allege that sexual harassment is being used as a tool to scare female protesters away from participating in demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey try to intimidate us!\u201d says Rana el Husseiny, an Egyptian comedian and painter, \u201cby creating this atmosphere of fear they hope women will refrain from going to protests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The artist explains to Index why \u201cit is no longer possible to turn a blind eye to what\u2019s happening in the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMob attacks also result from years of denial, victim-blaming and self-censorship. A few years ago, if you had been a victim of harassment and wanted to press charges, the police wouldn\u2019t even register your complaint. But the fact is that even now, most girls don\u2019t want to file a complaint. They think that talking about sexual harassment is shameful. I believe that art — whatever its form — can challenge this perception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conquering the culture of self-censorship around sexual harassment has been a battle for artists and activists like el Husseiny. She participated in a drama workshop on sexual harassment last November and December — which had more male participants than female ones. The workshop led to a 30-minute play entitled Maknoun (literally \u201cwhat is hidden\u201d in Arabic). In her scene, el Husseiny plays a woman who claims that sexual harassment doesn\u2019t exist, while a man is obviously harassing her in the background.<\/p>\n

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More Coverage >>><\/strong> Egypt<\/a> | Middle East and North Africa<\/a><\/p>\n

Index on Censorship Magazine >>><\/strong> Fallout: The economic crisis and free expression<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cThis scene shows how difficult it is to address sexual harassment\u201d, explains el Husseiny, \u00a0\u201cnot only is there no political will to do so, but our society is hypocritical\u201d. But el Husseiny believes she has a responsibility vis-\u00e0-vis this issue: \u201cAs an artist, I want to talk about sexual harassment; showing it on stage is my way to break this taboo. But unfortunately, our audience is limited. To maximise our impact, we should perform in schools, in the streets\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Dalia Naous and Kinda Hassan battle sexual harassment with street performance. In January 2012, Naous and Hassan cast nine Egyptian dancers and performing artists to participate in a ten-day workshop, followed by five days of street performances filmed for a video-dance project called\u00a0Cairography<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Naous, who choreographed and co-directed the project, says everyone practises conscious or unconscious censorship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very interesting to see that in some areas, dancers allowed themselves to try some moves, while in other parts of the city, they felt really tense. They had in mind that people might react in an aggressive way so they censored themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cairography uses its artistic performances to battle sexual harassment \u201cin a more direct way\u201d — creating a public debate through street performances, and screenings of performances in public spaces. Naous says that the key to change is facing \u201cthe problem of pressure, censorship, and self-censorship, because I find self-censorship to be one of the most dangerous things in society\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:

Photo: Melody Patry \/ Index on Censorship<\/p><\/div>\n

Nadine Emile, one Cairography\u2019s dancers, says that such artistic initiatives have already begun to foster change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you could not do two or three years ago, you can do now\u201d says Emile, citing the example of the 2010 Bussy Monologues, a play she participated in telling the stories of real women through monologues, which was censored after audience members filed complaints following the first performance. The directors of the play Mona el Shimi and Sondos Shabayek, told Ahram Online<\/a>, \u201cWe had a visit from the morality police, the tourism police, State Security and the censorship body, who made us take more scenes out\u201d<\/p>\n

Emile\u2019s two scenes were cut from the show. In one of the cut scenes, she tells the story of a woman who had been abused by a cousin as a teenager. \u00a0\u201cWhen they told me my monologue had been removed, I felt very angry. I even cried backstage\u201d, Emile recounts, \u201cI thought, ‘why should we take the story off?’ People need to know\u201d.<\/p>\n

So when she was asked to perform in the streets with Cairography, Emile feared backlash. \u201cThe first time we hit the streets, I was a bit concerned. I didn\u2019t know how people would react\u201d, she said. \u201cI thought that I would be really tense and paranoid, or that I would censor myself, but it was just the opposite.\u201d Emile says that most passersby did not notice that she was performing, and through the experience she was able to feel safe outside.<\/p>\n

All the artists interviewed highlighted art\u2019s ability to prompt discussions within Egyptian society. However, they also acknowledged the need to combine cultural and political initiatives to effectively battle sexual harassment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that these artistic projects I was involved in triggered some glimmer of hope\u201d, concludes Emile, \u201cbut the \u2018fight\u2019 has just started and much remains to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak two years ago, artists have been active in breaking Egypt\u2019s age-old taboos around sexual violence, especially since sexual harassment has been on the rise.
\nMelody Patry<\/strong> reports. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4060,581],"tags":[7376,5256],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46212"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88419,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46212\/revisions\/88419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}