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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 December 1999 Issue No. 459 
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Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 December 1999 Issue No. 459
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| Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Debate Features Profile Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Al-Ahram:
A Diwan of contemporary life (315)
In its first 50 years of existence, Al-Ahram was shut down three times on orders from the government or the khedive. All three closures were triggered by articles or reports written in the exercise of free expression. The first, in 1879, only three years after the newspaper began publication, was caused by an article which lamented the injustices suffered by Egyptian peasants. The government saw it as incitement to rebellion and suppressed the newspaper for 15 days. The second closure, lasting for 32 days, followed the publication of an article urging the formation of a national delegation to seek European aid for Egypt which infuriated the government and the British high commissioner. The third shut-down came in 1922 when King Fouad took exception to an article suggesting that he was trying to block work on the drafting of a new constitution. This time the three-day stoppage drew sharp criticism from the international press. Dr Yunan Labib Rizk * tells the story
On the censor's block
At 8.00pm Monday 14 August 1922, Captain Rida Effendi El-Uqda of the Abdin Police Station appeared at the office of Al-Ahram Director Yusef Effendi Ghastin and presented him the following ministerial decree:
"In accordance with article 13 of the Press and Publications Law of 29 November 1881 and the two ministerial decrees of 25 March 1909;
"And, whereas the Al-Ahram, which is published in Cairo, printed in its edition number 12816 of 8 August 1922, under the headline 'Calling things by their names', an article containing fallacious information that falls under the provisions of the above-mentioned article;
"The government has resolved to suspend the publication of Al-Ahram, said decision to be implemented by the Minister of Interior."
After Al-Ahram's director read the decree, the police officer got him to pledge that he would stop publication of the newspaper as of the following morning, even though the edition for that day had already been laid out. The captain then went down to the press, disassembled the letters in the typeset, recording this action in his report, and then returned to the police station to present his report along with the director's pledge.
This "extraordinary incident", as Al-Ahram later described it, was made even more so by the fact that the suspension decree, contrary to customary procedure, specified neither the period of suspension nor the detailed reasons. More peculiar yet was the fact that for nearly 40 years, the newspaper had remained untouched by the press and publications law.
This is not to say that the newspaper had never been subject to suspension or closure. Indeed, clampdowns on press freedoms had almost ended the newspaper's life in its infancy, although such actions were generally run-of-the-mill in the early life of the Egyptian press. The first time Al-Ahram suffered punitive action occurred in 1879 when the newspaper was barely three years old. The cause was an article published in Sada Al-Ahram, or "The Echo", which essentially was a daily supplement to what at the time was a weekly newspaper. The article was entitled "The Oppression of the Peasant" and said, "The peasant is doubly oppressed: in his money and his land. He should be aware of that affliction and aware that there is a remedy, a remedy that lies in his hands, not in the hands of his leaders. As long as he is humble and submissive, to meek to assert his rights, his masters will remain relentlessly demanding and audacious in inflicting injustices on him."
Government officials considered the article inflammatory. At the direct orders of the Khedive Ismail, the newspaper was suspended and one of the co-owners, Bichara Taqla, was arrested and put in prison. To his good fortune, he only remained in prison for three days only as a result of the intervention of the French consul who pleaded that the Taqla brothers were under French protection. The newspaper was allowed to publish again after a two-week hiatus.
The newspaper was closed down a second time five years later. On 19 August 1984 Prime Minister Nubar Pasha ordered it suspended for a month due to the publication of "a collection of political articles which slandered the authority and standing of the government of the khedive and were thus construed to be disruptive of public peace."
On this occasion, Bichara Taqla had travelled to Europe to report on an international conference that met in London to discuss Egyptian finances. To the British occupation authorities the most disturbing article Bichara produced from this visit was that which appealed for the election of a delegation to represent the Egyptian people at the conference. He called upon the mayors and notables of the country to "unite your hearts and delegate your affairs to a select group who may travel to London and other important capitals in order to protect our nation's rights. The group should present to those governments reports that clarify the conditions in our country and appeal for their aid, for they are not devoid of the will to champion our aspirations."
Lord Cromer, the British high commissioner in Cairo, found Bichara's call to action so appalling that he asked Nubar to order the newspaper shut down. The decree, however, precipitated an international crisis. The French consul in Cairo lodged a protest with the Egyptian prime minister, insisting that the newspaper's press be reopened in the presence of a consular representative and that its owners be compensated for the damage caused to them. When the Nubar government refused to comply with the French demands, the French consul issued an ultimatum demanding that Nubar "declare that he has committed an offense against Al-Ahram, that he will not repeat such an offense in the future and that he instruct the governor of Alexandria to personally issue an official apology." Nubar yielded and the newspaper reopened on 22 September 1884, after a 32-day suspension.
