The American culture war has washed up on the shores of the Nile. It comes in the form of a new historically illiterate Netflix series on ancient Egypt, and it bugs me to no end.
I am a Coptic Christian, one of Egypt’s 15 million indigenous people. All told, there are more than 110 million Egyptians, of which a few hundred thousand live in Canada and the United States. Our country is a fertile oasis — the gem of every empire that marched through her deserts and drank from her Nile. Our history stretches back to the fourth millennium B.C.
Every civilization lucky enough to discover Egypt has envied its monuments. Plundered by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Mamluks, and Turks, it took the adventurous spirit of Europeans — who were in Egypt on similar colonial missions — to help us rediscover the grandeur of our civilization.
Before being discovered by an officer working for Napolean, the Rosetta Stone was a foundation stone for a fortress wall. It kicked off an entire academic discipline that tries to keep up with the taxonomy of discoveries found in our sand-swept tombs.
I love when people fawn over my culture. Mimicry is the highest form of flattery, so go ahead. Dance like an Egyptian. Buy that Pharaoh costume for next Halloween. But for Osiris’ sake, do not appropriate our history.
Much to my chagrin and that of thousands of other Egyptians, the new Netflix series “Queen Cleopatra” does just that. Not only did Netflix fail to cast a
