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MEDIA-CAPITALISM: COLLOQUIAL MASS CULTURE AND NATIONALISM IN EGYPT, 1908–18

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2010

Ziad Fahmy
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In Egypt, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, older, fragmented, and more localized forms of identity were replaced with new, alternative concepts of community, which for the first time had the capacity to collectively encompass the majority of Egyptians. The activism of Mustafa Kamil (1874–1908) and the populist message of the Watani Party began the process of defining and popularizing urban Egyptian nationalism. After Kamil's premature death in 1908, there was more of an “urgent need,” as described by Zachary Lockman, for “tapping into and mobilizing new domestic constituencies in order to build a more broadly based independence movement.” This article argues that the eventual mobilization of the Egyptian urban masses, and their “incorporation into the Egyptian nation,” was due in large part to the materialization of a variety of mass media catering to a growing national audience. To be more specific, I will examine early Egyptian nationalism through the lens of previously neglected audiovisual colloquial Egyptian sources. This, I argue, is crucial to any attempt at capturing the voice of “ordinary” Egyptians. Finally, the article documents the role of early colloquial Egyptian mass culture as a vehicle and forum through which, among other things, “hidden transcripts” of resistance and critiques of colonial and elite authority took place.

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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 83 - 103
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I thank Charles D. Smith, Julia Clancy-Smith, Linda T. Darling, Kaila Bussert, and the four anonymous IJMES reviewers for their assistance and comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Sara Pursley provided valuable editorial help. For texts, songs, and plays written or performed in colloquial Egyptian, I have slightly modified the IJMES transliteration system. Instead of jim (j) I use gim (g); instead of qaf (q) I use hamza (ʾ); and dhal (dh) becomes zal (z). I also display initial hamza in the colloquial and render the definite article il- instead of al- to reflect Egyptian pronunciation.

1 Lockman, Zachary, “Imagining the Working Class: Culture, Nationalism, and Class Formation in Egypt, 1899–1914,” Poetics Today 15 (1994): 183CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Ibid., 182.

3 Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), xii–xiiiGoogle Scholar.

4 See Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (New York: Verso Press, 1991), 37–46Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., 25.

6 For an examination of the “split vernacular,” see Armbrust, Walter, Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 37–62Google Scholar. For a definition of diglossia, see Mitchell, T. F., “Some Preliminary Observations on the Arabic Koine,” Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 2 (1975): 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Ferguson, Charles A., “Diglossia,” Word 15 (1959): 336CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The coining of the term is credited to William Marçais. See Marçais, William, “La Diglossie arab,” L'Enseignement Public 97 (1930): 401–49Google Scholar.

7 Mitchell, “Some Preliminary Observations on the Arabic Koine,” 70. Armbrust, Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt, 37–62. Haeri, Niloofar, Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Depending on the context, fuṣḥā words were often used in everyday speech just as varying degrees of colloquialisms were incorporated in printed modern standard Arabic. For examples see Armbrust, Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt, 48–55, and Haeri, Sacred Language, 35–51.

9 Ministère des Finance, Départment de la Statistique Générale, Annuaire Statistique de L'Egypte: 1914 (Cairo: National Printing Department, 1915), 24. Ministère des Finance, Départment de la Statistique Générale, Annuaire Statistique de L'Egypte: 1918 (Cairo: National Printing Department, 1919), 15.

10 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 19, 36–46.

11 Haeri, Sacred Language, 1.

12 A few Egyptian novelists/writers have written the dialogues of some of their novels in colloquial Egyptian. Tawfiq al-Hakim and Muhammad Husayn Haykal were two of the most prominent. See Cachia, Pierre, “The Use of Colloquial in Modern Arabic Literature,” Journal of American Oriental Studies 87 (1967): 12–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), 37Google Scholar.

14 See Wendell, Charles, The Evolution of the Egyptian National Image: From its Origins to Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (Berkeley, Calif.: The University of California Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Safran, Nadav, Egypt in Search of Political Community: An Analysis of the Intellectual and Political Evolution of Egypt, 1804–1952 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Ghali, Ibrahim, L'Egypte Nationaliste et Libérale de Moustapha Kamel à Saad Zaggloul, 1892–1927 (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969)Google Scholar; Smith, Charles D., Islam and the Search for Social Order in Modern Egypt: A Biography of Muhammad Husayn Haykal (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

15 Gershoni, Israel and Jankowski, James P., Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900–1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., xii.

