Heavy Metal Islam (11 page)

Unfortunately, his day job was not nearly as interesting when we first met. As part of the fulfillment of his army service, Slacker was working for a defense contractor (he’s since finished his service, but is unable to find a job despite his prodigious talents as a web designer). The contradictions between the two worlds through which he’s been forced to move back and forth—between the metal scene and the military establishment that has long helped suppress it—tear at Slacker’s soul. “Look, my father is very, very religious, and I used to work with human-rights groups. But the government came after me and eventually I moved on. Just this past summer, one of Egypt’s biggest newspapers ran a story after a big metal concert describing us—and using my name!—as ‘servants of Satan.’ Can you imagine what this did to my family?”

Whatever the costs of being a metalhead, Slacker isn’t about to walk away from the metal scene. Its members have become a surrogate family, not just because his parents and siblings are scattered across the Persian Gulf emirates, but because, as a Coptic Christian, it’s difficult for Slacker to feel at home in a country that increasingly defines Egyptianness through Islam. The metal scene is one of the few places where it doesn’t matter what religion you are, since it’s your fidelity to metal that determines your place in the hierarchy. That’s why, for Slacker, “Metal is what keeps me sane, what keeps me feeling like Egypt is still home.” It’s what keeps most of its adherents feeling like Egypt can still be their home, despite the disdain that so many of their fellow Egyptians have for them.

In fact, Slacker pointed out, there were hints of political activism within the scene, albeit of the virtual kind. To prove it, he opened his laptop and pulled up one of the two main websites for the Egyptian metal scene, “
metalgigsforum.com
.” Slacker created and manages this site, which has become his life’s work. Navigating to the site’s members-only forum, we began reading through one of the most active threads, which involved a debate over just the issue of “why we don’t bring more politics to music.”

The main question faced by metaliens is whether or not they are “smart enough” to outsmart the government and politicize the scene without destroying it. The majority of participants believe, in the words of one posting, that if a band becomes political, “the cops will F**k u.” The article from the summer of 2006 that “outed” Slacker as a satanist only reinforced such fears in the metal community, and led one participant in the forum to argue that it would be better to keep the scene more underground. But Wael pointed out that the bad press “actually refutes your argument to stay low, since, as you see, if the press or Amn el Dawla [state security services] or anyone wants to get to us they can do so very easily. Mesh hanetnase7 3aleehom lama ne3mel concert fel badeya aw Hassan Fahmy aw 7atta ta7t el ard” [“We can’t pretend to be smarter then them [government] by doing concerts in Badya, Hassan Fahmy, or even under the ground.” The numbers represent Arabic letters that don’t have corresponding English sounds].

The fluidity with which Wael moves back and forth between Egyptian Arabic and English is striking, and is a part of the trend in which Arabs, Iranians, Pakistanis, and other peoples normally using non-Latin alphabets have combined their spoken language with English—the lingua franca of the Internet—into hybrid languages that reflect their cultural heterogeneity. In fact, it is the normal way the Egyptian metalheads communicate with each other in person as well, even when they don’t have to speak English. In rehearsals, on the phone, in chat rooms, at the local yuppie coffee bar or pub, the borders between what could be considered “Egyptian” and “foreign” or “Western” culture are impossible to define, which is precisely why other, more powerful groups want to define the borders for them.

For Wael, the main problem is that the security services are too pervasive to avoid by keeping the scene underground. In his opinion, the best strategy is to make the scene more legitimate by doing shows at “respectable” locations like the Sawi Culture Wheel in Zemalek, where they can be regulated according to cultural and political norms, rather than at more-clandestine spots like the Villa Hassan Fahmy, where “tons of law violations” (mostly involving drinking and drugs) occur.

