18 - 24 January 2001
Issue No.517
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 18 - 24 January 2001 Issue No.517 |
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What began as the banning of three books by the Ministry of Culture has spiralled into a far-reaching controversy drawing actors from across the cultural spectrum into its wake. The reason given for the withdrawal of these works -- published by the General Organisation for Cultural Palaces (GOCP), a division of the Ministry of Culture -- was their explicit sexual content, and the ensuing fracas, perhaps inevitably, has been sharply polarised, with the ministry describing its move as an "internal reform," and its detractors calling it an "inquisition." Following subsequent reports that the last two volumes of the GOCP edition of the Diwan of Abu Nuwas -- a canonical classic of Arabic poetry that includes explicit allusions to sex and drinking -- have also been removed from circulation, the debate has assumed still more incendiary proportions, touching on such explosive dichotomies as freedom of expression vs public morality. Below, the Weekly offers a summary of the events, interviews with concerned parties (including the authors of the three novels) and synopses of the textual culprits
Floating bureaus
Last week the secular-Islamist debate reached a new pinnacle when Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni appeared on television to confirm and justify the banning of three recent publications of the General Organisation for Cultural Palaces (GOCP) said to contain explicitly pornographic passages. With reference to the exodus of GOCP employees that coincided with the banning -- by dismissal or resignation -- there seems to be disagreement as to whether individual cases are instances of the former or the latter -- Hosni explained that, following the controversy surrounding the GOCP's publication of Haydar Haydar's A Banquet for Seaweed, GOCP editors had been emphatically instructed not to let controversial material reach the printworks. To have failed to carry out the instruction, the minister contended, deserves punishment. About the banning itself Hosni commented: "The ministry does not publish porn." The question, to him, concerned neither religion nor politics but simply common decency. "I dare any of the editors," Hosni challenged, "who support the publication of these novels to give them to their wives."
The events which led to the banning are few and tightly meshed. On 3 January Gamal Heshmat, a Muslim Brotherhood member of the new parliament, filed a request for information with the Ministry of Culture regarding the otherwise unobtrusive publication by the GOCP, in the "literary voices" series, of three novels that contain "pornographic" passages: Tawfiq Abdel-Rahman's Before and After, Yasser Shaaban's Sons of the Romantic Fault and Mahmoud Hamid's Forbidden Dreams, the last of whom received a Ministry of Culture award handed to him personally by Hosni in 1997. Heshmat explicitly warned that his request must be addressed "before we bring back to mind the story of A Banquet for Seaweed." This unfortunate novel, a modern classic of Syrian literature, was the target of a campaign by Islamist newspaper, Al-Shaab, mouthpiece of the now defunct Egyptian Labour Party.
On the same day (3 January), novelist Mohamed El-Bisati, editor-in-chief of the "literary voices" series, received a phonecall from critic Ali Abu-Shadi, head of the GOCP, informing him that poet Girgis Shukri, the managing editor of the series and he are to meet Hosni the next day to discuss the books published in the series and to give their opinion of some of them. As Abu-Shadi subsequently revealed, this is to help Hosni formulate his response to Heshmat in preparation for addressing parliament.
At this point El-Bisati has already tendered his resignation following bureaucratic disputes with the GOCP administration, but on 4 January, in the company of Abu-Shadi and a handful of GOCP officials, El-Bisati and Shukri found themselves sitting impatiently in the Ministry of Culture headquarters in Zamalek: the minister is more than an hour late for the appointment and they are considering leaving already. Finally an unknown figure appears, leading El-Bisati to an office in which for 45 minutes the novelist is "interrogated" -- El-Bisati's phrase -- by lawyer Ismail Seddiq, Hosni's legal adviser. During their "discussions" with Seddiq, El-Bisati and Shukri unapologetically accept responsibility for publishing the three novels in question, defending the authors against the charge of offending "morality and manners".
By the next working day (6 January), Prime Minister Atef Ebeid officially sacked Abu-Shadi, two months after the renewal of his term in office. Abu Shadi denies responsibility, pointing out that it is physically impossible to review the GOCP's 250-300 titles personally, and declaring the sacking an unjustified punishment and himself the scapegoat from the opposite camp provided to mollify Islamist opinion.
In protest, six GOCP editors announced their resignation: Gamal El-Ghitani (also the editor of Akhbar Al-Adab, Egypt's most popular literary newspaper and the intellectuals' partisan mouthpiece), Ibrahim Aslan (who was responsible for publishing the controversial-enough-to-be-banned Banquet), Abdel-Aziz Mowafi, Mohamed Koshiek, Magdi Tawfiq and a newly appointed Talaat El-Shayeb.
As a result of the crisis, the Ministry of Culture's gargantuan book fair (opening on 24 January) is expected to come up against an unprecedented obstacle: a possible boycott to be staged as part of a general boycott of Ministry of Culture activities by intellectuals. If true, this will have little effect on the mainstream activities of the fair: the participation of publishers, the formal seminars (which have little bearing on contemporary fiction) and the popular appeal of the fair. The implication of the boycott, rather, is that the fringe "tents" and "cafes" of the fair -- the informal venues associated with "intellectuals" -- may end up empty this year. Advertised forcefully by Akhbar Al-Adab, the proposed boycott would throw into relief the convoluted reality of both the writer's position vis-à-vis a multidimensional -- moral, religious or official -- establishment, and the point at which culture and politics repeatedly converge.
One paradox of the present drama is that the writers staging the boycott have themselves frequently been associated with the ministry. This is partly explained by the fact that the GOCP -- the focus of both the Banquet campaign and the present crisis -- is Nasserist in origin, and remains for many not only a historical triumph of the left but an instance of culture for the people. Regardless of their faults, and of the forms or names under which they operate, the cultural palaces have, until, it seems, very recently, constituted the connection between intellectuals and the ministry.
The banning of Tawfiq Abdel-Rahman's Before and After, Yasser Shaaban's Sons of the Romantic Fault and Mahmoud Hamid's Forbidden Dreams is, inevitably, being viewed by those concerned in the light of the controversy surrounding Haydar Haydar's A Banquet for Seaweed, a controversy which erupted as a precursor to the millennial general elections -- a tactic, it was said, whereby Islamists could rally political dissent by defaming state-supported cultural activities. One year into the millennium, Heshmat's request for information is the follow-up from within parliament.
Regarding the Banquet, the position of the ministry may have fluctuated, but Hosni managed to avoid siding with either party, stating ultimately that the matter would be settled by the courts. An abstract painter whose policy had until now in no way betrayed fundamentalist leanings, this time round the minister has stated explicitly that his department will not endorse fiction that offends public morality. Ironically modern classics by Youssef Idris and, notably, Ihsan Abdel-Qudous, which submitted to an Islamist analysis would prove equally pornographic, remain available. More ironic, perhaps, is that the banning of books can hardly be said to protect a predominantly illiterate public. GOCP novels may be intended for all, but in practice they are very unlikely to be perused by any one ingenuous or misinformed enough to consider ordinary literary treatment of sex pornographic. Assuming that one's wife is as familiar as one with the mores of contemporary literature, it is hard to see how giving her the novels constitutes a challenge.
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