Swine Flu: The song

It's been a while since I last blogged here as I've been pre-occupied with organising my six-month working trip to Israel - I'm currently working as a news reporter for The Jerusalem Post (and have been for the last three months).

I came across a quirky story with an international flavour, as yet unprecedented on this blog... It seems that some countries outside of the UK occasionally display a bizarre sense of humour...

While Swine Flu causes global panic, an Egyptian singer has decided to voice his fears through song and is calling for pigs to be slaughtered.

“We have yet another disaster, the situation is dangerous. That’s all we needed – Swine Flu”, goes Sha’ban Abd Al-Rahim’s strange, yet catchy song, which debuted on Egyptian TV last week. The singer continues: “If you come across a pig or a sow, you need to quickly get the hell out of there… In every port and airport, we need to write in large letters: ‘You’re not allowed to enter Egypt if you have a pig with you’.”

Abd Al-Rahim, clad in a striking gold blazer during his TV performance, is also concerned that the disease might spread to household pets: “Pigs, birds, and who knows what else – people are getting depressed. May Allah protect us from cats and dogs too… I tell you loud and clear we don’t want to be quiet. It’s a shame people are dying because of pigs and chickens.”

If the eccentric singer hadn’t made his position on the issue clear enough, he concludes: “So what if some pigs die? It’s better than wearing masks over our mouths and noses… We closed down many farms and killed many birds. Now we want the go-ahead to kill all the pigs… If we let the pigs live, we will sacrifice many people. It’s better for people to be healthy, to hell with the pigs… I hope they kill them so people can feel safe”.

Abd Al-Rahim is famed for his topical music and first made headlines with his 9/11 song “Road Map”, which included the line: “Hey people, it was only a tower and I swear by God that they [the U.S.] are the ones who pulled it down.”

In the interview that followed the singer’s performance, Abd Al-Rahim hesitated to shake the interviewer’s hand and subsequently revealed that the epidemic has caused him to evaluate his behavior. “Kissing is out of the question”, he instructed. “When I meet a woman I know, we blow kisses from a distance”. Despite his tough stance on pigs, Abd Al-Rahim is in fact fond of animals and emphasised his particular affection for dogs. He owns two, an English dog and a Black Jack. However, animal lovers may be alarmed to learn that in spite of his partiality for his pets, the singer wouldn’t hesitate to cut their lives short if the flu infected the dogs: “I would [kill them], if it was harmful to people… and besides, there’s talk about compensation. If they pay me for the dogs – no problem, they can kill them for all I care.”