Song of Egypt: Rima is Back
to Her Old Ways
By Mamoon Alabbasi – London
In Egypt, there is a new catchy tune circulating in social
media pages. The song, which gives a symbolic description of
the current events in Egypt, is sung by an artist who is known
for his strong support for the 25th January 2011 revolution.
Yasser Elmanawahly stayed true to his ideals even when they
clashed with those who were in power following the fall of
Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak. He was critical of the
country’s military council, SCAF and he did not hold back in
criticizing the rule of the country’s first democratically
elected president, Mohamed Morsi.
But today, following the coup that overthrew Morsi and the
subsequent crackdown on dissent and on freedoms, the stakes
are much higher. When public and private media outlets sing
the praise of the de facto ruling military regime, and when
political disagreement with that junta could have you end up
behind bars, framed with trumped up charges, or simply six
feet under – then now is not the ideal time to release a song
about the Emperor’s Clothes.
Which is why his debut song ‘Rima’ is not only a work of art
in the aesthetic sense but it is also a brave act. It sings
truth to power without compromising on ‘form’ for the sake of
‘content’. There is cohesion between the melody, lyrics and
video clip, which are tied up together by a folkloric flavor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2qUZIz8Qak
The lyrics, written by Mohamed Elsyed, are themselves highly
idiomatic where what is left unsaid is understood from the
little that is said. Here is a rough translation of the
lyrics:
Rima is back (to her old ways) after the change
With an old tale, that we’ve witnessed times before
With raised batons and banned speech
People are dying from bullets and hunger
Now she is back, but why is she back?
You see, the ill-fated one had a lamp
And brave children that he left to decay
He did not know how to drive without exceeding the limit
So he crashed into a post, especially prepared for him
Rima saw him and overthrew him
Now Rima is back
You ask why Pharaoh is acting like a Pharaoh
Rima is back (to her old ways) after the change
With an old tale, that we’ve witnessed times before
You see, the ill-fated one had a lamp
Now Rima is back with repeated words:
‘A movie hero is coming, O kids’
‘A trustworthy statesman’
‘Although he is affectionate, he is tough and brings down
mountains’
With few drummers and capitalists
And permissible fatwas and filmmakers
Rima is back
Now Rima is back wearing many faces
Covering up a crime by crying for help
You won’t fool us with your games, mean one
We’ve encountered fake ones times before
To hell with Rima!
In a telephone interview with the lyricist, he said Rima is “a
reference to the police state”. The choice of name is based
on the old saying ‘Rima is back to her old ways’. Why is the
police state back? Well, it’s because Morsi, referred to in
the song the as the ‘ill-fated one’, did “not listen to the
revolutionary youth”. Instead, “he left them to old regime”. A
combination of Morsi’s mistakes and the traps set by the deep
state (like deliberate electricity outage, gas shortages and
other orchestrated crises as well as misleading media
campaigns) is beautifully captured in the lyrics: ‘He did not
know how to drive without exceeding the limit / So he crashed
into a post, especially prepared for him’. Even though Morsi
had a ‘lamp’ (a reference to his presidential post) he
remained ‘ill-fated’.
For those who follow the current events in Egypt, the rest of
the lyrics are pretty much self-explanatory: the glorification
of the military by ‘drummers’ (propaganda praise), the idea of
a superstar savior (who is in effect a Pharaoh), the welcomed
fatwas of pro-military clerics, the factious news and the
capitalists who fund the media. The lyrics are indeed
powerful, which is what prompted Elmanawahly – who usually
relies on his own lyrics when singing – to contact Elsyed in
order to use them as soon as he saw them on the wall of the
lyricist’s Facebook page.
When interviewing Elmanawahly over the phone, he stressed that
“the revolution is still on-going”, expressing his “full faith
in today’s youth” to carry on the struggle “for freedom,
dignity, and real independence”.
He is still daring to ask, “What happened to the martyrs of
the revolution?” And he also asks about all of those who have
died since, including members of police.
Many of the revolutionaries, he said, were “in a state of
shock”. But they are still committed to the path of 25th of
January. He doesn’t have to choose between the Muslim
Brotherhood and the military rule, because he sees a third
way.
Whether that third way ever sees the light is hard to predict.
But unlike many self-proclaimed revolutionaries, he hasn’t
sold out to the returning dictatorship. In the meantime
unfortunately, as the lyrics note, ‘with raised batons and
banned speech / people are dying from bullets and hunger’.
– Mamoon Alabbasi is a writer, news editor, and translator
based in London. His Op-eds, reports, reviews, and poetry have
appeared in numerous media outlets & publications. He
contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.