Cairo, Egypt- Its rare to find a subject, event or a person who can unite every person in a place or country. There will always be some one who is against the others; however, Egyptian football in the last week succeeded in uniting the Egyptian society for the first. Football in Egypt is the most popular sport and it’s the peoples dream to qualify for the world cup 2010 in Africa and as the African champions for two successive times we have the right live the dream and qualify. Last week on June the 14th the FIFA Confederations Cup started in South Africa with Egypt representing the Arab and African football. Before entering this tournament Egypt draw with Zambia and lost for Algeria in the qualifying matches for 2010. As a result, Egyptians had no motivation, spirit or enthusiasm to watch the national team playing against the best teams in the world Brazil, Italy and USA (Group B). Football experts in Egypt started to demand the resignation of the Hassan Sheahta, Egypt Head Coach and people started to say that Egypt will face big defeats from these teams.
On the other hand, our first match was with Brazil Egypt played a great seven goal match. It was the first time that the Brazilians receive by two goals in minute in 45 years. Also, Mohamed Zidan was the only player to score two goals against Brazil in ten years. Egypt lost 4-3 gaining respect and pride from the whole world especially the Egyptians. The second game was historic as Egypt beat the world champions (Italy) 1-0 in a magnificent game. After this match Egyptians went down the streets celebrating the victory. And for a long time, Egyptians didn’t felt united, proud, and respected. If Egypt lost from USA, it will not qualify for the second round but at least we showed the world the high level of the African and especially the Egyptian football.
For the first time ever, Egypt defeated Italy (1-0).
Football succeeded in doing what politics, economics and culture failed to do which is uniting the Egyptian people. People in Egypt are facing everyday problems and obstacles in their lives and lack of support from the government and only the national team was able to let them feel joy and happiness.
Many young Egyptians started to form musical bands and perform their own original music and songs creating “independent or underground music”.
Cairo, Egypt- Loud music, applauses, whistling, and singing, this was the reaction of the kids, teenagers and families to “Bilando band” who were singing in the River Hall in Sawy Culture Wheel.
“Seems that not only kids liked the music, but also the adults, ” said Mohamed Abaza, leading guitarist in Bilando, after singing the lion sleeps tonight- from Lion King.
Many of the upcoming bands sing their original songs meaning that they compose their own lyrics and music like Wust El Balad and El Door el Awal. Others like to sing English and Arabic cover songs that are well-known like Bilando and Vybe.
“The kind of music we play is very different from what others play or listen,” said Mohamed Arkan, drummer of the Percussion Show band. “We compose our own music with its own lyrics and rhythm and this gives it our taste and style.”
Evolution of Independent Music
Arkan said that during the 1970′s and 1980′s in Egypt underground music started by Fathy Salama, a Grammy award winner and Yehia Khalil a pioneer in jazz music in Egypt. Moving to the 1990′s the independent music began to be well-known and around 10-15 bands were playing in clubs in Cairo.
Since 2000 the independent music took a new form and audience. Many teenagers and youth started to hear some independent bands and gain they gained more popularity like Wust el Balad El Door el Awal and Nagham masry. This resulted in having concerts sponsored by multinational cooperation.
Mohamed Lofty, known as Ousso, guitarist who plays in many bands came with the idea of SOS Music Festival. It attracted 30,000 people who are fans of the different bands that took part in the last festival. In an interview with BBC News, Ousso describes how he is amazed that 15,000 attended the first SOS concert.
Big companies like Vodafone sponsor the SOS Festival
Vodafone, Opel and Virgin Mega Store are the sponsors of the SOS Music with the slogan “SOS: let’s go original”. The aim of these concerts is to encourage and support independent music bands and also to save the status of Egyptian music after the appearance of private music channels like Melody and Mazzika who are commercial channels.
These concerts are held on regular basis. Tickets are for free and the sponsors take care of everything including the financial part like renting fees, technicians, sound and lighting systems.
“We had our first concert in June 2007 in El Sawy Culture Wheel,” said Sherif Magdy, percussionist in Bilando Band. “We told our friends and families and we were shocked by the 200 people who attended.”
“Underground Vs Commercial”
According to Moe, as his band calls him, underground music is different to mainstream music because it was founded by individuals spending from their own money not depending on music production companies.
For example, Wust el Balad started in 1999 by playing in the streets and cafes of Cairo and even sometimes in the Metro stations.
On the other hand, commercial music and singers depend on production companies in financing their career unlike independent bands. For a musician like Arkan, he thinks that independent bands represent the real music not singers like Amr Diab and Tamer Hosny. Arkan elaborates that Underground music like theirs, focuses on the quality of the music they play and not on gaining money.
“Bands start by spending from their own money until they find a sponsor,” Moe said. “Bands that play in SOS are paid ranging from 400-600 L.E per-members in band.”
