Entries (RSS)Are Emos a Threat to Egypt?
Egypt’s paranoid dictatorship is trying to distract the people from its own unpopularity by cracking down on emos.
- Egyptian emos have more to worry about than just being mocked by their peers; they are now being actively targeted by the police. “State security sees us as a dangerous underground, as Satanists, as queers and faggots,” one emo told a state-run newspaper.
What’s an emo? A disaffected teenager with dyed black hair, who is always feeling sad and sensitive. Or to put it another way:
- A few well-off, bored teenagers hanging around in shopping malls…. Essentially a consumer culture — it’s all about your image and which music you purchase.
Like every other problem in Egypt, like the recent pig slaughter, this seems to be due to a government that lacks legitimacy, overreacting out of weakness because it fears a challenge from Islamic conservatives.
- President Mubarak’s regime has lost all legitimacy amongst Egyptians both politically and culturally, a state of affairs it seeks to reverse by inventing both internal and external enemies of the state and portraying itself as the last hope for the soon-to-be-besieged Egyptian populace…. Culturally the government likes to style itself as a last bastion of Islamic values, the irony of which is obvious to anyone witness to the daily security clampdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood. So now emos are the latest hate-figures; their strange looks and vague connections to undefined, sordid western values makes them the perfect foil for a dictatorship on the back foot.
I wish I had some pictures of Egyptian emos to present here, but apparently there aren’t that many of them. So instead I’m showing you a Western emo as a type specimen.
Could a few thousand oversensitive teenagers be a threat to Egyptian society? Read the article for a portrait of a dictatorship in decline.
Posted by eatbees on 06 May 2009 at 12:06 under Culture, Egypt, Politics.
Comments: 7
Comments
Comment from Jalal
Time: May 7, 2009, 01:29
Just another distraction from doing what the Egyptian people really need their government to do, help create jobs, economic growth, provide adequate social services, fight corruption and more….
Comment from sara
Time: December 23, 2009, 09:46
nooooooooooooooooooway
what is happening
Comment from Somebody
Time: January 31, 2012, 08:12
Us arab emos generally are attacked by society,our families,teachers and even friends sometimes .. it’s not only in egypt it’s everywhere but i guess it’s worse in egypt ….. thanx for the topic T-T
Comment from Ari
Time: April 2, 2012, 19:54
Where did you get this picture? My friends name is jake and this is HIS picture, I would knwo because I took the picture.
Comment from eatbees
Time: April 3, 2012, 07:51
Hi Ari,
I just did an image search for “emos” and saw what came up. It was a long time ago so I forget what site I found it on, but there were lots of different pictures from different places and I picked the one that was my favorite. Whoever had the site didn’t have names of the people in the pictures, so there was no way to know where it originally came from.
Do you think it’s bad that his picture is there? I’ll take it down if you like, with my apologies. Or if you and Jake don’t mind, it would be an honor for me to leave it there, because I think it’s a great picture.
Comment from Zain
Time: May 3, 2012, 21:59
why do people in middle east make it such a big issue fr guys n girls to dress up like emos and punks ??? everybody has there own choices ad wishes and others should nt inter fair with anybody’s personal life ! wallah my country Pakistan is better in this case… u can do what eva u like and all trends and styles and wht eva is welcomed unless its against islam example the cartoon made on our prophet(P.B.U.H) by some guy in Denmark.. start thinking with broader mind and positive thinking please! and yea am emo guy and a good muslim Mashallah.
Comment from A curious observer
Time: September 8, 2021, 14:26
Wow, how interesting…
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