via Middle East and Egypt Today

So, here’s the deal. Egyptian identity, as simple as it seems, is a pretty complex topic to get into. See, almost everyone has gripes about ‘who is Egyptian enough’ or ‘what Egyptians look like’. The most mind-boggling of these gripes, though, is that there’s an apparent wave of non-Egyptians saying that they’re the actual Egyptians. Yeah, we know.

Though this debate might sound a little too old or have a very been-there-done-that vibe, it’s come back to life again through an episode of Mona El-Shazly’s talk show.

via Twitter

In this episode, the show presented a short documentary, narrated by actress Bushra Rozza, discussing the depiction of Ancient Egypt in cinema and zeroing in on the trend of many Europeans and people of non-Egyptian African origins claiming that they’re the ‘real Egyptians’…making us a little fake, it seems.

Naturally, when that debate sprang to life, it went viral on Egyptian Twitter. Many Egyptians clamoured to spill their guts about being removed from their own identities, with a lot of people saying that the documentary said all that they’d been considering.

via Twitter

via Twitter

Others, though, thought it was kind of strange (and maybe even problematic) to say that BLM is responsible for Afrocentrism, when the latter has been around for decades.

via Twitter

More just seemed to appreciate the fact that the Egyptian identity is being celebrated and acknowledged this way.

via Twitter

Since this is Egyptian social media, though, we know it’s just a matter of time before someone takes advantage of the trend to make it incredibly weird. Whatever the result, we’re just enjoying the buzz around this topic now—as the saying goes, we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.