BLANK

The letters are gone.

Translation: "Retribution"

As I passed by the Maglis Al-Shura today, there were no longer any English letters on the gate. As I wrote in an earlier post, the majority of the English letters had been removed (taken down, stolen?). Last week someone spray-painted the gate with the words "down with military rule", and finally yesterday someone removed the last of the English letters and wrote "القصاص" (retribution)

The word "retribution" refers to the failure of the government to give justice to the families' of the Martyrs of the Revolution.

Interestingly enough, the building next to the gate had also been spray-painted last week, but was painted over.

S OU IL

Translation (of the spray-painted words): "Down with with military rule" (yuskut hokm el3askr)

The following is a photograph of the gate of the Maglis Al Shoura (Shoura Council) (the upper house in the Egyptian parliament).

The spray-paint is black and not very visible during the day, however, it is reflective at night.

The English letters were removed after the massive 9 September demonstration. The words were spray-painted two nights ago.

While English is an international language, why are the English letters as big (if not bigger) than the Arabic words? Were the English letters specifically targeted or were they taken down simply because they are easier to reach than the Arabic letters?

Furthermore, why did it take so long for someone to spray-paint the gate? While the words "yaskot 7okm el3askr" (down with military rule) were spray-painted as early as the 28 October demonstration (my personal photographs do not show any such street art before that demonstration, although I was not actively documenting street art before the end of September), the gate was only spray-painted after the deadly clashes in Midan Tahrir began. Does the very existence of this street art signal a turning point?