When the sun set on January 25, 2011 AD, life in Egypt was transformed, politically, intellectually, literary, culturally and artistically. The positions of many changed, and hope flowed through the veins of Egyptians, both the elite and the common people. It was a defining historical moment, in which the Egyptian people came together, rejecting humiliation, injustice, dictatorship and totalitarian rule. Dreams expanded and expanded in reality and imagination. The clear irony was that the ceiling of freedom rose to the sky, and everyone started talking about patriotism. Love of Egypt, and desire for a society of freedoms and democracy. In addition, we will analyze the speeches and statements of the Writers Union and its positions, in three eras: during the January Revolution, during the rule of democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi (June 2012), and after the military coup against Morsi and the democratic path (July 3, 2013). By applying the methodology of discourse analysis and comparison, we will know the amount of change that occurred in the positions of the Writers Union, from the political changes that struck Egypt, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, and the change in the compass of intellectuals and writers. We can monitor the position of the Writers Union during the years of the January Revolution in three periods of time, which we will discuss in detail, and at each stage there are tangible changes in the position of the Union, as it began to cohere with the January revolutionaries, joining their demands, and then gradually turned against the rise of the Islamic movement to power, whether in the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council, or during the period of President Mohamed Morsi’s rule, then the Union’s position on the events of June 30, 2013 AD, and what followed after that in the Union’s return to its previous era of subordination to the authority, through the Ministry of Culture. It should be noted that the dominant faction in the Writers Union, as well as the majority of writers who are members of the Union, are predominantly secular in nature. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of them are from the left, in its various movements, and rarely among them were those with an Islamic orientation, so it was natural for it to side with the agenda of the secular movement, which raised the concerns of the civil state, in the face of what it called the religious state, which is an incorrect term. Islam as a religion does not know the concept of a theocratic state in which the clergy and the popes rule, as was the case in Europe in the Middle Ages. In the concept of the moderate Islamic movement and the literature of its thinkers, it is a civil state, with an Islamic reference: legislative, moral, intellectual, and behavioral. The term civil state is also used against the military state, and not against the religious state, but understanding the facts and concepts is often lost in the noise, fuss, and screaming in the press and satellite channels. The first stage in the Writers Union’s position on the revolution is: The stage of mixing with the revolution and the revolutionaries, The Union played an influential role in it, and was able to hear the voice of writers and intellectuals in political life, and participate strongly in the activities of the revolution and Tahrir Square. We saw how Egyptian writers created poems, songs, and plays in Tahrir Square, when the masses of revolutionaries were unanimous in the departure of Mubarak and his regime, and called for democracy, holding the corrupt accountable, and planning a bright tomorrow for the homeland. This stage was almost without banners, meaning that everyone in the field was melting in the crucible of the revolution, with no distinction between secular or Islamic, nor between Christian and Muslim, nor between old and young. It was the brightest stage of the Egyptian revolution, and its most beautiful days, before the revolutionaries were manipulated and ideological conflicts entered between them. The Egyptian Writers Union possessed a spirit of initiative, during the era of its president, the writer Mohamed Salmawi at the time. He kept pace with the accelerating events in Tahrir Square, and realized that there was no time for political calculations. The entire authority had become condemned, the youth of the revolution had become heard, and the wary opposition, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, and others, had become superior to the political parties created by Mubarak’s regime. Perhaps the Writers Union’s statements are the best way to understand the union’s position on the January Revolution and the events that followed it, and we will discover that the basic problem lies in In the same political climate, which suppresses or provides freedoms, writers lined up with the Egyptian revolution, and their creativity poured out in poetry and narrative, keeping pace with the historical event. Writers united with the revolutionaries, and the sheikhs recalled memories of a past in which they participated in popular revolutions, before July 1952 AD. There is no doubt that the positions of the Writers Union during the January Revolution were responsible and surprising, in light of the state of calcification that afflicted cultural and political life in Egypt, and in the wake of the 2010 elections, which witnessed… A widespread falsification, and the political reality at the end of Hosni Mubarak’s era at the cultural level had declined sharply. The Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, who remained in office for twenty-two years, was boasting that he had attracted the majority of intellectuals to what he called “the fold,” which is a very famous term, launched by the minister at the end of the eighties in a press interview, in order to include intellectuals in the ministry, in the face of the rise of the Islamic movement and its dominance in the street, so power resorted to the secular movement: the left and the right, and they assumed positions. In the Ministry and the Supreme Council of Culture. The majority of intellectuals and writers cooperated with the activities of the Ministry of Culture, and their discourse turned to attacking the Islamic movement, and they found wide spaces in the audio, visual and written media, in addition to financial support, and their discourse about freedoms and the political system was greatly weakened, although this discourse increased with The emergence of a new generation of educated youth, far from the traditional elites. These young people emerged with the January Revolution, and the spotlight was on them. They mixed politics and