17 Abdel-Malek, Kamal, A Study of the Vernacular Poetry of Ahmad Fuʾad Nigm (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990)Google Scholar; Booth, Marilyn, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies (Exeter, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 1990)Google Scholar; idem, “Colloquial Arabic Poetry, Politics, and the Press in Modern Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 419–40; Armbrust, Walter, “The Formation of National Culture in Egypt in the Interwar Period: Cultural Trajectories,” History Compass 7 (2009): 155–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt; Haeri, Sacred Language; Powell, Eve M. Troutt, A Different Shade of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain, and the Mastery of the Sudan (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Baron, Beth, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Pollard, Lisa, Nurturing the Nation: The Family Politics of Modernizing, Colonizing, and Liberating Egypt, 1805–1923 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gasper, Michael Ezekiel, The Power of Representation: Publics, Peasants, and Islam in Egypt (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar. See also Joel Beinin, “Writing Class: Workers and Modern Egyptian Colloquial Poetry (Zajal),” Poetics Today 15 (1994): 191–215.

18 Ṭaqāṭiq (ṭaʾāṭiʾ in colloquial Egyptian) are short (two to five minutes long), light-hearted, colloquial Egyptian pop songs that became the song of choice for the Egyptian record industry. These popular ditties were primarily sung by women. See Frédéric Lagrange, “Musiciens et poètes en Egypte au temps de la nahda” (PhD diss., Université de Paris a Saint-Denis, 1994), 147, 286–88.

19 According to ʿAyda Nussayr's study on book publishing in Egypt at the turn of the 20th century, the average number of prints per published book was only about 500. See ʿAyda Ibrahim Nussayr, Harakat Nashr al-Kutub fi Misr fi al-Qarn al-Tasiʿ ʿAshr (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Misriyya al-ʿAmma li-l-Kitab, 1994), 94–98.

20 Ministère des Finance, Annuaire Statistique de L'Egypte: 1918, 15.

21 See al-Masrah, 15 March 1926.

22 Ibid.

23 Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), 6–7Google Scholar.

24 Ali Jihad Racy, “Musical Change and Commercial Recording in Egypt, 1904–1932” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 1977), 168–69. According to Omar Carlier, phonographs were also common in Algerian coffee shops. See Omar Carlier, “Le café maure: Sociabilité masculine et effervescence citoyenne (Algérie XVIIe–XXe siècles),” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 45 (1990): 989.

25 Danielson, Virginia, The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Songs, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 27–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Al-Masrah, 14 June 1927. See also Racy, Ali Jihad, “The Record Industry and Egyptian Traditional Music: 1904–1932,” Ethnomusicology 20 (1976): 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Gronow, Pekka, “The Record Industry Comes to the Orient,” Ethnomusicology 25 (1981): 255CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Racy, “The Record Industry,” 33.

29 For a brief history of the major record companies in Egypt see ibid., 27–45.

30 Gronow, “The Record Industry Comes to the Orient,” 283–84.

31 Badiʿ Khayri, Mudhakirat Badiʿ Khayri: Khamsa wa Arbiʿun Sana ʿala Adwaʾ al-Masrah (Beirut: Dar al-Thaqafa, n.d.), 16.

32 Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, 1.

33 Khayri, Mudhakirat Badiʿ Khayri, 16.

34 Ahmad ʿAshur Sulayman (al-Shaykh ʿAshur) was also one of the editors for al-Arnab (the Rabbit) and al-Babaghlu (The Parrot), which were among the leading colloquial Egyptian satirical periodicals in the early 20th century. See Husayn Mazlum Riyad and Mustafa Muhammad al-Sabah, Tarikh Adab al-Shaʿb: Nashʾatu, Tatawiratu, Aʿlamu (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Saʿada, 1936), 177–85. Al-Masrah, 24 May 1926.

