By this era, we mean the period in which President Mohamed Morsi assumed power, and continued until the military coup on 7/3/2013 AD, during which the Writers’ Union turned into open hostility, in harmony with the state of frenzy in attacking the president and the government of Hisham Qandil, in which many forces joined forces, including the remnants, secularists, Salafists, Sufis, and political parties remaining from the Mubarak era, as if everyone had a prior agreement to thwart the first elected president. democratically in the history of Egypt. What is striking about the position of the Writers Union is that its attack on President Mohamed Morsi turned into an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood specifically, as if the battle was with the group, with a speech of harsh tone and words, and clear arrogance and antagonism. Thus, the broad freedoms that Egyptians enjoyed during the era of President Morsi were understood as the freedom to attack and transgress, and not the noble and responsible freedom. Unfortunately, the Writers Union falls into such foolishness, with a speech that is, to say the least, inflammatory, filled with hatred, a lack of appreciation for matters, and even political adolescence. And intellectual, and let us review some of what was stated in the statements of the Writers Union at this stage, to know what predicament it reached. This union and its president during the time of Mubarak, and then during the time of Sisi, were in a state of complete domestication, in positions and statements, and the arrogance of the union and the fragility of its principles were exposed during the days of the revolution, so it quickly returned to its ranks from the groups of drummers for the military regime and the blatant denial of a revolution to which it often boasted of belonging. In the statement issued on 7/25/2012, regarding the exclusion of the Union from the meeting of the President of the Republic with representatives of unions and professional unions, it was stated: “For the second time in a row, the Muslim Brotherhood has excluded the Writers’ Union, which represents Egypt’s writers and intellectuals, this time from the meeting of the President of the Republic with the heads of professional unions. An invitation was sent to the Union of Professional Syndicates, which includes 24 professional unions, including the Writers’ Union, but the invitation was not extended to the union. This exclusion comes as a continuation of the policy The Muslim Brotherhood, which is hostile to writers, thinkers, and intellectuals, and constantly tries to exclude them, as the first time was when the Writers Union was excluded from forming the founding committee for the constitution, the first and second, after the presidency of the People’s Assembly at that time asked the unions and federations to present their candidates to the committee, so the union presented a list that included ten of the greatest writers in Egypt and the Arab world, but they were all excluded and no representative of the Egyptian Writers Union was taken into account, whether in the main members of the committee or the reserve members. The exclusion of the union from the ad hoc meeting For professional unions with the President of the Republic only confirms the Brotherhood’s systematic hostility against culture And intellectuals. Writers and writers alert the members of the Egyptian Writers Union that this is a gesture that we did not expect from the President of the Republic, as it is considered a deviation from what he affirmed on more than one occasion that he will work for the benefit of all groups of the people without distinction, and that he will not be committed to the tendencies of the Muslim Brotherhood alone, or express their hostility against any of the groups of the people, especially the writers, thinkers, artists, and intellectuals, as these are the conscience of the nation and its thinking mind, and they are the ones who form its conscience.”[1]). The Union has the right to demand a meeting with the President of the Republic, and to express reservations about ignoring him in the invitation, and it has the right to question the reason for not inviting him, but it does not have the right to speak arrogantly, as if it were a state within a state, and a body above accountability. The first sin in this statement is that it referred to the Muslim Brotherhood, and did not refer to the institution of the presidency or to President Mohamed Morsi, and this is inappropriate in any statement issued by an official union responsible for what it says. The second sin is that he directly accuses the Brotherhood of being behind the exclusion of writers and writers, repeating the old refrain that accuses Islamists of being hostile to literature and the arts, with a tone of condescension and arrogance, which appeared in subsequent statements, including the statement of 3/17/2013 AD, about the attack on the statue of Taha Hussein, and implicitly accuses Islamic movements of the same rhetoric that was used in the days of Hosni Mubarak, which places all Islamists in the trench of backwardness. Reactionism, stagnation and obscurantism. Although no party admitted responsibility for the attack, it may have been an active act in order to distort the image of Islamists, which the Writers Union did not pay attention to in its statement. Rather, it continued the tone of the attack, saying: “The dark forces moved to increase their sins against the nation; by attacking a symbol of enlightened thought and conscious mind; Brigadier General Taha Hussein, as oppressors uprooted his vertical statue from above its pyramidal base in the city of Minya, near his birthplace…!! The Chorus” “The blind” – as Nizar Qabbani called it in his eulogy for the dean of Arabic literature – is sad now to see in Egypt an all-seeing… all-seeing one, even if it is a statue bearing witness to its shortcomings and inability…!! And in its attack on the statue of Taha Hussein, it is only attacking the mind of a nation and the heritage of a people. It is time for this group to realize that the statues in the squares and streets are not of personalities; they are the embodiment of noble values. Sublime ideas and meanings that will not be comprehended by those who try to eliminate green and dry land – and they may succeed in their loud futility in destroying a stone, but they will never defeat a thought, nor will they destroy a symbol.