Corrupted to the core?

Nile Hilton Incident (Arabic/Egyptian; 2017)
Written/Directed: Tarik Saleh

Every time a new law comes into force, guess who the happy people are. No, not the law-abiding citizens or the patriots who want to see rule and order respected in this country. It is the lowly local enforcers - the front-liners who are there to ensure that the law is respected. There are the first to detect any wrongdoing at the ground level and could squash a ticket, at a nominal fee, of course. 

Everyone is happy. The poorly paid constables and local council employees get on by tying up loose ends - maybe a child's birthday present or that emergency trip to the hometown. 

The problem is that this kind of 'closing an eye' or 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' attitude has infiltrated all strata of the civil service. What we see now are the accusations of so-and-so of the higher pecking order being charged for siphoning off funds and dishonestly performing their civil duties. Invariably, these events will merely turn up to be a storm in a teacup.

Fearing a backlash to the whole government machinery, the powers-that-be would hush everything. After all, the foxes appointed to guard the coop feel it is the ordained right to benefit from their post after years of hard work and sacrifice. With the increasing cost of living and exposure to the high life, they have only a few more years to ensure continued prosperity in their retired life and their offspring. Whatever is said and done, the rot is across the board. The words integrity, efficiency and civil service cannot be strung in the same sentence.

If we remember the early years of the 21st century in the Middle East, this catalysed the Arab Spring movement. What started as a jobless graduate failing to secure a hawker site in Libya and immolating himself in protest, the governments raised up to get their acts together. So, for a short while, at least.

In Egypt, in 2011, in Tahrir Square specifically, the people's power managed to oust Hosni Mubarak, the undisputed strongman of Egypt. Using this event as a build to the climax, this film showcases the widespread corruption and culture of protecting the high-heeled and politicians in the law enforcement units in Egypt.

Noredin, a police officer obviously not at the highest of the virtue scale, is called to investigate the death of a singer at Nile Hilton. Noredin has no qualms about pocketing extra cash from his dead victims and looking the other way if offenders are willing to dole out a little spare money. 

Slowly he realises that the whole force is corrupt to the core. Many of his superiors are on the take. Many high-level politicians are linked to the crime he is investigating, and he is helpless in completing his investigations. Vice is widespread, and pimps are kings. 

A Sudanese housekeeping assistant who witnessed the murder, meanwhile, is on the run from the corrupt police and colluding thugs. The film climaxes at the Tahrir Square demonstrations. The whole debacle leaves a horrible aftertaste. The demonstration gives the image as if all the slime brewing in the trenches just bubbles over.

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Walk a mile in her shoes!

Asmaa (Egypt; 2011)

Even though many armchair critics adamantly allege that the 2015 Tamil movie, 'Aruvi' was copied from this Egyptian movie, after watching it one can realise that it is all a fabricated lie. The only little thread of similarity between the two films is that AIDS and TV interviews form the backbone of the story.

It is a realistic drama depicting the plight of an HIV-positive single mother. Because of the social stigma that is attached to the disease, she has to keep illness a secret, even from her daughter. The society is quick to judge the victim on their sexual behaviour and quickly determines that their affliction is their own doing.

'Asmaa' is based on a real event.

Asmaa, an airport cleaner, is harassed by her employer for her medical report. After dodging it for quite a while, she has to cave. Her contract is terminated. Her finances dwindle. She has a daughter to educate and her medications to buy. In between all these, she has now to gallbladder problem that needs urgent surgery. She is on the operating table. She decides to do the conscientious thing by revealing her HIV status, which is not known to the surgeon. Hold behold, the surgeon cancels the surgery and sends her home. She continues to suffer from her bouts of colic.

Through her support group, she comes across a TV channel that wants to highlight her plight for a fee. She wants to find a doctor who would be willing to operate on her. The catch of the thing was that she could not hide her identity. After yoyoing on this, she finally appears on TV without revealing her face (but she did show it later on!). 

Interspersed between the film are the flashbacks of her life story. We are told of an energetic, self-confident young lass growing up in the village who falls for the village hunk. After a market place squabble over a business area, she is slapped by a male trader. Asmaa was selling home-woven carpets. Asmaa's husband came in her defence, and a fistfight ensued. The Assailant died, and Asmaa's husband goes to jail. He acquired AIDS whilst in prison.


Quite a gripping story in the way that it is realistic in their approach to storytelling. In the real event, Asmaa never revealed her identity but had the surgery done overseas sponsored by an overseas donor. In the film version, the TV channel anonymously gives her funds for the operation to be done abroad. Her appearance on TV gives her newfound courage to face the public. The public perception never changed, but it gave her the self-confidence to meet the challenges. Somehow, what others felt did not matter anymore.

