Dear Yahia Abu El-Gheit, your father was a noble man

Dear Yahia Abu El-Gheit,

I do not know if you are going to read this post one day or not, but I hope you stumble upon it when you search more about your late father Mohamed Abu El-Gheit.

I did not know your father personally, but we share many things it turned out that we read the same young adult fiction writers as teens and young adults also.

Mohamed Abu El-Ghait (1988-2022)

We also did not study media or mass communication officially, but we turned our passion into our profession with all its ups and downs, all triumphs and defeats in the most difficult of times in the most difficult places in the world to share the truth or to express an opinion.

I have to say your father is the kind of journalist I wish to be one day, but he was one of a kind.

I did not know your father personally, but we had many common friends who all shared a common opinion about him: he was a noble name.

He was an honourable honest young man in time terms like honour and honesty became a rarity in this big vast world especially in the world of media in the Arab world.

I am writing this on the day that your father was buried in London. “I hope one day that he would be buried in his home country Egypt which he truly adored and hoped the best for”

Aside from the London funeral, there was an online uncoordinated natural virtual vigil made of pure love. Many strange people virtually expressed their sorrow and condolences for the early departure of your father after a battle with a cursed disease that I hate more and more now as it takes our best.

Watch this: Shafika , Egypt’s underground folk music Queen

First time I knew that there was a very famous Egyptian folk singer that most people in Cairo never heard before was through social media.

Yes, you may be surprised but social media opened a door for us the people of Great Cairo province who got no roots in the Nile Delta or Upper Egypt to know and listen to different styles or genres of Egyptian folk music.

The social media presented Shafika to me after 2011 when some tweeps began to speak about her and their memories with her cassette albums in Nile Delta while they were teens. When I searched online for her name, I found a photo of a heavily make-upped woman with 1980s style-blonde dyed hair.

Shafika in the 1980s 

To be honest, I do not remember if I listened to her, but all I knew about her was that she was a famous underground folk music singer whose luck and talent did not lead her to be recognized in the mainstream in Cairo.

Time passes and this week, I was properly introduced to Shafika as Egyptian underground folk music Queen and I was reminded again that Egypt is too big and diverse to be constrained by the borders of Great Cairo.

The introduction was through that simple and short documentary about her: Shafika.

Qatar 2022 World Cup: When Israeli reporters faced the naked truth

One week passed after the start of the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

For the first couple of days, we had this rainbow controversy that faded away, the Iranian national team saga and the Serbian national football that made it clear it won’t surrender Kosovo.

We also had a bunch of Israeli reporters covering the Mondial who are shocked to see that they are being met coldly by Arab fans attending the great world event that is being hosted by an Arab country for the first time.

Palestinian flags stalked Israeli reporters at the World Cup in Qatar

Arab fans made sure that Palestine reach Israeli households as it seems in the first week of the World Cup.

Here was the correspondent of Israeli public correspondent Corp “Kan” attempting to have an interview with a Qatari vender in a Qatari bazaar in some local market and the young man refuses.

Post COP27: Minimum levels of wins for everybody

The 27^th United Nations Conference on Climate Change “COP27” concluded on Sunday after two dramatic weeks with a statement that included a minimum level of wins for everybody and a huge concern for future COPs as fossil fuels companies are gaining more power and power.

The COP27 logo inside the conference in Sharm El-Sheikh "Bloomberg"

The biggest achievement we have is the victory of the island nations and developing countries in establishing a loss and damage fund.

Yes, it will take years to have this fund operating for real but we all saw the battle those nations had to fight in Sharm El-Sheikh.

Another interesting achievement was recognizing the food problem aka “safeguarding food security and ending hunger”. 

keeping the limit of global warming to 1.5 C as it was another achievement.

Qatar World Cup 2022: A small step towards a greater achievement towards human rights

Qatar managed to do the impossible for real in hosting this World Cup tournament.

The impossible is not building huge stadiums and luxurious hotels thanks to the efforts and sweat of thousands of workers from around the globe, especially from Asia.

Germany's national team wearing "human rights" on their kit last year 
Photo: AFP

The impossible is not about insisting to hold the most important sports event after the Olympics despite the turbulent decade in the Middle East where Qatar played a role larger amazingly than its size and population wisely.

Kodak Agfa Presents: The Blood Moon of Cairo

It is another belated, truly belated post. But once again it is not late to celebrate 2022’s last blood moon lunar eclipse.

Earlier this month, exactly on 8 November Earth had a lunar eclipse that many countries witnessed.

We were among the countries that witnessed

It was the first time I witnessed a blood moon in the mid of the buzzing Downtown Cairo.

I could not take more photos because I did not have my tripod where I was standing.

Siri, show me orientalism in Qatar World Cup !! Tukoh Taka as an example

Two days ago, FIFA has launched its official fan festival anthem for the Qatar World Cup. It is the first “fan festival anthem” for the world cup.

It is called “Tukoh Taka”. It features Nicki Minaj, Maluma and Lebanese singer Myriam Fares. It is in English, Arabic and Spanish.

Myriam and her backup dancers 

Myriam appears while wearing some exotic dancer's suit, it is not even a traditional belly dancer's suit and you got the backup dancers wearing golden veils and I do not understand what the hell that was " I am sorry dear Ruby for slamming you decades ago when you sang while wearing a belly dancer suit in Holland" 

I do not know what “Tukoh Taka” means but I know the song is an insult to the Arab culture and is a blatant example of orientalism.