The entire Egyptian population must feel indebted to “King Farouk TV series for teaching us our real history. More than half a century later, it helped us discover that the king, who’s overthrow was demanded by all political currents – before not after the revolution – was neither corrupt, nor obsess, nor womanizer nor a kleptomaniac, nor consequently was his name Farouk!
Indeed the protagonist of this satellite TV series is a happy-go-luck fellow countryman with a sense of humor; a man completely devoted to serving his country, to the chagrin of all those surrounding him – naïve, as he may seem at times, to the point of idiocy.
The series, in fact, paints a picture that completely contradicts historical facts which state that public opinion – before not after the revolution – saw the king as a symbol of corruption to the extent that a fleeting look at the political discourse of the political movements back then shows that they all shared the same animosity to the tyrant king.
The Wafd party, which expressed the will of the nation then, was at the forefront of drafting requests to be presented to the Parliament – before not after the revolution – demanding the abdication of the king. Wafd leader Nahas Pasha knew very well that such demands would boost his popularity among the people.
This outright animosity towards the king, if it proves anything at all, goes to show that we are an ignorant nation because we believed – before not after the revolution – that the king was indeed corrupt, and that the Wafd’s opposition to him, based on his continued flouting of the constitution and his lack of respect for the will of the people during elections – was a self-serving ploy to appease the masses and garner their support, not to show them the truth.
It seems that this is the truth this series has uncovered more than half a century later. The king, it contends, was the complete opposite of what we thought him to be, even morally. It appears that he never spent time with prostitutes – neither before nor after the revolution. As for his almost daily presence at one of Cairo’s biggest night clubs back then, Auberge des Pyramides, that was only for breakfast, as scriptwriter Lamis Gaber stated in a recent interview.
Casino patrons all deceived us when they claimed – before not after the revolution – that the king was a regular guest and that their establishments were the best places to find him. Moreover, they claimed, that deliberately losing to him in gambling was the best way to land in his royalty’s favor.
Nor was the Auberge the only nightclub to make such false claims. Other nightclubs thrived before it because his majesty frequented them, the most famous of which was Helmiya Palace, where the king presumably also used to have breakfast before migrating to the Auberge.
It seems too that Karim Thabet, the king’s own press secretary, also deceived us when he claimed – before not after the revolution – that the first thing the king did when his sister Fawzeya returned home after her divorce from the Shah of Iran, was to go through her luggage behind her back in search of any jewelry she may have brought back with her.
Dramatists certainly reserve the right to present their own vision / interpretation of history. Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, for instance, was the epitome of love; for Bernard Shaw, she was merely a whore, while Ahmed Shawky presented her as a symbol of patriotism.
The author of “King Farouk too enjoys that same right. If she saw Farouk as a victim who had some good sides – because at the end of the day, every criminal is a victim – she is right, except this does not negate the fact that he’s a criminal in any case.
The fault I find with “King Farouk is not in the series itself, one of the best to grace the small screen this Ramadan, but with us viewers who, in our total dissatisfaction with the present state of things, have chosen not to distinguish between history and a TV series. Our knowledge of history, the witnesses to which are still alive, is thus not based on facts, but on Ramadan TV series on satellite channels.
Mohamed Salmawyis President of the Writer’s Union of Egypt and editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo. This article is syndicated in the Arabic press.