A review of another classic Egyptian movie 
https://www.riflerangeboy.com/2015/07/what-lurks-beneath.html

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Not yours to question?

Agora (2009)


Now that I am currently listening to Peter Adamson’s podcast named ‘History of Philosophy’, this film makes a lot of sense. This podcast tells, in so many episodes without a gap, the thinking of Man from Thales all through the thinkers from Greece and present-day Turkey to the Romans and so on at a snail’s pace.

Even after all these years, we are still fighting over the same issues. On one end, a group is trying to keep their minds open and attempting to explore that there may be more than one way of doing things, that they could probably solve a problem while looking at it from another angle. And the other group counters this argument by saying that our mind is too feeble to understand the many intricacies of the universe. And we, the mortals, should not question that is already written in the scriptures.

Egypt was known for its advances in mathematics and geometry even in the Pre-Socratic era. Pythagoras is said to have travelled here to acquire knowledge. After Alexander, Ptolemy developed the fields of mathematics and astronomy.

It was 4th century CE, way after the fall of Alexander’s rule and the Empire was divided into Macedonia, the Egyptian part and the Eastern province, trouble was brewing in the cradle of Egyptian civilisation, Alexandria. Three groups (the pagans who wished Greek gods; Jewish and the Christians) here are apparently living in harmony. The affluent pagans live in comfort and do not have think of the day-to-day living, spend time learning about the world, philosophy and astronomy. Christianity appears to appeal to the slaves and the downtrodden. The Jewish are living in their world, minding their own businesses.

Hypatia is a female philosopher who teaches at an academy in a Platonic school in Alexandria. She has a slave, Davus, who helps her with her teaching. She teaches the elitist’s kids.

Mayhem kicks up as the Christians, who make up the bulk of the underprivileged part of the population rising against the pagans whom they claim are teaching things contradictory to their scriptures. Their leader, Ammonius, an instigator, attacks the Jews as well.

An eye for an eye, the whole cradle of knowledge comes crumbling down as the uninitiated destroy the library with all its papyrus scrolls. Hypatia is accused of being a witch and is strangled by her slave who had embraced Christianity. Everyone is asked to state their allegiance to the God (of the day) to stay alive.

17 centuries later, we are still arguing the same the childish things. We kill our brethren under the shield of religion which allegedly promotes love, tolerance and peace. At first look, one is drawn into a belief thinking that it is compassionate, trying to help the weak and the destitute. We cannot help but to believe that once the weak are rejuvenated, they transform to automatons under the control of their leaders with their own self-interest. Power and control of others are the common denominators in these self-interests. No religion is not immune from this accusation. From a seemingly docile Buddhist monk in the mountains of Tibet to the carer of sick in a nunnery, they all may turn ballistic once their belief of what deemed as the Divine is challenged.

What lurks beneath?

Bal el Hadid (@ Cairo Station @ Iron Gate, Egypt 1958)
Director: Youssef Chahine

Surprisingly, Egypt has a vibrant movie industry that dates back to 1896! Its golden era is between the 1940s and 1960s. Despite the changing of guards and political outlook, it stood the test of time. President Gamel Abdel Naseer's planned nationalisation had irreparable damage to its heydays and never really recovered after that.
The director of this movie is also credited for introducing Omar Sharif to Hollywood, although not through this movie.

This 1958 release is an Egyptian noir film depicting small people in a busy railway station. Even though the story is a simple one of which we have seen many by now, it must have been revolutionary at its time. The movie's lovely thing is how the various strata of society are depicted to intermingle at an economic level. It also shows the difference in people's outlook in metropolitan Cairo, the modern outgoing Western viewpoints and conservative ones who frown upon the antics of the so-called 'immoral' ones. It is a meeting place of many characters; some make a living there.

With this background, the story starts with a newsstand owner adopting a young man, Qinawi, who has a deformed leg and lies idle on the platform. He is sent off vending newspaper. He soon realises that Qinawi is not right in the mind. His shack is filled with newspaper cuttings of scantily clad models.
Qinawi fancies (obsessed) Hanoumma, a flirtatious soft drink vendor. He has big plans for a wedding and settling down by the seaside. Unfortunately, Hanoumma has her eyes set tightly on Abu Sirieh, a hunky porter at the station.

