Page 34 - Issue 72
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V O L .1 E L I T E ISSUE 72
dancing can be considered a threat to Does this mean that a woman's body is
“family values,” while violence and the only sensitive issue that can be
vulgarity are allowed to be shown on a considered a threat to the structure of
large scale on major channels. society? At this point, the question
becomes more complex: why do society
and the state insist on persecuting this
particular class, the class of culprits, so to
speak? Why do we treat them as if they
were an imminent danger that must be
contained? Why do we always try to
isolate them instead of understanding
what drives them to produce this content
in the first place? And why does society
The duality here is an expression of the seem more concerned with their class
social balance of power. Egyptian family affiliation than with the act they
values are used as a pretext to discipline committed? Is the issue ultimately about
a class that has nothing but its body and values, or about reinforcing a certain
voice to express itself. At the same time, image of society, a homogeneous, silent
media and entertainment companies are society, free from the disturbing voices
able to produce double the vulgarity, but that emerge from the margins?
they are protected by money, advertising Perhaps this is the crux of the matter: it is
and selective censorship. not values or morals that are being judged,
The real question remains: what are but the right of the working classes to
these family values we are talking about? express themselves in the public sphere
Are they kinship, honesty and integrity? with their voices and images. What is
Or are they just a veneer associated with being controlled is not so much behaviour
dress and manner of speech? And why as the social hierarchy itself. That is why
are these values invoked specifically we hate this class, besiege it and insist on
when the accused is a young woman portraying it as a constant threat, because
from a poor background? it reveals what we do not want to admit
about the nature of society.
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