Detox | The art of disentanglement

“Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.”
– Genesis 17:19

This verse reminds us of the ending to Youssef Chahine’s Awdat al-Ibn al-Dal (Return of the Prodigal Son, 1976), where a grandfather waves goodbye to his grandson who is escaping the violence that has erupted in their town on the back of a truck, his childhood sweetheart next to him. The grandfather, played by Mahmoud el-Meliguy, implores his grandson to never come back, with tears in his eyes: “Forget us, Ibrahim.”

In this issue, we try to address the emotions that have been consuming us in the years of defeat following the revolution, reflecting on the possibilities of disentanglement: to continue remembering and reflecting, but to not be crippled by frustration. It is a rough moment, and perhaps the only way we can get through it is to shield ourselves from the overwhelming state of helplessness as we attempt to heal. 

When filmmaker Atef al-Tayyeb approached the theme of “escape,” namely in his 1988 classic Al-Horoub (The Escape, 1988), he was not greatly concerned with his protagonist’s individual salvation; rather, he wanted to use his story to address certain issues of public concern: Montasser (Ahmed Zaki) is further and further implicated in the tumult that surrounds him. Meanwhile, the protagonist in Ahmed Awny’s 2019 novel Gawaez lil Abtal (Prizes for Heroes), Ramy, intentionally disappears from the public sphere during the tumultuous aftermath of the Revolution, and we get to ponder on the character’s story, not that of the big political event; a rare feat in literary works that have so far been written about it. Whereas in Ward Masmoum (Poisonous Roses, 2018), Ahmed Fawzi Saleh’s cinematic adaptation of Ahmed Zaghloul al-Shiti’s 1990 novel Woroud Samma li Saqr (Poisonous Roses for Saqr), in which the protagonist tries to escape, reality connives with his sister to prevent him from breaking free. Here, escape is embodied as individual salvation, but Saqr can never escape his past, and so he remains entrapped by his crumbling world.

It is never easy to disentangle, and the process has long been the subject of many artists' and writers’ imaginations. We are dealing with a harsh, rigid status-quo: a legacy of pains and losses of a spring long past that we do not know how to handle. In this Detox, we try to shake off this burden — even if just a little bit — together.

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A tendency to flee
Karoline Kamel

If there was just one sentence that has summarized the 34 years that I’ve lived so far, it would be: “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” – Genesis 17:19. Ever since I became aware of my existence and began running nonstop to escape anything and everything that could hinder me or diverge me from the path that I found myself on — a path that I didn’t choose but was satisfying because it was drawn up specifically for me — I believed that straying from it would mean I was walking away from divine providence to face the evils of the world all alone.

From personal escape to mass escape, my family's dream of immigrating via the lottery system (in which Egyptian candidates are randomly selected to immigrate to the US), was never fulfilled. Once the children in the family turned 21, the lottery became — according to the rules — an individual matter that didn’t involve the whole family. Whoever wins escapes on their own.

I never searched for a reason to love the place I was living in, though I did have a number of reasons to hate it. I fled from my parents’ home and my city and moved to the capital, but didn’t believe that I was “escaping” at first, rather I was just on a journey to live away from my circle of safety.

I was even committed to running away from facing my fears; not fear of them defeating me, but fear that I would defeat and transcend them to face the unknown — and all of the knowledge and realization that would threaten the constants in my life.

I was never able to understand what was behind my tendency to flee. Was it just a desire that was sewn within me by an outside hand, or was it a fundamental part of my personality that grew parallel to my cells. But the constant is that it has accompanied me like a shadow, just as the shadows of objects disappear perpendicular to the light shining on them. The brilliant glow of 2011 had a huge impact on my life and the desire to escape was replaced by me embracing my fears and repairing my relationship to my country. For the very first time, I was connected to the land through a bridge of ambitions.

 

I became indebted to this year and the knowledge and freedom that came along with it, which finally allowed me to discover myself, rearranged my priorities to put staying in Egypt above my dream of migrating. But before I could fully catch my breath, the bridge suddenly began to crumble and I once again found myself running for my life. At first, my feet wouldn’t obey me and I tried to keep them planted on the ground, clinging to the idea that the beast running towards me, and shaking the earth underneath me was nothing but an illusion that would quickly shatter upon the defenses I had built for myself. I felt the power of its incendiary breath burning my skin and knew that there was no way to escape.

I was raised to flee from the unknown, from the other, from knowledge, freedom and politics, and was taught the importance of staying as hidden as possible so as not to draw attention to my existence by, rather than walking along the wall or inside of it, carrying it with me wherever I went.

