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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000 Issue No. 505 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000 Issue No. 505
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Bursts of passion
By Tarek AtiaMedhat El-Adl is excited. So is Hisham Abbas. Sabrine and Hoda Sultan are affected beyond words. They are weeping, and their tears are quickly spreading to most of the guests on stage. Shafky El-Manayiri, the host, is trying to control the situation, but is facing a great deal of difficulty. Things are happening way too fast.
This was the scene viewers saw unfold live Sunday night on the Egyptian television talk show Maspero. The show usually deals with issues of media and pop culture, and this time the subject is the plethora of patriotic songs that have appeared in response to the latest Palestinian Intifada. Particular attention is being given to the new song Al-Quds hatirgaa lina (Jerusalem will again be ours). A massive joint effort by a huge number of Egyptian singers and film stars, the song was organised by the El-Adl brothers, who, ever since they helped make Mohamed Heneidi a star, have been a major force on the Arab entertainment scene.
The video for the song premiered on Maspero amidst much anticipation. What would this team, so famous for their inclusion of populist anti-Israeli sentiment in Heneidi's films, produce on the occasion of the Al-Aqsa Intifada? A few days earlier, at the filming of the song's video clip at the ART studios near the Pyramids, I got the chance to chat with Medhat El-Adl, who wrote the lyrics.
The El-Adl team were in South Africa scouting locations for their next film when the uprising broke in occupied Palestinian territories. Their only source of information on the new Intifada was CNN, and they felt like they were watching biased coverage. Once they got on the plane and headed toward Egypt, they cried when they read the coverage in the Egyptian press. In a fit of emotion, El-Adl says, he wrote the song. They started making calls, trying to put something together as quickly as possible.
Among the actors and actresses who participated in the song are Nadia Lotfy, Farouk El-Fishawi, Mohamed Heneidi, Ahmed El-Sakka, Mahmoud Yassin, Karim Abdel-Aziz, Sherif Mounir, Athar El-Hakim, Hanan Turk, Mona Zaki, Monaliza, Is'ad Younis and Youssra. They were, for the most part, a chorus of backup voices. Among the main singers, each of whom got a line in classic We Are the World-style, were Hisham Abbas, Hakim, Hoda Sultan, Anoushka, Mona Abdel-Ghani, Hoda Ammar, Mohamed Mohie, Alaa Abdel-Khaleq and Talaat Zein.
A small Intifada? Clockwise from top:the stars all sing for Al-Quds; Hani Shaker; Angham and Zikra
The overall effect of the video is funereal, with the whole group dressed in black and standing around a sparse stage surrounded by barbed wire and a picture of Al-Aqsa mosque in the centre. The words are equally somber: "He was carrying his crayons/heading for school/dreaming of his horse/his toys, his plane/When the bullet of betrayal struck/it killed this innocence/His pure blood stained his notebook/From this we say our land, our honour/our blood, our mother/even if millions of us die/Jerusalem will again be ours."
When offered the chance to take part in the project, the stars were all quick to agree, with many remarking on Maspero how they signed on without asking any questions. No one was worried about how they would be billed, who would appear more than whom, or who would be singing what -- they just wanted to do their part. "It all happened so fast," viewers heard over and over again. "All we knew was that we should come wearing black. We didn't know what we were there to do, but we all said 'Yeah, we'll do it.'"
This group of stars are not alone in their sudden enthusiasm for the cause. Ever since the Al-Aqsa Intifada began, a spate of nationalistic and Palestine-sympathetic songs have been written, recorded, and filmed in record time, and are being aired all over the Arab world. Angham and Zikra did a duet called Nahlam Ayy? (What should we dream?). So did Latifa and Kazem El-Saher: Man Yanqiz Al-Insan (Who will save man?). Ammar El-Sheri'e composed a ballad for Umm Kulthoum-sound-alike Amal Maher. Fourteen other singers, including Nawal Al-Zoghby and Mohamed Al-Helw, are planning a song called Malhamat Al-Omma Al-Arabiya (The Epic of the Arab nation). There have been efforts by Yehia Ghannam, Tarek Fouad, Amal Wahby, Hani Shaker and Diana Hadad, many of which, like Al-Quds hatirgaa lina, revolve around the story of Mohamed Al-Dorra.
"As artists, we do what we can," Medhat El-Adl told me at the studio. "I want people to always be aware of this issue. We're defending ourselves, as Arabs. It's not just a Palestinian problem. Israel represents a threat to the whole Arab world."
It's an old issue for El-Adl, whose scripts for Sa'idi fil Gama'aa Al-Amrikiya and Hamam fi Amsterdam were heavily cheered and criticised in equal doses for laying it on thick with the anti-Israeli sentiment. "People say I did it just for popularity," El-Adl says. "But 200 million people saw Heneidi's film. That's why I always put it in. It's enough that my son should know and hate Israelis after seeing the movie."
On Maspero there was a lot of discussion about the need for unity, teamwork, and for the arts and media to do what they can to help. "A small Intifada," Hisham Abbas said. But what's really going on here? Where was all this sentiment before? And is it a battle cry -- or a wail of defeat?
Just after Al-Quds hatirgaa lina premiered on Maspero, both Sabrine and Hoda Sultan called in to the studio with their comments about participating in the song and as they were speaking, they broke down in tears. The camera panned the audience, many of them were also crying. But one of the guests, actor Mahmoud Qabil, argued that tears will get us nowhere, saying that songs like this make us feel more helpless than anything else -- that they serve no real purpose for Arabs, who are already enthusiastic and worked up about the events going on in Palestine.
Amal Bekir, a senior entertainment columnist at Al-Ahram, has argued much the same thing in her weekly column. She told Al-Ahram Weekly that while the stars' enthusiasm and effort is obviously well-intentioned, "In general, the overreactions, the crying, the overwrought emotion, etc., lowers the ordinary person's ability to help, to actually do something."
The point is driven home by a story I was told by a woman wearing a t-shirt supporting the Palestinian cause. She told me that for years she has worn t-shirts to show her support, but people on the street have always criticised her, saying "Why do you wear those shirts? Why do you care so much about them?" These days, she says, the very same people are all coming up to her and asking, "Where can we get a shirt like that one?"
"These bursts tend to get people interested briefly," she said, "but then they forget all about it."
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