Staple Security

“On the morning of January 25, 2011, Egyptian protestors took to the streets, calling for ‘bread, freedom, and social justice.’ The bread that featured in their rallying cries was in part symbolic. Bread, in Egyptian colloquial Arabic, is ‘aish’, which means life. Alongside the demands for freedom and social justice, bread was a reference to livelihoods, to people’s frustrations at their inability to access basic services, get good educations, find jobs, and build decent lives for themselves. But it was also literal. Some protestors carried loaves of bread in their hands, waving them above the crowds. They were calling for bread because bread is a food that most Egyptians eat every day, three times a day.”

Bread and Wheat in Egypt - Jessica Barnes