Cairo Magazine - After the flames

Inside the charred theater in Beni Suef

Victoria Hazou

The 5 September fire at the Culture Palace in Beni Suef is becoming the focal point of protests from members of the artistic community who blame the government for not providing an adequate response to the incident.

In Cairo this week, several amateur theater troupes slated to participate in the Experimental Theater Festival (of which the performance in Beni Suef was a part) boycotted the government-sponsored event in protest. Demonstrations have also taken place in front of the office of the High Council for Theater and the Cairo District Attorney's office, led by director Mohammed Abdel Fatah. There have even been calls for legal action against Culture Minister Farouq Hosni and the governor of Beni Suef.

"[The Beni Suef fire] was the result of criminal negligence on the part of the government,"? says Mahmoud Al Lozy, an outspoken director and professor of theater at AUC. It's all part of the culture of a police state, which values security over safety. From my own experience in theaters in Egypt, I can say that there are basically no safety precautions. They will have police or guards at the doors, but no fire escapes, no safe storage space, nothing."

At least 40 people died in the fire, including the entire Al Fayoum Theater Troupe and their director Salah Hamed, and well-known members of the theatrical community such as directors Mohsen Musilhi, Baha Al Mirghani and Nizar Samak and professors Hazem Shahatha, Medhat Abu Bakr and Salah Saad.

Joe Rizk, a theater enthusiast who lost several friends on 5 September, is part of a growing coalition of concerned citizens demanding transparency and accountability in the wake of the Beni Suef incident. The coalition, whose members communicate online via a Yahoo! group called Masrahona (Our Theater) is listing the names of victims and the locations of the hospitals in which they are being treated on a website. This information, according to Rizk, is being suppressed by the government.

"The aftermath [of the fire] in some ways was even more of a disaster," he says. "The poor treatment of the victims is still going on. They're being ignored by the press, and they're not getting the proper medical attention."? A witness to the aftermath of the fire concurs, describing the scene at Beni Suef's public hospital as utterly chaotic. "The doctors didn't know what to do,"? he says, "There were people with terrible burns lying on the ground outside the hospital. Inside, there were patients surrounded by doctors and nurses who didn't know how to help them."?

Under fire from local activists, the Ministry of Culture is scrambling to respond. Culture Minister Farouq Hosni visited Beni Suef shortly after the fire. Abdel Nasser Hanafi, an official in the Ministry and panel judge in the aborted theater festival, has been holding meetings with witnesses to the disaster nearly every day. "We are attempting to give the proper response," he says.

The Beni Suef tragedy draws pressing attention to issues that have been on the lips of government critics for years: poorly trained emergency workers, un-enforced safety regulations, corruption that siphons off badly needed funds.

Members of Masrahona and local theater troupes, however, remain defiant and optimistic. Lubna Zaib is an AUC student and member of its theater program. She lost nearly half a dozen colleagues in Beni Suef. "I hope we stand high enough," she says, "High enough not to let anything like this happen again."