While at the edge of this collapsing bridge, I discovered that I need to learn the art of escaping pain and anguish. There was nothing but disappointment after hope, and decay after ability. Now, I must hide once again, but in a more professional manner than any previous time in my life. I must shrink and retract if I want to stay alive, and keep running without looking back at the face of the monster because it is closer than I imagine.

When life is hard on you
Ahmed Wael

Saying goodbye to friends and loved ones moving to other countries has become such a common occurrence in our lives those past years. Phone calls take the place of face-to-face conversations, and we see each other from year to year, if we’re lucky. I never considered those who choose to leave “fugitives” of some kind, they’ve only left searching for fewer challenges — limited, logical challenges.

I can’t deny that life has been hard on me, as it has been on everyone, and finding a way to heal has become a necessity. I try not to evaluate the choices of others on whom life has been hard as well — some give up, some resist, and some leave. Those who resist put their sanity and humanity at risk. Those who give up can’t help but observe, on the sidelines, and they might be able to disentangle, but they might also be pulled in. Those who leave are perceived as survivors of everyday woes, the old among them and the new. They are not fugitives, they have merely chosen easier conditions under which to live — they do no longer want life to be hard on them.

Those who leave suffer longing, and sometimes pain at being unable to engage with what they’ve left behind. Some of them return, others try to engage from afar, like the actor and contractor Mohamed Ali in his golden months of social media activity. 

Years ago, Mohamed Ali established a construction company in Egypt and produced a film, Al-Barr al-Tani (The Other Land, 2016), about irregular migration. Last summer, he posted a series of Facebook videos about his work in the field of construction with the Egyptian military, revealing the modus operandi of most projects publicized as national projects. When his videos first started circulating, Ali was described in the media as a “fugitive,” a term often used in press releases by the Interior Ministry to describe those escaping from court rulings. Yet, no court had ruled against Ali before he called last September from his country of residence, Spain, on Egyptians to protest on two successive Fridays. No one was interested in finding out from what or whom Mohamed Ali was trying to escape. The inaccurate description was meant to raise doubts about what he was saying and his views about the political situation; this was how his stigmatization and defamation were sought.

In time, it became clear from pro-regime videos by the actor Ahmed Falawakas (among other celebrities) that the term was meant to criticize Ali for fleeing Egypt so he could criticize it from abroad, rather than face the consequences of his words here, and therefore he is “not man enough.” Perhaps this stigma surrounding the very idea of escaping stems from the official rhetoric that has been propagated for years as a major component of the Egyptian state’s narrative, which glorifies sacrifice and suffering for the sake of the nation instead of individual salvation: a citizen should always bear their share of the collective agony rather than seek personal survival.

In the beginning, it was said in the media that Ali ought not to talk about politics because he is in fact “fighting over money,” and because he is a contractor, “what’s he got to do with politics?” Meanwhile, his rhetoric — in spite of its spontaneity — called for a state that prioritizes the wellbeing of its people and seeks a life of dignity for them. The term “fugitive” continued to be the most common description of Ali by his opponents, simply because he would not allow life to be hard on him, and would no longer accept that Sisyphean mode of existence.

Last November, a court sentenced Ali in absentia to five years in prison for tax evasion. With that, it became possible to describe Ali as a fugitive because he was sentenced in absentia. But Ali announced last weekend that he was retiring from politics after his call to protest on the ninth anniversary of the revolution failed. Yet, he continues to be described as a “fugitive.” So, what is it exactly did Ali escape? The consequences of his words, paying taxes, or politics?

(For more context, read Laila Arman’s “Money and Image: Framing Mohamed Ali’s face-off against Sisi,” published in September on Mada Masr, here.)

***

-This week, and on the eighth anniversary of her death, we also pay tribute to prominent Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in literature. On this occasion, we recommend these five poems selected by the Nobel Library of the Swedish Academy, this collection of articles written about her work in the New York Review of Books, and another beautiful translated poem: “Love at First Sight.” If you want to further explore her work, here’s a reading list published by the New Yorker upon Szymborska’s death in 2012.

WATCH

Ahmed Wael recommends Poisonous Roses (2018): 

In the film, which is an adaptation of Ahmed Zaghloul Al-Shiti’s novel Poisonous Roses for Saqr, Fawzi Saleh brings us on a journey along the narrow, confined path of the film’s actual protagonist, Taheya (Koki), Saqr’s sister (Saqr himself is played by Ibrahim al-Nagari). We follow her footsteps, we twist and turn and always end up right back where we were, sentenced to remain inside that small frame with no means of escape. The one event emphasized throughout the film is mundane and yet multi-layered: Taheyya’s daily trip to her brother’s place of work to bring him lunch.

