The former member of parliament for the Muslim Brotherhood, Mukhtar Nouh was planning on releasing his first CD with political songs, when reaching a dead end, in form of the entertainment cencorship committee.
The committee, refused to comment on why they decided not to give Nouh´s CD the license and the go ahead, but judging from this following quote, the critical lyrics is behind the decision.
“One song in the album talks about a ruler who tours his country every year. In one province, one of the citizens stops the ruler to ask why food, medicines and jobs have become so scarce,” recounts the bearded Nouh.
“The next year, another citizen asks the ruler the same question, but adds where has the first citizen gone!”
As Fustat points Nour is a middle-generation Brother. A lawyer and former treasurer at the Bar Association, he was arrested in 1999 and put on military trial at Huckstep army base over a long period before being sentenced in 2001. In the early 1990s, Nouh was instrumental — some say the key strategist — in the Brotherhood’s push in syndicate elections. He was released, I believe, in 2002.
If anyone has Muslim Brotherhood political songs, or any other interesting political songs, do let me know. I’d love to create an archive of Egyptian political songs (I have a pretty big Sheikh Imam collection, but would like Islamist stuff too.)
Nour has not been a member of the MB since being released in either 02/03. When I was conducting thesis research in 04, he seemed offended when I asked him about being a member of the MB. He told me, at that time, he was definitely not in the MB. I am also not sure he was ever a former MP unless it was in the ’84 or ’87 class of MB MPs.
You are right though – he was a big organizer in the syndicates in the 1990s.
He is also still active in the Lawyers’ synidicate. He is also a pretty good interview if people are interested.
Now these are essentially a clarification of the facts. As the saying goes…..”once a member of the MB, always a member of the MB”
Thanks for the info. Do you know why exactly he was offended at the idea of affiliation with the MB, or under what circumstances he might have left?
Good questions….I would have to look at my notes. I think after been convicted and sent to jail, he perhaps thought being in the MB puts a big target on your chest if you want to play politics, which he likes to do (as is evident in his syndicate activites).
He was arrested – along with loads of other MBs – in 2000 before the parliamentary elections, where it was understood he would run for parliament in Nasr City/Masr Gadida.
The Cairo Times had pretty good coverage of his trial if anyone is interested in those details.
Where do you think I filled in the info from… the CT had pretty decent coverage of the Huckstep trial and of the Nouh loyalist faction in the 2000 Lawyer’s Syndicate election by Mona al Ghobashy…
Issandr and Joshua,
Thanks for one of best blogs around about the Arab world, altough i miss Joshuas blogging these days! Hope your dissertation is progressing smoothly, dying to see the end result!
Nice to see that my little posting triggered some very interesting comments.
Altough the article i´m using dosen´t say if Nouh is a former MP or not some other sources do, the source that i used was a paper from Diaá Rashwan, that i found on the www. ikhwanweb.com website.
http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?zPage=Systems&System=PressR&Press=Show&Lang=E&ID=4181
This is the passage that i´m referring to:
¨At the same time, another renovation initiative was made by middle-age key figure Mukhtar Noah, former Bar Association treasurer and former Ikhwan MP. He made his initiative following a prison 3-year sentence.¨
first i´m quite sure that Rashwan is right, secondly, Ikhwanonline would not put it on their website, if they didn´t feel it reflected their views. Thirdly i was convinced that it was correct(I´m still). I´m quite sure i´ve seen him referred to in the past as former MP.
Just as Joshua is suggesting,one source that claims that Nouh was an MP from 1987-90 is al Ahram Weekly(about his trial). Considering that 35 MP´s came from the MB in 1987, him being one of them, is only surprising when you think about his age at the time.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/509/eg62.htm
He was also running in 95 in Mataria/Ain Shams, against Muhamed Farouq of the NDP, but the MB revoked their participation.. As for him, not wanting to be called a member of the MB anymore, i never claimed that, but tried to explain one of the reasons why he choose to take a time out from the organisation.
Keep up your fantastic jobb!
Gamal ‘Eshry had some interesting songs that he used in his parliamentary campaign last year and when I asked for a tape he said “you can find the song on my website” – I never did look it up but if the site is still up…
Nouh is indeed a former MP and was very active in Parliament in the Ikhwan contingent of the late 80s. When I talked to him last year he was vehemently dissing the MB for being too unadventurous, only following orders, not daring to oppose Mubarak openly, sidelining politically creative people, internal dictatorship, not being politically pragmatic and trying to dominate allies instead of cooperating strategically with them. Those in the know suggest he was quite affected by his time in prison.