“But there was another as you walked around, there were groups of young guys signing, “We can get married, we can get married.” There’s a whole generation of people that have been unable to get together the very basics that you need to construct a home that you can get married in. Meanwhile of course the rich are getting very, very rich.
twice in the neck, for standing with some people who were milling around on the street. “There’s a lot of stories like that, of people just catching bullets. And the families of the martyrs now have really become central. “None of the officers accused of the killing have been brought to trial, and not only that, now they’re actually being harassed by police officers, being offered money to keep quiet. They’re having their children’s reputations attacked – so this is becoming a central issue now, and of course that’s what Mubarak is on trial for.
BP, as the largest foreign investor in the country, played a major role in keeping Mubarak and his gang in power
“There are nightclubs now where you to spend 250 Egyptian pounds just to walk in the door, and that’s more than half what a conscripted soldier earns in a month. People have houses across the country. Drive imported BMWs. The disparities are disgusting. That is very clear and very evident and a real source of anger.
“But the revolution wasn’t a class revolt. It was much more like everyone vs the State. Or Egypt vs the State. “No one that I personally knew was killed, but as the revolution has carried on, one of the causes that people are really coalescing around now is the families of the martyrs and their push for justice. “And I’ve got to know the father of one young man – he’d been out with his son on 25 January, having a look and seeing what was happening. They had gone home. They lived in Shubra. “But his son wanted to do some work but he didn’t have a computer so he went to his friend’s house to go and finish some project he was working on. The next thing his father knows, he’s got a phone call - his son was shot
52 CULTURE BEYOND OIL
“It’s hugely disappointing that the Tate, which is one of the things I really look forward to when I come back to London - the art scene and particularly the Tate Modern - that they feel able to accept money that is clearly so dirty. “It’s completely unacceptable - we know that BP is up there with the worst of the worst, they clearly have no moral qualms about anything they do. How can institutions that are supposed to be leading the country, that are supposed to be thought leaders, that are supposed to be an expression of our freedom - be built on oil money. It is so disheartening. “Our revolution was, in a large part, about autonomy. About creating a country that acts in the best interests of its citizens, a country that isn’t beholden to the will of foreign