Génération Tahrir
Five years after the uprising of 2011, a portrait of Egyptian youth carrying hopes of the Arab world.
In January 2011, the Egyptian youth dragged the country into revolt, dismissing Hosni Mubarak in power for 30 years. Poor education system, unemployment, corruption, ... It is this unbearable reality that has given young people the courage to bring down the regime that paralysed their parents.
Five years later, alas, the omnipotent military state is back and the crackdown on opponents is deadly.
Generation Tahrir yet portrays a generation in motion. The photographs and texts of Pauline Beugnies interact with the striking drawings of the artist Ammar Abo Bakr and a text by journalist and writer Ahmed Nagy closes the book. Together, they recreate with energy and optimism a decisive part of the story being written.
The book was published in January 2016 by the editions of Bec en l'Air.
Pauline Beugnies (extract)‘‘ The ultimate symbol of patriarchal tyranny in 2011 was Mubarak. This patriarchal figure crystallised all the problems against which the youth wanted to fight. All the violence suffered, the revolt whether sexual, economic or social. The evil was Mubarak. And he made everyone agree: he had to leave. The occupation of Tahrir Square began somehow, in hue and cry. In 18 days, Rais Hosni Mubarak, the only president Egyptians under 30 had known, was dismissed. SCAF (the Armed Forces Council) would provide the transition. The joy was immense but the revolt was only at its first jolts. I was fascinated. The revolutionary myth in its exacerbated romanticism dazzled me ... ’’
