When you type “Helwa Ya Baladi” on YouTube, one of the first and most popular uploads that come up are usually those that feature the photo slideshows of Egypt set to the song by the legendary Dalida. Written by Marawan Saada in the late 70s, the song became extraordinarily popular among Egyptians, and also later spread among others in the Arab world and Europe. What made the song such a hit, however, isn’t its nationalistic element. There are currently countless of songs released possibly every year to ignite nationalistic pride among Egyptians, particularly since “Tislam al-Ayady” (God Bless Your Hands) that was released in 2013, and now recently “Ragel Ibn Ragel” by Nancy Agram that explicitly features Egyptian President Sisi in the music video. If you spend just one day watching Egyptian TV, you are most definitely going to be hit with more than a couple of dramatic clips of a nationalistic song played alongside images and videos of Egypt. It has become too repetitive in the recent years that one cannot help but question whether the state is going through a political panic, or gripped by an unexplained hysteria that…