For the next 38 years the newspaper was left in peace. Over the years, the newspaper had developed into a well-entrenched institution. Authorities had to think twice before taking any action against it. Nor did its owners have to seek protection from the French when confronted with government tyranny. By 1922, at almost 50 years of age, it had already become the longest-lived newspaper in the country. Thus, when the newspaper disappeared from the stalls in 1922, panic set in. Al-Ahram's correspondent in Alexandria reported that "our office here has been swamped with phone calls, and the phones are still ringing incessantly. This incident has become the subject of inquiry among all and sundry in all quarters of the city."
In addition to longevity, Al-Ahram had acquired over the previous half century a reputation for solid journalism. Its editors were profoundly aware that sensationalism might garner a broader readership, but not necessarily guarantee a long life. This policy drew the admiration of writers and intellectuals who sought to make their voices heard through the pages of Al-Ahram. Sheikh Mohamed Abduh, Mustafa Kamel and Taha Hussein were only a few on the endless list of intellectual and national luminaries whose attraction to the newspaper simultaneously lent it greater prestige. In fact, it was Taha Hussein who, on the occasion of the newspaper's 75th anniversary, dubbed it "the diwan (chronicle) of contemporary life," which inspired the title of this column.
Because of the prestige it had acquired, Al-Ahram was well poised to ride out the governmental high-handedness. By the 1920s it had survived the reigns of three rulers of the Mohamed Ali dynasty and continued to thrive under a fourth, King Ahmed Fouad. It had survived the onset of the British occupation and the successive guises it adopted, from intervening power in the wake of the Orabi rebellion, through the protectorate to the guardianship of Egypt's conditional independence. It had also endured the hardships of World War I and then the largest popular revolution in modern Egyptian history.
Considering this background, the newspaper was accurate in describing the suspension decree of 14 August 1922 as "extraordinary." But then, so too was the political turmoil in which Al-Ahram found itself.
On 1 March of that year, a new government was sworn in under Prime Minister Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat. Nationalist tensions were still at their height. For nearly 60 days, following the resignation of Prime Minister Adli Yakan, Egypt had been without a cabinet. Although Tharwat had been invited to form a government in late December of the previous year, the fact that the British had exiled nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul for a second time, precipitating a wave of public outrage, made it virtually impossible for him to accept unless the British met certain conditions. In an attempt to defuse tensions London, on 28 February 1922, issued a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence and persuaded Sultan Fouad, who was given the title "King" under the declaration, to accept the Tharwat government.
King Fouad
Bishara Takla
Ismail Pasha
Dawoud Barakat
Abdel-Khaleq
Tharwat
The honeymoon between Tharwat and the palace barely lasted a month. By the end of March, differences began to bubble beneath the surface and by July they burst into the open. To Fouad, the Tharwat government was beginning to act a little too independently. It had arrested certain members of the Wafd Party without consulting him. It suspended the French language La Liberte, which supported the Wafd but which the palace also frequently used for propaganda purposes. Worse yet, the commission the Tharwat government formed to draw up a new constitution for the country was considering too many restrictions on the powers of the king.Fouad, in turn, did what he could do to obstruct the government. His most glaring act was to postpone the convocation of the cabinet for several weeks, thereby "dangerously disrupting government activities," as British High Commissioner Lord Allenby wrote to his superiors in London.
In the midst of this turmoil, on 8 August 1922, Al-Ahram came out with the article that brought down the axe: "Calling things by their names." Criticising the attempts of some to downplay the tensions between the palace and the Tharwat cabinet, the article declared, "It is absurd for officials and non-officials alike to deny the murky climate. It is folly for journalists and non-journalists to pretend that nothing is wrong. The fact is that a cloud is looming over the domestic political climate and it is throwing the conduct of affairs into turmoil, agitating the public and bringing no benefit to anyone." It goes on to say that "such tensions are unacceptable given our present conditions. A crisis that is open and clear would be preferable, if there must be a crisis at all."
However, according to confidential British documents, it was another article appearing in the same edition that actually led to the decision to suspend the newspaper. "Bring us a constitution so we can put our minds to rest" was the title of another article. It broadly hinted that the king was deliberately seeking to derail the work of the constitutional commission.
We also learn from these British documents that, although the decree to suspend the newspaper was signed by the government, it actually came at the bidding of Fouad. In fact, Tharwat had initially refused to implement the royal demand, causing Fouad to appeal to the high commissioner to unseat Tharwat's government. Instead, Allenby sought to mediate. He persuaded the king that the time was inappropriate to call for Tharwat's resignation. Only two weeks had passed since the Tharwat government had arrested several Wafd members, as part of a clampdown on nationalist activities in the wake of a spate of assassination attempts against British officials in Egypt. The defendants, who included Hamad El-Basel, Murqos Hanna, Wasef Ghali, Elwi El-Gazzar, Wisa Wassef, Murad El-Shariei and George Khayyat, were due for trial on 9 August, the day after the notorious Al-Ahram issue hit the stands. Forcing the government to resign at that time would raise public suspicions. Allenby told the king no one would believe that the king had called for the resignation of the government "over a simple newspaper article" and, therefore, people would draw the conclusion that the king wanted to sabotage the activities of the constitutional commission. As a result of Allenby's intercession, the king and the government reached an agreement. Tharwat would agree to issue a temporary suspension of Al-Ahram and lift the suspension on La Liberte and Fouad would permit the immediate convocation of the cabinet.
