On Jan. 25, 2016, the fifth anniversary for the Egyptian revolution, two Egyptian guys -- an uprising actor and a satirical media presenter -- Malik and Shady decided to celebrate their own way. They blew up condoms ironically, went down to the streets and handed the balloon condoms to the policemen in the streets. On the balloon condoms, they wrote "Long Live Egypt." Not only that, but they used the fact that the policemen didn't realize that the balloons were actually condoms, for fun and mockery. They started hugging the policemen, taking pictures with them and letting them think that they are handing them balloons to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution. You may be thinking how the policemen don't know what a condom is. Simple answer: A country with no sex education whatsoever.
It all went viral when the two guys went home and shared the clip of them handing the policemen the blown condoms, on Facebook. To them, that was their way of taking revenge: Satire.
Malik and Shady both participated in the Egyptian Revolution five years ago. During the hassle of the protests in Tahrir Square, they were both shot and badly wounded. Not only that, but they lost some of their close friends either to jail or death. After five years of sacrifices and hopes for a better future, they didn't see a change. People are still getting arrested for their political posts on social media, articles or even cartoons. Their bitterness is what pushed them to do the condom prank, according to them.
The clip of the condom prank caused a huge hassle in Egypt. A country with a population of 90 million was all talking about one thing: the condom prank (now at least everyone knows what a condom is). The public opinion was torn between three stances.
The first is: These guys were absolutely disrespectful to the police, one of the main foundations and bases of the country. What they did represents a disrespect to Egypt and its people. They should be put in jail to learn their lesson the hard way. Sexual satire isn't okay!
Interesting Fact: Five of the 100 most visited websites in Egypt are pornographic sites.
The second stance is the most popular between the youth and teenagers who knew Malik and Shady as revolutionists and popular public figures, and it goes like: What they did wasn't necessary, it doesn't let them take their revenge anyway. It is disrespectful to take advantage of the policemen's ignorance, but after all you can't really say what they did was by any means "wrong". Therefore, no punishment is needed. They were just venting in a funny and "peaceful" way.
The third stance is the least popular but still valid: They didn't do anything disrespectful at all. It's just a condom! And it's not their fault if the policemen could be easily played because they don't know what a condom looks like.
For more info, check out the video.
This article isn't meant to be opinionated at all. My stance doesn't matter and will not be mentioned. What really matters is how a whole country was in uproar because of a "condom prank". In just a few moments, the media succeeded one way or another to divert a whole people from some of the very critical issues going on economically, politically and globally. Instead, it left them thinking about a condom!
By the way, the two guys issued an apology on their FB pages and deleted the video after all the threats and backlash they had received. Yet, they got arrested and prevented from appearing on the media again.
Happy Revolution anniversary.
