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Southern Egypt is home to the Nubian people. Ancient Nubia spanned the modern-day boundary between Egypt and Sudan. Today, Nubians in Egypt are struggling to preserve their culture in the shadow of the great Aswan Dam. The World's Marco Werman introduces us to a Nubian musician who's dedicated his life to that effort.
WERMAN: The culture and history of Nubia could have ended about twenty years ago. In the 1960s when the Egyptian government began its ambitious project of damming the Nile near Aswan and creating Lake Nasser, they forced Nubians out of their homes. And southern Egypt had been home to the Nubians since, well, just about forever. Many anthropologists believe the Nubians were the first people on earth.
Nubian percusionnist Mahmoud Fadl was a boy of eight when the Egyptian government evacuated him and his family from their village. They found themselves on the edge of the Nile with all their belongings. They were taken to the city of Aswan, waited for a week for a bus, and were then resettled in a pre-fab village. Many Nubians moved north to Cairo.
The Aswan Dam insured Egypt electricity and irrigation. But it changed life for Mahmoud Fadl, his family and nearly 50,000 Nubians.
FADL: It's only the people who lost something is the Nubian, because they lost old houses, the old culture, even we have the rituals, most of our rituals was with the Nile itself, because our houses was in the front of the Nile.
WERMAN: As a child, Mahmoud Fadl was attracted to those rituals. His mother was a singer and a drummer, and when she performed, Mahmoud danced in the ceremonies. He believes that his first gig as a dancer enhanced his present life as a drummer.
FADL: Because you have the rhythmics. If you have the rhythmics you can move your body and the rhythmics, and this is important. Or if you move your body and the rhythmics, then you know how to drum.
This is for me something like I want for my culture continue. We got to teach the new generation our culture don't have to die. Even if my kids, if they hear maybe one day after 20 years they're going to hear, ah, that was Nubian rhythms, it's also good for them to help them to be proud about their culture of where we come from.
WERMAN: These days Mahmoud Fadl splits his time between Cairo and Berlin. German social scientists have long had an interest in Nubia. In fact, most of what Mahmoud Fadl knows about Nubian culture he learned in the west. After all, once the construction of the Aswan dam began, he surely wasn't going to find out about Nubian culture in Egypt. Fadl says the government saw to that.
FADL: Still now if you go to Nubian museum in Aswan, you never see about evacuation of Nubian, or something like that, this is somebody who try to change history. So I had no possibility and Nubians had no possibility to learn about Nubian.
WERMAN: Mahmoud Fadl's newest project is called the United Nubians. It began at the now infamous Berlin techno music gathering, the Love Parade.
FADL: Now we are percussion players, saxophone, singing and DJ. And this also for the new generation who don't know about Nubian, and we don't want to also make it complicated what is Nubian, or something like that, because most of those people, they like techno, but not ethno.
WERMAN: Mahmoud Fadl and the United Nubians provide one-stop-shopping for techno heads and for fans of ethno-music. Along the way, he hopes people remember who the Nubians are.
For The World, I'm Marco Werman. 12/09/03 >> go there
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