A diwan of the everyday
Al-Ahram's Diwan project celebrates its 500th issue, writes Amina Elbendary
It was exactly ten years ago this week that Dr Yunan Labib Rizk published the first instalment of "Al-Ahram: A Diwan of contemporary life" on the pages of Al-Ahram. Professor of modern history at Ain Shams University and one of Egypt's leading contemporary historians, Rizk's project has proved remarkably popular. An English version of each instalment runs simultaneously in Al-Ahram Weekly. The main idea behind the Diwan was using the material in Al-Ahram, the oldest Arabic newspaper in print, first published in 1876, to learn some things about Egyptian history.
As historians and intellectuals gathered at a roundtable in Al- Ahram's conference room earlier this week it quickly became clear that no one had thought the Diwan would become that popular. An ageing and proud Rizk was eager to have the project dissected, evaluated and criticised.
Some participants appeared to have problems defining and placing the Diwan within familiar genres. Rizk is an established academic historian, and his academic reputation has been in no way tarnished by years of newspaper writing. Yet the essentially elitist character of academia made some, like Abdel-Azim Ramadan, historian and editor of the Tarikh Al-Misriyyin (History of the Egyptians) series of the General Egyptian Book Organisation (GEBO) remark that the Diwan was not about the "writing of history" but about the "making of history" -- an absurd distinction if ever there was one, as if the writing of history is not its making and remaking. This is not history, others seemed to be saying, history is what Rizk writes in his academic publications. This is something else.
For some this is at best "popular history", though as several participants remarked this form of historical writing has all but disappeared from the Arab world and Rizk is resuscitating it. For Saber Arab, director of Dar Al-Watha'iq (The National Archives) this re-reading of newspapers provides material that can later be used as a source by historians.
The fact that the Diwan seems to cross the boundaries between academia and journalism is, however, an advantage in as much as it both widens and deepens the material dealt with by the press. And it has, as Salah Eissa, editor-in-chief of Al- Qahira (mouthpiece of the Ministry of Culture), remarked, attracted the lay reader to history.
Others like Raouf Abbas, professor emeritus of modern history at Cairo University and president of the Egyptian Historical Society, pointed out that the Diwan has played a not insignificant role in reviving historical consciousness among Egyptians -- an awareness that deteriorating education systems have all but eroded. In fact, added Mohamed Afifi, professor of Ottoman history at Cairo University, the Diwan has introduced "the historian" to popular consciousness: "Whenever I tell anyone I'm a historian, they remark: 'oh, with Dr Yunan?'"
Professor of English literature and critic Fatma Moussa and Refaat El-Said, secretary-general of the leftist Tagammu' Party, suggested that the Diwan, which has so far appeared in eight bound volumes, be used as a supplementary text to history curricula in schools. The accessible articles make for entertaining reading. Rizk uses simple, often ironic language in making his points and attempts to bring out the relevancy of the issues being discussed to the modern reader.
It is a process that influences his choice of topics and several participants lauded Rizk for not falling prey to the trap of using Al-Ahram to write a political history of Egypt or concentrating solely on great men, big events and a general survey of front- page banners. The introduction of topics such as women's rights, educational reform or inflation has added a new angle to social history and the concerns of the paper and its readers throughout its 125 year history. Rizk has succeeded in merging the private and the public affairs of history, remarked Mahmoud Amin Al-Alim.
Questions of objectivity and the validity of relying on a single newspaper (Al-Ahram) in such a project were also questioned. But as Abbas pointed out, Rizk was not offering a re-reading of the paper. Instead he uses his historical knowledge and familiarity with a variety of primary and secondary sources to place newspaper items in a wider historical context; this is what makes his reading of past articles history and not journalism. Also, Rizk focusses on a particular event or scene and builds his article around it to draw a picture of the bigger issue.
What the Diwan and its writer still have to tackle in depth is the history of Al-Ahram itself as a newspaper, the way it has metamorphosed over the years, the varying political and cultural roles it has played and its continuing, albeit changing role, in shaping public opinion. It is a project that must be at the back of Professor Rizk's mind, especially as he often comments on the paper's editorial policy in his instalments. Participants recalled his comment on how Al-Ahram ignored the Balfour Declaration in 1917, for example, or its unsupportive attitude towards Ahmed Urabi earlier in the 19th century. It would make an interesting final volume for the Diwan.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 10 - 16 July 2003 (Issue No. 646)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/646/cu6.htm