Thursday Rants and Rave: #S02EP01 “Travis Scott and gates of hell at Giza’s great pyramid”

The Thursday Rant and Rave podcast in Arabic is back with a new season of tales and rants in Arabic.

This episode should have been published Friday night, but several issues made me publish it on Monday night. 

Here is what I ranted about in Arabic.

It is about Travis Scott’s new album launch concert in Egypt's ongoing saga. In case, you do not know Egypt’s Musicians Syndicate cancelled a permit that allows famous and popular singer Traves Scott to hold an album launch concert.

The cancellation comes amidst claims that went viral that Scott is an Afrocentric satanic who will present to Satan as sacrifice from the audience to open a gate into hell at the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Now there are new updates that took place after I published my post in English.

Egypt’s Tickets Marche warned that if the concert is cancelled, the financial losses can reach up to LE 300 million.

Tickets March Mohamed Serge asked President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to allow the concert to be held. Serge is facing hell as it turned out that the 4,000 tickets to the concerts have been sold mostly to foreigners who will come to Egypt to attend the concert.

Nasser and Company in Kodachrome

Egypt celebrates the 71st anniversary of the Free Officers Movement on Sunday. I have nothing more to say than what I have said in the past years: that movement proved to be a big failure for Egypt, despite its achievements. 

Its failure has been deeply felt in Egypt to this day and will continue to impact future generations unless a miracle happens.

Late President Gamal Abdel Nasser in a speech on MayDay at Abu Zaabal 
steelwork factory in May 1970. It was his last MayDay speech 

In 2023, we know firsthand that military coups do not bring democracy, social justice, or economic justice. We had a not-so-prefect level of freedom of speech and political freedom on 22 July 1952, that no other country in the Arab world currently enjoys. 

Happy Hijri Year 1445 from Egyptian Chronicles

Happy New Hijri Year to all dears of Egyptian Chronicles around the globe whether Muslims or not.😀

Happy New Hijri year 1445 

Today is 1 Muharram 1445 Hijri. 

The Hijri year is the Islamic lunar calendar, which is used by Muslims to mark religious holidays and events. It begins with the year in which the Prophet Muhammad "PBUH" migrated from Mecca to Medina, which is considered a major turning point in the history of Islam.

May Allah bless you all this year. I pray that this year will be a better one for many people around the globe.

The people of Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Rohingya, Afghanistan and Palestine need your prayers for real. I pray that this year will witness the end of their agony.

P.S. In that handmade postcard made in Photoshop, the famous Sultan funerary complex in the heart of Islamic Cairo's El-Moez Street.

Travis Scott Vs the Musicians Syndicate in Egypt: The gates of conspiracy theories hell are open already

Earlier this Tuesday, Egypt made headlines on social media, but for all the wrong reasons, as usual. Egypt's Musicians Syndicate announced the cancellation of the permit for a concert featuring the renowned American rapper Travis Scott scheduled for late July. 

In case you're not aware, Travis Scott had planned a massive concert at the Pyramids plateau to launch his highly anticipated album "Utopia" on July 28. Official tickets for this much-awaited event have already been sold.

 Interestingly, tickets are being resold on the black market for a staggering price of at least LE 6,000! It is already a 1% concert. Jokes have been shared that the roofs of Nazlat El-Saman's houses beside the pyramids will be rented for the fans who can't afford the tickets. 

Although I'm not a fan of Scott's music, it appears that he has gained popularity among the younger generation, who believe this concert to be the pinnacle of Egypt's music scene in 2023.

Travis Scott vs Mustafa Kamel is the fight 
nobody expected. 

Egypt's Musicians Syndicate, led by the singer/composer Mustafa Kamel, has withdrawn the permit, citing that the concert "contradicts the identity of Egyptian culture." This decision comes in the wake of a huge social media campaign in Egypt, involving various groups of people who believe that this concert has no place in our country.

 Among these groups are the nationalists, known as the "Kemitists," who argue that Scott, as a black Afrocentric American, not only appropriates our ancient history but also attempts to rewrite it by claiming that Ancient Egypt was built solely by Black Africans.

Additionally, conspiracy theorists believe that Travis Scott is a satanic Freemason who intends to open a gateway to hell at the Great Pyramid of Giza. 

When the Egyptian Battalion Arrived in the Valley of Ayalon: One Year After the Discovery of Mini-Israel Park's Mass Grave

Historically, the Valley of Ayalon in Palestine, also known as Ajalon, is mentioned in the renowned Amarna letters of ancient Egypt. Specifically, a series of letters were sent by a local chieftain in ancient Jerusalem, seeking military aid from Egypt to protect the city of Ajalon against invaders.

The recipient pharaoh of these pleas remains unclear. While some historians suggest Amenhotep III as the addressee, others speculate that the letters were sent to either Akhenaten or his son Tutankhamun.

