"King Farouk" turns heads, throws light on Syrian-Egyptian competition in drama - dpa

Middle East Features

First Published: 12 Oct. 2007

By Pakinam Amer

Cairo - Imagine that Sir Anthony Hopkins is disparaged for playing US president Richard Nixon. It might not have happened in the West but in Egypt, dubbed the "Hollywood of the Arab World," a Syrian actor who played the last king of Egypt in a TV soap opera caused a wave of controversy even before shooting started.

Deeming the serial a "conspiracy theory," accusing Syrians of robbing Egyptians' roles and discouraging "mixing" with non-Egyptians in locally-produced drama were only a few reactions. To employ a Syrian in a role that an Egyptian could do is "to cut Egyptian actors' source of income," a prominent actor said.

Hatem Ali, the Syrian director of "al-Malek Farouk" (King Farouk) said he was keen on casting an Egyptian for the title role, without any luck. But when the final choice came down to Tayem Hassan, the 31-year- old Syrian actor who resembled Farouk, he said he had no regrets. "The impressions in the press were very good," Ali told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Indeed, it took Egypt by storm. A popular newspaper even branded it "the soap opera that is currently shaking the throne of Egypt."

The 33-episode drama follows the life of Farouk of Egypt who ruled the country from 1936 until 1952 and was forced to abdicate his throne following a bloodless military coup.

From the first few episodes, it became clear how the series-makers were trying to dust away what they deemed "false perceptions" of a king who was often dismissed in history books as a womanizer, a drunkard, and a corrupt ruler who was partly responsible for the 1948 defeat in the Arab-Israeli war.

Produced by Saudi-owned broadcaster MBC, the show triggered a verbal war even before it was aired. Amr al-Qady, an Egyptian actor who played "Polly," King Farouk's Italian companion, said another actor accused him of "treachery" for working with Syrians.

Some newspaper critics even mocked the Syrian lead actor before they saw him on screen, jokingly calling him "the Syrian who became the King of Egypt." Many doubted he could master an Egyptian accent.

Veteran script writer Osama Anwar Okasha, questioned the series' agenda by accusing it of "promoting monarchy" for the benefit of its producers - an apparent gesture to Saudi royalty.

"But a TV drama - and it doesn't matter if it's American, Saudi or Israeli-produced - is not enough to oust a regime and bring back another," Anis Mansour, a senior Egyptian columnist, fired back.

But then, after all the pre-show controversy, Tayem Hassan delivered a stunning, jaw-dropping performance as the Farouk, with a flawless Egyptian accent and a portrayal with a human touch.

"Tayem Hassan is the King of Egypt now," said series scriptwriter Lamis Gaber, while a Syrian direcotr, Ghassan Abdullah, said that for many Arabs the Syrian actor has become the "true face" of the King. "Farouk himself wouldn't have done a better job," he said.

Added actress Wafaa Amer, who delivered a heart-warming performance of Queen Nazly, the king's mother: "If not Tayem Hassan, then who? The success of the series was staggering, unimaginable."

During the last week of Ramadan, newspapers started advertising for packages that promised a "re-reading of this phase in history" based on the success of the TV series. Al-Masri al-Yom newspaper ran a headline: "King Farouk: The drama series that re-wrote history."

It has already sparked comparisons between the current state of political affairs and that time when Egypt was a kingdom and under British occupation, but apparently still enjoyed a flourish in democracy, said observers.

The corruption of King Farouk's era was recorded in one single "black" book, said Mansour. "But the corruption of the republican era will need to be recorded in volumes as large as the Encyclopedia Britannica."

But apart from criticism, and comparison between historical eras, the series shed light on a sticky issue: competition between Syrian and Egyptian soap operas.

In recent years, Egypt has not been following its usual trajectory in television drama production. Fed dramas with weak plotlines and basking only in the glitter and fame of the lead star, people have been switching the channels for something different.

Then along came the Syrians with dramas rife with history, thought and geopolitical messages, that offered a change from the deluge of clichéd stories flooding the Egyptian TV screens.

In addition, Egyptians’ sojourn into historical drama through the years have not been as successful as their Syrian counterparts, usually for lack of financial resources, manpower or both.

Actress Waafa Amer said that Egyptians could benefit from how much effort is put into a project. "Costumes, make-up, everything is taken seriously. Every single person on set knows his work."

