Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour - Commercialization of The Name

Commercialization of The Name

Soon after the arrest, al-Ahram, a widely-circulated Egyptian newspaper, reported that some products in Egypt were being named after Mansour's nickname, "al-Tourbini". Several restaurants in Mansour's hometown, Tanta, started selling a so-called "al-Tourbini sandwich", allegedly in demand by young locals. Sheep merchants gave the name "al-Tourbini" to the large-size lamb priced at more than 2,000 Egyptian pound. Some tuk-tuk drivers named their vehicles "al-Tourbini" to attract customers. According to al-Ahram, the "strangest such marketing ploy" was that of owners of supermarkets and communications centers in Tanta were renaming their businesses "al-Tourbini: The Butcher of Gharbia". Author and journalist John R. Bradley commented in his book Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution that "this reaction borders on the incomprehensible, but what it clearly indicates is that something has gone terribly wrong with contemporary Egyptian society."