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Maybe he should have called
By Karim Darwish
Mixing politics and art
Last week's Sting concert at the Pyramids is still the talk of the town. Not only have there been an endless stream of articles in both the Arabic and Western press on the concert, but people everywhere are discussing the phenomenon with a fervency usually reserved for political, rather than artistic, events.
Then again, might the very reason for all the chit chat be based on an impression that art and politics have once again, like in last year's popular TV show Awan Al-Ward, been mixed up?
In this case, the story goes as follows. Popular singer Hakim was slated to perform just before Sting at a recent "mega concert" at the Pyramids. For various reasons, not all his fault, Hakim showed up late and found out his set had been cancelled. In protest he got up on stage and made an impromptu speech about Egyptians being insulted in their own country.
The Western press quickly picked up on this, and the very next day, articles began appearing describing how Sting, during his Pyramids concert, got caught up in a burst of "anti-Western" fervor, as if that was a metaphor for a larger form of xenophobia in Egyptian society.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and Hakim himself discovered the same thing when hardly anyone took him up on his offer to leave the show before Sting even began playing. Why? Because even if he had a legitimate beef with either the organizer or Sting, this was not the right place to wage the battle.
After all, as a lot of people said, they were there to see Sting. Hakim was just the icing on the cake. His performance would have gotten people into the mood before the main act, as well as given the show a cross cultural flavor, something that certainly fit in well with Sting himself, who was touring to promote his album Brand New Day which features a duet with Algerian rai star Cheb Mami.
In the week after the show Hakim released a few statements, and held a press conference, in an attempt to explain why he got up on stage and said what he did. Basically, he claimed, he had been mistreated by both the organizers and security. For one thing, he hadn't been allowed onto the Pyramids Plateau for his rehearsal.
The funny thing was, that sounded a lot like what thousands of concert attendees went through as well, waiting for hours to be let in to a show they had paid up to LE550 to attend, and in some cases, not even being allowed in at all. Unfortunately, however, the Hakim fiasco ended up getting the lion's share of attention, with the organizational mess falling by the way side.
Instead of leading to a more constructive dialog about how to make things better if such an event were ever to be held again, all we're hearing now is a debate over whether or not Hakim should have done what he did.
The musicians syndicate, perhaps feeling that all the bad publicity he got was enough, decided to merely reprimand Hakim, with a promise that if he committed any other infractions, the penalty next time would be more severe.
In any case, how ironic is it that Hakim already has a reputation for being late to concerts, and even played on that for a very popular ad last year for a mobile phone company. In the ad, Hakim is late for a concert, so he goes to a store and buys a mobile phone. As his co-vocalist gets on stage, he calls her on her mobile, and tells her to place it near the microphone. He proceeds to sing the song, "Alo alo", into his phone, as he races towards the concert, which has already begun.
The ad was so popular that you had little babies singing the song all last summer.
Wouldn't it have been both hilarious, and utterly appropriate, had Hakim done something similar at the Sting concert -- especially considering that the same mobile phone company was the concert's main sponsor.
Just a thought...
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