All humans are born with a set of rights known to us all, unless you’re a girl born in Egypt. Then, the default scenario is that you’re born with the right to remain silent and you endure a life of being juggled between societal restraints under the command of your father and then your husband afterwards. That is of course unless you’re born to a broad minded family who respect your individuality and personality. Let’s say the latter isn’t quite often the case.
As Egyptian society continues to unrightfully enforce its shackles on girls, the story evolves to make way for either of two kinds of girls. There are those whose characters weaken and succumb, and there are those who revolt against everything that doesn’t make sense, a list which usually runs long.
I have seen girls who revolt by educating themselves on their own, others who drown themselves in parties, alcohol and drugs, and of course those who sing like Luka.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw this song actively circulating the social media entitles Hashrab Hashish or ‘I’ll Smoke Weed’. My first guess was it’s another trashy song with vulgar wording and bad music that’s unnecessarily and excessively auto-tuned (known in Egypt as m ahraganat ). So my first gut reaction was to avoid it. Until a couple of days ago when I decided to check what it was about. Turns out it’s my new obsession.
Listen to Luka's Hashrab Hashish :
Luka describes how the society boils a girl down to how she’s supposed to look and act. She continues to mention more specific societal absurdities such as those who see that almost everything a girl does will be sinful, and my all-time favorite, the obsession with the destined cause of a girl to get married.
She sings:
“My grandmother told me girls wear dresses,
My mother told me girls don’t play in the mud,
And my aunt who wears a khemar (a kind of Islamic head scarf) told me to sing all I want, but I’ll go to hell,
But my father said nothing,
So I’ll do what’s right and smoke weed.”