Anthem of the Egyptian January 2011 revolution

This post has been included on my new blog: http://welovearabic.wordpress.com
This song by Amir Eid, Hany Adel and guitarist Hawary has become one of the leading anthems of the Egyptian January 2011 revolution. Click on the CC button to see the English subtitles.




The lyrics in Arabic:

نزلت وقلت أنا مش راجع
وكتبت بدمي في كل شارع
سمعنا اللي مكنش سامع
واتكسّرت كل الموانع
سلاحنا كان أحلامنا
وبكرة واضح قدامنا
من زمان بنستنى
بندور مش لاقيين مكاننا

في كل شارع في بلادي
صوت الحرية بينادي

رفعنا راسنا في السما
والجوع منبقاش بيهمنا
أهم حاجة حقنا
ونكتب تاريخنا بدمنا
لو كنت واحد مننا
بلاش ترغي وتقول لنا
نمشي ونسيب حلمنا
وبطل تقول كلمة أنا

في كل شارع في بلادي
صوت الحرية بينادي

(:قصيده الميدان للشاعر عبد الرحمن الابنودى)

أيادى مصرية سمرا ليها فى التمييز

ممدودة وسط الزئير بتكسر البراويز

سطوع لصوت الجموع شوف مصر تحت الشمس

آن الآوان ترحلى يا دولة العواجيز

عواجيز شداد مسعورين أكلوا بلدنا أكل

ويشبهوا بعضهم نهم وخسة وشكل

طلع الشباب البديع قلبوا خريفها ربيع

وحققوا المعجزة صحوا القتيل من القتل

اقتلنى قتلى ما هيعيد دولتك تانى

بكتب بدمى حياة تانية لأوطانى

دمى ده ولا الربيع الاتنين بلون أخضر

وببتسم من سعادتى ولا أحزانى

The poem (qaseedah) quoted in the song is قصيده الميدانby the Egyptian poet عبد الرحمن الابنودى Abd al-Rahman al-Abnody. Here is a recording of the poet reciting the poem live on Egyptian TV by phone:



This version of the same recording has the Arabic text printed in the video:



I found the text to the poem quoted in the song on this site, where you can read the entire poem in full.

If you'd like to see more videos relating to the 25 January revolution, here's a playlist of 25Jan YouTube videos.

Poetry of the revolution

The protests in Egypt have been alive with poetic chants, often using rhyming couplets, Egyptian slang and clever puns. Here are translations of some of the commonly chanted slogans and an analysis of some of the poetry of the revolution.

This video (located on Vimeo) of protests in Tahrir Square was posted on Facebook:

Untitled from Marwa on Vimeo.

Suheir Hammad

Arabic Poetry online 2

Here are some other websites where you can find Arabic poetry, though I don't think these have recordings.

* www.adab.com
This is a huge and well-structured resource, covering poets of every age - classical, Islamic and modern. The site uses Google search internally, so it is very easy to search for a poet or line of text within the site. There are also English translations for many of the poems on the parallel English version of the site, but I found that the English and the Arabic versions were not very well linked up so it was not easy to move between the original and the translation.

* www.arabicpoems.com
This looks like a good, thorough, and well-designed site, but I've not had a chance to explore it much yet.

* al-Adeeb.com
It seems like more work has gone into the design of the site than into the content. It groups a range of texts, not only poetry, into useful categories but it does not seem to cover a very wide range of poets or their work.

*

Arabic Poetry online

I've just found the most amazing poetry website, created by Princeton University, USA.

Click on the names on the left hand menu, and you have an interactive audio player, which highlights the line of the text as it is being read, and has the option of displaying the English translation or hiding it, as you prefer.

The poets included:
Imru'l-Qays - امرؤ القيس

Yazid bin Mu`awiya - يزيد بن معاوية

Rabi`a al-`Adawiyya - رابعة العدوية

Abu Nuwas - ابونواس

al-Mutanabbi - المتنبّي