13 - 19 September 2001
Issue No.551
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 September 2001 Issue No.551 |
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At a glance
A shorthand guide to the month compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani
Magazines and Periodicals
Al-Kutub: Wughat Nazar, (Books: Viewpoints), monthly review of books, Cairo: Egyptian Company for Arab and International Publishing, September 2001
In his traditional lead article senior political analyst Mohamed Hassanein Heikal this month discusses a recent US security report on the Middle East titled "A dangerous autumn" presented to President Bush by his security advisers. The prestigious cultural review devotes space to the trial of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon in Belgium; thus Sherif Bassiouni writes on "Trying tyrants: From legal justice to political considerations" while Dyab Abou Jahjah argues that "Trying Sharon is not a lost cause." Tarek El-Bishri reviews Hussein Hosni's soon to be published Sanawat ma'a Al-Malik Farouk: Shahada lil-Haqiqa wa Al-Tarikh [Years with King Farouq: A Testimony to Truth and History] while Rushdi Said reviews Nile Basin Initiative, Strategic Action Program: An Overview published by the World Bank and Mohamed El-Remehi reviews Robin Wright's The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran.
Ruwaq Arabi, an occasional publication, Cairo: Cairo Centre for Human Rights, 2001
The most recent publication from the Cairo Centre for Human Rights includes, in addition to the editor's introductory piece, "Human-Rights Discourse: Deconstruction or Reconstruction?", studies, documents and reports relating to human-rights issues around the world. Mustafa Abdel-Ghaffar, Khaled El-Gohari and Mohamed El-Maidani discuss aspects of human-rights practice in contemporary Europe and at the UN, while Tunisian writer Munsif Al-Marzouqi looks at human-rights issues in current medical thought. The issue also includes a report on Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens, and an open letter from Sudanese activist Ashari Ahmed Mahmoud written during his detention and addressed to the Sudanese minister of the interior. There are three reports on allegations of human-rights abuses in Tunisia, and two on the current revival of civil society in Syria.
Adab wa Naqd, (Literature and Criticism), monthly magazine, Cairo: National Progressive Unionist Party Publications, August 2001
The last issue of this left-leaning Cairo monthly magazine includes an extensive file on Nawal El-Saadawi, the Egyptian novelist, feminist and champion of women's writing. This features an article by Ferial Ghazoul on "love, creativity and rebellion" in the work of El-Saadawi, and the transcription of the proceedings of a recent seminar on El-Saadawi's work organised by the magazine during her recent court case on a charge of "denigrating religion". There is also a new short story by El-Saadawi herself and an article by El-Saadawi's daughter, Mona Helmi, entitled "Nawal El-Saadawi as I see her." This month Adab wa Naqd's poetry section celebrates the work of vernacular Egyptian poet Abdel-Rahman El- Abnoudi, who was the recipient of a State Merit Award this year. Elsewhere in the issue, comments and testimonies from Samir Abdel-Baqi, Abdel-Aziz Muwafi, Sahar Sami and Wahid El-Tawila, among others, illuminate the achievement of the late Egyptian actress Soad Hosni.
Aafaq Afriqiya, (African Perspectives),quarterly magazine, Cairo: State Information Service, Spring 2001
The River Nile is the main subject of this well-established regional quarterly, Nabil Osman opening with an account of "the inter-African co-operation dream" that seeks to use the Nile as a shared resource. From here, Ahmed El-Rashidi discusses the legal framework within which the Nile is governed, and Ayman El-Sayed Abdel-Wahab considers Egyptian- Sudanese relations over the Nile. Elsewhere in the issue, the current situation in Chad is looked at, as are recent elections in Ghana and the question of nuclear waste disposal in Africa. Morocco receives special attention through a study of the reign of King Mohamed V and comprehensive data on the history of the country and its current political, social and cultural conditions. The issue also includes reports on several recent African conferences, including the Conference of the Sub-Regional Developmental Centre of North Africa, held in March in Tangiers, the Organisation for African Unity summit, held in April in Abuja, Nigeria, and the sixth COMESA summit held in May.
Amman, a monthly magazine, Amman, Jordan: Greater Amman City Council, July 2001
As is always the case with this popular Jordanian monthly, the current issue publishes a large number of Arab short stories and poems, on this occasion from writers including Hassabul- Shaikh Ja'far, Mohamed Al-Qissis, Mamdouh Adwan, Abdel- Aziz
Al-Hadji, Ziyad Al-Anani, Shawqi Baghdadi and Jamal Abu Hamdan. In addition, Egyptian writer Youssef El-Sharouni contributes a chapter from his recent autobiography. The literature of place also looms large, with poet Amgad Nasser writing on Al-Hamra Street in Beirut during the sixties, and Riqat Doudin evoking the atmosphere of Dana, a Jordanian village unique in its being surrounded by springs. Other highlights include an account of modern Moroccan theatre, a review of Jamal Abu Hamdan's Hikayat Shahrazad Al-Akhira [Scheherezade's Last Tale], which was recently given its premiere in Syria, as well as interviews with writers Nabil Soliman and Jasem Mutair.