He also mentioned that the number of band members differ from one to another. For example, Percussion Show has 7 members, Wust el Balad has 8 members, and Wyvern has 5 members. They are all getting the same amount of money no matter how many they are in the band.
There is no support from the Ministry of Culture or the government. However, many places like El- Sawy Culture Center, Cairo Jazz Club and Al-Azhar Park started to give an opportunity to young Egyptian talents to be famous and produce their own music.
Magdy said that they’re not thinking of being very professional because they have their main jobs and income, so they taking it as amateurs or hobby.
Westernized Vs Oriental
Although the message of all independent bands is to save and enhance the Egyptian music status, most of them are using western names, instruments and genres. For example, Black Bulletz, Brain Candy and Davinci are all Egyptian bands that sing and play rock, electronic or metal songs which is unusual in the Arab world.
“We wanted to have a name that reflects our music and at the same time catchy so we chose Bilando which is dancing in Spanish,” said Abaza.
On the contrary, there are artists and bands that are showing the Arab or Egyptian identity in their instruments, names and music. For example, Naseer Shamma plays Oud and instrumental Arabic music. Also, Sahra, an Egyptian band sings Ray music and uses instruments like tabla and qanon, both Egyptian instruments.
Eftekasat one of the most popular Arabic bands recently produced an album.
Is it Successful?
Arkan said underground music in Egypt started to be very successful and people want to listen to new music and that’s why many bands like Wust el Balad, Eftekasat and Sahra produced their first albums and are gaining more success.
Abaza also thinks “ at a certain point, independent bands will turn commercial because if they are successful people will want to hear them all the time and this is when an album is produced.”
“ Concerts like SOS make the band very successful because thousands of people watch and listen to you, so of course it’s successful,” shared Magdy.
The first SOS concert was held on September 15th 2006 at the Chinese garden and the next concert will be in July 2009.
Women in the Arab world have always been seen as deprived, for ages, from their rights and are not taking their full status in society. Many argue that the Arab world is conservative and a male-dominated society. However, recently Arab countries like Kuwait and other Gulf countries started to renforce women’s status by giving them the right to vote in elections, drive and work. In some conservative Arab countries, untill now, women are not permitted to drive or work. I think that women should start have better positions, engagment and interactivity with the society as it helps to be better. For example, Egypt started to change status of women by giving chances to prove themselves in many fields as Judge, and Minister.
In kuwait yesterday four women won seats in the parliamenty elections. Its considered to be historic because for men have been dominating the parliament for five decades. A couple of years ago Kuwait gave the women the right to vote in elections but they didnt reach the parliament but this year they made it and won!!
Personally, women are nowadays taking better positions and opportunities to prove themsleves and this helps the society to improve as to have a different prespective to help it enhance. Also, by empowering women stereotypes will vanish and a better image of Arab women and society is transmitted to the world and seen as more developed countries.
One of the aspects that will enhance the relations between the Muslim countries and the US is having dialogue and communicating with each other; as a result, the gap between both countries will be bridged and narrowed. The white house announced that on June 4 Obama will be giving a speech to Muslims from Egypt “heart of Middle East” then he will fly to Germeny. Personally, i think this event and speech have a great impact on the Middle East and US because Cairo is the heart of the region were all the news, politics, economics etc… happens and affect other countries. Also, this will be the first time Obama adresses the Muslims from an Arab country and adds to him more credability and respect from the Arab point view as he’s willing to have good relations with Muslims and improve the image of the US for Muslims and vice-versa.This is an article from BBC that tells more information about the visit…enjoy
Beside Obama’s visit the Vatican Pope also started his one-week visit to the Middle East. He will visit Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. The aim of this visit is show his “deep respect” to Muslims and Islam. ALso, he will meet with some Muslim and Christian officials. I think that this visit is an attempt to try and help to understand Muslims as to remove any tensions or misconceptions between Christians and Muslims. But whats is surprising is that the Pope is not visiting Egypt…Anyway I think that this visit is very crucial as it helps to bridge the gap between cultures and people.
Since I’m studying online journalism and interested in it becasue i think this will be the future of journalism, i found a very interesting article.
The article simply states the worst top 10 countries in the world to blog from. The ranking is made by the Committe to Protect Journalists –CPJ who advocate and support press freedom, rights and protection of journalists all over the world. Many reasons were stated like government restrictions, security…etc. Also, the article talks about journalists and bloggers who are jailed or tortured when they are in prison. Please read it…
Egypt is an Islamic country becasue the majority are Muslims and although Islam urges people to be clean and to live in a clean and health place people dont follow these instructions. The garbage areas in Cairo are increasing and having a negative effect on the Egyptian society’s health and image infront of foreigners.
On the other hand, an Italian NGO that works here in Egypt started to clean-up “Shubra district” North Cairo. People living there were given masks, and plastic gloves to clean their area especially a tunnel that was bloacked by garbage and became a “haunt for drug addicts”.
