Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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I must have remained Secretary of PEN's Egyptian Centre for over 40 years. When Youssef El-Sebai was assassinated, our centre took a downward turn. Whether as Secretary General of the Writers Union, head of the Afro Asian Writers Movement or Minister of Culture, Sebai had been a great asset to the Egyptian PEN, financing its delegations to the different congresses and attending some of them himself.

After the death of Dr Taha Hussein, Tewfik El Hakim became president and following his demise Anis Mansour took over. In fact the last congress I attended was with Anis in Vienna. Following that congress and due to financial problems and internal intrigues, the Egyptian Centre stopped its activities. It was revived a few years ago with the recently deceased Dr Fatma Moussa as president until she resigned and Iqbal Baraka became president.

The International PEN used to publish a magazine for translations, with the assistance of UNESCO. I managed to produce a special issue on modern Egyptian literature, with a long introduction and summaries of about 10 books. The publication had an editorial board and Egypt was represented by Dr Aly Abdel-Kader. It is now called Arena and like its predecessor it is devoted to translations into English of current writings in languages with limited diffusion.

One contradiction of PEN is that while its charter claims it is apolitical we find that it has special committees on "Writers in Exile" and "Writers in Prison", and that it has intervened with authorities where writers were imprisoned. I was witness to its intervention with Czechoslovakia over Vaslav Havel. A special PEN delegation was sent to Prague and its members were allowed to meet him. He later led the velvet revolution and eventually became president.

Our last success was at the Vienna Congress when we proposed the formation of a Palestinian Centre. The proposal was unanimously voted for by all delegations, including the Israeli delegation.

My membership of the English Centre and my post as Secretary of the Egyptian Centre gave me the rare opportunity to meet and hold long conservations with such writers as EM Forester, Charles Morgan, CP Snow, Graham Greene, Francis King, Nadine Gordimer, Rosamond Lehmann, Arthur Miller, Victor Pritchet, Mario Vergas Illossa, Onsmane Sesbene and others.

But it is, paradoxically, that PEN Charter that lives on:

- Literature, national though it be in origin, knows no frontiers, and should remain common currency between nations in spite of political or international upheavals.

- In all circumstances, and particularly in time of war, works of art, the patrimony of humanity at large, should be left untouched by national or political passion.

- Members of the PEN should at all times use what influence they have in favour of good understanding and mutual respect between nations; they pledge themselves to do their utmost to dispel race, class and national hatreds and to champion the ideal of one humanity living in peace in one world.

- The PEN stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations, and members pledge themselves to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression in the country and community to which they belong. The PEN declares a free press and opposes arbitrary censorship in time of peace. It believes that the necessary advance of the world towards a more highly organised political and economic order renders a free criticism of governments, administrations and institutions imperative. And since freedom implies voluntary restraint, members pledge themselves to oppose such evils of a free press as mendacious publication, deliberate falsehood and distortion of facts for political and personal ends.

Membership of the PEN is open to all qualified writers, editors and translators who subscribe to these aims, without regard to nationality, race, colour or religion.