Metwalli as a metaphor for Arab disunity
What do Nour El-Sherif's bickering wives symbolize? The Critic takes on one of Ramadan's most popular TV dramas

by Tarek Atia

(cairolive.com, December 6, 2001) Nour El-Sherif has always been the king of Ramadan TV. He has a knack for taking on the big roles that tell tales of massive relevance for the Egyptian and Arab psyche. And this time, in A'ilat Al-Hagg Metwalli (Al-Hagg Metwalli's Family), he has managed to draw millions of viewers in to an engaging tale of a rich fabric mercant with a penchant for taking on ever more wives.
But this relatively simple morality tale -- it became clear this week -- may actually be about much more.

Can a Muslim man can actually treat each of his up-to-four permissible wives equally? That was the question going through most viewers minds as they watched the show every night for the first two weeks of Ramadan. The press has had a field day with this one (see What's in the Mags, where Rose El-Youssef clearly says the answer to that question is no), but one can only imagine the reams that will be written once the new subtext being woven into the drama now becomes clearer.
Yes, the team behind A'ilat Al-Hagg Metwalli seem to be asking another question along with the four wives debate here. Something about Arab unity, and why it hasn't really been happening for so long.

The story goes as follows. El-Sherif plays Metwalli, who begins his life (as he does in so many of these dramas) as the bright and loyal right hand man of a rich merchant. The merchant likes and trusts him so much that he practically gives him the keys to the business. Metwalli -- loyal as he is -- also dreams of making it big. He wants to marry a rich woman who will take him to the top. And indeed, when his boss passes away at a ripe old age, he ends up marrying his widow and taking over the business.
Within seven episodes the widow had passed away, Metwalli had married another three wives, and was sitting atop one of the biggest fabric empires in Egypt.

Metwalli marries for political, economic and social gain. He does what he wants, but makes sure to treat each of his wives equally. He tolerates no dissention, and pays plenty to have it stay that way. Each wife is set up in a luxurious apartment, with a car and a driver. He has a schedule in his pocket that helps him remember which wife he is supposed to spend the night with on any particular night.
In general, the situation is all "honey and butter" as they say. Other than a few minor squabbles, the wives seem to get along, and they all melt at Metwalli's charms, feeling he gives them just as much of himself as he does the others.

The troubles only really begin when Metwalli himself decides to take on a fourth wife, a young college student who also happens to be in love with Metwalli's oldest son. The matter is complicated further by the fact that the girl is not even aware that her boyfriend is Metwalli's son (she thinks he is just an employee at Metwalli's fabric store, and the son, for some reason, hasn't yet told her who his father is). The situation allows for a great deal of comic suspense, and has managed to keep viewers extremely anxious about catching the next episode to see what will happen next.

The situation has also managed to keep Metwalli's three wives even more anxious about the possibility of a fourth wife coming in and spoiling their paradise. Amina (Magda Zaki), Naamatalla (Ghada Abdel-Razik) and Madiha (Sumiya Al-Khashaab) start to regularly hold panicked summits to discuss the frightening possibility. The meetings -- in clear parodies of meetings between Arab states -- all end up turning into bickering matches rather than fruitful discussions of how they are going to solve the problem of the fourth wife.
Amina, the first wife, is the moderate, stable one who is always trying bring them together into a cohesive plan. Naamatalah, the second wife, is an illiterate but rich merchant herself, who wants them to use black magic to stop Metwalli from marrying again. Madiha, the third wife, is an educated and vain princess who can't stand the illiterate one, and vice versa.

Instead of ever agreeing on anything, whenever the three meet, they end up squabbling about completely trivial issues. At one point , Magda Zaki, who plays the first wife, Amina, says to the other two, "You all are squabbling over a quarter of a meter, and meanwhile you're going to lose an entire country" -- a clear reference to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?
This metaphor is still making itself more obvious day after day. Does Amina represent Egypt, the calm, stable coalition-builder who always wants what's best for both Metwalli and the other wives? Who is Israel? Who is Palestine?

Most viewers had been wondering where the drama would take Metwalli and his quest for peaceful coexistence with four wives. Surely, the moral of the story in the end will involve his eventual downfall -- after all, there's no way the TV Union would leave viewers with the message that it's alright to have four wives. Imagine the number of people who would be rankled by a conclusion like that.
With two weeks worth of episodes left to discover just what the fate of Metwalli's extended family will be, you can bet there's certainly something deeper in store here, so stay tuned, and don't change the channel... this is a metaphor that still hasn't reached its full bloom.