Bleats on the streets

A public art performance goes awry but in the end may have accomplished far more than its distraught creator ever hoped for.

It's an enchanting moment when an art show forces the public to come to grips with reality, or in this case, to blows with the artist. A story of an unusual, two-way as it turned out, art intervention unfolded in downtown Cairo recently. It is 4pm and the young Egyptian artist, Amal Kenawy, is about to put on a street performance not far from Midan Tahrir, in Cairo's throbbing heart. It is called Silence of the Lambs. A group of people proceed from a street corner, crawling on all fours on the pavement. They are the silent lambs.
Within seconds, they run into their first obstacle. Champollion Street, where the show is taking place, has the narrowest of sidewalks, and these are blocked almost entirely by rickety chairs, empty plastic containers, dented buckets and car parts. It's like a piece of Detroit, here in Egypt. The performers, who manage to slither two or three abreast for the first few steps, are now squeezing through the empty patch fronting a mechanic's shop, an area that allows only one sheep to pass at a time. They manage that, with difficulty, then arrive at a coffee shop front, filled with rickety zinc tables bearing assorted hot drinks.
Just before the performers negotiate the first table, the public begins to take notice. The audience, in this case, are mostly mechanics and car part merchants - and they don't move out of the way for the sheep. In America, this public would be the type that drives cross-country 16-wheelers. We're talking Bruce Willis fans. Actually, we're talking individuals who would make Bruce Willis look somewhat effeminate: men who would have volunteered in the navy were this really Detroit and the time some point during the Second World War. They don't like what they see. As if on a cue, this dislike ignites into anger.
A shop owner barks at the crawling performers, asking them what exactly they are up to. A man in dark glasses, perhaps an owner of a Toyota waiting to get fixed, gets more threatening, accusing the performs of acting as animals and forsaking their human dignity. Another man, shirt outside his trousers and carrying a briefcase, as if running late for court, takes a more cerebral stand. He declares that this is a typical East-West situation, one in which the rich exploits the poor.
The late-for-court man tells everyone that these individuals (he is pointing at the arty spectators) are foreigners who have hired Egyptians (he is pointing at the performers) to humiliate themselves. The public, made up of 12 coffee-house clients and six shop owners agrees. At which point, the performers jump to their feet. Some start taking off their telltale gloves and hiding them under their shirts.
There is a minute or two of protest by Kenawy and her artist friends. This is a show and it has a point, someone tries to explain. The voices of the artists (now cast as exploitative foreigners) seem too weak in comparison with the voices of the public (now climbing on higher moral ground as the minutes go by). Within 10 minutes or so, the artists lose the argument. The show is over. But the public is not satisfied with stopping the show. No, they are demanding action, first against Amal, who is now called a foreigner (she is not), then at the spectators who are also called foreigners (only half of them are) and at the humiliated performers (including members of Kenawy's family who keep swearing they haven't been exploited at all).
The police then arrive at the scene. Plainclothes officers, without showing identification, take away the IDs of some of the performers. Kenawy, now close to tears, is on her phone, presumably asking higher cultural authorities to come to the rescue. The Toyota-type fellow and the late-for-court man are in their element. It's been 30 minutes and they haven't lost their interest. They are demanding action. They are here, ready to do something, and are urging the police to make arrests. I suspect that one of them is trying to point in my direction, but he could be pointing at the two art critics on my side, behind whom I am now retreating.
The plot thickens as it transpires that half the performers are day workers paid by the hour to perform. This revelation puts Kenawy on the spot, as a colonial agent seeking to humiliate Egyptians. She is again talking furiously on her phone. After another 20 minutes or so, a plainclothes policeman tells us to leave. I tell one of the art critics to tell him that it's a free country. It works, but arguing with police is a tricky business here. Only powerful people or colonialists get away with insolence to the police in this country. Perhaps we're colonialists after all, I think to myself, as the police tell the day workers to go and wait at the police station.