Another, and perhaps better, option than playing by the government’s rules is to play by global capital’s. This was the option chosen by the organizers of the SOS Festival held in Cairo in late 2006, which followed the lead of the Boulevard des jeunes musiciens festival in Casablanca and sought out major corporate sponsors. With support from over a dozen large Egyptian and foreign corporations, the festival attracted more than 15,000 people and saw the launch of a relatively new metal band, Wyvern, to national prominence with a well-received set centered around its song “Sex for Sale.” The BBC and organizers heralded the festival not just as a renaissance of heavy metal in Egypt, but as “a new musical revolution…that will return [Egypt] to the days of musical legends like Oum Kalthoum.” This comment made my friends laugh, for it’s precisely against the culture of Oum Kalthoum that most metaliens are rebelling.

It’s revealing of the weakness of opposition movements across the Arab world that giant multinationals are the only force capable of ushering in much-needed revolutions, albeit of the musical, not the political, kind. But for many of the metalheads in attendance, the sheer size of the audience and positive response to their music trumped any concerns about the inexorable advance of neoliberal globalization. Egyptian metal, people began to think, was back. Perhaps still on a high from the show, Wyvern’s drummer, Seif El-Din, explained that the festival even proved that metal could once again connect with the people in a way that hadn’t been possible since the satanic-music affair.

The SOS Festival proved the positive potential for corporate-metal synergy, but such a combination was never part of the core vision of the Egyptian metal scene. Instead, authenticity and power are what matters most to bands in the scene, and both were on display the week before at a concert by Wyvern at the Sawi Culture Wheel. It was evident in the smiles on the faces of the young male and female audience members, in the way they put their arms around one another’s shoulders, danced sensually, and created a visceral sense of community that for Egypt was quite unique. And nearby was al-Azhar University, the most important Islamic university in the world, where calls for the death penalty were heard during the 1997 satanic-metal scare. The music was powerful enough to exorcise the demons of a rotting political culture—at least for the duration of the concert.

Can’t Two MBAs Just Get Along?

Egyptian metalheads are one of the most closely knit groups of people I’ve ever met. But in terms of sheer size, the metal scene is dwarfed by the largest social network in Egypt, the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood. Founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood has been a thorn in the side of Egyptian governments ever since. Its political and social power has increased considerably since it won a surprising eighty-eight out of 454 seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections, the first time it competed more or less openly in an Egyptian campaign.

Since then, Brotherhood parliamentarians have been impressive for their discipline, professionalism, and, for the most part, moderation. The movement’s newfound political clout makes it the biggest threat to Egypt’s ruling elite. Its leadership has broadened the core base of support from the working and middle classes to the emerging class of “air-conditioned Muslims”—the new Muslim business class and a younger yuppie Muslim bourgeoisie that is Western-educated and politically liberal, yet socially conservative.

This new Brotherhood was on display, sans air conditioning, on an unseasonably warm December day when I met Omar (not his real name), the Cairo Bureau Chief of the Brotherhood, at the Gropi Café in downtown Cairo. Located in a grand but slightly dilapidated storefront, the Gropi is one of the most famous patisseries in Cairo. When I arrived, at least three tables were filled with men in their thirties and forties sporting close-cropped beards and dark business suits—the standard Ikhwan look these days—who were speaking in English with well-dressed foreigners about Egypt’s political situation. At least two other tables were occupied by men pretending not to be listening in on their conversations. Whether they were spying on them or providing security for them, I couldn’t be sure.

As I waited for Omar, I listened to a new song, “Human,” by the all-female Egyptian symphonic metal band Massive Scar Era (aka “Mascara”). What better way to prepare for the Brotherhood than an all-girl metal band that sings about the destruction plaguing Egyptian society and the tragedy of living lives that are little more than “imitations of the West”?

But Omar, whose neat-trimmed mustache and mischievous smile don’t quite mesh with his bland Eastern European–style suit, didn’t take the bait. He had no interest in denouncing female metal bands, or any music for that matter, a change in attitude that the metal community would do well to recognize. Omar wasn’t even interested in talking about Islam per se, or, as sometimes happens when I meet with Islamists, in converting me. Instead, he wanted to discuss the political situation in Egypt and why the Brotherhood was the only group able to take on the system. By the end of our talk I almost believed him.

