Zakaria Ibrahim
I was born in Port Said 1952. My father was born in Upper Egypt and mother was born in Port Said of Upper Egyptian parents. The Saidi (Upper Egyptian) values ruled in our household- helpfulness and honesty. We were also a Muslim household and I learned early that Islamic values, like those of other religions, must be internalized and not just worn on the outside for show.
I grew up in a popular neighborhood (Hayy el Arab) which bordered on where the foreigners lived (Hayy el Aganib). From my earliest memories, I was aware of the different cultures and I received my education equally from the school and the street
There was always music on the street. At a very young age, too young to participate, I would hang around the street parties and would get caught up in the people’s enthusiasm and interest. I loved to sing and later on, would sing the songs of Abd el Halim Hafez (beloved classical Egyptian singer) in school events or with my friends when we gathered together.
I was four years old in 1956 when the War of Attritution started. I saw the street on fire, homes destroyed. Refugees would gather in our home and it was here and later on in exile, that the simsimeya (the lyre instrument common in weddings and other celebrations in the Canal Zone) became so important, became more than music. The simsimeya became the voice of the people, bringing them together, breaking sense of isolation with common songs and shared experiences. I experienced, firsthand, how the simsimeya was like a glue, bringing people together from different parts of the Canal region, and how it was critical to preserving values and cultural identity in common.
Simbilawen, a little town in the Delta. After the 1967 war, all the people from the Canal Zone were exiled to other parts of Egypt. Ismalia and Suez residents left in ‘67, but Port Saidis left in ’69. I was 17 years old and half way through high school when I went with my family to Simbalawen. We didn’t know anyone there, but only went there because some of our relatives chose to move there. My experience with exile, leaving all my friends and my familiar places and my girlfriend, was difficult. My schoolwork suffered in exile. Whereas before, I had been a top student, in Simbalawen I surrendered to frustration, depression and a sense of hopelessness. I was still in exile and in high school when my father died. I was 18 years old.
The one bright spot for me and for many exiles was the music. Some exiles from different towns in the Canal Zone put together a simsiyya troupe in Simbalawen. This troupe brought the people together and, at the same time, presented performances to the local people. It was a bridge, both between the exiles and between the exiles and the residents of Simbilawen. I joined the troupe as a singer and also danced the traditional dance of Port Said, the Bamboutia (the men who sell wares to people on the big ships in the Canal). The simsimeya was healing for all of us. With the music we could hope for return, for love, for justice. This experience was not just mine, but that of all exiles: the music kept us together as a culture and community. Simsimeya was our common soul and spirit.
I continued in this troupe until 1971 when I went to Cairo take up my studies at the Higher Institute of Agricultural Cooperation which shared a campus with Ein Shams University. My poor academic record dictated that I enter the field of agriculture because it accepted students with mediocre marks. In Cairo, I became a student activist. In Simbilawen, I had become acquainted with a group of intellectuals and started to look beyond my personal situation and become aware of issues of class, nationalism and justice. It was in Cairo that I become drawn to activism. I became active in student movements and founded a Journalists Group within the Institute to write for wall posters (newspapers). I started reading and writing like crazy. We wrote about the issues of freedom and calling for the return of Sinai which was occupied at that time by the Israelis. At the same time, I founded a group within the Faculty of
Agriculture at Ein Shams University. In Cairo, my participation in music and dance was limited to my presence at weddings and parties, i.e., on an informal basis.
I delayed leaving my studies so I could continue my activism work. In 1974, I was sentenced to 100 days in prison in Zaqaziq because of my activist activities. In the summer of 1979, I joined the army and finished in 1980. Most of the exiles had returned, starting from 1974. When I returned to Port Said, the first thing I wanted to see was the state of the simsimia music there. I found that the spirit was gone: the troupes had become very commercial as musicians were looking to make a living and had lost the spirit of the art. I decided to search out the older musicians who had stopped playing because there was no longer a market for them. I wanted to convince them to play again and to convince younger people to participate so that the tradition would be transmitted to new generations. I had a difficult time because I couldn’t find any support for my idea. Everybody thought it was irrelevant. Nobody was interested to help me. In 1984, I wrote an article in a local Port Said magazine explaining my idea about reviving this tradition and asked for people who were interested and could help to contact me. But there was no positive response to this call; I was all alone. Finally, in 1988, I met a simsimia player and convinced him of my idea. I spent a lot of time with him. This meeting eventually opened the door to other artists and we gathered a group of like-minded artists together. We would meet every day and we began to attract younger people.
