Lanternix: October 2006

08 October 2006

The Yakoubian Building

This movie made me sad sad sad. And angry.
But I loved it. Finally someone spoke about Egypt’s Francophone community (or rather Egypt’s lost Francophone community). And finally someone spoke of the deterioration of Egyptian society as a result of Nasser’s 1952 coup d’état.
I don’t know where to start. Very few movies have ever left me in such a condition. It’s 2:55am and I have work tomorrow, yet I feel a compelling need to talk about this movie.

A lost culture. This is what happened to us, the Francophones of Egypt. La crème de la société égyptienne. Like Zaki Pasha said, we have become a rare breed.
زيي على صغير ماتلاقيش يا جميل. احنا آخر الرجال المحترمين
Our numbers are decreasing, and French is slowly dying in one of its historical strong footholds. Screw you Nasser!

A lost beauty. Zaki Pasha left Paris and returned to Cairo, not out of nostalgia or patriotism, but because Egypt was better than France!

البلد دي كانت أحسن من باريس. الموضه كانت تنزل هنا قبل ما تنزل في باريس. الشوارع كانت نضيفة زي الفل، بتتغسل كل يوم. المحلات كانت فخمة. الناس كانوا مؤدبين. خللي الناس يبصوا على البلد اللي باظت. يبصوا على العمارات اللي كانت أحسن من عمارات اوروبا. دلوقتي بقت مزابل من فوق ومن تحت مسخ! احنا في زمن المسخ!

Those lines tore my heart apart. One act of stupidity by a bunch of Fascists destroyed my country. And I hate to admit it, but I am in love, not with my country as it is today, but as it used to be during that beautiful time.

A lost prestige. Zaki compares Christine, the high-cultured Francophone, and Bosayana اللي من فوق السطوح. I’m not a capitalist and I have nothing against the middle or lower classes. But for the lower and lower middle classes to climb to power all of a sudden destroys any society. And things were clearly much better when each was in its proper place.
بلدي بقت مزبلة

A lost honesty. In liberal Egypt the right was right and the wrong was wrong. Today people use religion to hide their atrocities and to find pretexts for their immoral desires. So along those lines, Azzam who follows God’s laws does not hesitate to remarry in secret, kill his unborn child, and become a drug dealer. And as long as he knows how to survive the country’s political turmoil, mainly by bribing those in power, he continues to survive and thrive. Yet, in front of people he is Hagg Azzam, the well respected and blessed pious man of God. Worse still, he becomes a member of the parliament, thus reflecting the true image of the members of the most important political assembly in the nation: drug dealers, illiterates, farmers and religious extremists.

A lost tolerance. Screw the majority of Egyptian Muslims who happen to be moderate, and screw Egyptian Christians, but some Muslims want it اسلامية اسلامية, neither democratic nor secular nor socialist. And resorting to weapons and violence is the means by which they realize their aspirations.

The last one is about me. I knew the movie had a homosexual character, and being certainly more liberal than the vast majority of Egyptians I had no problem with that. But for some reason the pretexts Hatem gave Abderabou to justify his sexual orientation deeply disturbed me. They were so similar to the crap you hear everyday in the West about God’s love and tolerance and forgiveness bla bla bla. Excuse me, but this doesn’t mean that God approves of wrong deeds. Yes God is loving and He is Love. But He is Love when things are correct. If you want to do something just do it, but don’t climb over the back of religion and try to develop unorthodox arguments to justify your position. You were strong enough to do something that opposes the social norm, so now be brave enough to admit it is in contradiction with religion! I don’t know why I was so disturbed by that. Am I just losing my tolerance.?

For the millionth time: screw you Nasser! May you be burning in hell right now!

3:30 du main. Ça suffit pour le moment. Adieu une Egypte que fut jadis un des plus beaux et un des plus grands pays du monde. Adieu une communauté Francophone et cosmopolite qui battait autreois avec de la vie et de l’amour. Adieu une vie, en rose...