What to do with Midan al-Tahrir?
A Dialogue & Design Competition
Program developed by, and entries juried by the People of the Revolution
Everybody is excited about the 25 January Revolution in Egypt, and all sorts of proposals are coming forth regarding Midan al-Tahrir, the symbol and home of that revolution: what to do with it? What memorials to place in it?
We ask, who should decide?
We believe that it should be the PEOPLE who decide, the people who transformed Egypt through occupying Tahrir should now liberate the midan and permanently claim it as their own.
This is an opportunity for DIALOGUE. Since the revolution was a call for CHANGE, it is only appropriate to change our traditional ways. Rather than wait for someone to take the decision on our behalf and then complain about the shortcomings of their choices, let us take the initiative and start a collective decision making process. Why not give the PEOPLE the right and tools to decide for themselves what to do with their CITY?
“Tahrir Al-Midan” is such a potential TOOL. A tool for creating a dialogue that actually reaches a COLLECTIVE DECISION on what to do with Midan al-Tahrir.
“Tahrir Al-Midan” is a Dialogue and Design Competition designed as a process to engage as many of the stakeholders as possible,PROFESSIONALS as well as Users, in an ORGANIZED andPROACTIVE dialogue to shape the square into a square for the people. It is not to be just an open ended discussion, and it is not a top down decision making process, but rather it is designed to be a process that takes us to a CONSENSUS on a one or even morePROPOSAL that meets most of our objectives.
If we can talk down a regime, we can certainly TALK TO BUILD the symbol for our future: Al-Tahrir Midan lil-Shaab.