During all this time I was working as a government employee. I married my wife, a teacher, and we lived in my family house. I was funding my research- transportation, tea and coffee for the musicians- out of my own pocket. In 1989, I benefitted from a provincial government policy that gave housing to all who were living with their nuclear families. As soon as I got the house, I sold it.
Port Said had become a Free Zone and many people became traders and entrepreneurs. I was no exception. With the money from the flat, I opened a small workshop in a popular neighborhood, repairing shoes, school bags and making keys. I then was able to found El Tanboura with my income. People ask why El Tanbura does not have coordinated costumes like other troups (the prime example, of course is the National Dance Troupe, Reda). In fact, we made a conscious decision to present ourselves in our own clothes, rather than putting on costumes. El Tanbura presents itself as a group of fishermen, plumbers, ordinary people who are also artists.
Looking back, I realize that we were being educated to a specific purpose. Gamal Abd al Nasser promoted education and encouraged people to think of the process of education as a building project that can distance you from the street to become part of the class in power. For many people, this resulted in an increased class consciousness. People learned to privilege the educated and literate over the uneducated and illiterate. I was lucky to escape this because I was raised in the street and mixed with workers and uneducated people and never felt superior. On the contrary, I always felt a comfortable part of all of them, so when I started working with illiterate musicians, I saw them as fellow human beings, master artists. I think this has come to be a problem with much social work, even folklore: people are parachuted in from another place and are there to solve what they see as other peoples’ problems, rather than “our” problems as Egyptian citizens.
By 1994, we had collected more than 20 hours of traditional music and songs, both written and recorded. With the grant from the Ford Foundation in 1994, we began to come to Cairo and perform for Cairo audiences. I was invited to visit the newly-established TRAMA (Traditional Research and Music Archive) at the Institute of Asian and African Studies in Khartoum, Sudan where I participated in an intensive course in managing an archive and made wonderful contacts. Within two years, we had audiences in Cairo and, in 1996, our first foreign tour to France. Three of the bands, El Tanbura, Rango and Bedouin Jerry Can, now tour regularly at global festivals. Our success and our Ford grant attracted some very fierce detractors in the Canal Zone and a media campaign that, among other points, accused me of spying for the Israelis. We weathered this with our own writings and strong local support. I continue to sing with El Tanbura, as well as composing songs for this band and for the Sinai troupe,Bedouin Jerry Can. These songs celebrate the work of the old masters and the art in general. A future project, dear to my heart, is to write the history of the Canal Zone music as a way to bring my research to yet another audience.
In the course of my research, I became aware of the crisis of traditional music as I travelled to other cities in the Canal Zone. I brought older musicians and young people into a network, mentoring their artistic development so they could be presented to wider audiences and finding them opportunities for performance. The network has taken on a life of its own, attracting new groups to its mission. One of the things I am most proud of is that this conscious strategy of networking and promotion has significantly enhanced the status of its illiterate and economically marginal members. When they first began rehearsing, it was difficult to find rehearsal spaces: the musicians were denied access to official spaces on the grounds that their “low class” dress and manners would bring down the tone of the institution. The attention of international donors and presenters and of the local and international media, not to mention a large and enthusiastic audience nationwide, has changed that to the point that when one of the instrumentalists introduced himself to the family of his prospective bride, he felt that, for the first time, he could proudly acknowledge his profession as “musician”, rather than hide behind the secondary profession of “plumber”.
Another achievement that warms my heart is my success in bringing the music of the Zar and the rango into the light. I loved the Zar. I saw te Sudanese Zar in Port Said in the course of researching their instrument, the tanbura (a much larger version of the lyre). This instrument was used in Zar rituals, but few people knew of it. The Zar ritual has been misperceived as a form of exorcism with suspiciously anti-Islamic practices. However, the aim of Zar is to heal and harmonise the inner lives of the participants. Because of its associations with spirits and a general disapproving attitude, the Zar existed in hidden and closed contexts. I became increasingly aware of my responsibility to protect and help this tradition. In the course of my reading, I dicovered that the Zar had yet another unique instrument, the rango, which the author, Adel El Alemi said was clearly extinct since 1975, as were any of its players. Unlike the tanbura, this instrument had also been used in Sudanese weddings. In 1996, I was fortunate to find the last rango player in Ismailia and Cairo and we founded a troupe with the result that, once again, the rango and its music is a part of Sudanese weddings and celebrations and we have brought new audiences to this tradition.
