The era of the military coup came, and its measures were known only for the approach of tyranny and violence. Unfortunately, the Writers Union, the majority of intellectuals, and the secular movement supported it, after it set the compass against the Islamists, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood, after the Salafists (the Nour Party and the Saudi- and Emirati-funded Madkhaliyya) and the security Sufism joined it, and with them the official Al-Azhar, to nationalize political and intellectual life with a loud, loud, offensive, inflammatory, bloody speech, entitled The total abolition and exclusion of the Islamic movement, then of Islam, culture and civilization itself, and the coup media embraced the writers and intellectuals who mocked the manifestations of Islam and religiosity, as in the sayings of Jaber Asfour, who lamented the days of the sixties when the girls of Al-Azhar University itself were not veiled, and he saw that atheism was guaranteed to every citizen, just as the niqab was rejected, and the veil was of questionable legitimacy ([1]), and the attack turned to Al-Azhar itself, even though its sheikh was an essential partner in the scene of the July 3, 2013 coup. The secularists attacked it ferociously, and Jaber Asfour began demanding the abolition of religious education, and inciting against Al-Azhar by saying: “Unifying the education system in Egypt is the first stage of renewing religious discourse, because the Al-Azhar education system has weak outcomes, indicating that Al-Azhar practices a religious priesthood, and the Brotherhood and Salafism constitute an influential force in The institution’s decision-making, and the Council of Senior Scholars opposes the implementation of the decisions of the President of the Republic, and created a situation within the institution that Al-Azhar is a state within a state because of Articles Two and Six of the Constitution.” ([2]Writers appeared, recalling the days of the Nasserite authority, justifying the arrest and killing of the Brotherhood, in a racist fascist vision that could not have come from a simple person, let alone if he was a writer and claimed that he came to enlighten and spread human and civilizational values! Let us discover in the end that the ruling system in Egypt, which was founded by Abdel Nasser, relied on a narrative that was fundamentally anti-Islamic, to establish oppressive secular rule. As for the Writers’ Union, it ignored the massive arrests and suppression of freedoms, and returned to its old hobby of singing according to the whims of authority, and dancing to the tunes of its executioners. For example, it issued a statement on 10/24/2013 AD, against “the imprisonment of the Qatari poet Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Ajmi, nicknamed “Ibn Al-Deeb” for fifteen years on charges of incitement against the regime, because of a poem he wrote, which is a final ruling that cannot be appealed, which represents a blatant violation of freedom of opinion. And expression, and the freedom of the citizen to express what he is convinced of by peaceful means, in violation of all international treaties and conventions that guarantee freedom of opinion.”[3]Regardless of this issue, and its circumstances, the Writers Union here unites with the direction of the coup in its hostility against Qatar and Turkey, and applies double standards in dealing with issues of opinion and human rights and does not look at the catastrophic conditions that destroy people and crush their rights in the social and political space of Egyptian life. The matter became clearer with the letter of support that came from the President of the Emirates Union on September 4, 2013, in which he stated “his full support for the position of the Egyptian Arab Writers Union, its writers and intellectuals, and he expresses his support for them in their rejection and denunciation of all the crimes committed by the terrorist Brotherhood and its terrorist followers against the peaceful and innocent sons of beloved Egypt, both civilians and military personnel. The Emirates Writers and Writers Union appreciates the position of the Union, writers and writers.” And the Egyptian intellectuals who were among the most effective forces in resisting the injustice and tyranny of the terrorist group, and who stood as an impenetrable barrier, resolutely and decisively, in the face of its fascist and failed attempts to sectarianize aspects of life in Egypt.”[4]). It is a statement that can only be described as being written by journalists supporting the coup, and it is no wonder that Emirati writers join forces with Egyptian writers, in a state of political and intellectual hypocrisy, which no free intellectual or writer, who knows well the tragedies that happened on the land of Egypt, would accept. Contrary to what was issued by Ms. Irina Bokova, Director-General of the United Nations Culture, Science and Education Organization, who strongly condemned the military coup, and the bloodshed and assault on democracy that it left behind, so that we could show the West a face that respects elections and the independence of the intellectual, which is what required Mohamed Salmawi to send a letter shedding tears about the conditions of Egypt, dated 8/17/2013, in which he says: “I am writing to you because in the midst of all this, I have not heard a single word of protest from you or from anyone.” Your glue organization, at a time when some of your crocodiles are shedding their tears over the absence of democracy and the loss of human rights, culture also has rights, my lady, just like humans, and they are being wasted here before our eyes every day time and time again, and the first right of culture is the right to exist, then the right to protection, the right to care, and the right to hand this culture and this heritage over to future generations, which despite our inheritance from our ancestors, we are in fact now borrowing them from our children. All of these rights have been lost. It was wasted, violated, attacked, and set on fire. One of those brutal attacks was on the Mallawi Museum in Minya, from which 1,050 pieces out of its 1,089 pieces were stolen.”