Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Leave Sabya alone

Now some of the bloggers left all the serious problems in Egypt and are talking about the racist beauty salon and cafe of Sabya

In case of not knowing what is the story of Sabya

well simply it is a cafe and beauty salon for veiled ladies and ladies who wear Naqab only

No Muslim unveiled ladies are allowed and by logic Christian women are not allowed too

Already in this cafe and beauty centre , there will be no music or films played ,only related stuff regarding religion "Islam" and cartoons !!

and since then it became a discrimination to the Christian girls and someone called it unconstitutional and another one wanted the police to shut down the place !! Not mention to punish its owners whom I will speak about later

Look this is too much , people you give to the matter more than its original size

Logically if they do not welcome Muslim unveiled ladies ,they won't welcome Christian ladies and if it is targeted to the veiled ladies and ladies who wear Naqab then for sure it is made to respect their privacy so much according to their religious believes and wants.

NOW let's speak with more logic here

Who are the owners of Sabya ??

Hanan Turk , the famous star who quitted the showbiz altogether after wearing the veil and Maha El-Saghir .

Maha Sagheer is an AUC graduate ,daughter of Egypt no.1 hair dresser Mohammed Sagheer, the wife of Ahmed El-Sakka,the famous cinema star and a close friend to Turk , Maha I think was wearing the veil ,yet the last image I saw it for her in a wedding was without it !!

Hanan before wearing the veil was the from the most famous leading actresses in Egypt beside her showbiz career she owns a children magazine called Nona , I do not think it is that successful despite there are many talented Egyptian cartoonists work in it , of course it is hard to compete with Mickey magazine and Bolbol magazine ,not to mention the high prices of the Children magazines in the first place

Hanan presents the religious part in the deal where as the Sagheer is entering the project by her father expertise in beauty centres in Egypt

Whom are they targeting ??

The veil women and women whom wear Naqab who want a maximum privacy due to their religious believes whom are very conservative that they do not want music or films in the TV or in the background and welcome religious lessons .

in Egypt already this won't be the first beauty salon for veiled ladies ,already most hair dressers now due to the increase veiled ladies and girls they open a section and even complete branches for them where they are served by women only with complete privacy and security that no man would see them , so it is not a new thing except for the following :

  • No music or films
  • No Christian girls allowed

Judging from the name of Sagheer in it I think it made for Class A ,the upper class and upper middle class

I am sorry but it is not the only beauty salon in Egypt ,there are thousands of beauty salons and cafes in Egypt for every lady to go as simple as that , already it is targeting a specific segment with specific need ,a market niche in the marketing language ,they do not want the other segments and they do not intend to insult others

I mean when women only beaches in Marina were opened did any of the men considered it as discrimination !!?? When Sport clubs in Egypt make a special day for women did they consider it as discrimination ??

Already I do not know how they would have a beauty salon with all what is done in it and have religious lessons or Quran in the background in the sound system , I feel that this is a disrespect to religion in the first place !!

Now with my all respect did all the women's problem in Egypt finish so we would speak about Sabya and how it threat the unity of the Egyptian people !!??

How many women now can afford to go to a beauty salon or a hair dresser in the first place in Egypt now not in Cairo or Alexandria ?? Sabya is in Cairo , this is a Cairo rich luxury problem , go to the deep problems of the Ladies whether they are Muslims or Christians in Cairo or outside and mostly outside it

There are many villages now in Egypt with no water , clean water , there are many mothers in Egypt who see their kids die day by day while they can't afford medicine for them and you are speaking about a beauty salon for the fancy ladies

I swear the Christian ladies got other problems to care about more then a single beauty salon in Cairo that does not welcome them

14 comments:

  1. Zeinobia, yea, we Christians are just whining again. Our feelings get hurt a little too easily. Try letting a salon the the US put out an advert that says "No Veiled Muslim Women allowed" and see what happens.

    I'm all for letting business do what they want to do for their target audience. But this is ridiculous discrimination and an example of one of the main core problems in Egypt. I guess for you, Egyptian unity at the price of one faith's integrity is just fine.

    Thanks a lot. A good reason to stay in Jordan. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i guess it all depends on how these salons contribute to the society. do they open a path for those veiled women to go out and participate into the social life even if it is a very small step, or do they just create more restriction on the moslem woman?

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Kinzi,first of all I forgot to mention that it is not include "No Christian-Non veiled Women are allowed" in the official ad which I saw and it is available in several blogs , I will upload it here
    But it is well understood you can get it from the receptionists and the atomsphere
    my dear here we are dealing with a very conservative segment of people who consider Music and films are haram altogether and want to hear religious lesson when they are inside a beauty salon
    discrimination is a big word ,Ironically Hanan Turk said that she made this beauty centre and cafe in order to fight the discrimination against the Veiled and ladies who wearing Naqab in the Egyptian society
    so you see it is a like a game
    You know the real discrimination will be when Mohammed El-Sagheer himself put "No christian women are allowed" on the door of his beauty salons ,
    it will be a discrimination when Costa cafes do the same
    but this is different case ,they are special segment with special needs served with special way

    @Superhero , it is only one Beauty Salon , yes Turk wishes to open more branches but still it is one salon
    about the role of the veiled women , well i do not think that you live in Egypt because if you are you will know the veiled women work and participate in every thing in Egypt

    ReplyDelete
  4. have you ever been there???
    I discovered the whole thing is a big hoax ... Nothing of the stuff written in the email or the add is true.
    it's just a beauty salon and all kinds of women are allowed to enter .. veiled, non-veiled, christians and all kinds of women.
    There is no cafe whatsoever .. there are only two waiting tables ,, (in case the place is full and you have to wait)
    and a shop to sell all kinds of women-interest stuff.