[2]). It is the same tone that the secular camp has been accustomed to using since the 1950s, which sees Islam and Islamists as obscurantist and reactionary, burdened by the nation’s tragedies, and of course silent about the tyranny and corruption practiced by the regimes, and which found all the help from secular and literary figures to give false legitimacy to its practice. The state of hostility reached its end, with the Union’s statement withdrawing confidence from President Morsi, ten days before the military coup, as if there had been a prior agreement with the coup leaders on this, and among the statements issued on 6/21/2013 was the following: “In light of a war, we are witnessing its devastating effects on the popular and political levels in particular, a war that now threatens Egypt’s national security on the internal and external levels, and under the weight of political practices that have demonstrated the gross inability of the presidential institution.” At the levels of vision and practice, this failure has reached the point of compromising Egypt’s national interests, in a way that undermines Egypt’s status and its leadership role… The Assembly agreed in its extraordinary meeting to: 1- Withdraw confidence from Mohamed Morsi and hold early presidential elections. 2- Form a temporary national reconciliation government that includes representatives of various national, political and intellectual trends. 3- Hold accountable those responsible for all the blood and martyrs who fell for the January Revolution From the glorious martyrs of Tahrir and Al-Ittihad to the martyrs of Port Said 4- Demanding the establishment of a constitution that befits Egypt’s constitutional history and expresses the hoped-for national consensus.”[3]). Of course, its first decision was achieved. What about the rest of the demands? Did the military coup achieve them after that? Why was the esteemed Union silent about this, the silence of the graves? Things come to an end when we find an alliance between the Tamarrud movement – which is a creation of the deep security state, as it became clear to everyone later – and the Writers’ Union. The movement sent a letter of thanks to the union that withdrew confidence from President Morsi. The letter was signed by Mohamed Nabawi, a member of the Central Committee of the “Tamarud” campaign, on behalf of more than 15 million rebels. We extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to our writers and intellectuals at the Egyptian Writers’ Union for their national stance towards the failed regime in your emergency generality in which you demonstrated. That you are able to preserve the Egyptian identity. On behalf of the Central Committee of the “Tamarrud” movement, we affirm the legitimacy of your decisions and we ask God that we all live up to the good expectations of the people of Egypt in us.”[4]). The disaster was in the statement issued regarding the dispersal of the Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda sit-ins. The Union was fully entrenched behind the coup authority, not looking at the widespread arrests that affected innocent people, nor the torrent of blood that took place on the land of Egypt. Rather, the statement came to give legitimacy and support to the bloody practices of the authority. In the statement issued on 8/14/2013 AD: “It is in this historical circumstance that the masses of the people who carried out the revolution on January 25 are looking forward to.” 2011, then June 30, 2013, and on July 26, 2013, to rebuild the state on the path to the bright and long-awaited future. We call for the renunciation of violence and abstention from bloodshed, in commitment to peace, which has been the slogan of the revolution since its beginning. The statement declared its rejection of attacks on police stations and government buildings that are public property of the people. It also strongly condemned the attacks on churches and the targeting of Christian property in violation of Islamic law and all laws. The statement pointed out that the long-standing sit-in had deviated from its goal of expressing opinion, and violated the law by sheltering those against whom an arrest warrant had been issued, possessing weapons and ammunition, and blocking the road, which is criminalized by law in all democratic systems.[5]). The statement’s vocabulary is consistent with the coup’s media, noting that the official press proved that the attacks on churches were carried out by thugs, which was later proven by police investigations, and was published in the official newspapers, all of which were premeditated. In this context, we recall Muhammad Hassanein Heikal’s accusation that the Brotherhood was behind the burning of his library and his house on his farm in Barqash. In an article, Fahmi Huwaidi refuted this accusation, stating that the police arrested professional thugs, who confessed that they had attacked the farm, which necessitated Heikal officially apologized to Howeidi for this misstep, in a published article, in which Heikal said in the text, “I think that when you look at the site, you will see that there was some devil who played some role in what happened, all while I appreciate that what happened in “Barqash” happened similarly in an atmosphere of major transformations and turmoil – and that even if it happened to me – this is not the end of the world nor the end of history.” ([6]), in a clear retraction of his accusation that was repeated by the media against the Brotherhood, and which intellectuals and writers lamented, and its complete falsity became clear, and what happened during the Rabaa massacre, in a floating form, accuses Satan of being behind it, knowing that Heikal filled the world with noise with this false accusation, and was behind the entire coup, as if he was concluding his life with what he started it with, so he began as the godfather of the July 1952 coup, and ended as the godfather of the July coup. 2013 AD. It can be said that this era during the life of the January Revolution represents a severe setback for the Writers Union, as it completely entrenched itself with the coup plotters, and considered itself an ambassador speaking for all writers, and was in harmony with all the measures against the January 25 Revolution and democracy that were taken, and the bloodshed it committed and the campaigns of arrest, torture, and political trials it carried out that affected tens of thousands, and continued the bloodshed that filled the squares of Egypt, and we saw how the Union did not understand the atmosphere of The freedom that the nation experienced, and gradually turned to the exclusionary, abolitionist discourse that it practiced against the Islamists, as if saying there is no place for you in our country. You are either in prisons, exile, or mosques. Egypt is a secular movement that supports the totalitarian, authoritarian era. This represents a major apostasy for the Union, which has returned to it as merely an obedient tool, conferring false legitimacy on an authority based on oppression, tyranny, and blood.
[1]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=506&page_id=5
[2]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=578&page_id=4
[3]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=596&page_id=3
[4]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=597&page_id=3
[5]) Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=601&page_id=3
[6]) From Heikal to Fahmi Howeidi: No devil played in Bargash, Fahmi Howeidi, https://www.shorouknews.com/columns/view.aspx?cdate=16092013&id=804008fe-ee10-4b24-a979-618bad5e2bb3
