THE song Telk Qadeya (“This is an issue”) by the Egyptian rock group Cairokee (an pun on karaoke) has been a big hit ever since the single was released on November 30 2023. By denouncing the selective indignation of a Western rhetoric — which claims to laud all progressive struggles but disregards the ongoing genocide in Gaza — that title expresses the anger widely shared throughout the Arab world.
     
This is the story of a walz in three-quarter time which is fast becoming the rallying song of Arab youth. Telk Qadeya is the Egyptian rock group Cairokee’s latest single, “with a twist” as they put it. It was released nearly two months after the start of the genocidal war on Gaza. It was announced on the group’s official accounts very soberly, with no grandiloquent proclamations. But the song has had over three million views on YouTube alone and has been available since the end of November on the Lebanese channel Al-Maya deem, illustrated with videos of the Gaza bombings. 

While the words “Gaza” or “Palestine” do not appear in the lyrics, everyone knows perfectly well what they are about, and at what world order – epitomised by the plight of the occupied territories – this song points an accusing finger.

Widely shared ever since it premiered, the title can be found on the social network accounts of Gazan Palestinians, adopted thus by the very people for whom it is intended to speak out. And the group was invited to perform at the closing ceremony of the Egyptian film festival at El-Guna on December 21 2023 where, unlike the Red Sea Film Festival in Jedda which ended just a few days earlier, events in Palestine were constantly foregrounded.

With Telk Qadeya, Cairokee is returning to its original practice of political songs. The group was formed in Cairo in 2003 and had its first big hit in 2011 with a song which would act as the soundtrack for the revolution of January 25 2011, Sout Al-Horeya (“The Voice of Freedom”). The clip featured actor-singer Hany Adel, then a member of the group Wust El Balad. It was shot on Tahir Sqaure, the day after the departure of Hosni Mubarak.

Since then, Cairokee has had many hits as well as its lot of problems with the censors, in particular for the 2017 album No’ta Beeda (“Point Blank”), which is not available in Egypt. For unlike other groups, Cairokee will not compromise with President Abdel Fatah Al-Sissi’s regime. And so today the marketing of “Telk Qadeya,” with lyrics by Mostafa Ibrahim, the melancholic poet of the Egyptian revolution, represents a return to the group’s original commitments.

As the song unfolds, it draws an unflattering picture of the political situation in Israel-Palestine, showing the depth of the gulf that has been dug since October 7:

“How to become a white angel?/ Bear half a conscience/ Fight for freedom movements/ Annihilate liberation movements/ Bestow your compassion and tenderness/ On the killed according to nationality/ But this is one issue, and that’s another”

The lyrics do not merely point up the selective indignation and double standard practised in the Western world which dehumanises the Palestinians “as if the earth in which they’re buried/Is not of this earth.” They also point out the deep-rooted logic of that part of the world that overwhelms societal struggles of gender, colour and environment. That logic sees moral progress as the exclusive property of the West, while at the same time remaining indifferent to the fate of human beings who do not belong to its cultural sphere.

“This is one issue and that’s another” the song insists in the face of those who ‘save sea turtles while killing human animals,” and also who “sugar-coat titles and names/While an army demolishes a nearby school.”

The lyrics of this judgement are served by the deep, calm voice of Amir Eid, the leader of the group. During the first part of the number, he addresses the neocolonial Other. But as the music swells, an oriental rhythm mingles with the walz, and violins make their entrance as the singer’s voice climbs into a higher register. He no longer addresses those who “place killers on a par with their victims/ With honesty and fairness/And in all neutrality” — a sarcastic allusion to the media rhetoric which dons the cloak of objectivity to justify the ongoing massacre. He is talking now to those who “rise from the rubble” and he tells them:

“Gather your remains and fight/ And show the deceitful world/ How the law of the jungle is forced/ On those who would travel the road to freedom/ How to take on a tank barehanded”

By referring explicitly to armed struggle, the song challenges the legal norms established by the West and which it is the first to violate. It legitimises the refusal to depend upon those who hold forth with an empty rhetoric which has only anaemic condemnations to offer to stop the carnage.

It is out of the question here to call for surrender. Just expect nothing more from the opposite camp: “It doesn’t matter if the world speaks out Die free … don’t live in subjugation.”

Two paradigms are pitted one against the other: “This is one issue/And that is an honourable struggle” the singer’s voice concludes before fading away in an electric guitar solo tinted with the harmonies of the blues.

At the same time that Telk Qaaeya was released, Cairokee published an English translation of the lyrics. The picture on the single’s cover showed a bust of the Statue of Liberty with two heads, denoting the doublespeak of the West, in the centre of a blood-red tableau. The message couldn’t be clearer for anyone prepared to listen, as millions evidently are.

THIS IS AN ISSUE

They save sea turtles
They kill human animals
But this is one issue, and that’s another

How to become a white angel?
Bear half a conscience
Fight for freedom movements
Eradicate liberation movements
Bestow your compassion and tenderness
On the killed according to nationality
But this is one issue, and that’s another

How to become civilised
Abiding by all terms and conditions
Make all your words righteous
Take trees in your arms
Sugar-coat titles and names
While an army demolishes a nearby school
And when caught red-handed, with blood
Say everyone’s a victim
But this is one issue, and that’s another

How can I believe this world?
When it talks about humanity?
Seeing a mother lamenting her child
Who died in a raid, hungry
Placing the killers on a par with their victims
With all honesty and fairness
But this is one issue, and that’s another

How can I sleep peacefully?
Plugging my ears
While a family is buried under the rubble of its home
Forsaken, denied rescue
As if the earth in which they’re buried
Is not of this earth
But this is one issue, and that’s another

How to live in an open-air prison
With bars of fire and ashes
Rise from the rubble
Grab your killer by the neck
Gather your remains and fight
And show the deceitful world

How the law of the jungle is forced
On those who would travel the road to freedom
How to take on a tank barehanded

It doesn’t matter if the world speaks out
Die free … don’t live in subjugation 
Inspire generation after generation
How to live and die for a cause

What world are we calling for
To denounce and condemn?
Condemn all you want
For any condemnation of crimes in the slaughterhouse
Won’t soften the powder’s charge
And won’t bring back daylight
But this is one issue
And that’s an honourable struggle

Cairokee play the Barbican on May 4
Translated from French by Noël Burch, this article was first published in Orient XXI orientxxi.info/en