Obituary

Ahmed Nabil El-Hilali (1928-2006)

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Ahmed Nabil El-Hilali

Eternal revolution

In the last scene of Naguib Mahfouz's Trilogy the police raid the home of the Shawkat family at dawn to arrest the brothers Ahmed and Abdel-Moneim. One is wanted for being a communist, the other because he is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The chief of Al-Gammaliya police department offers the two a piece of advice. "Why don't you take care of your own business? Each of you has a wife and a respectable job. You come from a good family and you have a good life."

In the darkness of his cell Ahmed asks himself the same question. "What is it that compels me to take this dangerous road? It must be the inner man, the man who is aware of himself, the man who grasps the entire human situation. It is true that one can be happy as a husband, official, son, or father. But then again there is no escaping the trouble, there is no escaping the death inherent in being human."

When the uncle, Kamal Abdel-Gawwad, visits his two nephews in jail, Ahmed starts thinking aloud. "Life involves work, marriage, and common human duty. But this is not the right time to speak about one's duty to job or wife. There is a common human duty, and that is eternal revolution. One has to work tirelessly to help the force of life as it evolves towards its ideals."

Abdel-Moneim, the communist brother, seems to agree. Kamal, who's an old and frustrated man, a man incapable of taking a stand, concludes that the two young men are caught up in a cycle of faith, regardless of the doctrine or creed involved, regardless even of the cause. "It might be easy to live in the cocoon of your own selfishness," Kamal tells himself, "but not if you were a true man."

The events of the novel take place in the winter of 1944. The two young men involved are of the same generation as Ahmed Nabil El-Hilali and the motives of the two fictional brothers resemble those that propelled El-Hilali along the same dangerous road dictated by the "inner man".

El-Hilali could have chosen an easier path. In 1944 El-Hilali's father was a well-known lawyer and a senior member of the Wafd, the country's most popular political party and assured of power whenever fair elections were held. El-Hilali's father was minister of public information, a job that gave him control of culture, education, and higher education in the country while El-Hilali himself was one of the best students at the Law College.

In the mid-1940s Egypt was looking for ways to press on with its patriotic and democratic revolution. The first phase of that revolution (1805), led by Azharite scholars and guild chiefs, resulted in the formation of the modern state under Mohamed Ali. The second phase (1882) featured Orabi's uprising against the infiltration of the country by international capitalism. The uprising ended only when the forces of capitalism called in the British army to invade Egypt. The third phase (1919) was one in which El-Hilali's father, Ahmed Naguib, took part, as a leader of the Wafd Party.

The "inner man" was part of the vocabulary of that generation, the generation to which Ahmed Shawkat, Abdel-Moneim Shawkat, and Ahmed Nabil El-Hilali belonged. Conventional movements thrived, new parties appeared, fresh ideas emerged. The young men of that generation were eager to press on with the revolution which they saw as a work in progress, one of which they wanted to be part.

The "inner man" told an entire generation to fight for a common cause. History, God and nation formed the parameters of the national experience. The "inner man" told El-Hilali to be a Marxist. This was an unusual choice for someone born into money and power. He could have been a successful lawyer with a lucrative legal firm. He could have been a senior member of the judiciary or the executive. He could have been a minister, or even prime minister. But the "inner man" led him along a road strewn with traps, a road that led to prison, hunger, and torment. He was followed by police informers. And yet he fought on, valiantly, for the social justice that still eludes humanity. He battled for a society that would have no "hunger or sadness, poverty or deprivation", to borrow the words of Mustafa El-Manfalouti.

El-Hilali was not the only one to sacrifice his personal comfort to follow the commands of the "inner man". Many others did so, and their thoughts must have echoed those Mahfouz portrays in the Trilogy.

In the darkness of the cell, Abdel-Moneim Shawkat mumbles, "look at me, ending in this place just because I worship God?" His brother whispers to him, "how about me, locked up because they say I don't believe in God." A third voice from the cell exclaims, "you must worship the government to live in peace."

El-Hilali was not the only man born to privilege who joined the Egyptian communist movement. There were others who turned against their own class and sided with the working classes, even at a time when the peasants and the urban proletariat had little taste for revolution, being too busy making a living. The history of the communist movement in Egypt is one of men who came from privilege and others who came from the middle classes but had superb education.

The funeral of El-Hilali brought together men of different generations, young people as well as old. I looked around the pavilion and saw several of El-Hilali's contemporaries, men who listened many years ago to their "inner man" and followed the call of their hearts. The faces were wrinkled, but you could glimpse the fire still burning.

Something in their faces made me recall the words of Ahmed Shawkat. "I believe in life and people. I see myself committed to follow the ideals I believe are true. To refrain from action would be cowardly. This is the meaning of eternal revolution."

By Salah Issa