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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 April 1999 Issue No. 424 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 April 1999 Issue No. 424
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The Prince of Egypt under fire
By Nadia Abou Al-Magd
The Prince of Egypt is a Biblical epic, a 90-minute animated version of the Exodus in which God casts his wrath on Egypt, and Moses takes his Israelite people out of bondage to the Promised Land. Jeffrey Katzenberg, executive producer of the $75 million cartoon, claims he has consulted 700 Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, and religious leaders to ensure that the story would not offend Christians, Muslims or Jews.
If this was the intention, he has failed. Many intellectuals feel the Biblical epic tarnishes Egypt's ancient history by claiming that the Israelites contributed to the Pharaonic civilisation.
Writer Adel Hammouda regards the film as "the latest crime committed by the Zionists against us. It shows Egyptians as a bunch of thugs who rewarded the Jews for allegedly building their civilisation, by killing, oppressing and torturing them," Hammouda told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The movie also stereotypes Jews as the victims and Egyptians as the victimisers. This is very dangerous."
After watching The Prince of Egypt, Hammouda, author of two books on Israel, dedicated several of his weekly columns in Al-Ahram to criticising the film and quoting excerpts of letters from angry readers. He wrote that "the Jews were portrayed as founders of the Egyptian civilisation, with Moses the architectural genius and his people slave labourers, while the Egyptians were shown as spending their time dancing, singing, kidnapping women and forcing them into prostitution."
Katzenberg, who is renowned director Steven Spielberg's partner in his Dream Works Company, told the Herald Tribune that good intentions were not enough, because intentions and perceptions are not always the same. "No matter what we set out to do, what would count was how people perceived what we've done."
Katzenberg's concerns have proved to be more than true in Egypt.
The Prince of Egypt is "a war by cartoon", wrote Emad El-Ghazali in the monthly publication Al-Nidaa Al-Gadid. "Moses in this movie is not portrayed as a prophet with a holy message, but as a national liberator for the Jews' salvation from the Pharaonic Holocaust."
Last month, The Prince of Egypt won an Oscar for the best original song. The Al-Wafd opposition daily wrote on its front page, "The Oscar for best song went to a film that defames Egypt."
Dream Works' religious adviser, Tzivia Schwartz-Getzug, says that the film "is not intended to be viewed as a documentary, but as an adaptation of the [Moses] story." He told the Weekly that "any tarnishing of Pharaonic history is based on the version told in the Bible and the Qur'an."
"Our goal was to be faithful to the text without always being literal, to embrace the themes and the fundamental aspects of the story as they are presented in the Bible," Katzenberg told the Herald Tribune.
Sayed Al-Qimni, a secularist scholar of Islamic and Jewish history, believes that Moses is an Egyptian prince who introduced the Israelites to Judaism, but says that this does not give them the right to claim that Ancient Egyptians were evil and Israelites good.
"This film's background is based on the culture of hatred of the Egyptians," Al-Qimni, author of a book entitled Israel: Torah, History and Deception, told the Weekly.
A controversial and sensitive scene in the film and one that aroused a lot of concern shows the enslaved Israelites building a temple. In a letter to Hammouda, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni wrote that "Ramses II assigned the Israelites to build his Delta city (Per Ramses) from bricks, which is not the medium for eternal buildings, and that's about all that the Jews contributed to Egypt."
A more important issue is whether the film should be screened or banned. Minister Hosni wants the film to be released, but stipulates that "the media should coordinate with scholars to outline a suitable response [and] expose the deliberate mistakes."
Hammouda strongly urges that the film be released because it will inevitably be broadcast by satellite stations and because "it is impossible to keep talking about things that concern Egyptians without giving them the opportunity to see them. They can't form an opinion of something they didn't see, as if we're asking them to follow us blindfolded."
For Ali Abu Shadi, who is in charge of film censorship, the issue is not that simple. "Is it our right and role to spread such lies and deception among the people? Is there a guarantee that those who'll watch the movie will read the film's counter-propaganda? What form should this propaganda take? The issue is very complicated," Abu Shadi told the Weekly. He said that when he gets a copy of the film, he intends to invite intellectuals and critics to watch it before he reaches a final decision.
Sheikh Sayed Khodeir, director of the artistic secretariat at the Islamic Research Academy, pointed out that a decree issued more than 25 years ago stipulates that it is expressly forbidden for prophets and their companions to be portrayed. "Nothing new has happened to change that; the academy's 1973 decision holds. Therefore the film should be banned," Khodeir told the Weekly, presumably because it portrays Moses.