“The scale of production in historical Syrian dramas in general is huge,” said al-Qady, who acted in two Syrian-directed dramas. “They have fresh techniques in directing."

Although some filmmakers and founders of the drama industry in Egypt come from different ethnic backgrounds, some Egyptian filmmakers and actors have become "chauvinistic" when it came to embracing other cultures in art. And many Egyptian screenplay writers and directors felt they had a monopoly over "excellence in drama."

Even as soaps like King Farouk received warm praise, some voices still opposed the Syrian experiment with passion.

But according to the makers of this landmark project, the initiative was neither Syrian, nor Egyptian, nor Saudi but rather a pan-Arab product which also included a Jordanian music score composer and Lebanese make-up artists.

"We hope that this project would succeed in uniting Arabs through art - after failing to unite in politics" said scriptwriter Gaber.

Whether a joint-Arab project like this could signal an upcoming trend in regional arts, it is not clear. But the makers of Farouk could only hope that this will happen. "I have a feeling that this trend will conquer," said director Hatem Ali.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Links: http://rawstory.com/news/dpa/Competition_between_Syrians_and_Egy_10112007.html

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/239565/Competition_between_Syrians_and_Egyptians_boils_in_drama

note: image courtersy of Wafaa Amer

Egyptian workers occupy factory during massive strike - dpa

By Pakinam Amer
First Published: Sep 26, 2007

Cairo - Thousands of Egyptian textile workers have taken over control of one of the state's biggest mills overnight, the workers' leaders said on Wednesday during a massive strike over low wages and overdue benefits.

"My salary is now 600 (Egyptian) pounds after a service of 45 years in this factory," says 59-year-old al-Sayed Habib, a leader of the protestors. Habib and his family have spent the last three days huddled around the Mahala al-Kobra factory of Misr Helwan Spinning and Weaving Company which he considers a second home of sorts.

"I spent my life in this factory and I own nothing except my salary," Habib said, adding that monthly salaries for the textile factory range from 100 to 600 Egyptian pounds (18 to 107 US dollars).

The workers are demanding 150 days' worth of profit sharing in addition to bonuses as promised by the factory administration. They also want a larger share of the company's profit.

The resignation of the head of the Textile Holding Company Mohsen al-Jilany, Misr Helwan chairman Mahmoud al-Gibali, in addition to the dismissal of the workers' syndicate council head is also on top of their demands.

Despite being confined to the facility, the strike of 27,000 Egyptian textile workers in northern Gharbiya province has produced a shockwave among other blue-collar workers and rights advocates and has recieved extensive local media coverage.

The government is afraid that the impact of this strike would spread to other factories, according to independent observers. Government sources told a newspaper earlier that if the state responded to the workers' demands, this could encourage other workers to follow their lead.

The incident revived the memory of a 2006 mass protest where laborers in both major plants and low-paid industries organized massive strikes.

Truckloads of security forces have been cordoning off the site bursting at the seams with protestors, their families and relatives. Establishing a makeshift tent city inside the factory, the workers thronged the facility's yards day and night during the holy month of Ramadan during which Muslims fast and make supplications to God.

In addition to fasting during the day, the male and female workers hold rallies, pray and break their fast every evening on the site and jointly bang on plastic barrels in a kind of a symbolic snub. The drums signal a warning to the authorities, according to Habib. "These drums are for waking people up, they signal danger."

"Officials are deliberately giving us the cold shoulder, but we will take back our right if we continue standing," he said. Behind him, workers chanted: "We will not bow, we will not fear. We cannot afford plain bread."

An opposition member of parliament, Hamdein Sabahi, criticized the attitude of the company's shareholders. "There is a crisis due to the absence of trust. The workers do not believe that their money will be paid as the company promises."

Newspaper reports had said that the holding company head al-Jilany had already given the workers a 40-day payment. But the workers say they received only a 20-day payment, adding that the company refused to negotiate the remaining wages until early November when the company's general assembly meets.

By November, Ramadan and the financially-demanding Muslim feasts would be over, said Habib, a father of three. "Schools have also opened and we have no money."

Workers said that they have neither received reconciliatory bids nor been approached by company negotiators.

According to Sabahi, some workers are seriously considering setting up a self-directed administration as an act of defiance.

