The Walls

Walls and barriers spread all over downtown Cairo and extended to the outskirts, covering all the squares that people frequently demonstrated in. They divided the country into different parts, similar to what such walls did in Berlin and Palestine. Sitting next to the wall, I think of the person on the other side, in a society that suffers from similar divisions. Businesses suffered as the walls forced people to walk longer distances. But, despite this suffering, many people resent anyone trying to bring these walls down, because to them it might mean renewed clashes and teargas. This quick adaptation to the existence of walls both impressed and scared me at the same time. First, people jumped over the walls; then they made a hole that allowed them to crawl through them and avoid their risk of falling. Meanwhile, the streets turned into parking lots, or football grounds. Fear is one of the main reasons for building these walls, which appeared after a popular revolution aimed at getting rid of social and political barriers. Their disappearance means one of two things: the victory of the revolution, or the return of the old regime. This story was shot as part of the Shouf Photo Collective.