Abdel Rahman Ahmed-Cairo

A huge outcry and widespread dissatisfaction accompanied the incident of bullying to a Sudanese student in the Egyptian capital Cairo days ago, to develop the case by arresting the perpetrators and then reconciliation and release. As the case began quickly, it ended quickly, with no punishment or discussion of the causes of the incident, which is frequently repeated but often without lights.

The incident began with a video posted on social media showing two Egyptian youths assaulting and mocking a Sudanese student who want to remove his purse, while the third drowns in laughter during the filming of the attack, provoking a storm of anger amid widespread demands to punish these youths.

Two young people bullying at an African student cause resentment on communication sites pic.twitter.com/ABuGyMGxAZ

- Al Jazeera Egypt (@AJA_Egypt) November 17, 2019


Racism Cinema

The laughter of the young man pointed to a clear flaw in the gravity of what they are doing against the young boy, as well as later justifying it as a "joke", which was considered by some to be clearly influenced by cinematic acts that presented racism against black skin under the guise of comedy.

A January 2018 report by the Egyptian Observatory against Racial Discrimination, entitled The Project to Promote Pluralism and Discard Racial Discrimination in the Egyptian Media, showed shocking figures about the prevalence of racism against black people in the media and dramas, especially cinema.

The report monitored 60 of the 120 films produced and screened between 2007-2017, mocking black-skinned people either because of their color or accent, or confining them to stereotypical roles such as the servant or doorman, most of which are classified as comedies.

The report pointed out that 18 cinematic works during this period contained "explicit racial discrimination", ridiculing the color or race, while other works contained incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence.

The embarrassing one of his laughter in childhood on the scenes of racial comedy in Egyptian cinema little creativity
Ridicule of height / short stature, weight, skin color and features
In fact, we have the qualities of God and I think this is one of the reasons for the delay that curse him

- Ahmed Ghanem (@AH_M_GHANEM) October 25, 2019


A disgraceful history

Since its inception, Egyptian cinema films have been filled with racism and ridicule of skin color, and black people are often confined to socially inferior jobs such as the roles of the servant, the driver or the doorman who speaks in a funny tone, similar to the character "Osman Abdel Basset" presented by actor Ali Al-Kassar in most of his works.

The most famous of the role of the servant or doorman in the Egyptian cinema in the old comedian Nubian Mohamed Kamel, known as "uncle brimstone", where he appeared in dozens of cinemas and his roles were limited to these professions.

One of the famous scenes ridiculing these in old films came in the film "Miss Mama" (1950) by Sabah and Mohamed Fawzi, where he flirts three of the butler of black-skinned and funny tone incomprehensible work heroine, and sing her phrases such as: "I am servants of dust My feet. "

When the owner of the house enters the kitchen, they hide under the table. When he sees them, he cynically says: "This will keep the vegetables until they burn and the charcoal remains."

When filmmakers wanted to present a work on the doorman "Bey El Bawab" (1987), they starred in the brown star Ahmed Zaki.


Youth cinema is more racist

Crudely racism re-emerged strongly with the films of the younger generation, which was characterized by the inclusion of positions and personalities in order to ridicule the owners of this skin, we observe some of the scenes in the following paragraphs:

Saidi at the American University (1998)
The hero of the film, Mohamed Heneidi, mocks the skin color of the night girl "Samara." When the lights go out, he tells her, "Turn off the light, why are you a creature?" When a woman is declared dead, she says to her, "The state is dead from the lions."

The cynicism goes on when Henidi goes to Samara's house, where he sings a chocolate song filled with racist expressions, turning "Evhat" this film into a reference to bullying and harassing dark-skinned people.

Africano (2001)
The two film stars Ahmed El Sakka and Ahmed Eid travel to South Africa. While in a nightclub watching a group of black-skinned people, Eid says sarcastically: "Is electricity cut off faces and no?"

In another scene, the South African aide (Talaat Zein) awakens Ahmed Eid, to frighten him, saying: "We Hnsttbh Pusk de every day and what?".


Bold Heart (2002)
During the film, Eid goes for a role in a film. The director chooses to be among the slaves and asks them to paint it in black. The response of the director Asmar: "What have slaves? Mesh Aajbk painted black? Medicine, what I am black Ahu," and responds to the feast of "Our Lord increases you, Professor."

The scene is almost repeated in the film "Samir, Shahir and Beheir" (2010), when Samir (Ahmed Fahmy) goes to the site of filming Antar bin Shaddad, and after an interview with one of the officials of the film asking him to change his clothes and refers to one of his assistants, saying "Take the teacher wearing it and painted black And throw it with the slaves, "and when he sees his brother asks him" Samir you worked my ambassador? ".

Elly Bali Balak (2003)
The film includes one of the worst scenes of racism against black people, where "Lampi" (Mohammed Saad) embraces a little black girl thought to be his daughter, telling her "Habiba Baba, who is the pain of the world", and when his wife tells him that they are not their daughter, he responds sarcastically "What I I said this, you are an egg and I am an egg.

Ayal Habiba (2005)
When the film "Eid" (Hamada Hilal) praises the smell of "uncle Nasr" (Suleiman Eid), which the director painted in black, although dark skinned, the latter responds "of course it is blackness and comfort and brutality violin."

In another scene, Mams (Ramez Galal) and Pajama (Mohamed Lutfi) are making fun of pictures of the family of Nasr, one of them mockingly says, "The apartment is burned before," and when he gets angry at them, Mimas says, "My heart is not like that."


Colonial culture

Many critics argue that Egyptian cinema was associated with the prevailing racial colonial culture, which considered black people to be less white than the white ones, as well as the occupation's attempt to discredit and disparage the simple Egyptian character, with foreigners dominating the film industry in Egypt during the first half of the century. Twenty.

According to critic Ahmed Raafat Bahgat in his book "Jews and Cinema in Egypt" that the character of Nubian Osman Abdel Basset, presented by Al-Kassar in his plays and was a way to confirm the right of the Nubian powder in life and show his virtues, stripped with the transition to the cinema by the Jew Togo Mizrahi of all positives, Osman turned into a foolish, reckless man as a woman minister, allowing for the consolidation of negative perceptions of the Nubian and Egyptian character in general.

Some experts also attribute the stereotyping of black people in most of the pre-1952 films to the embodiment of class and marginalization prevalent in that period, where they represented the strength of domestic labor in most palaces of the king, princes and the rich, and this pattern continued in films and plays after 1952, according to critic Mohamed Refaat in his book "The Other Between the Novel and the Screen"

Others believe that some filmmakers are using this stereotyping to make their work a sense of humor, to attract a larger audience, whose pleasures are found in "evasions" and ridicule of those different from them, especially in the absence of artistic censorship of these scenes.

Experts warn that people are used to this stereotype of cinema - along with the rest of the media - has made it difficult to change it and produced new generations with racist intellectual aberrations, requiring drama and film writers to immediately abandon this distorted image and offer a different alternative. Racism highlights its disadvantages.