Alternatively, there is no recorded evidence of Egyptian military aid being dispatched to the area, at least not promptly.

After a span of 3,259 years (according to AI calculations), a contingent of Egyptian fighters finally arrived in the Valley of Ayalon in response to the plea of East Jerusalem's ruler.

In July 2022, Egyptians became aware of the events that took place in the Valley of Ayalon during the summer of 1967. Unlike the ancient clay tablets, this knowledge was acquired through the internet when Israeli media once again uncovered a mass grave, revealing a war crime committed against Egyptian fighters during the Six-Day War.

Israeli Yediot Ahronoth and Haaretz newspapers “Please note that Yediot Ahronoth published the report in Hebrew while Haaretz has got its infamous paywall” as well as veteran Israeli journalist Yossi Melman on Twitter revealed after five decades of Israeli military censorship the horrifying truth.

That's what the Israeli media reported as published by Haaretz, Yediot Ahronoth, and Melman but first little official background.

Road to Egyptian Presidential elections: The wacky race

Despite the fact that we do not know when they will be held exactly, there have been some interesting updates in the past two weeks that give an indication of how strange and wacky this presidential election edition will be.

Abdel Sanad Yamama, Fouad Badrawi , Hazem Omar , Ahmed El-Fadaly and 
Emad Saadallah

We last left the Egyptian presidential election coverage with Al-Wafd Party announcing that its current leader, Abdel Sanad Yamama, would run in the upcoming election against incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. However, in a typical Al-Wafd fashion, veteran members of the party, including members of its high committee, which allegedly supported Yamama's candidacy by an overwhelming majority, opposed the decision.

This revealed an interesting fact: the high committee of the old liberal party had not convened in the first place and was not called to any meeting to choose its candidate for the elections. This was according to those veteran members, such as former Al-Wafd leader Mahmoud Abaza.

Fouad Badrawi vs Abdel Sanad Yamama

Al-Wafd veteran leading member Fouad Badrawi then announced that he would run for the presidential elections, calling for a meeting of the High Committee to choose between him and Yamama, as it was his right.

Just like Yamama, Badrawy stated that he fully respects President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as a leader.

However, his friends at the party's High Committee convinced him to run in the upcoming elections.

Yamama still acts as if he were the only Al-Wafd party's presidential candidate and that nothing happened.

The usual internal fights of Al-Wafd have found their way to the presidential elections. It is puzzling how Al-Wafd Party still has internal fights when it has disappeared from the streets. Young Egyptians may not believe that this was a party with popularity pre-2011.

We will see which man will get Al-Wafd Party's ticket. I can't believe I am saying this.

Kodak Agfa presents: Egypt’s Spring Flowers Fair 2023 at the Agricultural Museum

Usually, the Ministry of Agriculture holds the annual Spring Flowers Fair from March to April. However, this year, the fair was neither held on time nor in its usual location.

To the surprise, or rather shock, of its regular visitors, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that the Orman Botanical Garden would be closed for renovations right after the Ramadan supplies exhibit in March.

The closure of the Orman Botanical Garden for a major renovation operation has raised concerns among many, including myself.

This renovation also includes the oldest Zoo in Africa and the Middle East, the Giza Zoo. According to reports in the Egyptian media, the renovation process, which is led by the Military Production Ministry and a consortium of foreign companies, is expected to take a year and a half.

This situation is so alarming that it has left me feeling depressed to even speak about it. According to Al-Shorouk Newspaper, both the Orman Botanical Garden and the Giza Zoo will remain open until July 9th before they are closed for renovations to become "One Grand Zoo."

The government cannot close the Giza Zoo during Eid because it is the main attraction for Egyptians during the Eid Adha holiday, and thousands of people from all over the country visit it during this time.

I, along with others who fear losing the zoo as we know it, visited it in the winter. The zoo holds a special place in the hearts of all Egyptians with its classical historical look.

I was hoping to visit Orman Garden during the Spring Flowers Fair, but for the first time in decades, the fair was not held there.

Initially, I believed the fair had been cancelled due to ongoing renovation works and the economic crisis, which had affected imports in Egypt. However, I was mistaken.

It turned out that the fair was indeed held but in a different location.

The 90th Spring Flowers Fair took place at the Agricultural Museum in Giza from May 27th to June 27th, running from 9 AM to 9 PM. The video tour of the fair is at bottom of this post, so yes you must read it to the end. 👼

The Spring Flowers Fair 2023 was held at Egypt's Agricultural Museum in Giza 

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the 90th edition of Egypt's longest-running fair saw the participation of over two hundred exhibitors.

The fair displayed more than 1,000 types of plants, including flowers and fruit trees.

Jasmine tree sold at a partition inside Egypt's Spring Flowers Fair 2023

One would expect the Ministry of Agriculture or the government to have promoted the fair more, especially considering it was the 90th edition.