According to Egyptian cleric Hazem Shuman, yes.
“In a few days time, a very dangerous virus will attack the body of the nation. What virus? Is it AIDS? No, something more dangerous. Something more dangerous than Ebola, which dissolves the human body, more dangerous than cholera, which killed half of Europe a few centuries ago. I am talking about the Valentine virus, people.” (quote courtesy of MEMRI TV)
Hazem’s reasons are many, and fairly predictable. Valentine’s Day leads young Muslims into temptation, makes them consume, sin… the usual. He also goes out of his way to rail against the buying of “red colored” products, which is probably more of a rhetorical tactic than anything else. Still, I have to point out that a) fluffy, sparkily Valentine’s merchandise does not seem like the greatest erotic threat to pious young people and b) that stuff is already all over Egypt, every day, any day. If I had a pound for every time I got into a taxi where a stuffed red heart was hanging from the rearview mirror or ceiling… well, I’d have a lot of money for similar taxi rides.
Shuman’s medical comparisons and warnings about the evil of Hallmark make his speech kind of funny, but it’s also interesting for other reasons. Towards the end, he says:
“You can’t tell the difference between a Fatima and a Mary anymore. Fatima wears the same clothes as Mary, listens to the same songs, she loves the same singers, and she watches the same TV channels.”
With Egypt, like so much of the Middle East, going through an intense religious revival right now, I was surprised to hear Shuman bemoan the loss of religious identity to Western secularism. It seems strangely out of place, considering what’s going on in Egypt these days.
Of course, exaggerating any cultural issue as an East-versus-West clash of civilizations is a pretty common way of drumming up domestic support for religious or political leaders on both sides. It rarely describes what is actually going on or what people (both those making speeches and those listening to them) are actually thinking. Still, after all that ebola and AIDS talk, it was the rhetorical tactic that stuck with me after reading it.
Anyway, here’s to hoping all your Valentine’s days don’t dissolve your body. Unless it’s in a figurative, romantic way, in which case go for it I suppose… but find a better metaphor for it when speaking to that special someone.