“There’s no political life here,” Omar began after we exchanged the complex set of salutations and kisses that Arabs often use when meeting for the first time. The afternoon sun poured into the restaurant through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The smell of burnt coffee mingling with the smell of sickly sweet honey-coated pastries of every imaginable description hung thick in the air. Eyeing the other tables from our position at the back of the room, Omar stirred yet more sugar into a cup of mint tea that he’d ordered with extra sugar to begin with, and continued, “The regime goes after everyone who tries to be political. The kids are scared; there’s so much fear, censorship, and then self-censorship.”

An increasingly popular alternative to direct political or social engagement is, of course, the Internet. The problem for Omar was what young people found on the Internet or in other informal social networks. “They go on the Internet, angry and frustrated, looking for an escape, and what do they find? Porn or bin Laden, or both. And those who don’t go to extremes often become little more than ‘negatively religious.’ And Islam can’t be just negative.” Omar took another sip of tea, sighed, and explained, “You know, in the old days, before Qutb took over, Ikhwan members used to play the oud! We were cultured.” He cringed slightly as he said Sayyid Qutb’s name, as if the mere mention of the man who, more than any other Muslim thinker of the last century, was responsible for creating and popularizing the ideology of violent, jihadi Islam would bring a curse on him.

As Omar continued talking, I wanted to point out that many young Egyptians found more useful things on the Web, from political blogs to heavy-metal forums, that help them resist, or at least survive, government oppression. But before I could say anything, he stunned me by declaring that as far as he was concerned, the Brotherhood had gone to hell in the 1960s, when the movement became increasingly militant. “It’s really the Salafis’ fault,” he explained, referring to ultraconservative orthodox Muslims who base their actions on what they believe to be the model of the earliest generation of Muslims (and which therefore can often include a big dose of jihad). This was the first time I’d heard an Islamist essentially blame everything on Islamism, but Omar wasn’t done. “And in some ways it was also al-Azhar’s fault for not correcting this tendency before it was too late.”

I was starting to become a bit incredulous at the conversation. Not once did Omar cite the Qur’an, the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad that are the second source of Islamic law after the Qur’an), or famous figures from Islamic history to back up his arguments. I couldn’t help thinking that he was spinning me, telling me what he thought I, as an American, wanted to hear.

He must have sensed my lack of trust in his words, because he gripped my arm, looked at me, and said, “What we need to combat people like them are more freedom of speech, more trained judges, more human rights.” This agenda is in fact quite similar to that of the Egyptian left, but Omar dismissed the left with a wave (except, he clarified, for the surprisingly popular Trotskyists, who apparently include more than a few Brotherhood members). “First of all, the left can’t motivate most young people, even if its ideas are good. More important, we are making up for the clear lack of bravery by much of the left…as there are some people, particularly secularists, who argue that if the choice is between Islamists and dictatorship, they’ll choose dictatorship. Can you believe that? But it’s a false choice.” That may be true, but it’s a choice I’ve heard non-conservative Muslims, memories of the violence of 1980s and 1990s still fresh in their minds, make across the region.

Despite its change of tune, the Muslim Brotherhood still scares most metalheads. Just how much became clear one afternoon when I invited Slacker, Stigma, and Seif, the drummer for the band Wyvern, to meet me at the Horus Hotel for a drink. The hotel had come highly recommended by several friends, but not because of the décor or cuisine. It is a nondescript, slightly shabby floor-through accommodation with an unplugged metal detector in front of the door that suggested a slightly more illustrious past. The owner, a sixtyish amateur painter who spends his days sitting on the hotel’s small terrace practicing English, French, and German with guests, gives the place an old-world, cosmopolitan air. One guest explained that, like the advertisements for Las Vegas, what goes on inside the Horus stays there—meaning that you don’t have to worry about having your activities reported to the Mukhabarat, or your phone tapped, as long as you’re not inviting any particularly nasty or politically dangerous guests for tea.