Books
Al-Haqq Yukhatib Al-Quwwa [Edward Said and the Work of the Critic: Speaking Truth to Power], Paul A Bové ed., Fatma Nasr trans.,Cairo: Sotour Publications, 2001. pp360
Edward Said is well known in the West, as a Palestinian defending the rights of his people and as a leading contemporary thinker and critic. Edward Said and the Work of the Critic: Speaking Truth to Power, edited by Paul A Bové and now translated into Arabic by Fatma Nasr, is concerned both with Said's political role and with his writings on literature, music and art. It begins with two long interviews with Said; one, by Jacqueline Rose, looks at the Palestinian cause and its place in Said's life and the other, by W J T Mitchell, discusses Said's views on the visual arts and the media. The rest of the book is made up of 12 studies of Said's writings and of their author's contribution to Western culture. Lindsay Waters looks at Said's writings on photography and music, for example, while Mustapha Marrouchi concentrates on Said's position as an exile in a metropolitan culture. Rashid Khalidi writes on Said's commitment to a discourse of "truth" in talking to "power." The book thus offers a comprehensive view of many of Said's contributions to contemporary debate.
Mukhtarat Qasasia [Selected Fiction], Abdel-Sattar Nasser, Cairo: Arab Press Agency, 2001. pp243
The Iraqi writer Abdel-Sattar Nasser has published 14 collections of short stories, the first being Al-Raghba Fi Waqt Mut'akhir [Late Desire] in 1969 and the latest Ba'ad Kharab Basra [After the Fall of Basra] in 2000. From these, the author has now made a selection representing the main aspects of his writings, republished here by the Arab Press Agency in Cairo. Nasser has chosen to arrange the stories thematically, ignoring their original publication dates, and, in his introduction to the volume, he writes that "one can't say much in an introduction. Introductions are like greetings, when you shake hands with a friend from Baghdad, for example, or raise your hat to a lady from Yorkshire. Perhaps they are like a smile given to a man walking by the Blue Danube." He thus envisages a global audience of friends.
'Alam Mohamed Sidqi Bayn Shahwat Al-Ibd'aa Wa Darawit Al-Waqi' [Mohamed Sidqi's World from the Desire for Creation to the Fierceness of Reality], Mohamed Sidqi, ed., Alexandria: Dar Al-Wafaa, 2001. pp298
Mohamed Sidqi has been writing short stories for some 50 years, publishing four important collections between 1955 and 1966 that dealt with the strikes in which he had participated in the late 1940s and early 1950s and with Egyptian factory life. Sidqi apparently later stopped writing, remaining silent until the early 1990s, but in 2000 he published five separate collections of stories and a play, which showed that he had been far from idle. The present book, edited by Sidqi himself, is a collection of 24 studies of his works first published in Arab and in foreign periodicals. The book includes an article by the French Orientalist Maxim Rodinson, as well as six interviews with Sidki conducted at different times in his career. In a final section, Sidqi presents a part of his memoirs.
Al-Islam Wa Huqouq Al-Mar'a [Islam and Women's Rights], Haytham Mana', Cairo: Cairo Centre for Human Right's Studies, 2001. pp108
Syrian author Haytham Mana' begins this survey of Islam and the rights of women with an account of the socio-economic structure of pre-Islamic Arabia in order to outline precursors to the way in which early Islam saw gender relations. He then discusses ways in which the early Muslims lived relations between the sexes and the great developments in women's rights they achieved. From here, Mana' traces the development of women's rights over the following centuries, ending his history in the later nineteenth century with a discussion of religious reformers such as Al-Afghani, Al- Kawakbi and Qasim Amin. He looks at the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, considering this in relation to the conception of marriage enshrined in Islamic Shari'a. Haytham Mana', an academic anthropologist, has previously published works on Arab history and contemporary society that testify to the breath of his interests. Among these are: Al-Mar'a fi Al-Islam [Women in Islam], 1980 and Salamat Al- Nafs wa Al-Gasad: Al-Ta'dhib fi Al-'Alam Al-'Arabi [Safety of Body and Soul: Torture in the Arab World], 1998.
Sant Tereza (St. Theresa), Bahaa Abdel-Meguid, Cairo: Sharqiyat, 2001. pp.97
This is Bahaa Abdel-Meguid's first novel. The author, a professor of English Literature at Ain Shams University, has previously published a collection of short stories under the title Al-Biyano Al-Aswad (The Black Piano). Written over a period of eight years (1993-2001) and in three different cities (Cairo, Dublin and Paris) the novella traces Egypt's socio- political history in the last thirty-some years. Beginning with the post-1967 defeat years it chronicles the politics of the student movement of the 1970s with both its Marxist and Islamist branches, the October War and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism through the various protagonists: Coptic Budur and Girgis, Muslim Sawsan and Selim, and Jewish Luca and Emanuelle.
Most of the events revolve around the predominantly Coptic Cairene neighbourhood of Shubra, home to the popular church of St Theresa, in a context of religious tolerance and co-existence.
El-'Ayqa Bint El-Zayn: Riwaya, Mohamed Nagi, Cairo: Al- Hilal Publishing House, 2001. pp288
El-'Ayqa Bint El-Zayn is Egyptian writer Mohamed Nagi's fourth novel, carrying over the distinctive style of the author's three previous ones: Khafia Qamar [The Hidden Moon], Lahn Al-Sabah [Morning's Melody] and Maqamat Arabiya [Arab Keys]. "One night," the novel's narrator explains, "a crippled bird got caught in the net. Drunk, his body felt heavy, and he couldn't see straight. Someone caught up with him at the entrance to the bar, helping him back to the empty house. The wooden sounds their footsteps made seemed to play out a final tune in the long film of the chase."
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