For three days, from 15 to 17 August 1922, Al-Ahram ceased publication. Naturally, the action against this long-established institution precipitated a flurry of rumour and speculation in both the national and foreign press.
We have to look at national newspapers to learn the actions that were taken to rescue Al-Ahram. Shortly after he received the suspension decree, Al-Ahram's editor-in-chief contacted the newspaper's owner, Gabrail Taqla, who at the time was on his summer leave in Europe. Taqla boarded the first available ship to Alexandria, where the king and the government had relocated for the summer. On 15 August, Taqla arrived in the port, where he was met by Daoud Barakat. Although the period of the newspaper's suspension was to be only three days under the agreement between the palace, the government and the high commissioner, some face-saving gesture would be needed to appease Fouad. Daoud Barakat and Gabrail Taqla were going to have to petition "for the honour to be received by His Majesty" in order to offer some form of apology.
We follow these developments in Al-Watan, which on 16 August reported, "Gabrail Bek Taqla, owner of the venerable Al-Ahram, arrived in Alexandria yesterday where he is to have the honour of meeting with His Majesty the King. He is to be accompanied by the famous writer Daoud Bek Barakat. We hope that the meeting will bring the anticipated result and that Al-Ahram will return to the press soon."
The following day, under the headline "Al-Ahram returns, Long live the King," Al-Watan announced, "Yesterday afternoon in Ras El-Tin Palace, His Majesty the King received our dear colleagues, Gabrail Bek Taqla and the eminent writer Daoud Bek Barakat. The king bestowed upon them such kindness as to kindle their expressions of deep gratitude and their prayer for the long life of His Majesty and the perpetuity of his royal grace."
Al-Ahram resumed publication on 18 August 1922. In fulfillment of its readers' undoubted expectations, the newspaper furnished its version of the "extraordinary incident." It appeared prominently on the front page of its first post-suspension edition, under the headline "Al-Ahram's three days and its three years: 1879, 1884 and 1922." Following an account of the historical background of the closures, the author, Daoud Barakat, offers a vivid depiction of "the scene of the normal course of life suddenly coming to a standstill" in the Al-Ahram offices. Imagine if you will, "the writer bent over his desk, pen stopped in mid-sentence when notified of the decree, the print setter's hands freezing in midair over the letterpress, the printing machine operator bringing the drums to a halt, the worker abandoning his foundry, the man responsible for paper locking up the supplies, and all their assistants and colleagues standing stock-still, mouths agape." The editor-in-chief, he continues, could not be held responsible for the effects of the shock.
In this editorial, too, the writer reveals that the management resorted to a stratagem it had used during previous closures, which was to use another one of the Al-Ahram publications as their forum in the absence of the main newspaper. In 1879, when the government suspended both the daily Sada Al-Ahram and the weekly Al-Ahram, the owners established another newspaper called Al-Waqt.
In 1922, the management transformed a smaller publication, perhaps appropriately called Al-Istiqlal, into a replica of the suspended mother newspaper. As Barakat explains, "We took advantage of Al-Istiqlal during this short interlude in order to publish the articles that would most interest the reader... We also published in Al-Istiqlal the resolutions adopted by the constitutional commission in Alexandria at the time."
The same 18 August edition featured an article by Taha Hussein, who compared Al-Ahram to Prometheus, condemned by Zeus to an eternity of torment for having brought mankind from darkness to light. He wrote, "Prometheus is every journalist who knows and remains dedicated to his duty, while the king of the gods is the government, which inflicts upon journalists all sorts of torment and fetters them with all manner of restrictions."
However, the greatest space in several consecutive editions following the resumption of publication was allocated to the reaction abroad, as though in order to remind the government that it could not take such actions against the newspaper without triggering an international outcry. Thus, from the British Fortnightly Review, it picked a commentary that read, "The methods used by Al-Ahram to enlighten Egyptian public opinion are far more effective than those used by the British press to enlighten British public opinion on the Egyptian question." From The Daily Telegraph there was the following commentary: "Al-Ahram first appeared 48 years ago and one deeply regrets its temporary disappearance because, of all the Arabic newspapers, it is the one that most closely reaches European standards in its general news coverage." The Morning Post expressed similar sentiments and added that "Al-Ahram had not abused its legitimate rights to free expression."
Among the other European newspapers it quoted was Il-Popolo d'Italia. In a scathing censure of the Egyptian government, it said, "The suspension of Al-Ahram, the most distinguished and most widely circulated Arabic newspaper, was the latest episode in a series of distressing events that have occurred in Egypt in recent days."
Finally, Al-Ahram reported that a Moroccan delegation which was in London at the time, called at the newspaper's offices there to convey their sentiment that "Al-Ahram is the link that binds all Muslims and Arabic-speaking Orientals. Its suspension is a grave loss to the Islamic and Oriental world."
* The author is a professor of history
and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.
