Page 231 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

images, while Noritake China, together with a Saudi shopping center, sponsor
Nelli’s elaborately choreographed and expensive paper riddles. Both tie con-
sumers to local identity, although it is not as immediately obvious in “World of
Paper” as it is in “Beans Are My Friend.” Nelli’s tie to local custom lay, however,
in her status as a media tradition. She herself did this program many times, and
always her performance was associated with breaking the fast during Ramadan.
The repetitiveness of the ritual makes it part of Egyptian Ramadan. Even now
that the Fawazir Ramadan program is no longer produced, the older genera-
tion (really two older generations) mention it frequently as part of their fond
memories of Ramadan. The much more fragmented satellite-driven television
of the present still broadcasts Fawazir “Greatest Hits” during Ramadan. For
the older generation, Fawazir Ramadan is now con®ated with local customs:
fawanis (Ramadan lanterns that children play with); kunafa (a sweet pastry)
and various other foods associated with the way Egyptians observe Ramadan;
certain songs and poems; the misahharati going around the neighborhood wak-
ing everyone for their ¤nal predawn meal; the cannon going off to signal the
end of the fast; and now Fawazir Ramadan. The program functions (or, as
time goes by, functioned) much like Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole
Christmas, or Miracle on 34th Street function at Christmastime on U.S. television.
Of course, as with Christmas, it is entirely possible that the commercial side
of the package goes entirely unnoticed by the audience, particularly a young
audience more fascinated by the dances than by the prizes or riddles. This in-
visibility of economic and ideological interest by no means negates the impor-
tance of bundling commercial and state ideologies with entertainment. Indeed,
such invisible suturing of disparate interests is the mark of effective hegemony.
One challenge that the Fawazir Ramadan presents for us is to resist dismissing
the program as “inauthentic.” Stephen Nissenbaum notes that the idea of “in-
vented tradition” is inescapable in the context of highly commercialized holi-
days. But he warns against the tendency to let obvious inauthenticity be the end
point of an analysis:

The easiest and most tempting way to abuse the idea of invented traditions may
be to believe that if a tradition is “invented,” it is somehow tainted, not really
authentic. There are several reasons why such a belief is false. But the most impor-
tant of them is that it is based on a profoundly questionable assumption—that be-
fore there were “invented” traditions, there were “real” ones that were not invented.
(Nissenbaum 1996, 315)
A crucial part of this phenomenon is that the materialism of the newly invented
rituals helps focus a discourse of disapproval. There are a variety of manifesta-
tions of such disapproval. In 1986 one man I knew adamantly refused to watch
the Fawazir, calling them al-fawazir al-burgwaziyya (the bourgeois riddles). Ba-
sically the suture of materialism, corporate, and state interests to religious ritual
was plainly visible to him. His indignation at the bourgeoisi¤cation of ritual
resembles demands in U.S. society for a counter-traditionalism to the accretions
of pagan and Victorian celebrations that became Anglo-American Christmas. 28

220 Walter Armbrust