The bastion of religious reaction and bigotry in Egypt. The man who claimed fame by handing out fatwas left and right to support whatever Hosni and his gangsters say.
Tag: religion
The School of (Not-Really-That) Fine Arts
Conservative reactionaries.
One hundred years after it was founded, Cairo’s School of Fine Arts seeks to train Egypt’s artists but has to make do without nude “life” drawing classes so as not to offend Islam.
It is in this academic hive, sheltered inside a neo-classical villa on the chic island of Zamalek, that 2,500 students come from around the country, with most of the female students these days veiled.
Ever since it was set up by the patron Prince Yussef Kamal in 1908, modeled on European art schools, the great names of Egyptian art have passed through.
The long list started in 1911 with the father of Egyptian sculpture, Mahmoud Mokhtar, and includes the best-known pioneers of modern Egyptian art like Muhammad Hassan, Ahmad Sabri and Ragheb Ayyad.
The school was recognized as a national institute of higher education in 1927.
But the time has gone when you would learn to draw, paint or sculpt the human body and its movement, as in some other parts of the world, facing a nude model.
“We no longer have anything but anatomy books and photos,” says second year student Ahmad Gamel, 20. “But a photo is already someone else’s way of looking, and that’s not right, we should be forging our own vision.”
A naked model would be haram, or forbidden, under Islam.
“It just happened, without a decree, in the 70s. There never used to be a problem,” says sculpture professor Mohammed Al-Allawi.
Like the dancers at Cairo’s Opera House, the models must be covered head-to-toe.
Belly dancing, also considered an art form by some, is in decline in Egypt, with dancers considered sinners by the majority in an increasingly conservative society where Islamists are the main opposition force.
“The Islamists began the fight in the name of virtue and against Western values. The government and the school’s management followed,” says education expert Kamal Mughith.
The devout say that Islam forbids any human representation in art. At the start of the 20th century, theological reformist Mohammed Abdu tried to argue that such a restriction was anachronistic.
Egypt’s national pride, its ancient Pharaonic and Hellenistic art, is also abundant with depictions of bare-breasted women.
But, mirroring society’s evolution, prudishness also affected the arts. Ten years ago, nudes by the great painter Mahmoud Said, who died in 1964, could not be shown at a retrospective.
“We are living a catastrophe, when you think that no one ever used to ask these questions,” says art critic Ahmad Fuad Selim.
At the school, students and teachers alike say that the lack of nude models “greatly and negatively affects teaching the laws of the body.”
Mubarak’s NDP-dominated parliament passes law prohibiting demos in places of worship
From the Daily News Egypt:
The People’s Assembly’s (PA) legislative committee passed a new draft law filed by the government forbidding demonstrations inside places of worship, Hamdy Hassan, PA member affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood told Daily News Egypt.
However, Hassan believes that the new law is “against freedom of expression,” adding that the Egyptian government regularly puts restrictions on freedom of expression through any possible means.
“The government does not even allow protests inside closed meetings between political parties,” Hassan said.
The law, according to Hassan, was drafted specifically to disallow “the demonstrations that usually take place after Friday prayers especially inside Al-Azhar mosque.”
Hafez Abu Saeda, director of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), echoed Hassan’s opinion. He told Daily News Egypt that the new law “certainly limits freedom of expression.”
“Our stand on this law as a human rights organization is clear as we are against any law or regulation that goes against the public’s right to stage a peaceful protest expressing their point of view as long as those protests do not involve assaults on any private or public property or individuals,” Abu Saeda said.
He added that the government failed to provide “a justification for why it came up with such a law.”
“For so many years Al-Azhar mosque was the place where many peaceful protests were staged against events that took place both inside and outside Egypt,” Abu Saeda explained, adding that this law is aimed at putting a stop to Al-Azhar demonstrations.
In other news, Al-Masry Al-Youm leaked clauses of the new Counterterrorism Law to be enacted by the Parliament. And what’s the Muslim Brotherhood leaders’ reaction, in the midst of the police crackdowns and military tribunals? Ali Greisha, a leading MB member said that “the law would not affect MB work and called on President Mubarak to start a truce with this group, saying that MB would promise not to challenge the regime in return for liberty of movement and expression.”
Mr. Greisha wake up and spare us this crap. Hosni is not gonna listen to you, as he never listened to you before nor to anyone else. Hosni listens only to his masters in Washington DC and Europe or when he feels he’s about to be dethroned by street pressure. So please stop this regime-ass-kissing parade and start mobilizing in the streets.