Abstract
Abstract In July 2013, after months of protest, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, was ousted by the Egyptian armed forces. The Muslim Brotherhood, who supported Morsi, took to the streets, chanting and singing against the ousting, which they termed a military coup, while supporters of Sisi, who viewed it as a revolution, began producing songs to show their allegiance to the military leadership. While abundant research has been conducted on the role of oppositional and revolutionary music in Egypt since 2011, relatively little has been done on the widely popular pro-military music sometimes known as watani music. Watani songs are a genre of patriotic music made by popular artists to show their allegiance to the Egyptian armed forces. In this paper I examine the surge of watani songs and trace their history back to the Nasser era, thereby showing a continuity in style as well as content. I further argue that there are connections between nationalism and gender constructions, as the national project comes with obligations for men to offer their bodies to the cause. This obligation is aided by constructions about ‘male bravery’ and ‘courage’ that are designed to make men believe that military service is somehow essential to masculinity. Watani music, whether commissioned or not, fits well with this mythology of military men. It forms an ideological undercurrent, supports the narrative that it is necessary for patriotic military men to bravely safeguard the nation against its enemies.
Highlights
Watani songs—a reference to the Arabic word for homeland, watan—is a genre of patriotic music made by popular artists to show their allegiance to the Egyptian state and armed forces
These songs are largely associated with the Nasser era; the most famous example is the song ‘al-Watan al-akbar’ (The great homeland) from 1960, similar songs were commissioned by former president Hosni Mubarak in the 1990s and have enjoyed a surge in popularity since the accession to power of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in 2014.1 The songs often revolve around concepts of peace and national unity, and commonly praise martyrs, those from the military and police forces
While there have been numerous studies on developments in Egyptian culture since 2011, almost none have taken into account the wave of watani music, a trend that is noticeable since the ousting of Morsi in 2013
Summary
Watani songs—a reference to the Arabic word for homeland, watan—is a genre of patriotic music made by popular artists to show their allegiance to the Egyptian state and armed forces These songs are largely associated with the Nasser era; the most famous example is the song ‘al-Watan al-akbar’ (The great homeland) from 1960, similar songs were commissioned by former president Hosni Mubarak in the 1990s and have enjoyed a surge in popularity since the accession to power of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in 2014.1 The songs often revolve around concepts of peace and national unity, and commonly praise martyrs, those from the military and police forces. The songs, as well as other media forms, present the military as the male guardian of the (imagined) female nation, and the men who refuse to go along are ridiculed and relegated to a demasculinized position
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