“Wake up Egypt, shake your crescent and achieve your victory, stretch your hand and keep up with the modern age.
“Who are they and who are we? They are princes and sultans, we the poor who are governed by them.see who will rule who?
“Why is the sea smiling? The sea is angry; it isn’t smiling, as nothing in the whole story invites a smile.
These are just some of the moving lyrics that were sung to the tunes of the oud Sunday at the Rawabet Theater by the El Tamey theatrical troupe.
The performance, which is being presented for the fourth consecutive year, featured songs by Sheikh Imam Isa and Adly Fakhry, which were written in colloquial Arabic by sarcastic poets Ahmed Fouad Negm and Samir Abdel Baky.
The songs, mainly sketches of daily life peppered with socio-political criticism, became popular during the rule of late president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
However, Mahmoud Biram El Tunsi started the trend earlier, paving the way for figures like Naguib Suror, Samir Abel Baky and Negm.
The young crowd who turned up for the show is proof that these songs continue to be popular to this day.
Ahmed Ali, who was watching the show for the second time, said, “Forget about the sarcasm element, the issues highlighted by these songs, some of which were composed three decades ago, are still very much alive.
Besides a large dose of anecdotes underlying social issues – like the change of a green grocer s fortune as marries a belly dancer or the seductive girl who plays havoc with the tram users when she jumps into the vehicle – other subjects such as US domination and corruption are also tackled.
The sarcastic lyrics suggest that the US is a magic wand that will reverse your fortunes and make you a better person, but the flip side is one of an elaborate corrupt machinery that is aiding and abetting a kind of global monopoly.
Salam Yousri, director of the show, said, “In their simple form, these songs have reached the hearts of the general public and created in them the first glimpse of political awareness. Through these songs [people] have learned how to be more critical of their surroundings. Self-rule and participation in political life starts with a medium like this, which appeals to all people.
“We have presented three non-musical plays, but “El Tamey Wahid Wel Shagar Alwan (One Soil, Diverse Trees) – the name of our troupe as well as that of the show – is derived from the title of a collection by Shawky Abdel Baky. It remains one of our biggest hits although we [only] perform it twice or three times a year.
The Negm-Imam collaborations were borne out of people’s reaction to major events. The duo s protest music was dominated by the fact that the poor had to shoulder the burden of a defeat, responsibility of which lies in the hands of the more selfish upper class. Imam died in 1995 and Negm continues to be an active political poet.
They paid a high price for their boldness with numerous arrests and imprisonments. They were the first to be arrested for singing, and were transferred from one prison to the next to be released only after the death of former president Anwar Sadat.
