An interesting story from Miss Abdu
Growing up it wasn’t a long time before I realized my Nubian heritage. Even though i didn’t really know much about Nubia, except for the stories that my parents would occasionally
share with me, and the closest that I physically ever got to old Nubia was a couple of weeks stay in Aswan. Even though the old Nubian language was a total foreign language to me except for maybe one word or two that had proven stubborn enough to stay in my memory all these years, yet always a sense of sweet familiarity would take a hold over me whenever the subject of Nubia came up. I was always Intrigued by Nubia, some might even say to the point of obsession. I say it’s just a healthy show of interest in my heritage and rightfully so. With interest along came sorrow to see what has become of Nubia and the Nubian people under the old regime, however I never thought of writing anything in the subject, mainly because I never saw the point of it, and never dreamed of a listening ear. But hey the revolution has finally erupted, ending 30 years or more of rigidness and if anything people are more relaxed and tolerant towards critic, right ?. It’s becoming more socially acceptable to criticize the old regime or even the media that assisted that regime all along, so here goes nothing….
I still remember clearly one of the times when we watched as kids an old Egyptian black and white movie. Back in the days this was one of our major entertainment outlets, nothing could come close or compare to gathering around the TV, imitating the old famous actors and mocking the easily guessed plot of the movie yet enjoying every second of it. Watching these old movies was considered an almost religious experience by most, and the actors were highly appreciated for their talent, and brilliance in acting. I wasn’t different from most people; I too found a great deal of pleasure in watching them. Yet Always, I still remember, when the scene had a black dude in it. He would always be Othman the black bawab ‘janitor’ or sofragy ‘house boy’ with the broken Arabic. It was almost like these characters where on-set accessories added generically to every movie. Sadly this heritage of stereotyping goes on even in today’s movies. With only the characters and plots changed and only craftier editions to the stereotyping art, like implying that dark skinned women are of lesser beauty than their fair counterpart, are added.
The more positive image of Nubians –if the word positive can be used carelessly- was usually a quarter of an hour, of a badly edited and ill advised segment about the Nubians in a washed out program on the Egyptian TV. The presenter would start reading some old memorized lines about how the Nubians are our brothers in this nation, how deeply they are interwoven into the Egyptian fabric, and how kind hearted they all are ..yada yada yada. This was usually followed by a segment of what I call “the black happy dancing people” episode, some Nubians will be shown, probably in a wedding, dancing in some cute outfits and singing Nubian songs in a rather exotic language. In a way, intentionally or unintentionally, what these programs helped to create is a shallow one dimensional image of Nubians, and help to sleekly diminish their culture and history into nothing more but some rhythmic dance moves and catchy songs.
However, the biggest problem in the Egyptian media, in my humble opinion, is that even when a whole episode of a program or a documentary is dedicated to talk about the Nubians rights and the agonizing history of the resettlement to make way for “Lake Nasser” for the greater good. They usually settle for some lousy excuse of an interview with the local old Nubian folks in the new resettlements that talk about the tough situation that they had to handle/endure when they moved into the poorly constructed new villages that lacked basic services like running water and electricity. Rarely though will a documentary go to the length of interviewing a group of knowledgeable Nubians that have been active participants in demanding the lost rights of the Nubians, that have the background knowledge of their culture and the insightfulness of having some practical talks to reach a better position for the Nubians in the future.
What the media helped to create throughout the years and seep into the society is a false image of Nubians as second hand citizens, and an easy and acceptable target for mocking and ridicule by ill-educated individuals in the society. I remember an old family member telling me that as a kid, it was not uncommon for the other kids as means of innocent tease, to call Nubian kids by the name “Barabra”. “Barabra” or “Barbari” is a quite degrading term that was commonly used to refer to the black dudes that I talked about earlier in the black and white old movies of the Egyptian cinema. The word “barabra” and the word “barbarian” in English share the same origin. It was first used by Greeks to refer to any other civilizations that didn’t speak their language as a way of mocking them. Through history the word was borrowed and tossed between different civilizations as a means of describing an uncivilized ethnic group of individuals that lack social status, it was commonly used by one civilization in a condescending sarcastic and degrading manner towards others they thought less of.
Throughout the years one could see that the old regime has used different strategies to weaken the Nubian heritage and persona. It began by
it continues on http://missabdu.wordpress.com/
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