Zeinab Abdelhamed
Mahatma Gandhi once said: “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and
in the soul of its people”. In recent years, much debate has been stirred over
the redefinition of nations’ culture in the modern age, especially after
uprisings and revolutions. As a person with history of art and architecture
background I was amazed to see the graffiti with these pharaonic symbols during
the revolution in Tahrir square. I wanted
to examine to what extent the Egyptians could redefine their cultural identity
through vernacular memories in light of the 2011 Revolution.
Egypt has much written about its history and its culture identity.
Throughout this consecutive timeline of enormous history, Egyptian cultural
identity has changed considerably. Egypt has been through a wide range of
historical eras and every phase of these periods affected Egyptian cultural
identity and formed it. These transformations were embedded in the layers of
Egyptian cultural identity, especially after the decline of the Ottoman Empire
and during the Post-colonial Egypt. These moments all deal with the period when
Egypt as a nation was born. Beneath the surface of the modern Egyptian
community there were many attempts to impose a certain cultural identity that
connects the people with a fabricated victory (6th October war) and
prestige and to conceal the roots and the connections with the ancient historical
cultural identity. Thirty years after the war, with a fragmented identity
Egyptian activists reconstructed cultural identity through their vernacular
memories. In other words, the graffiti of the Egyptian 2011 Revolution can be
read not only as mere registration of the events of the revolution but as a
means to reconstruct cultural identity in a time of political unrest and
change.
There is a distinction between the official memories and the
vernacular memories. The Egyptian vernacular memory (graffiti) was done to
recapture an acknowledged heritage in the representation of the Pharaonic
icons. Basically, the graffiti on the walls of Tahrir square was pivotal in
reading many signals about cultural identity in the layers of the minds of artists and activists. The graffiti
displayed on urban buildings in Cairo are examples of how the Egyptians managed
to find new channels of belonging, bringing back scenes from the ancient past
to enable participation during the events of the present.
Through a comparative approach of two sets of
visual materials I will analyse the scenes in more depth and read the signals
from the photograph and its implications. The first comparative analysis
concerns memory cultures that represent the same ancient image: The Nefertiti
bust and Nefertiti in the gas mask (see Figure.1)
the authentic sculpture of the queen currently displayed in the Neues Museum in
Berlin (2019) is one of the most famous works of art in Egyptian art history.
Nefertiti was the great royal wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Amenhotep IV, later
known as the pharaoh Akhenaten and step mother of the boy king, Tutankhamun.
Figure 1 The Nefertiti bust
It has been the subject of an intense argument
between Egypt and Germany over Egyptian demands for its repatriation, which
began in 1924 once the bust was first displayed to the public. The original
artifact represents the Egyptian queen Nefertiti who symbolizes feminine
strength and grace. Although the artifact is an identity marker for many
Egyptians, and at the same time it is considered as a significant part of the
national cultural heritage, the statue of Nefertiti is also claimed as part of
Germany’s museum culture. Yet, for Egyptians the icon of Nefertiti and its
cultural memory continues to signify national cultural identity. Although the
physical artifact (the Nefertiti bust) is no longer present in the material
culture of the Egyptian heritage.
In light of Nora’s theory of Les lieux de
mémoire 1989 “Where memory crystallizes itself has occurred at a particular
historical moment, a turning point where consciousness of a break with the past
is bound up with the sense that memory has been torn-- but torn in such a way
as to pose the problem of the embodiment of memory in certain sites where a
sense of historical continuity persists” (p.7) In other words, while the physical “place of
memory” (the bust( is no longer part of Egyptian
material culture and cultural heritage, the non-physical Nefertiti icon
continues to reverberate as a cultural, vernacular memory and identity in
contemporary Egypt.
Moving on to the Nefertiti stencil by the
Egyptian artist and activist, El Zeft, (See Figure 2)the graffiti depicts the queen ready for
battle wearing a gas mask. The vernacular memories of Nefertiti continue to be
materialized in contemporary cultural formats (e.g. Graffiti). The icon of the
feminine strength and grace or beauty was employed by revolutionaries during
the Egypt revolution in 2011.
Figure 2 Nefertiti
in a gas mask
Both physical and online walls on Egypt
have been covered with graffiti and stencils that displayed Nefertiti with a
gas mask. During the revolution this symbol inspired for many Egyptians who
considered that they had to identify once more with their cultural heritage to
overthrow tyranny by employing the tropes of vernacular memory and redefining
the Egyptian cultural identity. The comparative analysis of the two cultural
memories of Nefertiti demonstrate that artistic, vernacular memories of the ancient
Egyptian Queen fostered a renewed Egyptian cultural identity that employed the
historical symbols of beauty and strength to political ends. The icon of
Nefertiti exceeds the boundaries of a mere art/historical artifact and played a
leading role in leading Egyptians to identify themselves with their ancestors
in a quest for freedom and strength.... To be continued.
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