It started with a funny Facebook post that went viral attracting the attention of thousands of Egyptians, generating funny memes across other popular social media networks.
It not only attracted young people but also marketing campaigns and megastars who all spoke about the “Battle of Helwan for real Batman” to be held on 13 August in the heart of the city of Helwan at 11 PM to decide who is the real Batman.
Egypt’s Ministry of Interior on Wednesday announced that it arrested four people for launching an event on social media calling for a fight in disguise in front of Helwan Metro station on 13 August for the sake of achieving financial gains through attracting advertisements and promotional materials.
The Egyptian interior ministry’s statement is bit different and less exciting than what Egypt’s internet knew about the famous legend of Batman’s Helwan battle.
According to the internet urban Egyptian legend, it started with a Facebook post from two weeks ago when a young man claimed that he was the real Batman in a post then his friend replied on the post and said that he was the Batman, not his friend.
A third friend replied on the reply and said that he was the true Batman then a fourth one came repeating the same claim and the post ended up with tens of people claiming that they were the real Batman. In the end there was an agreement that on 13 August, all those claiming to be Batman to show up at 11pm outside Helwan Metro station for a battle royale till death, till the real Batman defeats all the other Batmen.
Thus, the legend of the Battle of Batman in Helwan, or as commonly known Batman in Helwan, was born and it became Egypt’s top trend on the social media in the past few days.
Ahram Online tried to be find the original post that launched the trend that is taking social media by a storm befpre it was sunk under an ocean of memes and jokes.
Egypt’s Gotham: Helwan
Hosting over 500,000 people currently, Helwan is one of the suburbs in Greater Cairo province with a very old history that is even older than Cairo itself.
Located in South Greater Cairo, Helwanis one of Egypt’s oldest cities historically as it hosted one of the earliest recorded human settlements during the stone age in the Nile Valley.
The region continued to play a role throughout Egyptian history, but officially the city of Helwan was founded in the Umayyad era in year 689 by the Governor of Egypt then Abdel-Aziz ibn Marwan who died and was buried there.
Some historical sources say that Abdel-Aziz ibn Marwan’s son, famous Caliph Umar ibn Abdel-Aziz or Umar II was reportedly born and raised in Helwan.
In the 19th century, Helwan began to attract the attention of Western travelers and tourists with its famous therapeutic sulfur water springs, leading the Khedive Ismail to order to the construction of the famous Capritage Helwan, the first first sulfur bathhouse in the Middle East as well as resorts to accommodate the foreign tourists.
In the 1960s, the suburb known for its sulfur water and lavish gardens was turned into an industrial city by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser with the construction of steel and cement factories.
The decision was an economic blessing and an environmental curse at the same time because the city that built a reputation for a therapeutic haven has been suffering from huge environmental repercussions.
Following three decades of neglect, the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism announced in January that the Capritage Helwan was a registered as a monument and it would be renovated to restore its old glory.
At the same time, millions of young Egyptians still do not associate middle and working class Helwan with therapeutic bathhouses or factories but rather with the American caped crusader himself, Batman.
In no time, memes were posted on sarcastic Egyptian Facebook pages turning Helwan’s famous landmarks, chief among them being the Helwan Metro station, into the centre of Gotham city.
The creativity did not stop at photoshopped photos, comics or illustrations. It went to another level with video clips and short cartoons that found their way to YouTube and TikTok platforms.
The video made by Aly Al-Din Abou Eid about “Batman in Helwan” in Arabic went viral on all social media network after hitting nearly 60,000 likes on Tiktok.
@aboueid44
Joining the Bat-trend
Popular Comedian Mohamed Hennedy joined the trend and published his photo earlier this week on his official Facebook page wearing the famous Batman mask with the words “To Helwan”
Comedian Ahmed Fahmy who gained huge popularity after depicting Egypt’s goofy superhero “El-Ragol El-Ananb” in 2013 saying that his character was the true hero in Helwan battle.