I was born in Port Said 1952. My father was born in Upper Egypt and mother was born in Port Said of Upper Egyptian parents. The Saidi (Upper Egyptian) values ruled in our household- helpfulness and honesty. We were also a Muslim household and I learned early that Islamic values, like those of other religions, must be internalized and not just worn on the outside for show.
I grew up in a popular neighborhood (Hayy el Arab) which bordered on where the foreigners lived (Hayy el Aganib). From my earliest memories, I was aware of the different cultures and I received my education equally from the school and the street
There was always music on the street. At a very young age, too young to participate, I would hang around the street parties and would get caught up in the people’s enthusiasm and interest. I loved to sing and later on, would sing the songs of Abd el Halim Hafez (beloved classical Egyptian singer) in school events or with my friends when we gathered together.
I was four years old in 1956 when the War of Attritution started. I saw the street on fire, homes destroyed. Refugees would gather in our home and it was here and later on in exile, that the simsimeya (the lyre instrument common in weddings and other celebrations in the Canal Zone) became so important, became more than music. The simsimeya became the voice of the people, bringing them together, breaking sense of isolation with common songs and shared experiences. I experienced, firsthand, how the simsimeya was like a glue, bringing people together from different parts of the Canal region, and how it was critical to preserving values and cultural identity in common.
Simbilawen, a little town in the Delta. After the 1967 war, all the people from the Canal Zone were exiled to other parts of Egypt. Ismalia and Suez residents left in ‘67, but Port Saidis left in ’69. I was 17 years old and half way through high school when I went with my family to Simbalawen. We didn’t know anyone there, but only went there because some of our relatives chose to move there. My experience with exile, leaving all my friends and my familiar places and my girlfriend, was difficult. My schoolwork suffered in exile. Whereas before, I had been a top student, in Simbalawen I surrendered to frustration, depression and a sense of hopelessness. I was still in exile and in high school when my father died. I was 18 years old.
The one bright spot for me and for many exiles was the music. Some exiles from different towns in the Canal Zone put together a simsiyya troupe in Simbalawen. This troupe brought the people together and, at the same time, presented performances to the local people. It was a bridge, both between the exiles and between the exiles and the residents of Simbilawen. I joined the troupe as a singer and also danced the traditional dance of Port Said, the Bamboutia (the men who sell wares to people on the big ships in the Canal). The simsimeya was healing for all of us. With the music we could hope for return, for love, for justice. This experience was not just mine, but that of all exiles: the music kept us together as a culture and community. Simsimeya was our common soul and spirit.
I continued in this troupe until 1971 when I went to Cairo take up my studies at the Higher Institute of Agricultural Cooperation which shared a campus with Ein Shams University. My poor academic record dictated that I enter the field of agriculture because it accepted students with mediocre marks. In Cairo, I became a student activist. In Simbilawen, I had become acquainted with a group of intellectuals and started to look beyond my personal situation and become aware of issues of class, nationalism and justice. It was in Cairo that I become drawn to activism. I became active in student movements and founded a Journalists Group within the Institute to write for wall posters (newspapers). I started reading and writing like crazy. We wrote about the issues of freedom and calling for the return of Sinai which was occupied at that time by the Israelis. At the same time, I founded a group within the Faculty of
Agriculture at Ein Shams University. In Cairo, my participation in music and dance was limited to my presence at weddings and parties, i.e., on an informal basis.
I delayed leaving my studies so I could continue my activism work. In 1974, I was sentenced to 100 days in prison in Zaqaziq because of my activist activities. In the summer of 1979, I joined the army and finished in 1980. Most of the exiles had returned, starting from 1974. When I returned to Port Said, the first thing I wanted to see was the state of the simsimia music there. I found that the spirit was gone: the troupes had become very commercial as musicians were looking to make a living and had lost the spirit of the art. I decided to search out the older musicians who had stopped playing because there was no longer a market for them. I wanted to convince them to play again and to convince younger people to participate so that the tradition would be transmitted to new generations. I had a difficult time because I couldn’t find any support for my idea. Everybody thought it was irrelevant. Nobody was interested to help me. In 1984, I wrote an article in a local Port Said magazine explaining my idea about reviving this tradition and asked for people who were interested and could help to contact me. But there was no positive response to this call; I was all alone. Finally, in 1988, I met a simsimia player and convinced him of my idea. I spent a lot of time with him. This meeting eventually opened the door to other artists and we gathered a group of like-minded artists together. We would meet every day and we began to attract younger people.
