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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 May 1999 Issue No. 430 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 May 1999 Issue No. 430
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Supplement Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Present in our midst
By Youssef Rakha
Last Sunday saw a meeting of the Society of the Friends of Ahmed Bahaaeddin in the Greater Cairo Library conference hall in Zamalek. The society, founded by Bahaaeddin's family and friends two years ago, was his numerous admirers' way of remembering the late writer. Today, just as during his lifetime, Ahmed Bahaaeddin remains the focus of a rare consensus in a very divided Arab world, counting among his friends and admirers intellectuals and political leaders of very different ideological and political persuasions
The society was also conceived in response to the growing need for writing and research grants in the Arab world. And to commemorate the figure of Ahmed Bahaaeddin is not only to pay tribute to an extraordinary figure, but, as the meeting amply testified, to honour a writer and journalist whose personal integrity, as much as his brilliant career, inspired generations of intellectuals -- "a rare personality," in the words of economist Galal Amin, a member of the society's board of executives and one of the evening's many distinguished speakers, "and, unlike so many others who are merely called intellectuals, someone who truly was the intellectual par excellence".
The meeting was presided over by another icon of Egyptian journalism, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, who, as a tribute to his late colleague, agreed to chair the meeting held to announce the results of the first round of the society's research awards. The panel also included jurist and historian Tarek El-Bishri (head of the award's jury) and lawyer Ziad Bahaaeddin, Bahaaeddin's son, who introduced the society's activities and announced the beginning of the next round, declaring that the society was now ready to accept new applicants' research proposals.
(l-r) Makram Mohamed Ahmed, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Tarek El-Bishri and Ziad Bahaaeddin
photos: Randa ShaathThe brevity of Ziad's articulate speech, and his unique tone of voice, at once firm and low-key, reminded the audience, many of whom were Bahaaeddin's friends and collaborators, of the late writer's own literary and oratory skills -- the simplicity and immediate appeal of his style, his unsentimental conciseness. Throughout the rest of the meeting the remark "like father like son" was frequently reiterated. El-Bishri, on the other hand, drew a moving portrait of Bahaaeddin, and, with admirable humility, explained the jury's decision (five of the 65 proposals the society received were selected) by pointing out that the members, among whom there was a near consensus about the books to be subsidised, picked the most relevant projects, though the 60 other proposals were no less viable. "I say this so that young writers will not be discouraged from participating in the future," he added.
Heikal was quick to point out one of Bahaaeddin's most distinctive characteristics. Despite the magnitude of the late author's contribution, Heikal explained, he had been surprised when, attempting to collect some of Bahaaeddin's writings in book form, he found the task almost impossible, due to the variety of the work and the completeness of each article. The essence of Bahaaeddin's achievement, as Heikal was soon to realise, was not in leaving behind dusty tomes to be kept on bookshelves, but in the constant, impassioned dialogue he unceasingly maintained with current issues and events -- "a dialogue with history". An intellectual in a profession notorious for its short memory, Bahaaeddin strove to elevate the practice of that profession to sophisticated levels while retaining the rare ability to reach out and address his readers. He was someone primarily interested in life, its living and how to make that better.
It was only when Heikal introduced the five young writers who had been awarded the grants, though, that the society's activities came clearly to light. The writers were all academically well qualified. With one exception, they were there to talk about their various contributions and though their speeches, on the whole, did not stray from general comments, it was evident that the society had enabled them to carry their projects to completion. Moreover, all five research topics (women in society, art in journalism, microbiology, children's literature and the city of Jerusalem), balancing the society's emphasis on the humanities (Bahaaeddin's chief forte) with an equal interest in the current scientific revolution, as well as focusing on Egypt and the Arab world, would have been of profound interest to Bahaaeddin himself, as Heikal later observed.
In fact, the handful of well-established guests -- former minister and law professor Aisha Rateb, veteran journalist Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, economist Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil and poet Farouk Guweida, not to mention the provocative Amin -- who were asked to deliver impromptu speeches in the last half hour offered the most stimulating arguments. And though they spoke, with wit and understanding, about their own particular fields of interest (Abdel-Fadil, for example, discussed his current work on corruption and how to put an end to it), none of them forgot to pay tribute to Bahaaeddin, who was and remains, as everyone was eager to point out, present in our midst.