Harassment from security police has been reported. On Monday, eight Egyptian textile worker leaders were arrested. They were accused of fomenting protests and causing damage to public property. The authorities claimed that the strike cost the factory a 100-million-pound loss. They were released late Tuesday.

"(The police) also sends its scaremongers into the crowds of workers to frighten them by saying that the security forces waiting at the gates could strike any time," Habib said.

On another note, Sabahi denied that the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood had incited the strike, describing this as "a petty excuse by the government authorities."

"They think squeezing in the Muslim Brotherhood into the problem justifies a crackdown. They want this rights issue to be an extension of the war between them and the Muslim Brotherhood," Sabahi said.

Link: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/233332/Egyptian_workers_occupy_factory_during_massive_strike

Rumours of love affair spark sectarian clashes in Egypt - dpa

By Pakinam Amer
Sep 24, 2007, 16:47 GMT

Cairo - Accounts of a love story between a young Christian man and a Muslim woman turned sour, prompting rumours, sectarian clashes and arrests in the once cosmopolitan port city of Alexandria.

On Monday, 25 Christians and Muslims answered to charges including disturbing the peace, damaging public property and using sharp objects as weapons.

The angry young men had pelted each other with stones and shards of broken glass, damaging nearby cars and private property in the process.

The brawl ensued late Friday in a poor part of the Sidi Bishr district during prayers that are held in observance of the holy month of Ramadan during which Muslims fast and make supplications to God.

'Throngs of people were attacking each other. A man wearing a face veil was throwing stones at Christians, and women were standing in balconies cheering on the Muslims, shouting 'God is Great',' said a Christian witness. 'They shouted 'Christians are sons of dogs'.'

According to the witness, the Christian groups sought refuge from the stones in entrances to buildings. Six Muslims were injured in the clashes as well as three Christians.

The truth is lost about the real cause of the clashes as both groups hurled accusations at each other and circulated different accounts.

As Muslims alleged that a love story had illicitly developed between 21-year-old Sami Samir and a young woman, Christians rejected the accounts saying that Muslims had attacked them for other reasons.

'The Muslim guys are only jealous because our family has a car and two cafeterias while being Christian,' said a relative of Samir.

The incidence of religiously-motivated violence is escalating in Alexandria, a city that used to be home to Jews, Muslims, and Christians and sheltered many expatriate foreign communities until the late 1950s.

Observers believe that Alexandria is gradually embracing religious radicalism and a form of bigotry alien to its reputation as a tolerant metropolis.

Despite being a summer resort, popular for its long stretches of beaches and sea activities, the attire of women in particular is becoming more and more conservative even on hot summer days.

Men wearing white ankle-length robes and women dressed in black from head to toe except for two slits for the eyes are a common sight.

Mosques and churches have started replacing other societal institutions, offering not only moral direction but also social, legal and political guidance to the faithful.

Whether they blame the so-called Salafi movements, followers of a strict form of Islam akin to Saudi Arabia's austere Wahabism or the popular Muslim Brotherhood, many observers have agreed that the 'overly-conservative religious groups' had a role in changing the face of Alexandria.

An Alexandrian recounted how a sheikh kept intimidating him after discovering that he was a Christian. 'He would ask me why I believed in the Bible. I used to run from him.'

Although a leader of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood himself, Ali Abdel-Fatah believes that religious clerics are using the economic and political turmoil that Egypt is enduring to mobilize Muslims and Christians against each other.

'In Alexandria, Muslims take shelter in mosques. Christians find asylum in their church. This leads to the blunt expression of religious views and so clashes, and confrontations ensue,' said Abdel-Fatah.

'When a love affair turns into a sectarian row, we know we have a big problem,' said Kamal Habib, member of the Supreme Church Council in Alexandria. 'A road accident could easily spur a religious rift these days.'

The recent street riots in Alexandria rekindled memories of violent incidents in 2006 when an extremist, claimed by security authorities to have been mentally deranged, attacked four churches in Alexandria. An elderly Coptic citizen was stabbed to death and five others were injured.

In 2005, on two consecutive Fridays, Muslims attacked St George's Church in Alexandria's Moharam Bek district, incensed by the leaking of a CD containing a play performed inside the church and considered disdainful of the Prophet Mohammed.