During all this time I was working as a government employee. I married my wife, a teacher, and we lived in my family house. I was funding my research- transportation, tea and coffee for the musicians- out of my own pocket. In 1989, I benefitted from a provincial government policy that gave housing to all who were living with their nuclear families. As soon as I got the house, I sold it.
Port Said had become a Free Zone and many people became traders and entrepreneurs. I was no exception. With the money from the flat, I opened a small workshop in a popular neighborhood, repairing shoes, school bags and making keys. I then was able to found El Tanboura with my income. People ask why El Tanbura does not have coordinated costumes like other troups (the prime example, of course is the National Dance Troupe, Reda). In fact, we made a conscious decision to present ourselves in our own clothes, rather than putting on costumes. El Tanbura presents itself as a group of fishermen, plumbers, ordinary people who are also artists.
Looking back, I realize that we were being educated to a specific purpose. Gamal Abd al Nasser promoted education and encouraged people to think of the process of education as a building project that can distance you from the street to become part of the class in power. For many people, this resulted in an increased class consciousness. People learned to privilege the educated and literate over the uneducated and illiterate. I was lucky to escape this because I was raised in the street and mixed with workers and uneducated people and never felt superior. On the contrary, I always felt a comfortable part of all of them, so when I started working with illiterate musicians, I saw them as fellow human beings, master artists. I think this has come to be a problem with much social work, even folklore: people are parachuted in from another place and are there to solve what they see as other peoples’ problems, rather than “our” problems as Egyptian citizens.
By 1994, we had collected more than 20 hours of traditional music and songs, both written and recorded. With the grant from the Ford Foundation in 1994, we began to come to Cairo and perform for Cairo audiences. I was invited to visit the newly-established TRAMA (Traditional Research and Music Archive) at the Institute of Asian and African Studies in Khartoum, Sudan where I participated in an intensive course in managing an archive and made wonderful contacts. Within two years, we had audiences in Cairo and, in 1996, our first foreign tour to France. Three of the bands, El Tanbura, Rango and Bedouin Jerry Can, now tour regularly at global festivals. Our success and our Ford grant attracted some very fierce detractors in the Canal Zone and a media campaign that, among other points, accused me of spying for the Israelis. We weathered this with our own writings and strong local support. I continue to sing with El Tanbura, as well as composing songs for this band and for the Sinai troupe,Bedouin Jerry Can. These songs celebrate the work of the old masters and the art in general. A future project, dear to my heart, is to write the history of the Canal Zone music as a way to bring my research to yet another audience.
In the course of my research, I became aware of the crisis of traditional music as I travelled to other cities in the Canal Zone. I brought older musicians and young people into a network, mentoring their artistic development so they could be presented to wider audiences and finding them opportunities for performance. The network has taken on a life of its own, attracting new groups to its mission. One of the things I am most proud of is that this conscious strategy of networking and promotion has significantly enhanced the status of its illiterate and economically marginal members. When they first began rehearsing, it was difficult to find rehearsal spaces: the musicians were denied access to official spaces on the grounds that their “low class” dress and manners would bring down the tone of the institution. The attention of international donors and presenters and of the local and international media, not to mention a large and enthusiastic audience nationwide, has changed that to the point that when one of the instrumentalists introduced himself to the family of his prospective bride, he felt that, for the first time, he could proudly acknowledge his profession as “musician”, rather than hide behind the secondary profession of “plumber”.
Another achievement that warms my heart is my success in bringing the music of the Zar and the rango into the light. I loved the Zar. I saw te Sudanese Zar in Port Said in the course of researching their instrument, the tanbura (a much larger version of the lyre). This instrument was used in Zar rituals, but few people knew of it. The Zar ritual has been misperceived as a form of exorcism with suspiciously anti-Islamic practices. However, the aim of Zar is to heal and harmonise the inner lives of the participants. Because of its associations with spirits and a general disapproving attitude, the Zar existed in hidden and closed contexts. I became increasingly aware of my responsibility to protect and help this tradition. In the course of my reading, I dicovered that the Zar had yet another unique instrument, the rango, which the author, Adel El Alemi said was clearly extinct since 1975, as were any of its players. Unlike the tanbura, this instrument had also been used in Sudanese weddings. In 1996, I was fortunate to find the last rango player in Ismailia and Cairo and we founded a troupe with the result that, once again, the rango and its music is a part of Sudanese weddings and celebrations and we have brought new audiences to this tradition.
