Egypt's Culture Wars: Politics and Practice
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Egypt’s Culture Wars Egypt is the cultural centre of the Arab world and sets a lot of the intellectual agenda for the rest of the region. The strain between secular liberals, an authorit- arian state and Islamists is reaching boiling point in Egypt and mirrors to some extent similar pressures elsewhere in the Arab world. This ground-breaking work presents original research on cultural politics and battles in Egypt at the turn of the twenty-first century. It deconstructs the bound- aries between “high” and “low” culture, drawing on conceptual tools in cultural studies, translation studies and gender studies to analyse debates in the fields of literature, cinema, mass media and the plastic arts. Anchored in the Egyptian historical and social contexts and inspired by the influential work of Pierre Bour- dieu, it rigorously places these debates and battles within the larger framework of a set of questions about the relationship between the cultural and political fields in Egypt. Egypt’s Culture Wars is a valuable contribution to the often neglected and ignored subject of cultural politics and battles for representation in Egypt. Detailed and insightful, this innovative interdisciplinary volume allows us to understand what has been happening in the sphere of public debate in Egypt. As such, it will be of interest to scholars and students from the literary field, cultural studies, political science, Middle East studies, sociology and gender studies. Samia Mehrez is Professor at the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, American University in Cairo, Egypt. Routledge advances in Middle East and Islamic studies 1 Iraqi Kurdistan Political development and emergent democracy Gareth R. V. Stansfield 2 Egypt in the Twenty First Century Challenges for development Edited by M. 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Fazel 13 Egypt’s Culture Wars Politics and practice Samia Mehrez Egypt’s Culture Wars Politics and practice Samia Mehrez First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Samia Mehrez All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-92900-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-42897-1 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-92900-4 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-42897-2 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-92900-1 (ebk) To the memory of Magda al-Nowaihi (1958–2002) Contents List of plates xi Acknowledgements xii Introduction 1 Prologue: Take them out of the ball game – Egypt’s cultural players in crisis 14 PART I Inside the literary establishment: power struggles and dreams of autonomy 23 1 Dr Ramzi and Mr Sharaf: Sonallah Ibrahim and the duplicity of the literary field 25 2 Children of our alley: the AUC Naguib Mahfouz Award and the Egyptian literary field 41 3 The big one: the intellectual and the political in modern Egyptian literature 58 4 The value of freedom: the writer against the establishment 72 PART II Remaking culture: emerging institutions, discourses, icons and metaphors 89 5 Lost in globalization: education and the stranded Egyptian elite 91 6 Translating gender between the local and the global 107 x Contents 7 Where have all the families gone? Egyptian literary texts of the 1990s 123 8 From the hara to the imara: emerging urban metaphors in the literary production on contemporary Cairo 144 PART III The bounds of change: state, street and self-censorship 169 9 Taking the soap out of the opera: the case of Hagg Mitwalli’s Family 171 10 The new kid on the block: Bahibb issima and the emergence of the Coptic community in the Egyptian public sphere 188 11 Found in Cairo: the limits of representation in the visual field 208 12 Literature and literalism: the Al-Khubz al-hafi crisis reconsidered 229 Epilogue 251 Appendices 253 Notes 276 Bibliography 314 Index 325 Plates 8.1 Heliopolis main street 154 8.2 Heliopolis: Man in balcony 154 8.3 Heliopolis Laundry 155 8.4 The train 155 8.5 Along Tariq el Nasr Road facing Manshiyyat Nasir 156 8.6 Cairo Rooftops I 156 8.7 Cairo Rooftops II 157 8.8 Wash in Nile 157 10.1 Naim at barred window, Bahibb issima 196 10.2 Adli praying, Bahibb issima 196 10.3 Angels greet Naim at cinema, Bahibb issima 197 10.4 Adli bruised after State Security handling, Bahibb issima 197 10.5 Family fight in church during wedding, Bahibb issima 198 10.6 Naim and Adli play at the beach, Bahibb issima 198 10.7 Adli having a stroke while cycling with Naim, Bahibb issima 199 11.1 Shoe moulds I 218 11.2 Shoe moulds II 219 11.3 Shoe moulds III 219 11.4 Shoe moulds IV 220 11.5 Shoe moulds V 220 Acknowledgements Putting this volume together has proven to be a learning experience for me. Its individual chapters were not originally written with a view of bringing them together, for they represented work in different areas of the Egyptian cultural field that have never been brought together before, specifically the textually ori- ented field of Arabic literature in its relationship with other forms of cultural production. Most of my earlier work had concentrated on literary texts and the conditions and contexts in which they emerge. It is only recently that I have started writing about other cultural subfields like cinema, mass media and the visual arts. However, I was not necessarily conscious of the connections that were already being written into my work between these different fields nor was I necessarily aware of the reasons behind the choices I was making in writing about specific moments in the Egyptian cultural field at large. Many people have contributed to the various stages of this learning experience. Initially, it was my colleague Martina Rieker with her sharp eye who saw some of the relationships that were embedded in part of the work included here. Joseph Massad’s enthusiasm for the initial proposal for this book was tremendously important in helping me further sharpen the structure of the volume. Elliott Colla with whom I also shared the early stages of this project has made me define what exactly lay behind the work itself. His comment that I was writing a book about my friends has been crucial in making me understand what I was doing, the position from which I was undertaking it, and why it all mat- tered so much. Indeed, this book is about my friends at both a literal and symbolic level. All of the writers and artists included here are or have become my friends to whom I am indebted for their creative energy and output that constitute the very raison d’être of this volume. My friendship with many of these cultural producers whose works, vision and positions are represented in the chapters of this book is cemented through the inspiring models of being within the cultural field with which they continue to provide me. I have learned to write the history of the cul- tural field “through the back door” from Sonallah Ibrahim’s literary life project; I have tried to emulate Huda Lutfi’s remarkable attention to detailed layering in her art work, and to represent Cairo from its rooftops and its streets like Randa Shaath in her photographs of the city. I have learned to celebrate the “mediocre” Acknowledgements xiii from Usama Fawzi and Hani Fawzi’s fine work in cinema; I have acquired new “languages” from the worlds depicted in the works of Hamdi Abu Golayyel and Ahmed Alaidy and I have been inspired by Ibrahim Issa’s sharp and gutsy crit- ical humour. I remain grateful to all these friends and many more whose work is represented here for teaching me how to write about our friendship. I am also equally indebted to several colleagues who have read and com- mented on various parts of this work. Diane Singerman’s careful reading of the entire manuscript has been an enormous help in revising and expanding the various chapters. I know that this final version still falls short of some of her important recommendations.