'The state cannot punish the church like it punishes religious institutions and so people take matters into their own hands and seek to regain their rights by use of force,' said Abdel-Fatah.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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Link: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/features/article_1359190.php/Rumours_of_love_affair_spark_sectarian_clashes_in_Egypt

Iraq oil industry workers protest controversial oil bill - dpa

By Pakinam Amer, dpa
First Published: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:06:46 GMT

Cairo - While Iraq's political parties are failing to reach a compromise on the hotly-debated oil and gas draft law, oil workers in oil-rich Basra continue almost daily protests, branding themselves ”the defenders of the country's oil.”

Basra's oil workers' union is uncompromisingly setting itself against the law, approved by Iraq's cabinet but stalled in parliament.

The trade union believes that a deluge of foreign contractors would gradually but eventually lead to the privatization of the oil sector, a notion it vehemently opposes.

A landmark political and economic step, the debated law will decide over the control of the country's existing as well as untapped oil-reserves, which are mainly in the Kurdish-controlled north and the Shiite-dominated south.

In principle, the draft law outlines the procedures and guidelines for oil transactions based on articles 11 and 112 of the constitution. The government had said that it is to be designed in a way that makes Iraqis the prime owners of the country's oil and gas wealth.

In conferences and media outlets, however, the mostly Shiite Basra oil workers and union members claim that the law allows the government to ”sell the country's wealth” for capitalist gains.

Iraq has the third largest oil reserves in the world. However, many of the existing oil fields have not been utilized since the 1970s. The current oil reserves are estimated to be equivalent to 115 billion barrels.

During their demonstrations against the draft law, the protesters in the oil industry and trade unions have been warning the oil ministry of the centralized government in Baghdad against ignoring their calls, while vowing to continue their rowdy protests.

In response, Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani banned unions from giving their say during discussions of the much-anticipated legislation.

By contrast, Ibrahim Bahr al-Oloum, former Iraqi oil minister told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the oil workers should be allowed to have their say: ”These unions should have a position (regarding the law) and their perspective should be considered. Unions protect oil workers.”

”Discussions should be open,” he said. He added the local media were playing a part in defaming the controversial bill, but he also believed that the government was vague in explaining the law.

”The people have a foggy picture” of what the legislation entitles, he said.

Meanwhile, Washington has been pushing for a speedy approval of the law, prompting many Iraqis, especially those in Iraq's oil-rich regions, to doubt the real motives of the Bush administration.

Many workers believe that the deal described as a ”profit-sharing” agreement by Premier Nuri al-Maliki and his cabinet is in reality intended to exploit Iraq's lucrative energy resources for the sake of US oil drillers and corporations.

According to former Oil Minister Bahr al-Oloum, one of the disputed elements of the law is the section describing the role of the national oil company and its role in the country's energy wealth.

The law had suggested that Iraq's national oil company would be restructured and turned into an independent holding company. This company would then be in charge of implementing national oil policy, according to a publicized draft of the law.

But the law does not guarantee Iraq's supremacy over its reserves since it does not outline a quota reserved to protect this holding company against foreign competitors, Bahr al-Oloum said.

”The national oil company should not be dealt with as a competitor to foreign contractors. The priority in contracts should be given tothe national company. Its share should not go below 51 per cent,” the former minister added.

Foreign companies and US oil giants are already queuing to sign exploration and production deals and to book oil reserves in Iraq.

”All the oil companies have been salivating at the prospect ofIraq for years. There is a good chance of very large discoveries. Nowhere else in the world offers that,” David Horgan, oil expert and managing director of Petret Resources, which has an operation in Iraq, told the UK's Guardian newspaper recently.

Most oil fields are located in the south of Iraq near oil-rich cities like Basra, West al-Qurna, Majnoun, Nahran Omar, Rafideen, Helfaya, Sabba, Lahees and Bazrkan.

Other areas like Kirkuk in the north, eastern Baghdad, al-Ahdab, Nasiriyah, and Artawy are also famous for their oil fields.

In Baghdad, discussions on the draft bill collapsed as Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites became divided on clauses regulating the power balance between the regions and the different Iraqi groups.

Sunnis feared the law would decentralize management of the oil fields. Shiites and Kurds contended for control over them, voicing considerations against annexes placing oil fields under the full control of the national company in Baghdad.

Given the amount of controversy ahead of the bill's parliamentary approval, some observers predict even more arguments to ensue over the execution of the law itself.

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Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/109399.html