I have watched the film, produced in 2010, several times before and after the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Asal Eswed (Black Honey) is still relevant, because very little has changed in post-Mubarak Egypt. The comedy masterfully captures contradictions in Egypt: hospitality, manipulation, kindness, police abuse, social interdependence and corruption. It tells the story of Masry Sayyed, an Egyptian-born American photographer who returns to his homeland 20 years after he left it with his parents. He forgets to travel to Egypt on his US passport, an omission that lands him in a whole heap of trouble, starting at Cairo Airport. A reversal in his fortunes only happens when the US passport is mailed to him while he is in Egypt, where he gets caught in a string of situations that expose what it means to be a US citizen. Egyptians' perception of the US is based on a love-hate relationship. While condemning Washington's moves towards the Arab world as biased and manipulative, many Egyptians view the US as the land of dreams. The long queues of applicants for entry visas outside the US Embassy are telling evidence of this inconsistency. Egyptian entertainers are no exception. The independent newspaper Al-Tahrir reported last week that several Egyptian singers and actors have recently shown interest in securing US citizenship for their children. According to the paper, celebrated pop singer Tamer Hosni cancelled several concerts and arranged for his Moroccan wife to give birth to their first baby in a US hospital. Other entertainers have already done the same and earned their children US citizenship, reported Al-Tahrir, which named some of them. Islamists are also in love with the US after long decades of estrangement. Since springing onto Egypt's political stage as a major power after Mubarak's ousting, Islamists, mainly the Brotherhood, have exchanged visits with US officials. President Morsi, who hails from the Brotherhood, has recently ridden out a storm in the US for lashing out – in an address he made some years ago – at Barack Obama's pro-Israel policy and for branding Jews as "descendants of monkeys and pigs". Morsi reportedly told his new-found US friends that his controversial videotaped quotes were “taken out of context". Last year, Salah Abu Ismail, a firebrand radical Islamist, was disqualified from running for Egypt's top post after his late mother was found to have held US citizenship, in violation of the rules for running for President. At the time, Abu Ismail and his followers accused the US and Egypt's then military rulers of being partners in a "conspiracy", allegedly to bar him from becoming President and enforce a strict version of the Sharia (Islamic Law).
