The Pen, the Camera, and the Microphone: The Egyptian Kit of Soft Power

Whether it is  “Huna al-Qahira’ (Here is Cairo) echoing from radios in the beginning of every radio program, “Cairo writes, the world reads” proclaiming the Egyptian pen’s might, or Om Kulthum –known as Kawkab al-Sharq (the Star of the East) – mesmerizing hearts with her voice, Egypt has always spoken to the world through culture. Its soft power has always been a timeless symphony of word, image, and sound. 

In order to grasp the true reach of this subtle weapon of soft power, we must journey backward in time. Not to the recent golden age of cinema or the era of Nasser’s radio, but much farther into the fertile soil of the Nile and the texture of the papyrus, to Ancient Egypt—seven millennia ago. From tender love songs in hieroglyphs in temples in the Egyptian city of Aswan to tales like the Eloquent Peasant, Egypt's stories reached the farthest points of the earth and gave the scribe’s pen the power of a sword: they gave the nation its own legitimacy, unique persona, and influential cultural heritage. 

Centuries later, in Alexandria, the greatest library of the ancient world was the headquarters of literature, poetry, arts, and sciences, giving birth to some of the world’s greatest poems, epics, and scientific discoveries.

What united these eras was not the might of armies but the sway of ideas–the ability to move nations through fascination and respect for its heritage and legacy rather than fear. It is this very idea that Joseph Nye would much later name soft power, defined as “the ability to affect other’s behavior by coercion, inducement or attraction.” The main sources of soft power are diplomacy but also culture, including music, media, literature, science, and cinema; thus, states achieve desired outcomes through attraction rather than coercion.

As Janice Bially Martin later observed, this attraction Nye referred to in his definition of soft power is  "constructed through communicative exchange" which emphasizes that soft power lives and dies in the art of storytelling: whether it's through the pages of a book, the melodies of a song, the flash of a camera, or the strength of the spoken word.  

By this measure, Egypt has long been a maestro of attraction. In 2025, Business Insider Africa announced Egypt 1st in leading soft power in Africa and 38th globally. Its score, 47.8 points out of 100, rested on pillars varying from  trade, international relations, culture and heritage, media and communication to people and values.

Under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian call for justice and unity through its media thundered across the Arab world. Nasser believed that his revolution should not be carried only by soldiers but by soundwaves. The radio broadcasting station Sawt al-Arab (The Voice of the Arabs) was launched in 1953 as Egypt’s revolutionary radio station. It played a huge role in spreading Nasser’s ideas of Pan-Arabism, nationalism, socialism, and anti-colonialism across the region. Through radio waves, Cairo became the capital of Arab and African unity broadcasting the spirit of independence to Algeria, Kenya, and beyond. When Algerian revolutionaries spoke from Cairo in both Arabic and French: “The Voice of the National Liberation Front Speaks to You from Cairo”, this was proof that Egypt’s microphone was as mighty as any arsenal.

On the other hand, while the radio spread words, music touched souls. Om Kulthum’s voice was an ocean of tarab (as the Guardian described: “a state of rapturous enchantment, where time and self dissolve in the music”) in which millions willingly drowned. Her reach extended far beyond the region, as Western artists like Bob Dylan and Maria Callas confessed that Kawkab al-Sharq is like no other. 

Before Om Kulthum, Sayed Darwish had already proven that music could shake empires, rallying Egyptians during the 1919 Revolution until even the British felt threatened by his melodies.

The pen, too, carved Egypt’s name into the cultural map. From Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aakkad’s pioneering contributions to the world of play-writing and philosophical essays to Naguib Mahfouz’ labyrinthine novels introducing the Arab world to the art of novel-writing; Cairo strongly embodied the saying “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, Baghdad reads”. Mahfouz, the Arab world’s only Nobel laureate in literature, actually introduced the modern novel to the Arab world, turning Cairo’s alleyways into characters in their own right, therefore vividly capturing and conveying the essence of the Egyptian spirit to the world.

And then came the camera. Egypt, producing 75% of Arab films in the 20th century was called the Hollywood of the East. This did not only shape stories, but a wide range of Arab identities; dialects, fashions, ideals, jokes, morals, and general taste. Stars like Omar Sharif who conquered Hollywood with Lawrence of Arabia and Faten Hamama who bewitched Arab audiences with her grace, made Cairo both stage and spotlight. To this day, Ramadan dramas and Eid films keep Egyptian screens flickering in living rooms from Baghdad to Rabat.

Yet, brilliance is never eternal. In recent decades, Egypt’s cultural production has drifted into shallow waters; its once-vast sea of creativity and influence now narrowed by profit-driven media chasing sensation over substance. Increasing censorship and the tightening grip of centralized control have been among the major currents dragging this deterioration. 

Before the revolutions of 2011 and 2013, there was more freedom given to Egyptian drama to weave political references and to mirror, however imperfectly, the pulse of the nation and its people. However, when such reflections began to rattle the system, more state control over media led to the retreat into safer terrain of content leaning more towards ‘social’ dramas.

In an article by The Arab Weekly, Nader Khalifa, a critic and scriptwriter, lamented “the age of Egyptian drama is over”. That is, according to him, resulting from the trend of mediocre serial dramas that absolutely lack representation of the Egyptian people, their pulse, their truth. Instead of what was once a means of cultural influence, representation, and genuine portrayal has taken a turn now into being a commodity measured only by financial return rather than its artistic and cultural worth. 

The trend is unmistakable. Today’s Egyptian drama leans almost entirely toward depoliticized social stories, detached from the nation’s lived realities. Despite the rise of inflation and the economic crisis, no discussion or portrayal of these realities seems to ever be present in current shows. An essay published by Mohamed El Aswany, Egyptian journalist and critic specialized in Arab arts and entertainment industry and its relationship to society, discussed the reality of the class stratification currently present in Egyptian Ramadan shows and how producers split the content into 3 class categories: Class A, B, and C. Class A shows are completely detached from the harsh reality the Egyptians are living in, while the so called “shaabi drama”, popular drama of Class C, is by far the most produced, however unfortunately misrepresenting Egypt's lower social classes rather than being a voice for the voiceless. Violence, drug dealing, mistreatment of women, gangs, and vulgarity: caricatures that misrepresent the very people they intended to capture, gradually erasing a hundreds-of-years legacy. 

But not all is lost. Even though Egyptians themselves might blame the government’s shift to private sector and building new cities and festivals, yet it is undeniable that this is one of the things keeping the country’s splendour alive: El Gouna Film Festival, the cultural vibrancy of Alamein, Cultural and historical Events like Pharaoh's golden parade, and the Sahel (Egypt's North coast) scene keep Egypt in conversation with the world. 

The truth is this: Egypt has never ruled merely by sword or throne. Its empire was always one of imagination, where a pen could be sharper than steel, a song louder than artillery, and a camera brighter than any spotlight. The world may forget armies, but it remembers stories. And Egypt has always known how to tell them. 

So for all Egyptians out there, keep in your bag a pen, a camera, and a mini microphone and… rise to power!

Photo Source: Aldas Kirvaitis, Flickr