MENA House: The Pharaoh's Music in Today's Egypt

Rafael Pérez Arroyo, author of "Music in the Age of the Pyramids" describes the music of that era: "A reasoned transcription of metre is a creation of the human spirit, while rhythm is a natural dynamic phenomenon. When we immerse ourselves in it we see the whole rhythmic form as one single indivisible movement and we begin to understand why some rhythms are uniform while others increase in tempo."

Dr Khairy Ibrahim Il Malt, composer and lecturer on music at the Academy of Arts in Cairo, has taken matters into his own hands and encouraged his students to perform the sounds of Ancient Egypt. Interviewed on 90 minutes, Dr Khairy said that he was inspired when he was touching down at Luxor Airport. Seeing a flashback of how his ancestors lived, he was prompted to immerse himself in the art of pharaonic music and bring it home to Cairo.

MENA House: “The Popular Coalition to Support Gamal Mubarak”

The instruments Dr Khairy encourages his students to use are similar to those depicted in drawings at the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings: pipes/flutes, stringed instruments similar to harps/guitars, hand-held drums, and cymbals. Each instrument depicts a symbolic element of Ancient Egyptian life. Rafael Pérez Arroyo explains:

Flutes and other wind instruments were held in particular regard because they are ‘breathing’ instruments, produced by the life-breath of the musician. The harp was played by both men and women of high status, but perhaps the most prestigious and beautiful are the ‘Memphite’ harps, based, as the author shows, on papyrus forms.

It's easy enough to get a sense of the music through a clip on YouTube, but if you want to hear the sounds of Ancient Egypt in person, there is a daring way to do so. Dr Khalid Mourad, a local tour guide, reveals:

In April 2008 some American tourists entered a Temple in Luxor.  They walked up a  narrow ramp when they came acorss a "bald headed man with a white cloth wrapped around him". He jumped in front of them and then "rudely" pushed them out the way as he moved past....

Later the tourists informed the tour guide that Egyptians are very rude and when asked why, they told him this story.  The tour guide took the tourists back onto the cruise and returned back to the Temple to search for this individual. To his surprise he noticed that there were no locals sitting in the area as they always do.

The next day the tour guide returned to the site and met a local.  He asked the local where they all were the day before.  The local responded that on this day, every year, all the locals leave this particular temple as they hear and see "strange"goings-on. On this day, it is the birthday of Queen Hatshepsut.  Every year there are lights, music, and strange sightings so the locals avoid the area completely.

So if you want to hear "original" Ancient Egyptian music, Luxor is the place to be in the month of April.  You might just encounter your own time machine.

To Lift The Spirits (Sequel): Dancing with Matt...in Gaza

In January 2009, we posted a video made by Matt Harding, who filmed himself dancing --- sometimes by himself, sometimes with others --- in locations around the world. (It's re-posted at the end of this entry.)

That life-affirming video now has more than 30 million hits, and Harding's second film has been viewed more than 15 million times.

But here is the ultimate sequel. "Dancing with Matt" has now gone to Gaza.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, whose officials are relatively free from Israeli restrictions on entry into the Palestinian territory, invited Harding to "teach" his dancing to local children. An official explained, “This is an important message: kids in Gaza are like kids anywhere in the world. All they want is to have fun. If allowed to be, Gaza can be a normal place where children can thrive.”

And that for me is the most wonderful of ironies: the reason why I posted the first "Dancing with Matt" video in January 2009 was to offset the depressing, soul-sapping news of military operations taking civilian lives.

You can probably guess where that war was taking place.

Go Matt. Go Gaza. Go UNRWA.

The 2008 Video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

MENA House: Music and the Egyptian Revolution

On 23 July 1952. Egypt's Mohammed Ali dynasty was replaced by a Republic. King Farouk I was overthrown, the monarchy was abolished, and the official name of the land of the Pharoahs became "The Arab Republic of Egypt".

Fifty-eight years later, amidst talk of new relationships between media, politics, and change, it is useful to note one reason for the revolution's success: radio and newspapers might be essential for social interchange but they could also play leading politic roles

Dr Nahed Abdel Hamid attributes the Revolution's success to patriotic songs that brought out the emotion and passion in Egyptians for a "nation" and reached all social classes, unifying the state.  As Madonna's song "Music" explains, "Music makes the people come together....Music mixes the Bourgeoisie and the Rebel...."

During the 1940s and 1950s, Egypt produced some of the greatest and most well-known music artists and actors in the Middle East and North Africa. Abdel Halim Hafez (Andaleeb)  and Om Kalthoum, who respectively sang "Sawritna al Masriya" (Our Egyptian Revolution) and "Sawar-Sawar" (Revolutionary-Revolutionary), started a modern trend of patriotic expressionism practiced to the present day.

