CAIRO - During the 18-day revolution, cameras, brushes and musical instruments were used by many artists to express the true feelings of the revolutionaries, as well as their goals and their sufferings. For many professionals, like photojournalists, it's important to document crucial moments for others and help them feel as if they were witnessing them. “I can't bear to be in another country, while the Egyptians are witnessing a vital turning point in their history,” said Ahmed Hayman during the recent revolution, while attending a course at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark. Ahmed Hayman, a photojournalist with the Arabic-language independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, said that he had to abandon his photographic course in Denmark and return Egypt at his own expense, in order to witness the crucial political changes here. “It was really difficult to book a ticket and fly to Egypt during the revolution. When I eventually got here, I rushed to Al Tahrir Square and started taking photos. I then returned to Denmark to complete my course, ” he added. The Egyptian photographer found being in a developed country like Denmark a good opportunity to spread Egypt's culture. Having returned to Denmark after the revolution, he hit upon the idea of lecturing the Danish people about its success, in co-operation with the Danish School of Media and Journalism, as he told this paper. “I concentrated on how to deal with the Danish people and how to look at the world in a different way. There are no problems and no poor people in Denmark; they don't have to think about basic human needs because everything is available, including democracy,” said the Egyptian photojournalist. In his lecture, entitled ‘Picture the Change', Hayman showcased his long experience as a photojournalist and the huge variety of Egyptian people he's seen, from the Delta in the north of the country to Upper Egypt in the south, with the traditions and taboos that differ from city to city and among Egyptian themselves. “During my lecture, I showed the Danes the kind of photos that they don't normally see in magazines and newspapers about Egypt,” he added. They included photos taken in cities like Siwa and Mersa Allam, as well as cities in Sinai, with their different marriage traditions. Some of them were of poor people who go sea fishing every day to eke out a living. Hayman told his audience that Mubarak's corrupt former regime is to blame for all the poverty in Egypt. “I showed them pictures of typically poor Egyptians who have to do very physically demanding jobs to survive,” he told the Egyptian Mail. “In a developed country like Denmark, people need to know more about the sufferings of poor people, cause by the corruption of the State, in order to understand why we had to launch a revolution. “I told them that the fact that the poor were able to have their say and oust a corrupt dictator was a great victory. “The Danish people were very surprised to witness the revolutionary victory achieved by humble, poor Egyptians,” Hayman said. When asked whether he wants to stay in Denmark and work there, the Egyptian photojournalist said he would like to return to Egypt and use what he's learnt in Denmark to help make his fellow Egyptian photographers more professional.
