Egyptian social media went into meltdown earlier this week over the new trailer for the new season of the Netflix series “African Queens,” produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, which reportedly focuses on the life of Queen Cleopatra and which will be broadcast in May. The “historical docu-drama” had angered Egyptians both because of its depiction of Cleopatra, who was of Greek descent, as a black African woman, and because a black expert in the film ad insisted that “Cleopatra was black. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
While some are furious at what they see as a gross historical inaccuracy, the majority see it as “Afrocentric” propaganda, which claims that the rulers of ancient Egypt were black and had no connection to the Egyptians. today, who are in their way of thinking the descendants of racist Arab or Islamic colonizers who erased Egypt’s true black identity. For many Egyptians, not only are such views seen as historical and cultural appropriation of Egyptian history, but they also distance modern Egyptians from their heritage and history.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of “Afrocentrism,” it is a belief popularized by some African American leaders, such as Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, that “African Americans suffer from a legacy stolen culture, which white European racists have conspired to keep ignorant of over the centuries. Chief among them, according to the theory, is the darkness of the Egyptian pharaohs.
According to them, the lack of historical evidence to support their claims is due to a white conspiracy and should therefore be ignored, with Afrocentric supporters calling for an African view of world history as late as the 1990s. In short, this narrative is a clear reaction to centuries of dehumanizing racist practices and slavery: a rejection of the historical identity of “uncivilized savages” projected onto black people by white slaveholders and an attempt to carve out a proud historical identity as descendants of black Africans. the kings “who built the pyramids” and “launched civilization.” This included the belief by some that Queen Cleopatra was black and not of Greek descent.
Such Afrocentric historical accounts have been debunked by many historians. So the resurgence of these beliefs 30 years later and their adoption by Hollywood as a form of black empowerment angered Egyptian nationalists, if social media timelines are to be believed.
For many Egyptians who took part in the debate, this is simply another attempt by Westerners and their pop culture to deny their connection to their ancient ancestors and their achievements in order to deprive them of their glorious heritage. First it was the ahistorical claim that Jewish slaves built the pyramids, then aliens, and now the series is seen as the latest frustrating and disrespectful attempt by Afrocentrists to deny the Egyptians their history, to deny them portray them as historical fraudsters and destroy their national pride. . Egyptian nationalists’ attribution of malice to what could be explained by ignorance was fueled by last year’s casting choice rumors regarding the role of Cleopatra in a new Hollywood film, with both names featured being Zendaya (who is half white and half Nigerian) and Gal. Gadot (who is Israeli and Jewish). This is the kind of Sophie casting choice that would make Egyptian nationalists’ heads explode.
Egyptian nationalist views, however, are not representative of those of all Egyptians. Those who oppose it point out that Egypt is an African country with its own black population and culture and accuse nationalists of being motivated by racism and colorism. of which are widespread in Egyptian society. It doesn’t help that the current (and arguably future) state of Egyptian affairs has been so bleak under the rule of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and that the only point of national pride felt collectively by Egyptians over the nine In recent years was the Golden Parade of the Pharaohs in April 2021, a nationally televised high-end television production that involved the moving of 22 mummies from the Museum of Antiquities to the new Grand Egyptian Museum. When you feel like your story is the only thing you have at the moment, any attempt to revise it feels like an existential attack.
Meanwhile, Egyptian historians and Egyptologists have reluctantly joined the Egyptian nationalists’ side of this debate, but for a different reason. For years, many of these Egyptologists have been trying to have Pharaonic antiquities returned from Western museums, claiming them as part of their national cultural heritage. They fear that the Afrocentric presentation of today’s Egyptians as mere descendants of Arab invaders could be used as an argument to deny their claims by these Western institutions and excuse their continued theft of Egyptian antiquities. To their credit, not a single self-respecting Egyptologist has ventured into the Black Cleopatra debate, because they know that Cleopatra was not even Egyptian, much less African.
This historical reality is what makes Egyptian nationalist anger over the Black Cleopatra television series so intriguing. Cleopatra ruled Egypt, but she was not Egyptian; rather, she was the last descendant of the Greek colonizers. So, historical accuracy and accusations of racism/colorism aside, Egyptian nationalists’ protection of the depiction of a Greek conquering tyrant is somewhat ironic.
At the risk of sounding reductive, Cleopatra was a foreign occupier who only cared about maintaining her grip on power. She (allegedly) had sex with a brother whom she then killed, called on Roman forces to secure her throne, murdered her sister for opposing the invasion, and paraded his corpse in all of Rome. Moreover, his claim to historical infamy rested in part on the seduction of two Roman generals, causing the assassination of one and the suicide of the other. What can we be proud of here?
This struggle for Cleopatra might be indicative of something deeper: how modern-day Egyptians deal with the generational trauma of their colonization.
Modern Egypt is special in that it has endured some 2,400 years of almost uninterrupted colonization. Not only are these years lumped in with the rest of Egyptian history as part of the nationalist narrative of the post-1952 military coup proclaiming 7,000 years of civilization, but none of these occupiers seem to trigger the appropriate feelings of hostility that they deserve. Rather, Egyptians today seem to have developed a collective sense of affinity, akin to Stockholm syndrome, toward the foreigners who occupied and ruled us, both as rulers and as nations.
This affinity is manifested in the many Egyptian supporters of the pan-Islamist and pan-Arabist identity movements, in the pride of the Egyptian middle and upper classes in their white ancestry (whether of Ottoman or Western European origin), and even in the he outpouring of social media is mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the same monarch whose army, four years into her reign, waged war against Egypt during the Suez Crisis. It may seem disconcerting that the subjects of brutal colonization could develop such feelings toward their colonizers, but after 2,400 years of multiple and uninterrupted colonizations, what is national identity?
Of course, not all colonizers are viewed with the same respect. Napoleon, for example, could not hack it. He commands little respect or affinity, having fled the country after only three years of attempted occupation. Nonetheless, the cultural colonization of Egyptian intellectuals by the French countryside remains highly influential to this day, with many Egyptians proudly identifying as Francophiles.
The French are not the only ones to do this. The end of the Ottoman Turkish occupation is regretted by Islamists as the era of the last caliphate. Soviet influence on Nasser’s regime in the 1960s? A time of power and unity with a “brother country” from which many hope for the return. The British are not particularly maligned despite decades of colonization. This phenomenon is not particularly unique to Egypt, and nuances of it can be found in other countries that have suffered colonization from the Global South, with the center of these complex emotions usually being the last occupying power. Egypt is unique in that it claims the heritage of all its colonizers.
This is what makes the rise of anti-American sentiment among the Egyptian population during the Hosni Mubarak years so fascinating. For decades, and still today, many Egyptians viewed the United States as the ultimate example of imperial power, a view that predated the Iraq War by decades. This is rather confusing since the Americans never occupied Egypt. I suspect that if we can solve this conundrum, we might begin to understand why the Egyptians cared so much about a Greek occupier being described as black.
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