[5]We are surprised here at this deception practiced by Salmawi, when he accuses the Brotherhood of stealing antiquities from the Mallawi Museum, and it was a professional theft crime par excellence, and no member of the Brotherhood was arrested or anyone in particular was accused of stealing the museum and dealing in antiquities ([6]Rather, what did it were the antiquities thieves who spread throughout Egypt, and official officials, experts, and major merchants colluded with them, with the knowledge of the government, and they took advantage of the security chaos after the Rabaa dispersal to implement their goals. The Writers Union tried to maintain what remained of its credibility, issuing a number of somewhat balanced statements, such as its statement on the Syrian revolution. It condemned Bashar al-Assad’s oppression and bloodshed, condemned the American attack on the Syrian regime, and rejected foreign military intervention.[7]), which contradicts Al-Sisi’s support for Assad, and his support with weapons, experts, and political support in the United Nations and externally. In another situation, we find a statement issued by the Union in a timid manner denouncing the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by gangs of the Zionist entity in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque, where they attacked defenseless civilian worshipers, a situation that represents a dangerous escalation against the holy places in Al-Quds Al-Sharif. It also calls on Arab and international civil society organizations to take a strong stance against these barbaric attacks and support the Palestinian people in their struggle against this racist entity, on 9/15/2015 ([8]). The Union continued its statements that were consistent with the government’s policies and its trends in marketing the idea of fighting terrorism, but the new thing that the Union added and preceded the police investigations was that it attributed it to Islamic movements and dark forces, as if what was required of it was not to investigate the truth or condemn the act, but to pin the accusation on a specific party, without waiting for the perpetrator to be known and his identity to be known! We can say with confidence that the Writers Union no longer expresses a national or moral conscience, but rather has become one of the mouthpieces of power that has been reduced to an opportunistic, authoritarian group, and the rest of the intellectuals are between the fearful waiting for an opportunity to escape, the submissive who accepts humiliation and relishing in it, and the beneficiary who finds such hatred and hypocrisy a way to emerge and dominate. It should be noted that the members of the Writers Union are not all in agreement on the statements it issued and the positions it took. The Union, as is known, It is managed by a group that dominates it, with the blessing of the Ministry of Culture and the security services, which issues statements in the name of the majority, and in fact it expresses the group represented on the Board of Directors, and the Board of Directors often does not convene, and they are content with what is issued by the President of the Union and those who assist him. We conclude this study with a truth that was not comprehended by the majority of intellectuals who sided with the military coup, hoping that the arena would be devoid of their Islamist opponents. The truth is that the arena was devoid of everyone, as the shoes of the military, tyrants, and murderers did not discriminate.
At the conclusion of this series of articles, we can reach several conclusions, the most notable of which are:
The authorities always fear loyal intellectuals, writers, scholars, and thinkers, because they are the first to make real change. Change begins with thought and enlightenment, then turns into positions and actions, and then movements and protests that shake the thrones of tyrants. It is not possible to understand the position of intellectuals and writers in Egypt without historical research into their relationship with the authorities, to discover the authority’s constant endeavor to domesticate the intellectuals and writers, and it has succeeded on two levels: The first: creating a group of writers affiliated with it, whether senior or junior writers, who filled power and benefited from its advantages and positions. The second level: It made rebellion and opposition among writers limited to individual personalities, and did not represent a general trend. Many of these opponents cooperated with the authority and remained silent, because they know that the authority gives honey in one hand and holds the whip in the other. The establishment of the Writers’ Union came from the womb of the authority, in a process of hijacking the idea that was born in the minds of young writers, and carried romantic dreams for them about true independence for the writer. The authority succeeded in establishing a union under its auspices, and even pushed writers to join it and compete for its membership and then membership of its board of directors, so that the whole battle would be managed according to the conditions of the authority and its previously established law, which turned the union into a mere subsidiary of the Ministry of Culture. Whoever compares the positions of the Writers Union in the days of Sadat and Mubarak, and in the January Revolution, and then in the era of President Mohamed Morsi, and the military coup, will fully realize the extent of the color and change in its positions, and its downfall in a struggle over identity, resulting from a legacy of hostility against the Islamists, and also from the incitement practiced by the military and those behind them against the experience of the Islamists, which had there been awareness on the part of the revolutionaries and politicians, it would not have ended as it did. – The outcome of the Writers Union’s experience with the revolution was that they did not understand it well, and did not look at the nation’s higher interest, which requires preserving the revolution and striving to consolidate democracy. Rather, they were preoccupied with the trivialities of ideological conflicts, and gave secular legitimacy to the authority of the coup and the remains of Mubarak’s regime, and the result was the fall of the entire nation into the furnace of tyranny.
[1]) Al Watan Cairo newspaper, https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/3907854
[2]) Al Watan Cairo newspaper, https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/3886962
[3]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=619&page_id=2
[4]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=603&page_id=2
[5]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=602&page_id=2
[6]) In the midst of political chaos… thieves steal Egypt’s heritage, on Al-Fanar Education, Culture and Research website, https://www.al-fanarmedia.org/ar/2013/09
[7]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=605&page_id=2
[8]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=880&page_id=1