Inserted into the subplot is how Hanoumma and her friends are always on the run from the railway security as their business is illegal and hurts the legitimate shop owners. A couple of love birds secretly wish each other farewell as the boy leaves for overseas, and their relationship is unknown to the family. Then, there is a feud among the porters. A group wants to form a union to fight for their alleged unfair wages. Abu Sirieh is supportive of the old system of patronage. There is looming a story of a murderer in the newspaper.

The filmography is interesting because it has many closeups of the steam train and sets the mood of the humid and explosive set of the scenes.

Qinawi, after being rejected by Hanoumma, recoils into a rage and systematically plans to kill Qinawi. The wrong girl is stabbed in the confusion of darkness, put in a trunk and packed off in a train. The remaining shows the truth surfaces and how Qinawi is tricked into a straightjacket by his adopted father.

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Bad moon rising

Out of the 11,319 Malaysian students in that country, 6,135 are pursuing Islamic studies while the rest are doing medicine. The Malaysian Students Department in Egypt was also working closely with the Malaysian Embassy in Cairo to activate a core team to handle any possibility of a security risk, and a 'crisis operations room' had been opened at the embassy since Wednesday, the statement said. Several street demonstrations were reported to have been carried out in major towns in Egypt including Cairo, Dumyat, Suez, Tanta, Alexandria and Mansura urging on President Hosni Mubarak to step down. BERNAMA

The Tamils in the village have an apt saying in a situation like this. When a Chetty dies, only then all his misdeeds and mischief will be out in the open for scrutiny. The Chettys in the Tamil community are respected for thriftiness and business acumen. Hence, all their clandestine activities are nicely smoke screened by their wealth. At the funeral, all his heir apparent will appear from nowhere to claim their respective stake in the will. The villagers who put the Chetty on a  pedestal will suddenly drop him like a hot potato as he is dead on gone.
Just like that, when the people of Egypt decided to dispose of their despot of a tyranny and his dictatorial regime and do it in the open, it sent shivers down the 11, 000 over Malaysian students there. Only then did it come fore to the tax payers' mind that such a big colony was living on our money there. Anyway, there were not there because they want to pursue excellent world standard education comparable to the Ivy League or Oxbridge!   
Just for comparison, here are the world ranking of various universities close by and close to our hearts: 

Country	University	World Ranking
USA	MIT	1
USA	Harvard	2
USA	Stanford	3
Taiwan	National University	12
Japan	Tokyo University	16
UK	Cambridge	19
Japan	Kyoto University	24
Singapore	National University	92
Thailand	Prince of Songkla U	324
Thailand	Chulalongkorn	418
Indonesia	Gadjah Mada	583
Malaysia	USM	629
Malaysia	UKM	731
Malaysia	UM	788
Egypt	Cairo University	1405
Egypt	Al Azhar University	8692
Egypt	Sinai University	11627

Ref: http://www.webometrics.info/top12000.asp
For the records, the top 33 universities in Egypt rank between 1,405 to 11,996th position in the world! Of course there are many ways of ascertaining ranking status. This particular one above looks at web publication, there are others based on academic paper presentations etc. UK based rankings put British universities above the neighbours across the Atlantic and vice versa. There is even a Russian based one which puts Moscow State University above Cambridge and Harvard. 
Al Azhar university is the second oldest surviving university whose emphasis was on Islamic issues. Gamal Abdul Naseer, the 2nd Egyptian President introduced secular subjects like economics and medicine with religious input to meet the changing times. I heard that it is a pre-requisite for an attendee in this University to be a Muslim!

Al Azhar University

Back in 1983, when I was roped in to university, amongst my batch were many disgruntled students who were utterly devastated as they were denied of scholarships to study in these minaret shaped buildings called institutes of higher learning. (More about this in another posting, coming soon, still writing). These guys and girls were clothed like a Middle Easterner would. Three girls (medical students) were even donning the burqah! They gave up medical studies after an ultimatum by the Dean - remove the drape or be removed from the faculty! Apparently the scholarships were offered by various bodies - Public Service Department, political parties and Al-Arqam, a defunct group with deviationistic Islamic teachings.
On top of using all our country's resources to educate our citizens in universities of not the highest esteem, now we the tax payers have to fork out the millions incurred in the rescue mission to bring back our stranded students via 'Ops Pyramid'.

Credence Clearwater Revival (CCR), the lone band of the swamp rock genre. This song is a the original soundtrack 
from the film 'American Werewolf in London' which my school buddies and I watched on then spanking new technology
called VCR during our post SPM (O levels) holidays. Of course, they was a movie starring Koo Stark to follow!