In Egypt, real men don’t smoke
CAIRO // There are few totems to Egyptian masculinity as potent as the cigarette. From the capital to tiny villages, men from all walks of life can be seen lounging against car doors and in cafe chairs, enjoying what remains Egypt’s cheapest thrill.
But beginning this month, the ministry of health has employed a novel method to deflate smoking’s machismo.
The latest in a series of four mandatory warning labels on cigarette packs features a picture of a lit cigarette with the ash drooping off the end. Accompanying text illuminates the not-so-subtle message: “Smoking for a long period of time may affect marital relations.”
That is polite-speak for impotence.
And while the same image has been used for national campaigns in more than a dozen other countries, such suggestive advertising is largely unknown to conservative Egypt, where the ubiquitous picture – it is everywhere from smokers’ hands to street stalls to littered gutters – has elicited giggles, guffaws and some mild outrage.
But whether they like the picture or despise it, everyone seems to agree on one point: such a government-sanctioned advert would have been unthinkable even five years ago.
“Everyone’s talking about this. The whole world is talking about this,” said Mohammed Mahrous, 23, who runs a tobacco stall in Cairo’s downtown.
“There was a guy walking down the street with his fiance. He wanted a pack, but he didn’t want to get one with this picture on it. This just makes Egyptian people look bad. It’s disgusting.”
The latest image bookends a two-year campaign that started in August 2008 and rotated among four images and messages every six months.
The health ministry will require that each pack feature the latest controversial image and its accompanying text until the end of July. After that, they plan to unveil a new series of four pictures and messages, each of which will see its own six-month run.
The pictures began appearing on packs two weeks ago and so far the ministry of health has received no complaints, said Ehab Assad, a technical officer with the ministry’s smoking control department.
“Egypt is now free. We don’t have taboos. We have the right to talk. I know that we are a conservative community, but this is simply a health message,” said Mr Assad, who added that the need for such a campaign in Egypt is acute.
Nearly 50 per cent of Egyptian men over the age of 25 use tobacco, compared to less than two per cent of women, according to a report published last week by the World Health Organisation.
“The internet and globalisation have made everything clear. I have a child of 11 years, and even he understands. He’s laughing,” said Mr Assad.
Indeed, even as Egyptian society appears to grow more conservative, Egypt’s media seem to have loosened up.
Popular talk shows treat viewers to frank discussions of sex and marital relations, while Melody Aflam, an Egyptian television station devoted to movies, recently unveiled several new series of racy adverts.
But if the health ministry has so far avoided complaints, that does not mean that no one is complaining.
“They are very serious about putting photos on the cigarette boxes. OK, may God help them. But why don’t they respect the society with whom they are dealing?” wrote Mohammed Mustafa Shirdi, a member of Egypt’s National Assembly, in Al Wafd newspaper last week. “You made a joke of us. Change this photo at once.”
Mr Shirdi referred to the new images as “pornography”, but even he could not resist making his own naughty double entendre.
“It’s a shame on the ministry of health to bring out this explicit sexual suggestion. And if, I’m sorry, your problem is flaccid things, there are medicines of the kind that will ‘raise your head, my brother’,” wrote Mr Shirdi, alluding to a well-known 1950s-era patriotic slogan.
The sort of medicines that can “raise your head” are widely available in Egypt, where sales of Viagra and Cialis have always been robust.
A recent study by the Qasr al Aini Teaching Hospital revealed that 25 to 30 per cent of Egyptian men suffer from impotence – a scourge that many doctors here blame on high smoking rates, the widespread use of dangerous pesticides in food and disastrous levels of urban pollution.
It is just for that reason, said officials from the health ministry, that this latest warning label may be one of their best.
Some 16 countries employ the same limp cigarette photo, said David Hammond, a professor of health studies at Canada’s University of Waterloo, and surveys have shown that impotence warnings are among the most effective.
“What we found in Canada, where we have a similar warning among 16 warnings, was that men were most likely to avoid the impotence warning,” said Prof Hammond, who added that long-term tobacco use has been shown to constrict blood vessels, making it difficult to have an erection. Smoking may also decrease men’s sperm counts.
“What’s interesting is that impotence isn’t the most serious health disease next to cancer or heart disease. But a lot of them didn’t want women to think that they were impotent,” he said.
Mr Assad said the limp cigarette photo may recruit a new ally in the war on smoking: Women.
“With this picture, you’ve messed with the average Egyptian man’s mind. This is the only pleasure that is free for married people,” said Sameh Abdu, Mr Mahrous’s co-worker at the downtown cigarette stand.
“Of course, I’m going to expect a reaction if my wife sees this. She’ll tell me not to smoke, and if I do, she’ll kick the cigarette out of my hand.”
Matt Bradley
February 08. 2010