Despite evident sexual tension, the limits of the siblings’ relationship are not explicitly stated — it’s open to interpretation, evoking more guesses than a comprehensible answer. What we see is the shadow of a relationship: a phantom thread no one really wants to sever despite giving us a clue at the remains of an unspoken relationship that has faded away.

Poisonous Roses often feels callous and aggressive, like when it pulls us into Taheya’s narrow pathways, or when the sound of the machines in the tannery where Saqr works defeats the voices of people in a way that affects the film’s soundtrack, which seems to be intentional. This discomfort is felt by the audience, the characters’ voices are unheard because the machine is a heavy, crushing presence in their lives. When we do hear them, however, the characters don’t really say anything of significance — they do not communicate their inner thoughts or feelings, and whenever they do, they use very few words. They are discreet people who do not reveal their secrets. We, consequently, are left with our suspicions as we speculate about the possibilities of what this present shell of a relationship could have been.

The film depicts a world that is marginal — a stifling wasteland, a piece cut out of our reality. The deeper we are immersed in it, the more we relate it to our own world and use our personal struggles to make sense of it. Defeat is all that can be seen in the narrow horizon, that and the fact that we are helpless in front of the bare-minimum of life in the world of Poisonous Roses. Nothing can change a thing in that world, all characters have succumbed to their fate; all except for Saqr, who manages to break this cycle. However, when he intends to escape by pursuing a relationship with another girl, Taheyya seeks a local mystic (played by Mahmoud Hemeida) who promises her he will bring him back to how he was, or possibly get their relationship back to what it was.

Saqr, however, does not give up and decides to leave the country. Possibly because running away is the only way to escape the margins of a wretched world. As soon as he does, however, his sister reports him to the police and he is sent to prison, facing even stricter confinement than he’d suffered before. Despite the walls that separate them, Taheya finds comfort in knowing he is there, and the connection between them remains despite dwindling down to her giving him food every time she visits. Saqr; a prisoner whose dreams were defeated, dreams he dared not profess to us. Maybe because we already knew them, and because reality is suffocating and there is no hope for neither getting better nor getting away.

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As we worked on this issue, we thought long and hard about what to include in our Listen segment this week, until Ahmed al-Sabbagh decided to compile a list of ten covers. Covers, in their attempts at recreating an existing song with a different sensibility, are in their own way a form of re-imagining reality — a necessary step in the process of disentanglement. We hope you enjoy the covers we’ve selected, which are not necessarily better than the originals, but each of them definitely adds something. 

-Marwan Khouri covers Mohamed Abdel Wahab:

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-A rock version of Edith Piaf’s iconic “La Vie en Rose” by Lucy Dacus:

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-Former member of Jordanian band El-Morabba3 Gahem Jozi recreates a 1980s’ classic by Kathem al-Saher:

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-Marika Hackman’s quieter and shorter rendition of Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers”:

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-Ahmad El Haggar covers Angham in a soulful number:

-George Wassouf belts out two Om Kalthoum ballads in a live performance from 1996:

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-And here, Mashrou’ Leila’s Hamed Sinno and Firas Abou Fakher cover Wassouf’s “Kalam al-Nas” (People’s Talk):

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-A very young Shaimaa al-Shayeb covers Om Kalthoum’s “Enta Omri” (You Are My Life):

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-A mash-up of Cheb Khaled’s “Didi” and Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” by Alaa Wardi and Hani al-Dahshan:

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-Another one by Alaa Wardi, this time covering Amr Diab’s “Wahashteeni” (I Have Missed You):

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SALAM

In the end, we’d like to talk about Mahgoub.

Mahgoub is a beautiful kitten with orange fur speckled with bits of white. Mahgoub was carried into our office only a few days old after a co-worker rescued him from the November cold of the streets on her way to work. We then decided to take him in and care for him.

Mahgoub, however, was a baby who needed special care; the simplest aspect of it was feeding drops of diluted milk into his little mouth. That’s why many of our co-workers volunteered to foster him in their homes until he grew old enough to eat on his own, and we made sure he was never left alone in the office. This weekend, however, he is.

Mahgoub is a baladi cat, and we suspect he might be a Mau, an ancient Egyptian breed that has existed for centuries, thousands of which now roam the streets of the city, navigating terrible conditions. When Mahgoub started eating solids, the office became his permanent home. It is now normal for one of us to suddenly let out a yelp when Mahgoub suddenly plants his tiny claws into their legs and starts to climb, or when he jumps on someone’s lap to snuggle in and keep warm, or leaps onto the newsroom table and makes the newspapers his new plaything.

We hope you enjoy your weekend, Mahgoub. We promise we won’t belong.