Cairo - Few places would seem more immune to the Western
teen-music craze of 'Emo' - with its pale, gothic, self-absorbed and
depressed disciples - than Cairo, with its heat, sunlight and
permanent haze of noise and pollution.
But the phenomena of 'Emo' - which stands for 'emotional' or
'emotional hardcore' - music, has now even reached Egypt, albeit with
a slight change in translation, to 'emu.'
'They loiter in the streets of western cities at night, alone or
accompanied by other emos,' explains an Alexandria-based Egyptian
website.
'They are often dismal and in tears. It is difficult to
distinguish between emo boys and emo girls ... They wear eyeliner,
wear their hair swept forward like Asians ... and wear tight jeans
and tight t-shirts emblazoned with rock-band logos or black-and-white
checker patterns.'
'Social scientists say they are descended from the extinct punks,'
the site jokes.
Indeed, they have lurked on street corners and cafes in Cairo's
fancy neighbourhoods for years, but it was only after a group of
Egyptian journalists launched a campaign against them that most of
Cairo's 20 million less faddish citizens - who, as a rule, look
askance at effeminate hairstyles for men - heard of them.
Veteran journalist Wael al-Ibrashi, editor of a Cairo newspaper
and host of a TV talk-show, has been among the leaders of this
crusade.
In a recent episode of his show, the journalist subjected a group
of Egyptian emos to intense questioning about why emos around the
world dress as they do and about the contents of the group's
'constitution.'
Callers even asked if it was true if all the members of the group
were homosexual.
A university student, identified only as Sharif, who started a
group for Egyptian emos on the social networking site Facebook,
responded they were not an organised group, and that no, they were
not gay.
'The idea is that there is nothing wrong with admitting that you
are emotional,' he said.
Sharif, who repeatedly tried to correct al-Ibrashi and callers
when they referred to emos as an organised movement, said he learned
about emos from the web during a recent bout of depression. He
identified with them, and started the Facebook group so that Egyptian
emos could get to know each other.
The Facebook group soon attracted around 150 members, he said, and
about a dozen of them from Cairo and the Mediterranean city of
Alexandria recently decided to meet for the first time at the glitzy
City Stars mall, in a wealthy suburb of Cairo.
'Emo is a way of thinking and living, not a style,' Sharif said.
'Most of the time, when I go to university I wear my hair back, off
my face.'
'Look, no one can tell you how to wear your hair,' al-Ibrashi told
Sharif. 'But when it becomes a group philosophy, it's worrying.'
The media campaign has led to real troubles for emos on the
streets of Cairo.
This week it was reported that police had arrested three young
emos after a stenciled graffiti of a headless man holding a broom
appeared around Cairo.
Egyptian journalists seemingly obsessed with emos have drawn
comparisons to another media-fuelled moral panic about another
supposed teen craze in the 1990s, the so-called 'Disciples of Satan'.
These were Cairene heavy metal fans, whose dress sense and
behaviour led to a media campaign against them, and, eventually, an
opinion from the mufti, the state's highest authority on religious
law, calling them apostates.
In 1997, police briefly held dozens of Egyptian heavy metal fans
on charges of belonging to a satanic cult and engaging in immoral
behaviour.
While the recent campaign against Egyptian emos has raised alarms
among more conservative adults, many young Egyptians shrug it off.
'The campaign is absurd,' said one young Cairene who asked to be
identified only as Sarah. 'I guess nobody likes emos anywhere in the
world.'
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