“I never had any Christian friends before January,” admitted Hamada Zidan an activist from Mallawi, 250 kilometers south of Cairo. Zidan attributes this exposure to the burgeoning independent cultural and art scene in Upper Egypt, which has since the revolution, diversified and connected people. “The most positive aspect about the revolution was that it removed the wall between Muslims and Christians,” said Zidan. “It was the most important event in the history of independent culture in Upper Egypt.”

“I never had any Christian friends before January,” admitted Hamada Zidan an activist from Mallawi, 250 kilometers south of Cairo. Zidan attributes this exposure to the burgeoning independent cultural and art scene in Upper Egypt, which has since the revolution, diversified and connected people. “The most positive aspect about the revolution was that it removed the wall between Muslims and Christians,” said Zidan. “It was the most important event in the history of independent culture in Upper Egypt.”

Last year, Zidan and his friend Toni Salib founded a small institution in Mallawi called Megraya (Canal) for Culture and Arts to serve as a location for hosting and organizing the independent cultural activities in the city.

Cultural channel

Zidan said he and Salib chose the name Megraya as a megraya is a small water stream that irrigates cultivated lands. “This is our objective; to be a channel to deliver culture to the people in Mallawi,”

Since its establishment, Megraya has organized several activities including viewings of Arab and European movies, poetry seminars, photography workshops and a festival for day-long drama plays, organized in cooperation with Mallawi Youth Center and supported by entities interested in independent cultural activities.

Funding in times of incrimination

Zidan said funding is a great challenge facing the future of independent cultural activities in Upper Egypt since both the state and the local community are reluctant to finance such activities. He said they rely on volunteer work, support from friends, very small grants and limited income from certain Megraya activities.

Recently however, Megraya received a promise of support from the German Robert Bush Foundation, which Zidan believes will help their emerging project to continue.

Mina Wasef, one of the founders of Dawar El Fnoun—another cultural initiative— also said that funding problems were the biggest obstacles threatening independent cultural activities in Upper Egypt, especially in light of the funding restriction laws passed in 2014.

The current Egyptian government passed a law which incriminates receiving funds suspected of “threatening national security or public peace” which civil society activists here consider vague. This law could be added to the arsenal of other inherited laws which hinder foreign funding of civil activities.

“We did not encounter any harassment”

The Dawar El Fnoun project was founded before Megraya, as its founders received the governmental documents of incorporation on 30 June 2012. Wasef said he would never forget that date since it was the inauguration day of former president Mohammed Morsi who was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Wasef said that Dawar El Fnoun did not encounter any harassment under the Muslim Brotherhood or in the following period. He said they cooperated during the past two years with Goethe Institute on a range of activities related to cinema and set up, with German support, the Egyptian-German Festival of Independent Theater in October 2014, without any harassment from the authorities during their activities.

Art in the open

Amani Basili had a different experience though with the authorities. Basili, who participated in organizing a version of ‘El Fan Medan’ festival, held on a monthly basis since April 2011, said authorities, instigated by Muslim Brotherhood members, narrowed in on the artistic activities performed in the street during the first half of 2013 – under Morsi.

“We have been performing our activities in the street since 2011 without any interference from the authorities – whether the military, the police or the municipalities – but when the Brotherhood came to power, municipal officials started imposing licenses and tried to prevent us from using assistive equipment,” said Basili. “We had to, at least once, carry out our festival in the street without using a microphone.”

Basili is currently working on the Alwanat project, which is a non-profit initiative that seeks to promote the artistic potential of young generations. She also works intermittently with Goethe Institute on ‘Coffee Library’ project.

Basili started her cultural work at an early age when she got familiarized for the first time with singing and theatrical groups in school through the Jesuit theater in Minya city, several years before the January revolution. Amani said the most important difference between cultural activities before and after the revolution is the fact that “we discovered that a great number of young people in Minya is interested in art and culture because we went out to the street, which was not possible before.”