    There are christians girls work there. Just no men are allowed .. only men .. as there are women (specially veiled sometimes) don't like a man to make their hair for them ...

    That is it ,, and that is the whole story ... The real puzzle here is the email .. and who actually wrote it ..

    ReplyDelete
  5. are kidding me ?? after all this fuss ,it turned to be a hoax , what about the telelphones of Sandmonkey and co. !!??
    Either it is stupid prank made to embrass them publicly or they intentionaly made this to make free publicity to them in a stupid way !!

    ReplyDelete
  6. well whether it's a hoax or not...saying that it's just a beauty salon doesn't make it better....it's about the concept..and it may start with one beauty salon...then you'll see restaurants, shops, malls...etc. and it's really dangerous if it's going this way!!!
    even the "wrong ad" (or not) when saying only to veiled, it's discriminating against the unveiled ladies (muslims or not)

    anyway i hope bluestone is right..it make sense somehow!! or maybe it's just a marketing strategy turk is using!!! pretty smart, eh? :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. you are right i dont know much about egypt. thats why my comment was in a question form.

    also, my comment was not actually about all the veiled women in egypt. it was about the hard core moslems who consider music
    and films as haram. please correct me if i am wrong but i really dont think people with this kind of a mindset actually partipicates into social life. and i think such a parlor would be a nice step for them to get out of their restricted circle.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Nights,already the ad is complete wrong this is the first time I hear about veiled beauty salon ,beauty salons are not humans to be velied , here it is ignorance
    about the concept I do not think it will work in Egypt that much
    here we are not talking about women beaches ,which met a huge success in Marina , despite the fact it turned out that owner of these beaches is Christian

    ReplyDelete
  9. You're argument is completely flawed. The point is not that it's for women only - you can't compare the beaches to this salon cause it's not like they said that women of a certain religion weren't allowed to go to these beaches.

    ReplyDelete
  10. when the first women beach was opened most Egyptians believed it was only for veiled ladies ,already the idea came to the owner from the rapid increase of the veiled ladies of the high class ,who usually spend the summer in Marina ,he took the idea from the Gulf as he predicted and knew that such ladies would welcome due to their believes and wants , of course it was not based on religious difference , but still the main issue it target the veiled Muslim ladies

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ok, I am glad you linked to me zeinobia cause i rarely read your blog and I would've never found Bluestones comment if it wasn't for this. Bluestone, YOU ARE A LIAR. My christian co-worker called them infront of me, they told her no christian girls allowed inside. My other christian friend did the same thing. As for the actual cafe, I wish I could go there and check it out myself, but I have a penis , which makes me unable to go in. I will, however, look through all of my friends and try to find a veiled one that would go to this place for messed up girls just to make sure. However, the lawsuit is underway, and so is the Mohamed el soghayer christian women boycott campaign. You may view it as a small caffe ya zeinobia, but I see it as the start of a segregated Egypt, and I will be damned if I allow this kind of backward bullshit to start taking place in MY COUNTRY in the name of religion!

    That is all!

    ReplyDelete
  12. @Sandmonkey, may be Bluestone is not lying because I found out that Maha El-Sagheir insisted that the beauty salon would be opened to everyone Muslim or Christian , any woman wants to have the Sagheir experience but Turk refused added to it Sagheir took off the veil again "I was right" and so they ended their partnership , may be Bluestone went there during the time El-Sagheir was in charge giving her orders to open it for everyone
    anyhow goodluck at the lawsuite case ,I do not know if you read the rosalyoussef report about the cafe , of course you must put in your mind that Rosa is biased source and disrespected now in the Egyptian street
    here is the link in case if you do not read it
    http://www.rosaonline.net/alphadb/article.asp?view=3406
    good luck in your lawsuite , it seems that already Turk believes that some Christian Organization is working against her !!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. sandmonkey..

    so you call me a liar ... !!! thanx ya Sandmonkey ....
    but let me tell you the truth I discovered during my work as a journalist ...
    I did my homework ,, and made some investigations ...
    I went there already and all what I did is TRUE.. and all what you said was TRUE too ..
    The true liars are the owners of the place .. the truth is that the place was really banned for christians and non-veiled muslims girls and of course men.
    I went there last week and I met Nagwa the manager and she assured me those were lies and took me for a tour in the place and I met one christian girl and couple of non-veiled girls that I spoke with. the place was a beauty salon with couple of waiting tables where coffee is served. Music and songs were played all around and I was invited for a free hair making which I nicely apologised.

    To that part each word of what I said is perfectly true.
    So I was obliged to tell people what I hav seen there.

    Yet, I discovered the place was really as you mentioned and christian girls and non-veiled were not allowed and a huge fight took place with a journalist three weeks ago .. and the owners were summoned to the nation security services ..(amn el dawla) .. Changes had to be made since then . But the add was really strange so I had to do more and this is what I found out...

    Thanx for calling me a liar .....
    but I told the truth as I saw it with my own eyes
    PS: I am christian by the way ... if this got to do anything with it.

    hav a nice day

    thanx Zinobia

    ReplyDelete
  14. @Bluestone ,please accept my apology because this took place inmy blog , second now things are more logic ,already I believe that journalist you spoke about was the journalist of Rosa Al-Youssef , and this proves how Rosa is biased because you said that this took place only from three weeks where as Rosa just published in this week's edition
    now it makes senese after the SS involved in this
    again I am sorry Bluestone and I am happy that you shared your experience here with us :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank You for your comment
Please keep it civilized here, racist and hateful comments are not accepted
The Comments in this blog with exclusion of the blog's owner does not represent the views of the blog's owner.