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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 March 2000 Issue No. 471 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 March 2000 Issue No. 471
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Interview Features Focus Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Tribute to a warrior
By Amina Elbendary
On 23 February, the Al-Ahram Organisation held a memorial ceremony in honour of the late political analyst and thinker Lutfi El-Kholi (1928-1999), who had played a leading role in developing its publications since the early 1960s. In his opening remarks, Chairman of the Board and Al-Ahram Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Nafie stated that El-Kholi's presence, which permeates Egyptian culture, continues to be strongly felt.
The memorial ceremony for El-Kholi chaired by Nafie and attended by public figures
The gathering listened to an appreciation by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, which was read out by his delegate Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, as well as Osama El-Baz, political advisor to President Hosni Mubarak, and Mohamed Bahgat El-Kholi, the late intellectual's brother. Among the Egyptian dignitaries present were Esmat Abdel-Meguid, secretary-general of the Arab League, Mustafa El-Feki, assistant foreign minister and Egypt's prominent representative of the Arab League, and renowned political analyst, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal.
Tribute was paid to El-Kholi's dedication to the Palestinian struggle for independence in the keynote address by Palestinian Minister Faisal Al-Husseini entitled "The Chances of the Final Status Negotiations and the Issue of Jerusalem".
The commemoration was attended by dignitaries from a number of Arab countries, including Al-Sadek Al-Mahdi, the former Sudanese prime minister, Umm Jihad, the Palestinian minister for social affairs, and Al-Akhdar Al-Ibrahimi, the former Algerian foreign minister.
Al-Ahram was the home for many of El-Kholi's intellectual enterprises. He initiated and edited the newspaper's illustrious opinion pages, and also (from 1965) the left-wing Al-Tali'a (Vanguard) magazine which provided a forum for criticism and opposition from within the state-sponsored press. Nafie referred to Al-Tali'a as "a school for Egyptian nationalism and a school for political journalism." The magazine was closed in 1977 following a critical editorial by El-Kholi in the aftermath of January's food-price riots.
To mark the occasion, Al-Ahram published a special commemorative issue of Al-Tali'a in honour of El-Kholi to coincide with the memorial gathering.
In 1985, El-Kholi started the National Dialogue weekly page in Al-Ahram; and continued as its editor until his death in February 1999. The page has retained its role as an independent forum for Arab intellectuals.
El-Kholi's involvement in cultural and political life was not limited to his work at Al-Ahram: he succeeded in "merging thought with action, culture with politics, and utopianism with realism," asserted Nafie.
He was not an ivory tower intellectual, but an activist who practiced what he preached. Thus, he was involved with the Algerian independence revolution, and also embraced the Palestinian liberation and resistance movements, to which he dedicated the greater part of his life.
In the winter of 1997, El-Kholi was at the forefront of the Arabs who protested at the Israeli government's decision to build a Jewish settlement on Jabal Abu-Ghneim in Jerusalem. His courageous decision to go to Jerusalem to participate in demonstrations there reflected his firm belief in both activism and the Palestinian cause. However, it also earned him a great deal of criticism -- even verbal abuse -- at home.
Faisal Al-Husseini recalled a discussion on that occasion on whether visiting Palestine under Israeli occupation was a violation of the national agenda. El-Kholi had pressed him to give his opinion. "When you visit a friend imprisoned in jail, you are supporting that friend, not normalising your relations with the jailer," Al-Husseini affirmed.
It was in recognition of that dedication to the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of an independent state for its people, with Jerusalem as its capital, that Yasser Arafat awarded El-Kholi the Jerusalem medal posthumously. For Arafat, El-Kholi's struggle was a reflection of Egypt's commitment to the Palestinian cause. "He was a man with a cause for which he struggled in all battlefields and all circumstances. His belief in the justice of the Palestinian cause remained strong, regardless of all setbacks," declared Arafat.
El-Kholi demonstrated a remarkable ability to reconsider his own thinking. According to Osama El-Baz, the most striking feature of his overwhelming personality was "a mind that knew no limits... [and was] constantly searching for the truth." El-Baz disagreed with the interpretations of El-Kholi's position as having shifted from Marxism to Nasserism, and then to liberalism. "His mind resisted being confined within the parameters of one particular ideology... This freedom of the mind made him courageous in his opinions, even when they went against the prevailing beliefs of the time. He was subjected to much injustice due to his brave opinions," claimed El-Baz.
During the 1990s, El-Kholi revised his position on the Arab-Israeli conflict, reaching the conclusion that peace was the only viable option for the Arabs. He, therefore, decided to encourage and support the peace movement within Israeli society, in the hope that people's pressure would make the Israeli government take action in the direction of a just and peaceful solution of the conflict. Although his efforts with the Cairo Peace Movement in that connection were the target of severe criticism from the anti-normalisation camp, they also received nods of approval from several Arab governments.
El-Kholi's beliefs and actions were often controversial, but he will always be remembered and honoured for his legacy of active commitment to Arab causes.