However, Abdel Hamid points out that these patriotic songs go back to the Ancient Egyptian era. "Wahawi ya Wahawi" (Greetings, Greetings), a song sung during the Revolution and to this day during Ramadan, is almost 3000 years old.

The story of the song is in drawings in the Karnak Temple.

In 1025 BC, King Mena went to fight a battle with the Hyksos, a tribe from the Gulf/Persian area.  Worried and concerned for her son, his mother Princess Iyaya travelled to find King Mena. On her journey, Egyptian troops and citizens greeted Princess Iyaha with the song: "w’h.wi w’h.wi i’h" and informed her of the good news that her son King Mena had defeated the Hyksos army.

The Ancient Egyptians also sang "w’h.wi w’h.wi i’h" during festivals to welcome the new moon and the new month. In this context, the song meant "how present (or how stable) is the moon".

Although we can never replay the tune of the song, the words remain as Egypt carries some of its ancient traditions. And so I wish you all a "w’h.wi w’h.wi i’h" and a Happy July Revolution....

World Cup Special: The Ultimate Triumph of Paul the Octopus

UPDATE 0730 GMT: In case you're wondering --- and I know you are --- Paul has picked Spain to defeat Holland in tonight's final.

I have been fortunate to follow the story of Paul the Octopus since the start of the World Cup when EA's German Bureau notified me of this wondrous eight-tentacled psychic and his ability to predict the outcome of football matches.

We continued to watch as Paul's fame grew and reached the mainstream media, but on Thursday --- the day after Spain defeated Germany 1-0 in the World Cup semifinal --- we were put on Special Alert by the German Bureau.

As Cassandra learned, a psychic's success becomes a curse when he/she brings bad news, and Paul (unwisely) had forecast the Spanish victory. So the cry had arisen: "Cut him up in thin slices and grill him on all sides with a dash of lemon juice, olive oil and garlic on it. Delicious!"

It is our great pleasure and relief, however, to bring you the reassurance this morning that Paul will not be on a dinner plate in the near-future. He (wisely) pointed to a German win in the 3rd-place match against Uruguay last night --- when Diego Forlan's last-minute shot hit the crossbar, both a 3-2 German victory and Paul's longevity were protected.

And the ever-vigilant German Bureau notes that there is a political pay-off in the latest developments. For Paul has not confined himself to sporting forecasts. This week he was placed before photographs of Iran's Supreme Leader on one side and opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi on the other. The outcome:

World Cup Comedy: SoccerBall is a Socialist Sport (Thiessen)

Marc Thiessen --- one of the speechwriters in the George W. Bush Administration, who parlayed his loud defence of "enhanced interrogation" into a book and the position of Washington Post columnist --- tries his hand at a stand-up comedy routine on "soccer". (Actually, he sampled this from an even funnier piece posted on the right-wing American Thinker, but hey, the best comedians draw from each other.)

I mean, he is joking, right?

World Cup Special: It’s Mourning in England (Matlin)

....The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old U.S.A. It’s simple, really: Soccer is a socialist sport.

Think about it. Soccer is the only sport in the world where you cannot use the one tool that distinguishes man from beast: opposable thumbs. “No hands” is a rule only a European statist could love. (In fact, with the web of high taxes and regulations that tie the hands of European entrepreneurs, “no hands” kind of describes their economic theories as well.)

Soccer is also the only sport in the world that has “hooligans”—proletarian mobs that trash private property whenever their team loses.

Soccer is collectivist. At this year’s World Cup, the French national team actually went on strike in the middle of the tournament on the eve of an elimination match. (Yes, capitalist sports have experienced labor disputes, but can you imagine a Major League Baseball team going on strike in the middle of the World Series?)

At the youth level, soccer teams don’t even keep score and everyone gets a participation trophy. Can you say, “From each according to his ability…”? (The fact that they do keep score later on is the only thing that prevents soccer from being a Communist sport.)

Capitalist sports are exciting—people often hit each other, sometimes even score. Soccer fans are excited by an egalitarian 0-0 tie. When soccer powerhouses Brazil and Portugal met recently at the World Cup, they played for 90 minutes—and combined got just eight shots on net (and zero goals). Contrast this with the most exciting sports moment last week, which came not at the World Cup, but at Wimbledon, when American John Isner won in a fifth-set victory that went 70-68. Yes, even tennis is more exciting than soccer. Like an overcast day in East Berlin, soccer is … boring.

And finally, have you seen the World Cup trophy? It looks like an Emmy Award (and everyone knows that Hollywood is socialist).

There are many more reasons soccer and socialism go hand in hand. You can read some of them here. Perhaps in the age of President Obama, soccer will finally catch on in America. But I suspect that socializing Americans’ taste in sports may be a tougher task than socializing our healthcare system.