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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The protagonists' case
Tawfiq Abdel-Rahman, 61, retired civil servant and author of Before and After
"I wrote a novel, a literary work, and this is the only framework in which I accept to discuss my novel. Some people might like it, others might totally reject it, but I refuse the social and political context in which the debate is taking place right now.
The minister's statements were very confusing. First, he said the novels were against religion, and later he claimed he banned them because they included pornographic scenes. Furthermore, he made this strange challenge to 'anybody who could publish what was written on page 63' of my novel. Is this any way to read a novel, extracting two or three lines, or even one or two pages out of 185, and then to use those lines to pass judgment on the whole work? Those who want to discuss my novel should read it as a whole. I do not mind if they decide the novel is nonsense. But they should not confiscate the right of others to read it and make their own judgment.
I don't want to go into the reasons behind the minister's decision, though it appears obvious to me that the government wanted to silence Muslim Brotherhood MPs at the expense of my novel."
Mahmoud Hamid, 34, civil servant at the Ministry of Culture and author of Forbidden Dreams
"What utterly surprised me was the minister of culture's challenge to anyone to publish parts of the three novels which he confiscated. Well, I would like to remind the minister that the controversial part of my novel was published word by word in Akhbar El-Adab in 1996, and I even won the first prize for that part from the same magazine. In 1997 the minister personally handed me a certificate in appreciation of my work following a competition organised by the ministry, also for the novel he has now decided to ban.
I can't believe the way this whole problem happened. The novels had been on the market for less than three weeks when the Muslim Brotherhood MP questioned the minister. The print run was only a couple of thousand, and we are not especially well-known writers.
The problem is not my novel, or the other two. The problem is the deteriorating cultural atmosphere. The crisis that accompanied Haydar's Banquet for Seaweed was a turning point in our cultural life. Before this crisis we enjoyed a certain margin of freedom. But after the trouble that surrounded this novel each novelist had to practice self-censorship and think of the consequences of his/her writings. I think the minister of culture was mainly keen to keep his post, and felt he could not face a second crisis.
As soon as I learned of the decision to confiscate my novel, and the reasons why it was confiscated, I started crying. Some colleagues called to congratulate me, saying that now I would become famous. Yet I never thought that my writings would be judged by the standard of morality vs immorality. I did not want my name to be associated with this kind of writing, because it does not apply.
The part in my novel underlined in red [by censors] is as far from pornography as is possible. I am telling the story of a handicapped girl whose poverty forced her to sell tea and coffee in the street. This girl is later raped by a thug in the cemetery. Could there be a more disgusting scene. Yes, there is sex, but it is not aimed at exciting people."
Yasser Shaaban, 32, psychiatrist and author of Sons of the Romantic Fault
"I don't want to comment on this crisis. I am a novelist who wrote a book and I can't comment on my own work. I want literary critics and readers to have their say, not government employees and journalists. Those critics should be the ones to judge whether what I wrote was pornography or not. They are the ones who have the experience to say if the parts which caused the trouble were an integral part of the plot or not.
I won the first prize in a literary competition organised by Al-Akhbar newspaper in 1997-1998. I also won the third prize in a competition organised by the Cultural Development Fund in 1997. The first prize I ever won was from the Literary Club (Nadi El-Kessa), affiliated to the Ministry of Culture in 1996."
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