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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Interview Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Al-Ahram:
A Diwan of contemporary life (279)
Al-Ahram, a pioneering newspaper since it began publication in 1876, chalked up another first in 1919, a momentous year in modern Egyptian history that saw a nationalist uprising against British occupation. The innovation was a daily column considered the parent of regular columns in the Egyptian press since. It was written by Mohamed Tawfiq Diab, a professional journalist. Entitled 'Glimpses', it dealt with a very wide range of social, economic, political and educational topics. Diab's style alternated between acerbic sarcasm and utter seriousness Dr Yunan Labib Rizk * leafs through Al-Ahram to give us representative samples of Diab's writings
Illustration by
Makram Henein
On 3 September 1919, Al-Ahram opened another chapter in its history with the introduction of a new daily column: "Glimpses".
The new column reminds one of a close namesake that appeared in the newspaper in 1887, but only in name. Not only did "A Glimpse" appear only once a week, it tended to mutate in length and to roam, sometimes emerging from the inner recesses of the paper to take up nearly the entire front page. "A Glimpse" was also a forum for the Al-Ahram owners to express their points of view. Its style and content were thus more suggestive of an editorial, and, therefore, similar in many ways to "Frankly Speaking" by former Al-Ahram Editor-in-Chief Mohamed Hassanein Heikal and "Calmly" by Al-Ahram's current Editor-in-Chief, Ibrahim Nafie.
The daily "Glimpses" was also unlike "Small but significant", another new column that opened in Al-Ahram in 1919. Whereas "Small but significant" appeared irregularly, sometimes disappearing for weeks and even months, "Glimpses" was strictly punctual.
Also, the author of the former column was not a professional journalist, but a lawyer. And, however intense his public spirit and however appealing he may have found the lure of journalism, particularly when working for a newspaper as prestigious as Al-Ahram, it is never long, for an amateur, before "the sweetness disappears and reality sets in", as we say in Egypt.
The author of "Glimpses", by contrast, was a professional journalist. Indeed, he was one of the most famous journalists in the history of the Egyptian press. Mohamed Tawfiq Diab is better known as the founder of Al-Jihad, one of the widest circulating and staunchest nationalist newspapers in Egypt. His writings first appeared in the nationalist-oriented Al-Liwaa and, before he founded Al-Jihad, he wrote for Al-Siyasa, the mouthpiece for the Liberal Constitutionalist Party. It is not as well known that this illustrious journalist laid the foundations for the permanent feature column in Al-Ahram. Given his times and personal ideological orientation, it is not surprising that Diab was strongly influenced by the events of the popular nationalist revolution of 1919.
If there is a consistent theme in his articles, it is his sympathy for the underprivileged, an attitude that might have been remarkable in one who was the son of a senior ranking army officer, Brigadier General Mousa Bek Diab, were it not that the father had also been an ardent nationalist and had taken part in the Ahmed Orabi uprising in 1882. We thus find in Mohamed Diab an outspoken human rights advocate, quick to censure those Egyptian officials who were all too ready to abuse their fellow citizens in order to please their British superiors. He strongly objected to the fact that individuals who suffered maltreatment at the hands of police officials were denied the right "to defend their dignity" and to seek redress against the perpetrators of such maltreatment "through the regular procedural channels of prosecution."
In one article, Diab scoffed at the district commissioners for petitioning the government to confer upon them the title of Bek "simply on the grounds that the mayors and notables under their jurisdiction have obtained this rank." Diab, of course, was opposed, because granting them the title would only exacerbate their tyranny. He also took the occasion to mock the obsession with titles: "The United States is governed by a mere 'Mister', not a Bek or a lord and the head of the British government is also a simple 'mister.' Likewise, the president of the Republic of France is no more than an ordinary 'monsieur', a title shared by every hotel servant or postman." Diab also turns his attention to the more mundane concerns of daily life. One of the most perturbing for residents of Cairo at the time was the disruption in the tramway service due to the tramway workers strike.
Although Al-Ahram editions of the day were filled with commentaries and readers' grievances, Diab's wit offers a fresh approach. He imagines himself a government bureaucrat during the strike who, from the moment he wakes up, has to think about how to get to work. He has the bureaucrat address the tramway, saying: "You've duped us into depending on you. We've put all our affairs in your hands. Were it not for your deceit, we would not have taken homes at the furthest ends of the city out of faith in your loyalty... If it is true, as they say, that 'nothing scratches your skin better than your fingernails,' then for us it holds true that 'nothing moves your body better than your own feet!'"
Fikry Abaza
Ibrahim Nafie "Calmly"
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal "Frankly Speaking"
Commenting on the same issue in a subsequent column, Diab suggests sarcastically that the only way to live in Cairo with the tramway service down is to rely on camel transport, "in the manner of the pilgrimage caravans." Then, addressing the government, he says, "The arteries of life in the capital have frozen. Restore them to life! People are in dire hardship because of the stoppage of the tramway. It is your sacred duty not to sleep a wink until you relieve the people from that torment. The prosperous classes have carriages and automobiles, so it is little wonder that they do not grieve like those who only have bloodied feet and pent-up worries."
Diab's compassion for the common man expressed itself in another public transport-related problem. Because of the disturbances of the 1919 Revolution, trains were not running regularly and were, consequently, overcrowded when they did run. In this instance, the object of his concern was the conditions of the third class carriages. Addressing the prime minister, he writes, "If only you could see how cramped the third class carriages are, with Egyptian bodies piled on top of one another. The moment the train leaves the station skirmishes and battles erupt among these poor passengers and, in their fight for a breath of air or a glimmer of light, only the strong survive."
