Rights and remembrance
The Egyptian press devoted a good deal of space to President Mubarak's pledges for political reform. But the country's papers did not forget to remember President Nasser, writes Gamal Nkrumah
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Skyrocketing prices are giving Mustafa Hussein of Al-Akhbar a field day: "We're able to pay the electricity and telephone bills. We're surviving"; Mubarak in Al-Ahram by Nagi
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For Egypt, the past week was perhaps the most momentous yet in 2003.
Where to start to make sense of the sprawling mass of Egyptian papers? Not an enviable task but whichever way you turned one thing was certain: attention squarely focussed on the keynote address of President Hosni Mubarak at the closing session of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) annual congress on Sunday.
The forward-looking theme of the congress was embodied in the slogans "New thinking" and "Citizenship rights first". The Egyptian press, both government and opposition, concentrated chiefly, though not exclusively, on the event. It was the sorry state of the economy that caught just as much attention. In fact, press pundits agreed that the economy formed the backdrop to the NDP congress.
There was consensus among government supporters that this was no ordinary congress, albeit admissions that ponderous pledges were made.
The ruling party's congress has become far less easy an event to pigeonhole than before. Democratisation, sweeping reforms and new citizenship rights were on offer. The government-backed media took the NDP pledges at face value. The opposition press, predictably, took the promises with a pinch of salt.
The official media highlighted the important changes prescribed at the congress and reflected on the ramifications and possible methods of implementation. The opposition papers, on the other hand, were typically dismissive. They invariably stressed the grave social and political implications of Egypt's economic woes.
Their verdict was unanimously grim.
The government's mouthpieces were full of praise, some exhibiting unrestrained adulation. "Mubarak speaks to the nation from the podium of the NDP," read the headline of Al-Gomhuriya on Sunday. "The orientation [of the ruling party] is economic," a conclusion collectively arrived at "after free and democratic debate", the paper continued.
"The NDP has ascertained that it is truly the party of the masses," wrote the paper's Editor-in-Chief Samir Ragab. "Personally, I feel that the current NDP congress managed to touch the inner depths of the Egyptian people's ethos," an overwhelmed Ragab openly declared.
Al-Ahram's Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Nafie likewise extolled the wisdom of the NDP's new thinking. "The challenges ahead necessitate new thinking and bold initiatives... Egypt deserves better than barely surviving and continuously struggling with the routine of overcoming crises and problems," Nafie wrote on the Friday, 26 September issue of Al-Ahram. He said that he eagerly anticipated the "translation of the slogans into practical and workable plans, ready for implementation".
But not all of Al-Ahram's columnists dwelt on such solemn matters. In the same issue, and on a lighter note, Samir Sarhan, the head of the Egyptian Book Organisation, wrote about his utter astonishment at the discovery that Taha Hussein, the late, blind doyen of Arab literature, wrote about love and romance. In Al-Ahram's Friday supplement, Naamat El-Beheiri wrote extensively about the "Return of the merry widow", while Amal Bekeir dispatched a thinking man's letter from Switzerland about the trials and tribulations of the Swiss theatrical scene.
Now, from the prosaic to the sublime.
In the 30 September issue of Al-Ahram, the paper's venerable former Editor-in-Chief Mohamed Hassanein Heikal penned his last opus. Unquestionably the most prominent political commentator and writer in the Arab world, Heikal vowed never to write again. Some of Egypt's most respected newspapermen begged the master to rescind. The octogenarian, who celebrated his 80th birthday a week ago, turned a deaf ear.
Mocking Prime Minister Atef Ebeid seems to be the favourite pastime of the Egyptian media at the moment. Many papers openly blame him for the economic mess the country currently finds itself in.
Other papers preferred instead to dwell on the magical and the mundane. In its 29 September issue, the independent Sawt Al- Umma splashed an image of a turbaned Ebeid on its front page and stuck to what it does best: muckraking. The paper's Editor- in-Chief Adel Hammouda explained how the Egyptian prime minister depends on the special powers of a certain Sheikh Salah Abu Khalil, presumably a charlatan, to stay in office.
The article was accompanied by a brief biographical account of the disreputable sheikh who apparently holds sway over a swarm of film-stars and politicians who "kiss his feet and seek his blessings".
Back to the NDP congress. Opposition papers lamented the way in which the ruling party appeared to be oblivious to the social and economic crises engulfing the country. Most were sceptical about the motto "New Thinking" put forward at the congress.
"Change does not come about by fiat from top to bottom. On the contrary, change must emerge from the grassroots..." wrote Magdy Sarhan, managing editor of the opposition Al-Wafd. Sarhan warned that the NDP was deliberately overlooking the fact that change can only come about by a change of guard. The leopard, Sarhan implied, does not change its spots: change entails new faces and the infusion of new blood.