Although the people there were very motivated to clean-up their area the area manger arrived with his men and stopped the people from working and cleaning and they were asked to leave. He claimed that he wasn’t formally informed although the NGO said that they send many letters and advertise for this event many times.
In my opinion,bureaucracy is the main reason behind reason that things in Egypt are not being done or completed. And this is an example, what will happen if the manger wasnt informed as he said and left the people to clean…atleast the people would be happy from cleaning their society. Actions like these make people to lose hope and give up.
Cairo, Egypt-To merchants who work at A-Hussein in Egypt, the international economic crisis had a worse effect on their livelihood than Al-Hussien bombings.
“Terrorism now everywhere so tourists got used to that and they know it could happen in any other country so it is an effect for a short period,” said Samir Makary Economic consultant to the Egyptian Federation of Tourism ETF.
According to Makary the tourism industry had a growth rate of 25 percent throughout the first three quarters of 2008 but since the global economic crisis hit in September numbers have been dropping.
Conrad revenue's dropped by 23% comparing it to last year.
This sentiment is not confined to Al-Hussein area, it is echoed all over Egypt’s many tourists’ destinations.
“The Hussein bombs did not affect tourism here the economic crisis affected tourism here” said Ahmed Mohammad boat captain in Hurghada.
In cities away from the capital like Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh people who are part of the tourism industry can point out the effect of the global economic crisis.
“People who used to come 2 times a year for a vacation now come only once,” said Mohammad.
Americans and Europeans are considered a portion of the number of tourists who visit Egypt each year.
“When it comes to Egypt the tourist segment we address is rather middle class which actually will be highly affected by the financial crisis,” said Makary. “So we see a significant drop in the tourism visitors or the tourism income in the country.”
Because of the falling economies of the world countries, citizens who kept their paycheck through the international crisis look for cheaper destinations.
“It is not expensive a week in Hurghada is 200 Euros,” said Mohammad. “Yet, Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore or the Maldives are cheaper like 100 Euros for a whole week.”
According to Reuters, Egypt’s receipts from tourism fell 10 percent to $2.46 billion in the second quarter of 2008/2009 compared with the same period a year earlier.
“But Egypt has an advantage we have a winter season where is you have tourism in winter in Egypt is excellent,” said Makary. “Those countries do not compete with you [Egypt] in winter they compete only in summer.”
However, that does not rule out the effect of the price difference. Although Egypt is one of the most well known tourists’ destinations, competition in the global tourism industry is fierce.
“We have to reduce our prices now to maintain the same relationship with other countries,” said Makary.
To maintain its competitive edge, the Egyptian ministry of tourism sought advice from Makary consulting.
“By offering [tourists] them a good service at a lower price,” said Makary. “As long as this lower price it is not actually in terms of ratio is much lower than the average then [it] is fine.”
Airliners like Alitalia and Air France have reduced their prices by 50%.
In reaction, Egypt’s minister of tourism announced in April lowering the charges on various Gulf tourists’ services to be equivalent to those for domestic tourists, according to Daily News Egypt.
“Chartered flights will offer promotional charges to four tourist destinations in the country,” said Zohair Garranah in a news conference during a 3 day visit to Saudi Arabia. “Conducted tours will be organized to Aswan, Marsa Alam and northern coastal areas with less than half the normal price.”
The current occupancy rate in Egyptian hotels is fluctuating between 66% and 70%, according to the ministry of tourism figures. The tourism industry in Egypt employs 10% of the country’s workforce. It is the main source of income in cities like Hurghada, Sharm Elsheikh or Luxor . The industry is still fragile as it has been hit many times by terrorists’ attacks on tourist places.
Cairo remains an attractive place despite economic recession and bombings.
“We were really affected after the Luxor bombing of tourists,” said Mohammad.” It took almost 2 years for tourists to forget and start gradually coming back to Egypt.”
More than 60 tourists were killed in Luxor in a shoot-out terrorist attack on a bus in November 1997. Up to 85 people were injured during the attack.
“Everybody thought then it is a coup,” said Mohammad. “But after 9/11 people don’t seem to care anymore.”
The 11 the of September terrorist attacks which leveled the Twin towers in New York in 12 seconds in an explosion that killed 2819 people introduced a new world perception to terrorism.
“If a country as big as the US was hit so no other country is immune and it is not a lack of security.” said Mohammad.
Another threat to Egypt’s security was the bombings in Dahab which killed 23 people and wounded 62 in a triple bomb attack on the beach resort city.
“Even the Dahab bombing did not stop tourists from coming the groups’ only changed locations so if they were going to Sharm El-Sheikh they changed destination to Hurghada for a couple of months.”
However, some tourists believe it is safe to visit a country that was just hit by terrorists.
“Russians don’t seem to care at all and they always increased the number of their groups after any of the pervious bombings” said Mohammad.”Hotels’ rates go down of course and they think it is safer to come right after a bombing because security is on alert.”
