Alexandria Library’s walls have recently been transformed into a battlefield of political slogans between supporters of ousted President Morsi and his opponents. Morsi’s supporters have sprayed phrases against the armed forces and General El-Sisi, which have distorted the library’s walls and cost its administration millions of Egyptian Pounds in restoration costs. Morsi’s oppositionists have campaigned for cleaning the slogans off the walls but this process has led to damaging significant parts of the walls’ ancient stones.
Alexandria Library’s walls have recently been transformed into a battlefield of political slogans between supporters of ousted President Morsi and his opponents. Morsi’s supporters have sprayed phrases against the armed forces and General El-Sisi, which have distorted the library’s walls and cost its administration millions of Egyptian Pounds in restoration costs. Morsi’s oppositionists have campaigned for cleaning the slogans off the walls but this process has led to damaging significant parts of the walls’ ancient stones.
Muslim Brotherhood distortion campaigns
“On Friday September 7, supporters of ousted President Morsi, within the context of protests they staged, have written slogans opposing the army and Colonel General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on the walls of Alexandria Library’s ancient walls such as ‘Down with the rule of the army’, ‘Sisi leave, Morsi is the president’ and ‘We demand legitimacy, no alternative for it’. The slogans were painted with red, green and blue paint, distorting the library’s civilized, historical and aesthetic view,” said archeologist Mohammad Fathi, one of the wall cleaning campaigners.
“The big problem is that Morsi’s supporters are not aware that the library’s marble stones date back to ancient eras and are part of the history of the old cultural library for which the governorate is known world-wide,” he added, stressing that they have used concentrated wall paint and inks that are difficult to remove.
Tamer Abdulal, a political activist in Alexandria and one of the participants in the campaign to remove the vandalism, agreed with Fathi: “The Muslim brothers have not been concerned about the state and or its properties. Their only concern is excluded to the interests of their affiliates regardless of the state which is more important that the claimed terrorist groups.” Abdulal also added that the wall cleaning campaign included nearly 100 participants consisting of university students and revolution activists who raised the needed funds to purchase cleaning materials including nitric acid, nitrates, benzene and large dishcloths. They were able deface the slogans, but they could not clear the traces of colored paints and the library administration, therefore, must complete the cleaning process using the proper material.
All parties contributed to defacement
“Insulting phrases were used to be sprayed by supporters as well as oppositionists of ousted president Morsi under his rule where before the June 30 Revolution, phrases opposing the Muslim Brotherhood covered Alexandria’s walls. All parties contributed to staining the walls, we are not bias against any of them,” said Muhammad Farag, Professor at the Engineering Faculty in Alexandria University.
Both parties, professor Farag believes, are responsible for this problem. Supporters of President Morsi have distorted the library walls with phrases opposing the army while oppositionists have also distorted other walls in the city by writing anti-Brotherhood phrases.
Faraj believes that Lieutenant Tareq Al-Mahdi, Alexandria Governor, should take strict measures against those involved in staining the city walls with phrases of political, advertising or any other type.
Writing on walls expresses political indignation
Many activists believe that writing slogans on walls is a common phenomenon in a society undergoing revolutionary stages. Muhammad Masri, a political activist and member of Alexandria’s revolutionists coalition, said writing on walls “is not a crime but a means of protest used by citizens to express their positions. Whether such positions are to support or oppose the regime does not matter as they have the complete freedom to express them.”
Fixing the damage
Alexandria Library, whose walls have long been alienated from the political conflict, is now preparing to remove the traces of the battle. Ismail Sirag Eddin, Head of Alexandria Library, underlined that library engineers, supervisors and experts are considering the best methods to fix destroyed parts of the library and remove writing. Ismail said the library security prevented a group of young people from defacing the paint in order for the walls not to be further distorted.
Sirag Eddin added that they stopped the cleaning initiative out of fear of further distorting the walls, which constitute of valuable marble stones and granite brought from Aswan. “Unfortunately, organizers of the cleaning initiative were not aware of the scarcity of these stones and the special materials needed to remove the distortion traces without affecting the walls are not available. Therefore, marks were left on the walls,” Eddin said.
We will not tolerate the walls distorters
Phrases written on walls are not only of a political nature but also of commercial advertising one. Lieutenant Tareq Mahdi said he would report such offenders to the public prosecution if they did not stop their violations, stressing that he would not tolerate it. General Mahdi also underlined that this procedure involves posters of both political and advertising material.
He added that he issued a warrant of arrest against the owner of ‘TitiBilliard’ clubs for distorting the city’s beautiful walls and the general view of the city with advertisements and concluded that police arrests will continue to take place against walls distorters.
