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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 Feb. - 1 March 2000 Issue No. 470 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 Feb. - 1 March 2000 Issue No. 470
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Heritage Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters No matter what
By Fatemah Farag
Against the backdrop of ambivalent popular sentiment towards relations with Israel, and hopes that a new peace would bring more prosperous times, an angry group of intellectuals convene at the leftist Tagammu party headquarters downtown and raise the slogan: resist normalisation! That was in 1979.
Fast forward to 2000, and still in downtown Cairo, people go in droves to watch movies, which boast a far from subtle, anti-Israeli content. One sure-fire way to ensure a box-office success is, it seems, to get actor Mohamed Heneidi to burn the American flag. More disturbing, holocaust denial rhetoric elicits applause from audiences. And the anti-normalisation movement is in shambles.
The history of the anti-normalisation movement in Egypt is full of contradictions. The rhetoric of the '80s cut little ice on the streets; it was too far removed from popular consciousness. And today, after observing 20 years of peace, years in which the intifadah was brutally suppressed, that the Sabra, Shatila and then Qana massacres occurred, and in which Lebanon has been, and is again, subject to constant aggression -- people remain as disenchanted, as unoptimistic as ever. Yet at the same time the loudest voices in a weak anti-normalisation movement are those of the Nasserist/Islamist factions who propagandise a predominantly anti-Jewish discourse.
The night the anti-normalisation movement was born -- that stormy meeting at the Tagammu -- was the eve of the opening of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. That night, attendees established the Committee for the Defence of National Culture and voted the late writer and activist Latifa El-Zayyat as president of the committee.
"We realised after the signing of Camp David that Israel's goal was to make of itself an accepted entity within the area. That is why they were careful to add in the accords articles, which not only stipulated economic cooperation but also cooperation in the realms of education, culture and media. We felt the danger -- this was not just about rights being given up, but about tampering with and manipulating the Arab mind," explained Helmy Shaarawy, head of the Arab Research Center and a prominent member of the anti-normalisation movement since its inception.
To deal with the task at hand, the committee held regular meetings and issued Al-Mowagaha (The Confrontation).
"At first, Al-Mowagaha was a pamphlet that played an important role in publicising details of Camp David and other forms of normalisation, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon," recounted novelist and Cairo University professor Radwa Ashour, the publications' long standing editor-in-chief. "As of 1983 it became a book published at irregular intervals -- all in all seven issues until 1987, after which it once again became a pamphlet which was also issued sporadically, the last issue being some time in the early nineties."
The course of the committee mimics that of its mouth-piece. First, momentum built up. Shaarawy remembers the early years. "Stemming from our initiative, anti-normalisation measures began to take legal shape. Professional syndicates adopted anti-normalisation clauses in their by-laws and other organisations, such as the Women's Association to Combat Zionism, began to develop. On the regional level, we catalysed the meeting of Arab ministers of culture held in Damascus in 1980. Then we discovered that Israel was attending the Cairo International Book Fair in 1981 and we were successful in forging a front amongst intellectuals against this. Some of us were sent to prison as a result of our efforts, myself and Salah Eissa included, but Israel has never come back to the Book Fair. I think this one event is probably the brightest in the record of the committee."
The movement seems to have petered out since then. "Problems began in the early eighties when activities in art and literature including all Mediterranean countries began to be organised. Some intellectuals wanted to attend such events, the latest being [poet] Afifi Matar. Their logic is that we should be present at international forums and that since UN functions were excluded from boycott, so should these activities," explained Salah Eissa, writer and long-standing anti-normalisation activist. "This shook the camp slightly because there were others who took the boycott to the point of not meeting Palestinians with Israeli nationality, such as poet Samieh El-Qassem."
One point that should be cleared up is the common accusation that the anti-normalisation movement is an arena for anti-Jewish sentiments. Ashour offers a poignant clarification.
