On 23 September Mohamed Hassanein Heikal will celebrate his 80th birthday, and I have heard that he plans to stop writing on this date, to retire. It is a position to which I take exception, firmly believing that those whose labour is mental rather than physical need not retire after reaching a certain age. It is often the case that their contributions at an advanced age will be even more valuable than when they were young. Unlike a footballer -- you can see why a footballer retires when he is no longer a young man, because his work depends on fitness -- a writer like Bernard Shaw, for example, continued to write well into his nineties. Michelangelo too continued to work in the Vatican as an old man, and Freud formulated his ground-breaking theories in his later years.
Heikal is a man of sound mind, and he has an exceptional capacity for understanding what goes on in the international arena. He is also a first-rate political analyst. In the Arab world we are in need of his abilities, especially as the world passes through its current stage of critical transitions and God only knows where we will end up. Heikal was the first to achieve international status in Arab journalism, and his name can be found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and in the most important reference books. This is no small feat.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.
On 23 September Mohamed Hassanein Heikal will celebrate his 80th birthday, and I have heard that he plans to stop writing on this date, to retire. It is a position to which I take exception, firmly believing that those whose labour is mental rather than physical need not retire after reaching a certain age. It is often the case that their contributions at an advanced age will be even more valuable than when they were young. Unlike a footballer -- you can see why a footballer retires when he is no longer a young man, because his work depends on fitness -- a writer like Bernard Shaw, for example, continued to write well into his nineties. Michelangelo too continued to work in the Vatican as an old man, and Freud formulated his ground-breaking theories in his later years.