It is also not surprising that Diab's sympathies should live with the students against the authorities. It was the students who initiated the wave of demonstrations in March 1919 in protest against the exile of the nationalist leader, Saad Zaghlul, by the British authorities. As the year progressed, the Egyptian student protest movement expanded to include their grievances against the educational system. Numerous writers in the press felt the students were taking matters too far. Not so Mohamed Diab. In one of his "Glimpses", he mentions that students of the School of Veterinary Medicine were demanding that their school be ranked as an institute of higher education because it only accepted applicants with a secondary school certificate. "This is a just demand," writes Diab. "I cannot understand what could possibly behoove the Ministry of Agriculture (to which the school belonged) to deprive it of this ranking. It is unfair that there should be two kinds of secondary school certificate holders: those who are admitted into the schools of medicine, law or engineering and are, therefore, deemed members of the higher educational system and those who, by joining the School of Veterinary Medicine, are not accorded the same status as their educational peers." The veterinary students also demanded the equal right to opportunities to complete their education abroad, a right that was granted to qualified candidates from the other higher educational institutes. Diab comments, "I do not know how the ministry can refuse to accommodate this demand if it really wishes for these students to quench their thirst for scientific knowledge in their field."
In another column on student issues, Diab published a letter from another well-known journalist of the day, Fikry Abaza. Equally reputed for his wit, Abaza criticised the spreading phenomenon of student strikes. Addressing Diab, he asked, "Have you not seen how primary school students have begun to take up the tune? Students from Giza Primary School are up in arms because of the poor location of their school. In Abdin School they are striking because of the ministerial edict specifying the age of admission. And, the students of Desouq are on strike in protest against the arrest of some Al-Azhar students." With his tongue still firmly in cheek, Abaza concludes his letter with a request to Diab not to publish his letter "until you have made absolutely certain that my brother students -- or rather, my student masters -- will not avenge themselves upon me." Diab felt it necessary to append that Abaza was only "jesting with his fellow students". But Diab defended the students' cause and felt that "their sense of right and duty was a healthy phenomenon."
Diab also dealt with issues that were not directly related to the events of the 1919 Revolution. Among these was the question of the reluctance of 'effendis' to marry and the spreading phenomenon of marriages of convenience. The subjects had been raised frequently in the press previously and they proved an area where Diab could exercise his acerbic wit. In one of the "Glimpses" on matrimony, he takes note of that group of individuals who "shake their heads at their married brethren as though their matrimonial bonds were an antiquated thing of the past and wonder how personal freedom could possibly tolerate that heavy bond that ties one man to only one woman for life." In the opinion of confirmed bachelors, Diab continues, "People get bored with a single type of food, a single garment and a single tune. Variety is the spice of life, as they say." Then addressing this segment of society, he writes, "That man who views marriage as no more than a yoke around his neck and an impediment to his pleasure has not elevated himself much above animals."
The confirmed bachelors Diab was addressing belonged to the Egyptian effendi class from which emerged "the flower of youth, the educated elite and the best seeds of the country." This was the class that should be encouraged to marry. The common classes, by contrast, are those that should be encouraged to moderation in marriage and to taking fewer wives. Unlike his political opinions, Diab's views on marriage were shared by many of his intellectual contemporaries.
Diab's opinions on the issue of marriages of convenience, if similarly conventional, was not presented in a conventional manner. In this episode of "Glimpses", he imagines a conversation between himself and another man:
"Me: So God guided you to a wife who pleases you and eradicated that licentious proclivity that your heart was sometimes prey to. This is good, because marriage is the backbone of religion.
"He: The backbone of religion? Ha! Ha! You make me laugh. How long are you advocates of old beliefs going to keep up those delusions while material benefits are ever present before your eyes?
"Me: Do you mean you've run after the principle of materialism and
struck up a marriage of convenience?
"Him: The very basis of marriage and divorce is materialistic. Give up your daydreams and poetic sentiments. Material interests are all there is. Everything else is delusion and fantasy.
"Me: So you married a woman of means?
"He: How clever of you."
One admirable quality in Diab is his aversion to all forms of pretense and ostentation. A contingent of youths intent upon living the soft life becomes the target of his scorn. These youths "sport dainty handkerchiefs, wear transparent socks and exude perfumes from their hair, moustache and clothes. Walking exhausts them and sitting bores them. Their lives are nothing but a series of sighs, moans and shameful effeminacy." On the other hand, he finds the "hereditary idle rich" no less repugnant. Turning his sarcasm to them, he writes, "In the morning, they glower at the first beam of light that strikes them in their beds. They have a lot of money, a lot of servants and a lot of friends. They are addicted to wine, flirt with pretty young women and stay up late at night with their friends. Their only occupation is playing dice and cards and taking evening drives around Gezira and down Pyramids Road in their luxurious automobiles."
Diab was sensitive to the enormous disparity between rich and poor. He sympathised with pensioners, unable to meet the rising costs of living and urges the government to show some mercy for "these dear elderly pensioners." He asks, "Is it not our duty to ease the burdens weighing on their hunched backs and frail bones? These are our weak and feeble parents and filial devotion demands that we secure them comfort in their last days."
In a similar vein, Diab dealt with unemployment as "a capital crime perpetrated by the educational system in our country." He spoke to some of the unemployed who grieved, "Where are we supposed to turn for a job after having knocked at every honourable door and every honourable door stayed bolted."
He concludes: "In London, the newspapers report, they have established a hotel for cats and dogs. I hope that the poor in Egypt can have a modicum of such good fortune!" If some of the problems which Diab addressed in "Glimpses" persist today, at least we can take some comfort that the sarcasm he brought to bear in his critiques continues to be a highly valued Egyptian trait today.
* The author is a professor of history
and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.
