Update: Diva!

A number of significant developments have occurred in the Danna story since I left Cairo in May 1996. First, the Egyptian press has continued to turn out discoveries of new Zionist plots against Egypt. In June 1997, for example, al-‘Arabi ran Fatma al-Nimr’s story about a plot to “Judaize the Arab eye” by plastering Egypt with the Star of David. Al-Nimr claimed to find the Star of David not only in the logos for the popular detergent Ariel and the sandwich chain Mu’min but also in food strainers, house decorations, and traditional lanterns used during Ramadan (Radi 1997; Engel 1997). That same summer, reports emerged that college girls in the city of Mansura were throwing themselves at boys, after chewing Israeli bubble gum spiked with progesterone, smuggled into Egypt through Gaza (Jehl 1996). Such accounts are frequently reported on by Western journalists, usually in such a manner as to render ridiculous virtually any Egyptian fears or criticism of Israel and to divert attention away from real Egyptian grievances or problems.

Western journalists focused less attention on reports that about 7,500 Egyptian young people who entered Israel on tourist visas between 1993 and 1996 had stayed on to take illegal jobs. Twenty-five hundred of these were reportedly recruited for noncombatant jobs in the Israeli army, especially in Israel’s “security zone” in South Lebanon, and were issued identity cards with Jewish names. At least one Egyptian has been convicted of spying for Israel who was reportedly recruited by Mossad when visiting Israel (“Egyptian Workers” 1996; “2500 Misri” 1996). Also, little notice was paid to the revelation that Israeli military officers were involved in smuggling tons of hashish from Lebanon via Israel into Egypt, for sale to dealers who supplied Egypt’s conscript army. The scheme was hatched in response to security fears before the June 1967 war with Egypt, and the army-sponsored smuggling continued until the late 1980s. Egyptian military sources claimed that hashish consumption in the army rose by 50 percent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when almost two out of three soldiers were regularly using it (“Egyptians Were Stoned” 1996).^[61]

Danna’s perceived threat to Egypt was also highlighted again in fall 1996, after she visited Egypt for a fashion shoot, to model a new line of dresses for Israel’s biggest mainstream department store, Hamashbir. Ruz al-Yusuf ran a story describing the trip as a propaganda coup for Israel and reported that Israeli press accounts of Danna’s visit depicted Egyptians as bribe takers (Danna’s party reportedly paid off a policeman so that they could continue shooting at the Pyramids) and pervert-lovers (several Egyptian men professed that Danna is pretty and her music enjoyable). The magazine also reprinted several fashion photos of an alluring Danna, dressed in slinky outfits and posing variously with Egyptian policemen, inside the Khan al-Khalili, Cairo’s tourist bazaar, and with a boatman beside the River Nile. The captions—such as “This Pervert Exploits Us”—attempted to ensure that the Egyptian reader was not enticed by what appeared to be a beautiful woman but was really an Israeli sexual deviant (“al-Misriyyun” 1996).

In summer 1996 Danna issued a new CD, entitled Maganona, whose title track (meaning “crazy” [majnuna] in Arabic) is a response to Danna’s underground success in the Arab countries, a brilliantly wacky dance number that Danna sings aggressively in Egyptian dialect. Danna defends herself with lines like “Who do you think my husband is? / I’m a respectable woman [sitt muhtarma],” and, “You all think I’m crazy / I’m not crazy [ana mish magnuna].” The last line of the song goes, “ana mish magnuna / ana magnuna [I’m not crazy / I’m crazy].” Although the new CD was banned in Egypt, it was a black market best-seller (Bhatia 1997). Danna claims to appreciate her success with Arab youths, asserting, “I like to sing in Arabic. I like the language. I like the music. I like the instruments” (Grynberg 1996, 35).

But the most important development is Danna’s Eurovision success. In November 1997 she was selected to represent Israel in the May 1998 Eurovision contest in Birmingham. Her selection raised a furor among ultra-Orthodox Jews. Typical of the reaction was the assertion of Rabbi Shlomo Ben Izri, health minister and Shas party representative: “Dana is an abomination. Even in Sodom there was nothing like it” (La Guardia 1997). Thanks to Danna’s impassioned denunciations of the ultra-Orthodox, she has become a kind of heroine for secular Israelis (Sharrock 1997). But despite her embrace by the liberal Israeli establishment, she seems determined to continue her subtle mocking of Zionism, as evidenced by her statement to Sky News after she was selected to represent Israel at Eurovision: “As far as I’m concerned, I was elected to represent Israel’s citizens, not the Jewish state. Which means that I’ll go to the Eurovision as the representative of the Christians and Muslims who live in Israel as well.”^[62] In May 1998 Danna, at age twenty-six, took first place in the Eurovision contest, singing her song “Diva” before an estimated global television audience of 100 million. Thousands of fans celebrated her win by dancing all night in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, chanting “Danna, Queen of Israel.”

After her highly publicized Eurovision victory, Danna seems poised to become an international star. She is recording and making frequent appearances in Europe, her photo is featured in an Amnesty-U.K. poster with the caption, “Gay rights are human rights,” and she is starting to be noticed by the U.S. media.^[63] The danger is that, as she moves into a different political context, her multidimensional subversiveness will be reduced to the single issue of queerness and transsexuality and that it will be difficult for audiences in the West to sympathize, much less make sense, of her Arabness and her oblique lampooning of Eurocentric Zionism. An article on Danna in the November 1998 Details (Keeps 1998) suggests how the mainstreaming of Danna might proceed: it never once mentions Danna’s Yemeni-Arab background.