Nasser politicised television, Sadat turned to colour while the Mubarak era saw the advent of satellite channels, writes Gamal Nkrumah Not all anniversaries are cause for celebration, and the golden jubilee of Egyptian television, which falls this week, is more a wake-up call than a party. Egypt was one of the first Arab states to harness soft power to enhance its political weight. Mistakes were inevitable, and there remains much room for improvement, but the experience is a memorable one. "Television is the cultural pyramid of Egypt. Egyptian television is the very simulacrum of the nation of the eternal River Nile," Abdel-Qader Hatem, Egypt's and the Arab world's first minister of information told Al-Ahram Weekly. He was in buoyant mood, proud of his contribution in building this venerable institution. His, after all, was a labour of love. The introduction of television was a defining moment in Egypt and the Arab world. "We launched television in Libya, in Kuwait, in Aleppo and in Syria. We emerged as the cultural beacon of the Arab world." Others, though, express regret at opportunities missed. "I wish we could start all over again. I hope it is possible that Egyptian television, after 50 years, can recapture its original promise," veteran broadcaster Hamdi Qandil told the Weekly. Qandil simultaneously personifies two radically different perspectives on Egyptian television. The older generation was idealistic, ideologically driven and, even though they represented a refreshing break from the feudal past, they also embodied the socialist policies of late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser. A cohort of pan-Arab and socialist-minded men and women broke the fetters of the feudal Egypt of King Farouk and his ancestors. They were followed, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, by a younger and more internationally-minded generation of broadcasters under president Anwar El-Sadat and, later, President Hosni Mubarak. This new breed of broadcasters and media men and women appealed to a wider Arab audience. They gave Egypt the edge over new rivals in the Arab world, shoving aside the ageing broadcasters who made their mark in the immediate aftermath of the 23 July Revolution. In July 1960, when Egyptian TV was launched, few Egyptians were fortunate enough to have purchased television sets, and those that had were forced to make do with rudimentary sets manufactured in the Soviet Union and its East European satellite states. The fortunate few who owned a television set would switch it on to encounter a large circle, divided like a darts board into grey segments. They eagerly awaited D Day, 23 July, when the Television of the United Arab Republic was officially to be launched. Two days before 23 July an experimental broadcast for a couple of hours a day began. On 23 July, the anniversary of the 1952 revolution, everyone who had access to a television was glued to the set, watching the anniversary celebrations taking place at the Zamalek Officers' Club attended by Nasser, his henchmen, revolutionary entourage and hangers-on. A coterie of celebrities, including Umm Kolthoum, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab and Abdel-Halim Hafez, sang songs composed especially for the event. Revolutionary fervour was graphically conveyed to audiences through educational and entertainment programmes such as Mama Samiha, the first children's programme, presented by Samiha Abdel-Rahman; Your Favourite Star, a talk show hosted by Laila Rustom; and the television drama Al-Qahira wal Nas ( Cairo and its People), Egypt's answer to Britain's Coronation Street, which ushered in a motley crew of new talents, including director Mohamed Fadil and actors Nour El-Sherif, Karima Mokhtar and Akila Rateb. Soap operas soon ruled the roost, inspiring many later academic and documentary works, including Lila Abu Lughod's Dramas of Nationhood: the Politics of Television in Egypt. The soaps won plaudits from Egyptian and Arab literary critics. "These serials are unquestionably 'modern' in drawing directly upon modernist literature, film and radio. They are mostly about the everyday and involve ordinary people. Their characters are not the universally known heroes of poetry or folktales but representatives of the common citizen," concluded Abu Lughod. Broadcasters, most of them originally employed by Egyptian radio, rose to fame. They included veterans like Saad Labib, Salah Zaki, Hemat Mustafa and Samira El-Kilani. Egyptian television in the heady days of the 1960s was strikingly purposeful. The entire country was mobilised for war, with television an integral part of the process. "Television was an instrument of Egypt's revolutionary foreign policy, especially when it concerned pan-Arab unity and pan-African solidarity," Mohamed Fayek, former minister of information and currently head of the Cairo-based Arab Human Rights Organisation, told the Weekly. Qandil concurs. He started his career in the media as a journalist in Syria. He returned to Egypt in 1960 only to move on to Libya. "I left Egyptian television because, as a presenter, I could not bring myself to utter the name of another Egyptian leader on the news," Qandil muses. Nasser was Qandil's political mentor, and though he bore no grudge against Sadat, Qandil felt it appropriate to leave television. He did not return to the small screen until 1998. Egyptian television might not have been the first such experiment in the Arab world. Lebanon and Iraq both launched national television channels before Egypt. It was, however, instrumental in imposing the cultural hegemony of Egypt across the Arab world for at least four decades. Other Arab countries now play a considerable role in generating Arab cultural output but Egypt still has the edge. (see p.20)