البطل الحقيقي وصل يا حلوان pic.twitter.com/tylY1aOANi
— Ahmad Fahmy (@AFahmyOfficial) July 3, 2022
Famous actress Rania Youssef also participated in the social media trend claiming she was the “True batman” on TikTok despite her wearing the Catwoman costume that she appeared in during the second season of Shahid TV’s Comedy The Game in 2021.
@raniayoussef_official باتمان الحقيقي 🦹🏻♀️💪🏼 #رانيا_يوسف #rania_youssef #batman #باتمان🦇 #باتمان ♬ BAT CAVE – Ben Garlock
Despite not being covered by mainstream media, Egypt has a young growing subculture of comics lovers in addition to the fans of superhero films and series. For the past couple of years, Cairo has witnessed its own small version of the famous Comic-Con called “EgyCon” where hundreds of cosplayers and anime otaku fans gather as their own favorite characters.
There is no accurate number of comics sales in Egypt. The original DC comics or Marvel comics in English are sold for an expensive price in big stores. The unoriginal pirated comics are sold in other places in Cairo, above them the famous Abzakeya market for cheaper prices.
Batman and his nemesis, the Joker are still bestselling comic characters when it comes to sales according to sellers and readers too.
Cinema and TV shows are still the most popular and easiest way Egyptian comic lovers get to see their favorite characters and earlier this year, Batman solidified his popularity in Egypt when The Batman film managed to stay for nearly 23 weeks in the cinemas achieving over EGP 18 million in the Egyptian box office according to El-Cinema website.
A fear, an alarm from the dark knight’s meeting
On Monday, Popular TV host Lamis El-Hadidy warned on her TV show on ONTV “The last word” against that “event” which is an assembly without a permit for fear that it would be used politically. An expert on social media spoke in the segment about the Batman trend warning that the banned Muslim Brotherhood may hijack it to turn the event violent.
El-Hadidy’s segment on the Battle of Batmen in Helwan made the Facebook events disappear in less than 24 hours.
Those concerns from the events and the calls do not come without reason.
The 13th of August already coincides with the date of forceful dispersal of Morsi sits-in in Cairo and Giza that left hundreds dead of his supporters on 13 August 2013.
Also, when it comes to the Batman’s universe, the memory of a pro-brotherhood media figure self-exiled Tamer Gamel appearing in disguise as The Joker character, calling on the Egyptian people to revolt against the government in 2019 is still vivid despite its failure to attract any support on the ground for any kind.
In addition, Helwan has been in the news lately, but not in a positive way.
Last week, the Security Criminal Court sentence 10 to death and 56 others to life imprisonment for carrying out premeditated deadly attacks on police personnel and civilians among other terror crimes in the case known as “Helwan Brigades.”
Designated a terrorist group, the Helwan Brigades first appeared in a video posted and circulated on social media in 2014, which showed 15 masked armed men warning that they would carry out an attack against the police in southern Cairo.
The defendants have been accused of a range of criminal charges connected with the group’s activities in the period between August 2013 and February 2015.
They were accused of the premediated murder of several police personnel and civilians.
It was out of this milieu that the call for a battle royale till death on 13 August 2022 at 11pm in Helwan rang alarms for some.
That concern reached its peak with the Ministry of Interior’s arrest of four people that were responsible for the, though they have not provided further details.
Nevertheless, those arrests have not stopped the event from continuing to gain the attention of young Arab men across the borders.
Here is a Facebook post of young man from Iraq who wants to join the battle in Helwan as a batman, but after he has realized that there is no Helwan in Iraq.
An Egyptian commentator tells him that it is okay and that and other Iraqi batmen can hold in Iraq their battle and the final with Egyptian Batman will be in Algeria like in football finales.
Between concerns and memes, the Batmen battle in Helwan is catching attention to the level that Helwan hospitals say that their ER are ready for 13 August.
One pizza restauraunt is even offering a lifetime discount for whoever is declared the real Batman.
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