A fourth pyramid

By Samir Sobhi

---

Hosny Guindy was not just an extraordinary editor but a visionary, a lasting inspiration, and a friend. The newspaper he founded filled a vacuum in Egypt's English-language media at a time when Egyptian papers looked and sounded the same.

We wanted to do something different and it took 13 months to tweak the content and streamline the image until we got it right. As then Al-Ahram chief editor Ibrahim Nafie said, the new publication needed to sound Egyptian yet different, informative yet passionate. It took us five pilot issues to finally get ready. During the months of preparations the start-up team was in a state of flux, with new members joining and others dropping out.

I remember a meeting in early January 1990 in which we put the final touches to the fledgling publication. It was at that meeting that we finally determined the date of publication, the number of pages, and the general message of the new newspaper. I was present along with Ibrahim Nafie, Ahmed Nafie, Salama Ahmed Salama, Hosny Guindy, Hassan Fouad, Mohamed Salmawy, Mohamed El-Sharqawi, Ahmed Adel, Atef El-Ghamri, Sameh Abdallah, Mushira Moussa, Hesham Taha, Louis Greiss and Bahgat Badie.

One man who inspired, and keeps inspiring, our team was Mursi Saadeddin. But others were just as indispensable: Olfat El-Tohami, Gillian Potter, Raja Nashaat, Jill Kamel, Fayza Hassan, Murad Wahba, and Mona Anis -- our current deputy chief editor. The late Wadie Kirolos, Mamduh El-Dakhakhni and Bahgat Badie offered energy and stimulation to the group. Soon afterwards we were joined by Mahmoud Murad, Izzat El-Saadani, Ismail El-Baqri, Mohamed Pasha, Abdel-Rahman Aql, Hedayat Abdel-Nabi and Mustafa El-Naggar.

As an English language publication we had to bring our language up a notch or two. So we put together a team of competent writers and supported them with native English speakers. Following a lengthy discussion, our editors decided to use British English rather than American English as our language of choice.

Within months excellent writers had joined our team including Galal Nassar, now our managing editor. Thanks to the efforts of talented artists, including Hani Mustafa, now chief of the layout section, the paper's form became at least as enticing as its content. Our editors Gamal Nkrumah, Rasha Saad, Sherine Bahaa Shaden Shehab, Dina Ezzat, Dena Rashed and Inas Mazhar made sure that the paper remained a credible source of information and entertainment for our foreign and Egyptian readers alike.

Following the death of Hosny Guindy, Hani Shukrallah took charge of the reins briefly, before handing them over to Assem El-Kersh, our current chief editor. Having served as Al-Ahram bureau chief in London, El-Kersh took the newspaper to another level of accomplishment. Now we boast 50,000 readers on the Internet alone.

The first issue of Al-Ahram Weekly appeared on 28 February 1991. As Hosny Guindy wrote, the new publication was nationalist as well as liberal, neither pro- government nor opposition-leaning, English speaking but Egyptian at heart. Our success in this task would have been unimaginable without the generous support of Al-Ahram 's Chairman of the Board Mursi Atallah, Salah El-Ghamri, former chairman of the board and the diligent work of former general manager Ali Ghoneim and director of the printing department Mohamed Taymur Abdel-Hasib.

Now I will let you in on a little secret. On our mast you see the logo of Al-Ahram, which is three pyramids ( ahram means pyramids in Arabic). Look carefully at the third pyramid and you will see how it entwines with the paper's name to form a fourth. This subtle boast was suggested to us by artist Nazli Madkour, wife of Mohamed Salmawy, our first managing editor.