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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Before the law
By Youssef Rakha" 'Why this novel' is a question I am not in a position to answer now."
Novelist Ibrahim Aslan, editor-in-chief of the Afaaq Al-Kitaba book series, is the archetypal Egyptian citizen -- peaceful, witty, diplomatic. "It should be addressed to others. One would think so at least," he continues ironically, "considering that this series aims specifically to republish [modern] Arabic works from outside Egypt, works whose value is generally established, agreed upon in a way that leaves no room for reassessment or revision.
"Which is why the series has no publications committee," he adds, one whose members would have shared the legal brunt of the large-scale public campaign launched by the bi-weekly newspaper Al-Shaab against the republication, by the Organisation for Cultural Palaces (a division of Ministry of Culture) of Syrian novelist Haydar Haydar's most widely acclaimed achievement to date, A Banquet for Seaweed, an elegiac tale of Arab solidarity and leftist demise that has been available in Egyptian bookshops since the year of its publication, 1983. "You can't set up a committee to review works by well-known and established authors." And he proceeds to intone a retinue of author names -- Abdel-Rahman Mounif, Al-Tayib Saleh, Katib Yassin, Malik Haddad, Wadie Sa'ada, Mohamed Al-Maghout -- that sounds like the contents page of a bluff-your-way guide to contemporary Arabic literature. "All these we've published."
A committee, Aslan explains, would be perceived as an insult to both the author in question, who is already sufficiently well-established to require no assessment, and the editor of the series, who is chosen specifically on the basis of his expertise in the literary field it aims at. Listening to Aslan at this point, it is easy to assume that, if ever hell broke loose over a book, the editor would be backed by the institution for which he works. Yet the unpredictable developments of the issue of A Banquet for Seaweed have proved otherwise.
Following demonstrations against the Minister of Culture by Al-Azhar University students, Aslan and the subdued short-story writer Hamdi Abu Golail, the series' affable managing editor, were called to the state security prosecutor's offices, along with Ali Abu Shadi, head of the organisation, and Mohamed Koshiek, secretary of publications, for interrogation as suspects in an ongoing court suit filed prior to the demonstrations by a lawyer who stated that he had not read the novel, and accusing all parties responsible, for the book's first Egyptian publication, of insulting Islam, denigrating Prophet Mohamed and deriding the Divine Being. It was soon established that neither Abu-Shadi nor Koshiek were legally accountable for the choice of books published, however.
"We are accountable because we edit the series," explains Abu Golail in the Cairo office of the London-based daily newspaper Al-Hayat, in which Aslan goes to work, his status vis-à-vis the organisation being, unlike Abu Golail's, that of a consultant, not officially an employee.
"The choice is based on the fame of the work," Abu Golail continues, "in the sense of whether or not, and to what extent, it is established that this is a work of value. So you actually depend on an incorporeal committee of critics. The many articles that had been written prior to the book's republication --" favourable responses from critics like Ali El-Ra'i, Farouk Abdel-Qadir and Mohamed Berrada, some of which were published in the 7 May issue of Akhbar Al-Adab "-- are self-sufficient evidence for our case."
But was offending religion, in Al-Shaab's dogmatic, narrow sense, ever a consideration for Aslan and Abu Golail?
"Not at all, when we had already published nearly 40 works. Nobody could possibly have anticipated what happened. If published in another book series, most of which have committees, an unknown or unimportant novel that is deliberately offensive to religion might have justifiably been cause for concern. That could never have been the case with a series that publishes well-respected, long-standing Arabic classics of the 20th century. The issue, therefore, does not concern A Banquet for Seaweed, but rather concerns any respectable 20th-century literary endeavour. It should be an issue for anybody who has anything to do with writing."
Ibrahim Aslan
In supporting the cause of the novel and unconditionally accepting responsibility for its republication, the two low-profile men-of-letters render themselves the scapegoats in a saga that should really involve the Writers' Union, and actually did involve, at various stages of its unfolding, the rally of independent intellectuals initiated by writer Ibrahim Mansour. Yet Aslan and Abu Golail face the law on their own, without the support of any institution, or quasi-institution, or the establishment. And in their lack of concern about this particular fact one senses a reluctance to engage, an unwillingness to be more than passive witnesses, and perhaps a touch of the Kafkaesque: The accused seeks his offence, according to the popular Czech writer Milan Kundera, a favourite among Arab intellectuals in recent years. Aslan in particular insists that Abu Golail, like Koshiek and Abu Shadi, simply by virtue of the nature of his job, was involved only at the administrative level.
"Legally, yes, we are the responsible parties," Abu Golail nonetheless asserts, while Aslan, concluding the last of many phone calls he has received thus far, returns to the discussion. "The incident drew my attention to the situation, yes, not to the novel, which I had naturally formed an opinion of." The writer indulges a propensity for understatement. "I'd rather not talk about this, but you could say that the alleged case of the novel was adopted by one or another political rally as an occasion for incitement [to murder], due to motives that definitely transcend the question of whether the novel is actually offensive to religion. And a lot of journalistic analyses have already explained it in relation to things like the coming elections, a political party's search for a role..." (Abu Golail adds that journalist Mohamed Abbas, who first exploded the issue, was motivated solely by the desire for media attention and personal gain.)
"I have a decent amount of trust in the expert committee that's been set up," continues the aging novelist, who goes on to expand on the question of Al-Shaab's erroneous, and deliberately trouble-stirring reading of a harmless novel, expressing support for the parties defending an informed and common sense reading. He does not hold the intellectuals responsible for any lack of concrete solidarity, though apart from collecting signatures they have done little to support him; he absolves the organisation and, by extension, the ministry, of any altruistic obligations. He acknowledges difference of opinion and the possibility that "a novel, any novel" might offend certain people at certain times. And along these lines he refuses to censure "the students who protested something they had no objective proof of," blaming the educational institutions of which they are products.
And in the light of such an essentially conciliatory position on almost everything, is this an occasion for reconciliation between intellectuals and the Ministry of Culture?
"I'm all for it," Aslan retorts, "but only if reconciliation with the Ministry of Culture means better and more culture. One must never forget that an intellectual, even if he fails to contribute significantly, is at least the guardian of his country's creative and cultural legacy..."
Aslan was meant to be in France during the ten days following the appearance of the fateful Friday issue of Al-Shaab, to attend a series of seminars and celebrations on the occasion of the publication in French of his novel Wardiyat Lail (Night Shift). He did not go, he explains, so as not to be labelled a coward or non-confrontational. But, the legal process notwithstanding, what if further developments endanger his everyday life? He is reluctant to leave the country, he says. But is it nonetheless something he might find himself forced to do?
And to this Aslan's quintessential Egyptian citizen's response can only be described as moving: "In general terms, I don't feel that I'm alone, no. But in terms of my private life I am responsible for a family."