35 Al-Zuhur, July 1911.

36 Gronow, “The Record Industry Comes to the Orient,” 266–67.

37 Racy, “The Record Industry,” 39.

38 Ibid., 39, 47.

39 Ibid., 39; Al-Masrah, 24 May 1926.

40 Al-Masrah, 24 May 1926. In 1912, Yunis al-Qadi was hired as the primary songwriter for al-Mahdiyya. He began his artistic career writing colloquial poetry in satirical magazines like al-Sayf and al-Lataʾif al-Musawwara, was hired by Baidaphon, and wrote dozens of songs for them from 1912 until the mid-1920s. See also Riyad and al-Sabah, Tarikh Adab al-Shaʿb, 237–44.

41 Al-Masrah, 24 May 1926.

42 Virginia Danielson, “Artists and Entrepreneurs: Female Singers in Cairo during the 1920s,” in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. Nikki R. Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991), 296.

43 Al-Zuhur, July 1911.

44 Al-Masrah, 5 July 1926.

45 Al-Masrah, 14 June 1927; Racy, “The Record Industry,” 43; Mahmud Ahmad al-Hifni, Sayyid Darwish: Hayatuhu wa Athar ʿAbqariatuhu (Cairo: Dar Misr li-l-Tibaʿa, 1962), 34–35. Sayyid Darwish was born in the popular quarter of Kum al-Dika in Alexandria and started his career playing and singing in coffee shops. In 1914, he got his first professional break when he was hired as a composer (and singer) for the Mechian Record Company.

46 Al-Masrah, 29 August 1927.

47 A ṣafīḥa is a tin that is approximately 1.5 gallons (5 liters).

48 Min kan fakir ʾini da yigra / ḥata al-kabrit baʾa luh zikrah / Wi ʾizazit il-lumba khadit shuhra / bi frank wi nuṣ wi shiwayya. This song was also known as Litr il-Gaz bi-Rubiyya (The Liter of Kerosene Now Costs a Rupee).

49 ʿAyshin fi wādi il-nīl nishrab / Bi-l-ʿadadāt ʿala mili wi santi / Min gāz li-malḥ wa min sukar / li-turmayāt il-khawaga kiriyanti / Rabina ma yi-wariksh luṣitna / il-gayb niḍīif ʾamma al-bayt ʾanḍaf / Wa al-hidmah diʾili-ʿala gititna / Mahguz ʿaliha . . . di ʿisha tiʾaraf. For the version sung by Sayyid Darwish, see Audion #171.

50 For example, see Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, 41–53.

51 Baṣara is a woman who sees the future, and barraja is a female astrologer.

52 ʾAna Munira al-Mahdiyya, ḥub al-waṭan ʿandi ghiyya / ʾAfdi bilādi wi-l-ḥuriyya bi-ruḥi, wa mal al-Bakht. For the original words of Basara Barraja, see Maktabat al-Askandariyya, Sayyid Darwish: Mawsuʿat Iʿlam al-Musiqa al-ʿArabiyya (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2003), 1:131. For the recorded version with the “improvised” lines, see Basara Barraja by Munira al-Mahdiyya (Baidaphone #80–81/834).

53 Salma ya Salama was also called al-ʿUmal wa-l-Sulta (The Workers and the British Authority). For the version sung by Sayyid Darwish, see Odeon #178.

54 Salma ya Salama is known in Egypt today. The song was remade and sung by multiple singers throughout the 20th century. The most famous version was recorded in the late 1970s by the international star Dalida (the daughter of Italian émigrés, she was born and raised in Cairo). In Egypt, the chorus of this song has become a part of the popular musical repertoire. It is, for example, typically sung by children returning from school trips.

55 Al-Shabab, 19 November 1919.

56 See FO 371/2355/10934, Note by the Aga Khan and M. A. Ali Baig on the Situation in Egypt, 12 January 1915: “it appears to us from what we have heard that under the combined operation of the Press Act and martial law, the Arabic Press has to a large extent ceased to reflect the trend of Egyptian feeling in all its aspects.”

