Monday, December 10, 2007

Islam and Videos (1/2)


Moral videos are fashionable in the Arab world. For instance, a video, which is said to be the first clip produced by nationals, was recently filmed in Saudi Arabia by a young producer named Qaswara al-Khatib.

The pitch is rather simple: a young professional is living a “bad” life and getting into more and more troubles until he comes to understand, after an accident on his motorbike, that “only God will help” (ما لك غير الله).

As noticed in Amal’s “Arab Woman Progressive Voice” blog, it is not just a coincidence if the camera shows at different times the main character wearing a T-shirt with the world “progressive” written on large letters on it. As we have seen in a previous post about TV soap operas, “progressist” or “liberal” are indeed very “bad words” for those who hope to put the youth back on the right track.

Ramadan being a high season for devotion and business, many singers take this opportunity to sell CD’s records with pious songs. In the impressive list of them which was published in Al-Hayat, Tamer Husni deserves special attention as one of the most favourite and scandalous pop singers of the Egyptian and Arab youth has radically changed since he left jail some months ago.

Indeed, when he was in prison Tamer Husni has been visited by the very famous ‘Amr Khaled, one of the top preachers of the new generation. Since that meeting, Tamer has become a committed (ملتزم) singer, meaning a singer committed to the spread of the Good World and the Right Thinking.

It would be very nasty to see in that cooperation something like a smart marketing campaign between two icons of the Arab youth. Thus, when an Internet site like islamonline.net, close to the religious opposition, does allude to such a possibility, one may think that there is some kind of irritation, sincere or not, for this commercial use of religious feelings…

To read the original and more detailed post in french and to listen to Only God Will Help song, this link.

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