Dubious gurus
By
Anwar El- Hawwari*
The spiritual landscape in this country is lopsided. In one corner stands Amr Khaled -- the hip preacher with his hybridised, moralising tales designed more to impress than educate. Khaled's audience, aware of the crisis in which our civilisation is embroiled, seek comfort in his words. And this is exactly what they get. There is comfort, but little else in the confident message of this young preacher.
And then there is the boisterous voice of Shaaban Abdel-Rehim, with his rapper's gift for mixing nationalism and populism, humanism and revolution. His enduring popularity is in itself depressing. One would have hoped that whatever remains of our revolutionary and nationalist zeal would have found some other abode than Shaaban's tumbledown lyrics.
The icing on the cake is the undulating figure of Fifi Abdou and her sobering elucidation of the edifying message of belly dancing. The country's leading oriental dancer is dedicated to her career, faithful to her obligations, and -- here is the best part -- assertively devout. Hers is a message of devotion, mixed with a dollop of eroticism the better perhaps to appeal to a wider range of human needs.
Considering this colourful supply of high-flying gurus you would think that our writers would take mercy on us. Wrong, of course. Writers devoid of worth, insight, or talent clutter the cultural horizon, brazenly filling it with words less inspirational than graffiti and with ideas not worth the ink with which they were penned. Any explanation? None that I can think of, other than that ballpoint pens are 10 a pound.
* This week's Soapbox speaker is managing editor of Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya (International Politics) quarterly, issued by Al- Ahram.
