A Football Chant for Egypt
For our Fall 2021 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, we ran several different football chants from countries across the region.
As editors Nashwa Nasreldin and Leonie Böttiger wrote: “The old adage that football is ‘just a game’ has never been true for its fans, and the saying falls particularly flat in recent years, when football fans have taken an enormous role in political, societal, and humanitarian causes. As Ronnie Close describes in his book Cairo’s Ultras, ‘chants and songs heighten the atmosphere to create formidable soundscapes and explosive visual forces, fused into communal ecstatic experiences with Sufi traces that have surpassed the standard for sporting competitions.'”
You can still get the issue in print and digital.
From ‘Football Chants from Five Countries’
Edited by Nashwa Nasreldin and Leonie Böttiger
EGYPT
selected Mina Ibrahim, translated by Leonie Böttiger
Before we came, football was lies and deceit
It clouded minds and was a mask for the regime
They’ve tried to make it pretty, to keep it for the country:
And forgetting the stands filled with thousands
They would kill the idea, too,
Injustice is everywhere
I will never forget your past
You were a slave to the regime
When the revolution happened, we came out everywhere:
We came out for freedom and for the fall of those symbols of oppression
We won’t shut up, we won’t weaken, not as long as the regime exists:
The doggish police and oppression everywhere
They also kill the revolution
The word free drives them crazy
However much the jailor strikes out
Against my voice, he is a coward
We said it in the stands in front of millions:
Down with the regime that kills generations every day
They arranged a plot against us, the impossible:
They killed our dearest friends, they killed the dreams of many years
In Port Said, the victims saw betrayal before their deaths
They saw a regime that offered a choice between its reign and a country in chaos
The regime’s idea was to one day rule alone
And for the revolutionaries to kneel to the military, as in the old days
Unleash more of your dogs
And chaos everywhere
I’ll never give you my trust
And you’ll never rule over me
In Port Said once the military opened the doors, the dogs
charged in, chaos spread, and they killed our dearest youth
Among them were engineers and workers and children
They died and their wish was for your rule to be cancelled
Oh Supreme Council, you bastards
For how much did you sell the martyrs’ blood?
So you could protect the regime
That you, too, are part of
الكورة لما جينا كانت كدب و كانت خداع:
كانت مغيبة للعقول كانت للسلطة قناع
بيحاولوا يجملوها وتبقى هم للبلاد:
وناسيين المدرج اللى مليينة الآلاف
أقتل فى الفكرة كمان
والظلم فى كل مكان
عمرى ما هنسالك زمان
كنت عبد للنظام
ولما الثورة قامت نزلنا فى كل البلاد:
موتنا على الحرية وسقوط رموز الفساد
مسكتناش مهدناش ما لسا النظام موجود:
داخلية الكلاب والظلم فى كل مكان موجود
أقتل فى الثورة كمان
كلمة حر ليك جنان
مهما يزيد بطش السجان
قدام صوتى يكون جبان
قولناها فى المدرج قدام الملايين:
يسقط نظام بيقتل كل يوم فى جيل وجيل
دبروا لنا المؤامرة دبروا لنا المستحيل:
قتلوا أغلى الصحاب قتلوا حلم السنين
فى بورسعيد ضحايا شافوا الغدر قبل الممات
شافوا نظام خير ما بين حكمه والفوضى فى البلاد
كان فاكر حكمه يوم هيخليه فى أعلى مكان
والشعب الثورى يركع للعسكر زى زمان
أطلق فى كلابك كمان
والفوضى فى كل مكان
عمرى ما هديك الأمان
ولا تحكمنى يوم كمان
فى بورسعيد كلاب لما العسكر فتحوا الباب:
أنطلقوا والفوضى عمت وقتلوا أغلى الشباب
منهم كان المهندس والعامل منهم ولاد:
راحوا وكان مناهم حكمك لاغى فى البلاد
أه يا مجلس يابن الحرام
بعت دم شهيد بكام
لجل ما تحمى فى النظام
اللى انت منه كمان