A woman sleeps beneath revolutionary graffiti on the Mogamma building.
I’ve been told the green lettering reads “revolution,” growing out of the red lettering for “martyrs”
I really have no idea what to say about this particular fashion statement
More Scenes from Tahrir
July 18, 2011 By 1 Comment
Courageous Women: Mervat Qassem Hilal
May 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I’ve been hard at work making slideshows from interviews and photo sessions Hossam and I did in Egypt, and I’m finally on the home stretch. You can follow my progress on my vimeo account
I think this video is my favorite from the project. In the West, I we’re too often taught to assume that a woman in hijab — an Arab, a Muslim, a wife and a mother — is automatically a victim, passive and oppressed. I wish we got to see more of women like Mervat, who plays an active role in agitating for her own rights and those of her colleagues. She was on the front lines of the struggle to unionize the tax collectors, sleeping on the streets during the strike, facing down government officials, and persevering despite threats against her and her family.
It’s also quite touching to see the support she gets from her husband and son.
Tax Collectors’ Union Gains Recognition
April 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I haven’t been on here much lately, for which I am truly sorry. (Work, chaos, agonizing about the future and arranging a summer position at the Jakarta Post and a research trip to Mindanao, about which more later.)
But I interrupt the silence to announce that the Egypt’s Real Estate Tax Collectors, whose story I’m working on telling in a multimedia package, handed in yesterday the paperwork necessary to formally establish their union — Egypt’s first independent trade union in half a century.
Mabrouk to the Tax Collectors.
And watch this space. The multimedia project — or at least the English-language version of it — will be completed by May 7.
More slideshows from Egypt
March 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Grad school insanity (in my case) and general Egyptian turmoil (in Hossam’s) have kept us from making much progress on the Tax Collectors’ strike project. My spring break is coming up, though, so there’s reason to hope it’ll be finished by the end of the month.
In the meantime, a few more slideshows are subtitled and up on vimeo.
Strike leader Kamal Abu Eita, a long-time activist, explains how his record as a student activist kept him from his planned career, and how he has kept his activism alive while working as a tax collector:
Kamal Abu Eita explains that unlike previous strikes in Egypt, which were confined to a single workplace, the tax collectors’ strike drew workers from offices all across Egypt:
This short clip illustrates unity between Muslim and Coptic Christian strikers. The recent wave of labor activism in Egypt has been marked by cooperation between Muslims and Copts, belying the popular myth of irresolvable communal conflict:
Abdel Qader Nada on life on the picket line:
I’m hoping to work next on interviews with Mervat Qasim Helal Mohammed, one of the many women instrumental in planning and conducting the strike. Not only is she one hell of a character, but I think stories like hers help counter the media trope of “veiled Muslim woman as passive victim.”
related: Hossam posts the slideshows here
Al-Hussein Explosion
February 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment
It’s always a little sobering to hear about bombs going off in places I’ve recently been.
Khan al Khalili, January 2009.
Al Hussein Mosque
Al-Azhar area
It’s interesting, though, that because I subscribe to the Jaiku feeds of several Cairo-based journalists and bloggers, by the time I woke up this morning I had more detailed and complete news sitting in my cellphone inbox than was available through the mainstream media.
Pyramids, home.
January 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment
On my last day in Egypt, I finally made it to the pyramids at Giza. (I had seen them on the way to an interview, but only through the window of a moving car, which doesn’t quite do them justice.)
The whole scene is a rather unpleasant mix of corrupt police, touts, and tour busses, but the pyramids themselves, somehow, are magnificent and massive enough to stand above it all.
I got back to California this afternoon, and am busy adapting to a 10 hour time change, long hot showers, and cars that stop for me when I want to cross the street.
The first completed clip…
January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I haven’t been posting lately, largely because I’ve been holed up working on the tax collectors project.
Here’s one clip from the project, which shows tax strike leader Abdel Qader Nada explaining some of the conditions that pushed real estate tax collectors to launch a (successful!) strike last year.
This video, along with about a dozen others, will be embedded into a multimedia presentation illustrating the history of the strike, and the subsequent formation of the first independent labor union Egypt has seen in 50 years.
Egyptian Tax Collectors: Working Conditions from Isabel Esterman on Vimeo.
For more background information on the Tax Collectors, check out the blog of Hossam, who I’ve been working with.
Preparations
December 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
In preparation for my departure for Cairo this Thursday, I went to the library earlier this week and checked out a couple of guidebooks, basic Arabic self-instruction books, a manual on XML (scripting Arabic is a bit of a nightmare) and a stack of mindless fiction.
So far, I’m making a lot of progress on the fiction.