Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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Germany is celebrating 15 years of unification this week, an occasion that coincides with the inauguration of the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the Arab World is guest of honour this year. The two occasions bring back memories, not of a unified but a divided Germany -- memories that take me back to the first time I set foot on German soil. That was in 1958, when I was invited by the German Art Academy to what was then called the German Democratic Republic, along with Youssef El-Sebaei.

El-Sebaei, one of our leading writers, was at that time holding the post of secretary- general of the Higher council of Arts and Literature, now the Supreme Council of Culture. I was one of his deputies and together we arrived in East Berlin on an Interflug plane. We stayed at Hotel Berolina which, at the time, was the best hotel in East Berlin. We had with us a member of the Academy as a guide and for transport we had a Russian Zeem car. The wall was not yet erected and our driver lived in West Berlin. El-Sebai and I would take the U.Bahn from Friendrischstrasse station and get off at the Zoo Station in West Berlin. On one of our cross-Berlin trips we met Egyptian film stars who were attending the Berlin Film Festival. Faten Hamama was one of them. The U.Bahn was running freely from east to west and all that happened was that at a certain station a voice announced that we were crossing from East to West Germany. We were told that a number of East Germans went to the West and never returned; hence the creation of the Wall.

We had a foretaste of the cultural scene in East Germany. We were taken to Dresden, where we visited the great Art Gallery. It was amazing how in the middle of the rubble and debris caused by American air raids after the end of the war, the gallery stood intact. We visited Leipzig, which saw the birth of the print press. Thus it was not surprising that the Leipzig book fair took place there. We also visited Goethe's house in Weimer and that gave me a sense of the unity of German culture. Here was Goethe, claimed by Germans on both sides of the Wall. So were many poets and composers.

Years after that first visit, in 1969, I was appointed cultural counsellor in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. My permanent residence was in East Berlin, with monthly travels to Warsaw and Prague. The three years I spent in Berlin gave me a unique opportunity to experience the cultural life of which I'd had a foretaste in 1958. Cultural cooperation between our two countries was governed by an agreement which covered both cultural and educational fields. Germany offered hundreds of scholarships for higher studies and short-term training. Disciplines ranged from German language to political science, arts and physical culture.

My years in these three countries were among the golden days between their governments and Egypt's. Egypt had a special status and both our students and the embassy staff received regal treatment. I had my fill of high culture, the opera, the Komisch Opera, the Berliner Ensemble, the great museums, the Pergamon and the Egyptian museums. I remember how, when I organised Egyptian cultural days in different cities, the museums used to lend me some pieces from their collection to display for the public.

Egypt regularly attended the Leipzig Book Fair and the Leipzig Festival of Documentary Films. During one of the festival's sessions we showed a film of President Abdel-Nasser's funeral with the serene music of André Ryder, which won first prize. One achievement which I shall always remember is the inclusion in the cultural agreement of the production of the ballet Isis and Osiris, with music by Aziz El-Shawwa and choreography by a well- known German artist. I invited her to Egypt and arranged for her to see Pharaonic monuments in Luxor and in Cairo.

I know that the ballet has been ready since the early 1970s, but has not yet seen the light of day. I wonder what happened to it after the unification.