And the daily's editor, Abbas El-Tarabili, went even further. He called on the people to bring lawsuits against the government for "stealing the money of widows and orphans". The government's financial irregularities were the main cause of the country's economic problems, El-Tarabili wrote. Orphans and widows must stand up and be counted, he argued.
Several writers applauded plans announced by the head of the NDP's policy secretariat, Gamal Mubarak, at the NDP congress to amend the nationality law to allow individuals born to Egyptian mothers and non- Egyptian fathers to become Egyptian citizens.
Safaa Nawwar and Gamal Hussein of the national daily Al-Akhbar tackled the issue in a gripping full-page report entitled: "A dream fulfiled at last". The report reviewed many of the problems faced by women who married foreign men and the ordeals such women and their offspring go through. "President Mubarak [who ratified the plans on congress' last day] restored the dignity of the Egyptian woman," the report concluded.
On Tuesday, the weekly magazine Akher Sa'a also stressed in its extensive coverage of the NDP congress the special attention Mubarak gave in his speech to upholding the sanctity of women's rights.
Editor-in-chief of the popular weekly magazine Rose El-Youssef, Mohamed Abdel- Moneim, pontificated about the reasons behind the price hikes and warned that bad management of the economic crisis had resulted in inflation. The population explosion also exacerbated the crisis, he wrote on Saturday.
The United States-Arab Economic Forum convening in Detroit attracted scant attention. The forum, an unprecedented gathering that included high-ranking officials such as Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and US Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns, passed almost unnoticed in the Egyptian press.
On Tuesday, the economic daily Al-Alam Al-Yom lamented the exclusion of Egyptian companies from the reconstruction of Iraq. The paper ran on its front page a story on the controversial subject, asking why, in spite of intensive lobbying by Maher, did Egypt fail to cash in on Iraq's reconstruction. Al-Alam Al-Yom also devoted an entire page to the merits of exploiting African markets in a report incredulously entitled: "African markets: lost treasure".
Al-Ahali decried Egypt's total dependence on foreign food supplies and wondered why Egypt cannot feed itself. The paper, issued by the left-wing Al-Tagammu' Party every Wednesday, ran a lead article by Mansour Abdel-Ghani on its front page warning that the ruling party permits the sale of prime agricultural land to unscrupulous businessmen who use the land for purposes other than farming, compounding Egypt's agricultural crisis.
Al-Ahali also had on its front page a photo caption of the former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, saying that three decades after his death he remains a living presence in the Egyptian national psyche.
The opposition Nasserist Party's mouthpiece Al-Arabi devoted many of the pages of its 28 September issue to remembering Nasser whose death 33 years ago fell on the very day the paper came out. Still, the paper spared some space for the NDP congress.
Executive Editor-in-Chief of Al-Arabi Abdel-Halim Qandil delivered another of his scathing critiques on the ruling party. "Clearly, the NDP congress is not worth its salt. The NDP is not a party in the first place. The required change must start with doing away with the NDP, starting from the bottom to the top," Qandil wrote.
In much the same vein, Galal Mohamed resumed badgering the president's son with renewed vigour in an article entitled, "Gamal Mubarak taken by surprise at the American Chamber of Commerce." Having said that, Al-Arabi's 28 September issue by and large ignored the NDP congress. The paper highlighted instead "Egypt's summer of discontent." And it took a retrospective look at the country's past -- comparing and contrasting past and present.
In a two-page spread Heikal paid tribute to Nasser. He spoke "frankly" about his mentor, remembering the good old days of pan- Arabism and socialism. "In spite of his greatness, Nasser did not create Egypt. It was Egypt which created Nasser," Heikal mused.
Heikal also paid farewell to Palestinian intellectual Edward Said -- "A tribute and an apology." Heikal delivered a "heartfelt" apology for the scant reference in the Egyptian press to the passing away of such an intellectual giant and courageous campaigner for Palestinian rights.
Not to be outdone, Al-Arabi's Editor Abdallah El-Sinawi devoted his column this week to paying tribute to Said. "If you ask a Palestinian what he or she is most proud of, they will instantly tell you Edward Said," El- Sinawi quoted the celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish as saying. Indeed, Al-Arabi's 28 September issue -- in spite of all the nostalgia and unabashed sentimentality -- was truly historic.
Al-Ahram: www.ahram.org.eg
Al-Akhbar: http://elakhbar.org.eg
Akhbar El-Yom: www.akhbarelyom.org.eg/akhbarelyom/
Al-Wafd: www.alwafd.org
Al-Arabi: www.al-araby.com
Al-Osbou' : www.elosboa.com
Al-Ahali: www.alahali.com