57 For an examination of some of the early Franco-Arab theater see Laila Abou-Saif, “Najib al-Rihani: From Buffoonery to Social Comedy,” Journal of Arabic Literature 4 (1973): 1–17.

58 Al-Masrah, 8 August 1927.

59 Al-Afkar, 12 January 1917; 16 February 1917; 23 February 1917; 2 March 1917; 18 March 1917; 3 October 1917. Al-Muqatam, 5 March 1918. Misr, 4 September 1918.

60 Najib al-Rihani, Mudhakirat Najib al-Rihani (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1959), 81–82. To place these ticket prices in perspective, according to Nabawiyya Musa, school teachers in Egypt during the first decade of the 20th century earned an estimated monthly salary ranging from six to twelve pounds. See Nabawiyya Musa, Tarikhi Biqalami (Cairo: Multaqi al-Marʾa wa-l-Dhakira, 1999), 93.

61 Al-Ahram, 17 January 1917 to 24 January 1917; Al-Ahram, 23 February 1917; Al-Ahram, 1 March 1917 to 5 March 1917; Al-Ahram, 22 March 1917 to 26 March 1917; Al-Ahram, 3 April 1917 to 10 April 1917. Al-Afkar, 19 January 1917, 18 March 1917.

62 Al-Muʾayid, 4 September 1907; al-Ahram, 14 September 1907; al-Ahram, 14 September 1907; al-Ahram, 21 September 1907; al-Watan, 4 October 1907; al-Muʾayid, 4 September 1907.

63 See al-Tamthil, April 1916. Muhammad al-Fil, Ruʾyat wa Bayan Halat al-Masrah al-ʿArabi: Taʾsis al-Kumidiyya (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Misriyya al-ʿAmma li-l-Kitab, 2004), 401–403, 410–11.

64 Al-Adab wa-l-Tamthil, April 1916; Al-Masrah, 8 August 1927.

65 Khayri, Mudhakirat Badiʿ Khayri, 33–34.

66 Al-Shabab, 19 November 1919.

67 Al-Manbar, 26 August 1918.

68 “Tharwat Kishkish” (Kishkish's Fortune), Al-Manbar, 10 March 1919. See also al-Shabab, 13 November 1919.

69 Saʿd Zaghlul, Mudhakirat Saʿd Zaghlul: al-Juzʾ al-Sabiʿ, comp. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz Ramadan (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Misriyya al-ʿAmma li-l-Kitab, 1996), 7:113.

70 Al-Rihani, Mudhakirat Najib al-Rihani, 106.

71 In addition to writing songs and plays for the theater and record companies, song and theatrical script writers such as Bayram al-Tunisi, Yunis al-Qadi, and Badiʿ Khayri also wrote azjāl in colloquial newspapers.

72 Al-Ahram, 16 May 1919. This al-Ahram advertisement stresses that the music is by Sayyid Darwish. Shid al-Hizam (Odeon #171), Salma ya Salama (Odeon #178), Al-Bahr Biyidhak (Odeon #178), Da Baʾf min ili Yiʾalis (Odeon #47711), Tilʿit ya Mahla Nurha (Mechian #652), ʾUm ya Misri (Odeon #170), Khafif al-Ruh (Mechian #589), Al-Qilal al-Qinawi (Mechian #797 and #665), Ya Wild ʿAmi (Mechian #827). Many of these songs are known in Egypt today.

73 Al-Masrah, 29 August 1927.

74 Ibid.

75 For examples of the themes and discourses in zajal and the satirical press, see Booth, “Colloquial Arabic Poetry,” 423–33.

76 Al-Muqatam, 15 January 1919; al-Ahram, 21 June 1919.

77 The name Kharalambo is commonly used in Egyptian mass culture. It is an invented Greek name that exaggerates the sounds of the Greek language for comedic effect. Also, khara in colloquial Egyptian means feces, which contributes to the comedic effect of the name.

78 See Maktabat al-Askandariyya, Sayyid Darwish, 1:360.

79 Ibid., 1:361.

80 Abu al-Kashakish is Kishkish's nickname. For the original version sung by Fathia Ahmad and Najib al-Rihani see Mechian #651. See also Pathé records #35004/18007.

