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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 May 2000 Issue No. 483 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 May 2000 Issue No. 483
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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 Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Banquet serves up indigestion
By Khaled DawoudMore than 350 Egyptian intellectuals, novelists, artists, journalists and ordinary citizens stepped forward on Sunday to submit an unprecedented request to Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahid. They asked to be included as defendants in a lawsuit brought by an Islamist lawyer against two novelists, Ibrahim Aslan and Hamdi Abu Golail, for reprinting A Banquet for Seaweed, the controversial novel by Syrian writer Haydar Haydar.
Aslan, editor-in-chief of a series published by the Ministry of Culture to introduce Arabic literature to Egyptian readers at a cheap price, and Abu Golail, the series' managing editor, were charged by the state security prosecution two weeks ago with misusing their positions to reprint a book, which "ridicules religion, threatens social peace and incites strife." In the event these two are referred to trial and convicted, they could face up to five years in prison.
Over 100 out of those who signed the petition gathered outside the High Court of Justice in downtown Cairo to clearly display their solidarity with Aslan and Abu Golail. Radwa Ashour, a professor of literature at Ain Shams University who has been active in confronting Al-Shaab's attacks against intellectuals, told All-Ahram Weekly: "We are here to tell the Prosecutor-General that if they were going to try Aslan and Abu Golail, they should put all of us on trial with them."
The memo handed to the prosecutor's office said: "We declare to the Prosecutor-General our consent and confession that we are accessory to all the charges levelled against Ibrahim Aslan and Hamdi Abu Golail in relation to publishing the novel A Banquet for Seaweed.
"We became accessory by encouraging them to publish this novel, which we consider an important work because it portrays an aspect of life in the Arab world. Our estimate was that the publication of this novel would introduce Egyptian readers to this aspect of life and enrich their knowledge."
Without shouting slogans or making unnecessary ruckus, a small delegation representing the intellectuals who signed the petition handed in the request to the Prosecutor-General's office. The group later dispersed peacefully. Abdel-Wahid's office issued a statement declaring that the request was relayed to the state security prosecution.
"This is the first serious move that we made since the crisis began," said novelist Fatheya El-Assal, a member of the leftist Tagammu party.
"We don't care if we're put on trial, but we won't leave Aslan and Abu Golail to face all this alone," said Samia Mehrez, a professor of literature at the American University in Cairo. She herself had faced a similar situation last year when a number of students complained to Al-Shaab that she taught a book by Moroccan novelist Mohamed Choukry, which they said included indecent language.
The move by intellectuals came a few days after the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, issued his own report on the novel that was attached to the investigations conducted by the state security prosecution. The report not only shocked those who had sided with the Ministry of Culture, Aslan and Abu Golail but, more importantly, it renewed the debate on Al-Azhar's role in the censorship of books other than those directly related to Islam.
The report staunchly condemned Haydar's novel, totally contradicting the conclusions reached in another report issued two weeks ago by a group of novelists and critics who maintained that Haydar's novel did not aim to insult religion.
Intellectuals outside the High Court of Justice after handing their petition to Prosecutor- General Maher Abdel-Wahid
photo: Thierry Gicquel
Tantawi said in his three-page statement that the Ministry of Culture made a mistake in the first place by not seeking Al-Azhar's view on Haydar's novel before publishing it. As for the novel itself, Tantawi said that two Al-Azhar scholars who wrote separate reports on it concluded that it was "full of words and sentences, which despise and insult all holy beliefs, including God himself, Prophet Mohamed, Doomsday and other religious values." Tantawi's report then quoted dozens of sentences from the dialogue between the characters in Haydar's novel to prove its point. It said that the novel ridiculed God by referring to Him as "a failed artist," and claiming that "He forgot some of His creatures because of the countless other problems he has to deal with in the Arab world."
Tantawi added that the novel claimed Prophet Mohamed "took more than 20 women as legitimate wives or mistresses, and that he married women from different tribes in order to unite them." Other sentences in the novel misquoted verses from the Qur'an, openly called for violating Islamic Sharia or law and disregarding its rules and underlined the necessity of separating state and religion, the report said.
Haydar, according to Al-Azhar's report, used indecent language, "urging extramarital affairs and using bold words in referring to sexual intercourse and male and female reproductive organs." In order not to limit insults to religion, Tantawi said Haydar's novel also "called openly for disrespecting all Arab rulers, describing them in the worst possible terms and called for revolting against them, even if this led to bloodshed."
Gamal El-Ghitani, a novelist and editor-in-chief of the weekly Akhbar Al-Adab, which rallied strongly behind freedom of expression, said the novel should not have been referred to Al-Azhar in the first place.
"This is not their domain, and works of art should not be referred to Al-Azhar because that would be a form of direct censorship," he said.
Novelist El-Assal backed El-Ghitani's view. "Al-Azhar should be allowed to say what it wants, but we are also entitled to say what we want," she told the Weekly.
Shortly before the government-controlled Political Parties Committee decided to suspend Al-Shaab on Saturday, seven of the country's main human rights groups condemned in a statement "the heated campaign" led by the Islamist-oriented bi-weekly. This campaign, the groups said, was "a dangerous threat to public freedoms and freedom of expression, and an act of ugly terrorism, which cannot be justified." They accused Al-Shaab of "using religion for political purposes, although this practice may push the country towards the brink of a real catastrophe, threaten social peace and lead to the collapse of public freedoms and the rule of law."
The human rights groups added that Al-Shaab's campaign "was a classic example of terrorist tradition" because it depended on arbitrary accusations of heresy against whomsoever the newspaper saw as its political or intellectual opponents.
Lawyer and human rights activist Amir Salem had earlier initiated legal action against Al-Shaab writer Mohamed Abbas, who led the campaign against Haydar's novel with fiery headlines and calls for "Jihad and martyrdom."
