If you're an Egyptian then you'll know--or if you happen to know one, they'll tell you--that Egyptians are not ignorant. They are well-educated and cultured, with the music industry flourishing and the big screen giving birth to more and more masterpieces of film every year. After all, it was in Egypt that one of the world's first civilizations grew and spread its knowledgeable revelations east and west, right?
Then what's going wrong?
The truth is--and it pains me to say it--but a great deal of Egyptians ARE indeed ignorant. A great deal of them are not well-educated nor cultured, though they have the potential to be if poverty were eradicated, living standards were raised and the proper cultural apparatuses were available and free for all those interested. As for the music industry, it might have been flourishing money-wise (with replicas of failed singers, composers and lyric writers earning quite a shameful amount for their disgraceful work), but things were not so great quality-wise. In relevance to the large numbers of "artists" popping up all the time, there were only quite a few whose music I truly enjoyed and felt there was depth and meaning to, and sometimes they weren't given a proper chance to find their footing in the midst of the "sha'by" culture that seemed to have taken over (more on the encroachment of sha'by everything later).
The same can be said for Egyptian cinema. A lot of pointless, shallow and story-less films were being churned out at an amazing pace, replacing each other on billboards and in movie theaters, most of them relying on sex and drugs and such to propel movie-goers to come. I won't deny that there were quite a lot of good movies as well, ones that had depth and a story behind the comedy, but they were few and far between.
All of the above led to--as I personally like to look at it--the diminishing of culture in the Egyptian society. A huge percentage of Egyptians lived in the countryside, and a huge percentage of those who lived in cities (especially Cairo) lived in poor, run-down housing blocks, which they'd built on agricultural land without permits (which, as far as I know, the government seemed to overlook). From there, the sha'by culture radiated and spread, taking over all arenas; including music, movies, manners and the day-to-day dealings of people. "Sha'by" is Arabic for "by the people", and so sha'by art would naturally be expected to reflect the current state of mind people are in, which unfortunately it did. Vulgarity, rudeness, drinking, drugs and distorted manners were rapidly spreading in the poorer areas, and sha'by music reflected AND helped to spread this.
However (yes, thankfully there is a however in all this), these days a lot of new talents have been surfacing. In media, we've got the sarcastic Monatov and Bassem Youssef Show, both of whom used up a lot of air space (or should I say, YouTube space) making fun of the failed Egyptian State TV and other channels who were equally unprofessional, hypocritical and, at times, downright liars. Music-wise, we've got Cairokee and Zap Tharwat, with great lyrics and beautiful melodies. Not to mention, of course, the amazing number of amateur, yet very well-shot and -produced, videos that have been popping up on YouTube and other Internet media outlets, that have really given rise to hope for a new and improved quality of film-making in Egypt.
These are only a few examples of the better things I've come across these days (some of them might have been around for a long time, but I personally have only recently found them out). There are a lot more talents and painstaking efforts out there, in a lot of other different fields as well, which isn't just good--it's GREAT. The artistic, journalistic and media scene in Egypt has been somewhat stagnant for a long time, but hopefully, the current can resume its earlier pace--or better yet, flow even better.
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