"Anti-Jewish, as opposed to anti-Zionist discourse, must be put into context. The state of Israel and the Zionist movement itself is responsible for the mix up that often happens. When the man on the street talks about Jews, he means those who established the state of Israel, those who became occupiers, he is not talking about a peace-loving Jew who lives in Denmark. This mix up has nothing to do with racism. Within a western context it might sound like that, but within the framework of our reality it has a different connotation. To prove my point, despite the fact that Egyptians have suffered in many wars, and have had their sons killed and schools bombed, no one ever thought to even write graffiti on a synagogue in Egypt. Why? Because common sentiment is that these are places of worship that must be respected."
From its inception the anti-normalisation movement adopted a secular, leftist and anti-fascist discourse. Eissa explains that the early eighties witnessed the Egyptian government's phase of what he describes as "tepid peace" with Israel.
Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon remains one of its bloodiest wars. Its most gruesome episode was the massacre at the Palestinian Sabra and Shatila Camp on 20 September, in which Israeli forces stood by as their allied militias cold-bloodedly butchered hundreds of Palestinian civilians. The 1982 invasion caused a major shift in Egyptian public opinion, dramatically shattering hopes of friendship and cooperation and ushering in years of "cold peace" between Egypt and Israel. Here one survivor carries his remaining belongings out of the ruins
(photo: AFP)
"There was the dispute over Taba and Egypt's policy to balance its relations with other Arab countries." These are factors that may explain the lull in the anti-normalisation movement, but Eissa goes on to recount that the most devastating blows came later on. "First there was Madrid. The resistance front simply fell to pieces. Then came the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the beating down of Iraq, the only real military power within the Arab camp. Perhaps the final blow, however, was Oslo. People would say, 'it is not possible that Yasser Arafat sits with the Israeli's and we still refuse to do so'. The movement really splintered."
Locally, the Copenhagen Declaration and its ramifications dramatised the splintering. The drama ended with pro-normalisation advocates meeting at the five-star Semiramis Hotel, and anti-normalisation advocates meeting across the street at the Shepherds Hotel. Sayed Bahrawy, professor of Literature at Cairo University, sums up the apparent farce. "If we are talking about the Copenhagen camp or the opposing one we will note the same thing: political life does not allow for real forces to express themselves and what you are left with are those willing or forced to play the game. Unfortunately, the system has been only too successful in the past years in co-opting a large number of intellectuals," he said.
Adding to Bahrawy's criticism, Eissa points out that the committee was never properly institutionalised, and that the pressures were such that it was pushed in the direction of becoming a cultural, rather than a political, organisation.
Today, the committee still exists, its presence manifested in sporadic and limited activities. Ashour argues, however, that its members are spread out over other organisations that act in a similar vein.
"With normalisation they are trying to kill our future. Today, we are forced to do what we do because we have no choice. But it is not our fate that we will always be the weaker side of the equation. They are looking to 20, 30 maybe 50 years from now when the balance of forces may just be in our favour. That is why anti-normalisation is a very important weapon because despite the fact that we dream of peace, what we are being sold today is a mere illusion and a consolidation of oppression," argues Ashour.
The movement may be in disarray, yet veteran anti-normalisation activists still argue about the importance and timeliness of anti-normalisation.
"In today's world and within the framework of globalisation, if Arabs talk about religion or nationalism they are called backward. But Israel can take extreme stands based on both and be supported not only by a strong pro-Israel lobby in the United States, but also by considerable forces in Europe and the ex-Soviet Union," exclaimed Shaarawy.
Ashour adds that it is the role of the intellectual to develop a strategic view and not make the same tactical decisions forced upon state employees. "It is our role to develop a comprehensive vision of national interest," she insists.
But where to begin? And given current disarray, is that role even possible?
"After the Syrian track has been completed there remains a crucial question: how to deal with the fact that everyone has agreed to peace with Israel? The Arab nation is facing a difficult time and intellectuals much think of ways to deal with an Israel that remains a very real danger," says Shaarawy. "What we need today is to remind people about the basics of the state of Israel. The Zionist project is an expansionist one."
Bahrawy sums up: "I believe we will have to adapt our discourse to match changing realities. But we must always preserve the basics: We are not against the Jews; we are against Zionist racism and against the state of Israel; we are for a secular unified state in Palestine and we will continue to struggle for that no matter what."