81 See Shaykh Qufaʿa (Odeon #172 and #47714). For the lyrics of the song, see Maktabat al-Askandariyya, Sayyid Darwish, 1:365.

82 See Maktabat al-Askandariyya, Sayyid Darwish, 1:359.

83 This ṭaqṭūqa is also known as ʾUwʿah Liminak ʾUwʿa Shimalak (Watch Out to Your Right, Watch Out to Your Left). See Lahn al-Siyyas (Odeon #181) and Maktabat al-Askandariyya, Sayyid Darwish, 2:363.

84 See Maktabat al-Askandariyya, Sayyid Darwish, 2:370.

85 Al-Manbar, 21 January 1917; al-Ahram, 9 and 14–17 January 1917; al-Muqatam, 2 July, 8 August 1917. Professional troupes that occasionally toured the Egyptian countryside included the theaters of al-Rihani, al-Kassar Abyad, and al-Mahdiyya.

86 Ibrahim Ramzi, Masrahuna Ayyam Zaman wa Tarikh al-Fananin al-Qudamaʾ (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Salam, 1984), 10–11.

87 Ibid., 10–11, 15, 43.

88 Al-Rihani, Mudhakirat Najib al-Rihani, 32–33.

89 Ramzi, Masrahuna Ayyam Zaman, 38–39, 58–59. For an analysis of the nationalist and racial implications of al-Kassar's theater, see Eve Troutt Powell, “Burnt-Cork Nationalism: Race and Identity in the Theater of Alî al-Kassâr,” in Colors of Enchantment: Theater, Dance, Music and the Visual Arts of the Middle East, ed. Sherifa Zuhur (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2001), 27–38.

90 Bourdieu, Distinction, 7. For an examination of the vulgarization of colloquial cultural expressions during the second half of the 20th century, see Armbrust, Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt, 165–220.

91 Al-Ahram, 8 June 1915.

92 Al-Manbar, 3 March 1916.

93 See al-Muqatam, 4 October 1919, and al-Ahram, 1 November 1919.

94 Al-Basir, 3 April 1917.

95 Al-Manbar, 20 August 1918.

96 Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, 12.

97 Al-Ahram, 10 June 1915.

98 Riyad and al-Sabah, Tarikh Adab al-Shaʿb, 237–40. Some of these low songs written by al-Qadi included the very famous ʾIrkhi il-Sitara ʾili fi Rihna (Loosen the Blind that is Separating Us), Taʿala ya Shatir Niruh il-ʾAnatir (Come on, Kiddo, Let's Go to the Park), and Il-Hub Dah Dah wi-l-Hagr Kukh Kukh (Love is Nice and Parting is Bad).

99 Al-Masrah, 12 April, 19 April, 26 April 1926.

100 Al-Masrah, 26 April 1926. For a closer look at some of these sexualized ṭaqāṭiq, see Frédéric Lagrange, “Women in the Singing Business, Women in Songs,” History Compass 7 (2009): 226–50.

101 Misr, 22 February 1919.

102 See Maktabat al-Askandariyya, Sayyid Darwish, 2:378–79.

103 Ramzi, Masrahuna Ayyam Zaman, 110; al-Rihani, Mudhakirat Najib al-Rihani, 113.

104 For a closer look at this phenomenon, see Racy, “Musical Change,” 66.

105 Al-Manbar, 3 September 1918.

106 Booth, “Colloquial Arabic Poetry,” 423.

107 This supports Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogical view of culture, which describes a dynamically ongoing dialogue between cultural producers and consumers. See Mikhail Bakhtin, “Towards a Methodology of the Human Sciences,” in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1986), 169–72.

108 See al-Masrah, 25 July 1927. For example, Ibrahim Ramzi, who wrote for ʿAziz ʿId, describes how he wrote his entire play, “Entering the Public Bath is Easier than Exiting It,” in a coffee shop called Qahwat al-Fan (The Arts Café). Ramzi also acknowledges that Yunis al-Qadi “prefers to write only in coffee shops.”

109 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6–7.