'A divided way of life'

New media and changing demands has put youth on the cultural and political map, though divided, writes Hadil Ghoneim

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It is almost impossible to describe a culture without over- generalising and falsely lumping different and diverse groups of people into a unified category. Awareness of this should make one wary of sweeping statements and assumptions, yet it should not hinder attempts to understand the changing features of people and society as they occur. And change is what one can easily detect when looking at the culture of the new urban Egyptian middle-class youth. But what exactly do we mean by "culture" here?

Culture here refers to "a whole way of life", as British sociologist Raymond Williams famously defined the concept. It includes values, beliefs and behaviours, as well as everyday rituals, language, modes of dress, food consumption patterns and leisure activities. It is also relevant here to talk about youth culture in the sense of artistic self-expression and cultural consumption. In all these areas, young people in Egypt seem to add their own character, departing a little and sometimes a lot from their parents' generations. They do not of course represent a homogenous bloc, as they are influenced by the principal cultural and class division lines that delineate Egyptian culture and society. But as much as inherited societal divisions influence them, the young people of today both go to their own new extremes and meet on their own new common grounds.

It seems natural to assume that there is always a youth culture as long as there are youth. However, Egyptian youth culture now enjoys a visible presence and certain acknowledgement from society and media that was unseen in the 1980s or 1990s. And since culture and power are so interlinked, one cannot dismiss the political factor in explanation of this development. For since the student movement of the early 1970s, Egyptian youth, especially university students, hadn't played any notable role in public politics. Youth were marginalised, both politically and culturally, in schools, universities, the media and the expressive arts. Discussing youth was a top-down process, with the authoritative older generation complaining about the alienation and weakness of Egyptian youth, their Westernisation, or their religious fanaticism that makes them gullible before terrorist groups. Only in the past few years did we witness new forms of political activism by some Egyptian youth. Despite their small number, they managed to attract the public's attention, perhaps because of new internet media and mobile technology which they began to use away from government and parental control.

Egyptian youth activists in recent years found new independent sites for their activism in the emerging "blogosphere" away from the security controlled universities and weak authoritarian political parties. Internet blogs became platforms of political and cultural expression for some, as well as a mode of social and political networking, campaigning and organisation for others. Even when the political energy that sprang up during the presidential referendum and elections declined, the same youth more or less continued to present independent forms of cultural expression. Blogging remained a platform for cultural expression and networking alongside new independent venues like Al-Sawy Culture Wheel, Rawabet and the Townhouse Gallery, for example, which also became platforms for alternative youth culture production and consumption. Diverse music bands, photography exhibitions, theatre, and even mobile phone filmmaking, gained ground outside the universities and official cultural institutions. Using the internet as a mode of communication and organisation, youth-based art societies also began to form. One of the most positive outcomes of increased internet activity among Egyptian youth was the founding of a number of philanthropic, charitable and development initiatives that use the internet for recruitment, organisation and fund-raising.

Recent years also witnessed the birth and rise of a new generation of young directors and screenplay writers, with many entering the mainstream Egyptian movie scene. At the same time, we saw the rebirth of Al-Dustour, the weekly-turned-daily newspaper, which also presents a form of "youth" journalism different from other independent papers. More recently, young literary bloggers found their way from internet alleys, with internet users as their only readers, into mainstream publishing.

All this, however, is not to convey an overly optimistic picture pegged on new media technology. For as much as these developments are significant and worth noting, the percentage of active youth in all of the above is very small. The opportunities presented by new media also did not address problems of "ideology" and "identity" in Egyptian youth culture. A cultural polarisation still prevails between religious conservatives on the one hand and the Westernised few on the other. The religious component in the daily lives of the Egyptian youth is very large, manifested mainly in individual prayer rituals, the pervasiveness of the veil among girls, and the continued popularity of the modern preachers like Amr Khaled. Yet, at the same time, the popularity of Arabic music video clips featuring ever more scantly clad performers equally grows.

It is unwise, therefore, to draw assumptions that directly link cultural consumption with cultural identity. Many commentators tend to associate the cultural identity of youth with the cultural products they are consuming; their Western tastes in dress, fast food, music or even the celebration of Valentine's Day. They conclude that national cultural identity is threatened by such choices. A closer look reveals that besides the influence of global capitalism and global cultural goods, young Egyptians equally consume local cultural products and they strongly identify both with their religion and with their national Egyptian identity -- especially in international football tournaments! Cultural identity in the age of globalisation is far more complex and multilayered to be cast as an either/or choice.

Hadil Ghoneim, is senior editor of Children's books in Dar El Shorouk. She has an Msc in Culture and Society from the London School of Economics