revolution with their creativity and formulated new visions. The first statement of the Writers Union was No. (1), as if it was establishing a new era of statements in support of the Square Revolution, despite the large number of statements issued by the Union before. Indeed, it was the first statement issued by professional unions in Egypt, given its early history (1/26/2011 AD), and it began by standing in mourning for the souls of the fallen martyrs. Then the Council members saluted the masses who came out to express their legitimate demands, and the Council issued the following statement: “Announces The Egyptian Writers Union expresses its full solidarity with the glorious uprising of January 25, 2011, and affirms its full participation in its legitimate demands. It also condemns the repressive method in dealing with it, and shares the demands of the Egyptian masses to change the constitution in a way that guarantees the peaceful transfer of power, and to abolish the emergency law. It also demands the immediate release of all political detainees, the elimination of the system of political, economic, and cultural corruption, and the prosecution of corruptors, in addition to the rest of the legitimate political, economic, and social demands. It decided The Council of the Egyptian Writers Union decided to remain in permanent session until further notice. The Council of the Egyptian Writers Union also decided in its emergency session to organize a solidarity stand for Egyptian writers at six o’clock in the evening next Saturday, January 29, 2011, at its headquarters in Zamalek.[1]). There is no doubt that the statement carried all the demands of the revolting masses, namely freedoms, human rights, the fight against corruption, and all the other legitimate demands of the Egyptian people. We will notice that the wording of the statement did not refer to a revolution, but rather used the term “uprising,” perhaps because the term had not yet matured. What happened in Egypt on January 25 were demonstrations in which tens of thousands marched, broke the barrier of fear, and faced police violence. The second statement stated the following: “Egyptian writers, members of the Writers’ Union, carried out a bus march from the Union’s headquarters in Zamalek to Tahrir Square, where they organized a solidarity stand that included no less than 300 writers and writers. The march was led by the great writer Mohamed Salmawi, head of the Egyptian Writers’ Union, who read out a statement from the Union that read: Statement of the Egyptian Writers’ Union No. (2): Egypt’s writers, writers, and intellectuals unite with all the demands of the glorious January 25 revolution sparked by Egypt’s youth, and they declare their stand with them. One hand, to overthrow the regime, prosecute the corrupt, recover Egypt’s wealth, and immediately release all political detainees (with you and from you until victory). Mohamed Salmawi, on behalf of Egypt’s writers and writers, also called on the members of the Union to immediately release the detainees, led by the poet Waheed Wasfi, a member of the Union, who was arrested on the morning of the same day, Thursday, February 10, 2011. Salmawi said in his speech in Tahrir Square that three thousand writers from the Union salute the youth of Egypt who sparked a revolution. January 25, the popularity that raised Egypt’s head before the world, and he told the youth that the entire Arab nation looks up to them with pride and pride. He also said that the era of arrests has passed without return and that the Union will not stand idly by in the face of the arrest of its members of Egyptian writers who are the conscience of the nation and its thinking mind (Cairo in Sabah: 2/10/2011)[2]). The formula of the statement contained a lot of challenge to the regime, and the Union was actually at the level of the event. Indeed, it went beyond the positions of many intellectuals, members of the Union itself, who kept talking about freedoms and confronting oppression, and yet they were aligned with the authority, heart and soul, and thus the Writers’ Union was at the forefront of the revolution, exercising the real role that the intellectual must play in confronting corruption, injustice and dictatorship, and its movements were through issuing high-toned statements and rhetoric, with clear approaches, and then going to Tahrir Square in a march of Three hundred writers, led by the head of the Writers’ Union himself, which is a great irony, after years of complete loyalty to authority and fluctuation in high-ranking positions, but it seems that the event was bigger than everyone, and a surprise to everyone, and it melted everyone in its crucible, so they abandoned falsehood and united with the people. This is if we think well, otherwise it may have been an arrangement with some faction in power, which was revealed by many subsequent positions. There is another position of the secular, educated group that can be expressed by what was done by Jaber Asfour, who was president of the Supreme Council of Culture, director of the National Center for Translation, deputy minister of culture, and then minister of culture in the government of Ahmed Shafiq. When the attack on him intensified, he submitted his resignation and sent it to Hosni Mubarak, for health reasons!!, and then announced that he wanted the government to be a coalition of political currents ([3]Nine days after he accepted the position, he left the first days of the revolution ignoring its reality, especially with the Muslim Brotherhood’s descent into Tahrir Square. He found it an opportunity to repeat his old speech, hostile to the entire Islamic movement, not distinguishing between moderate, extremist, or even excessive. He attacked the youth of the revolution, and claimed that they had infiltrated for the purpose of attacking the Egyptian Museum. He accused them of being hostile to the arts and antiquities, and forbidding care for the Pharaonic civilization, because it is a pagan civilization, and it contains statues, which he did not say. No one has it, except the extremist secularists who are aligned with the government in its incitement and anti-revolutionary rhetoric. Then Jaber Asfour assumed the portfolio of the Ministry of Culture in the government of Ibrahim Mehleb, during the era of Sisi, 6/16/2014 AD ([4]), raising his favorite slogans against the Islamic movement and in support of the secular trend that intensified after the military coup. Thus, the Writers Union has established the idea that it is beyond the calcified cultural elite, which adhered to Hosni Mubarak’s regime, benefited from his positions, and cooperated with his minister, Farouk Hosni, declaring its struggle against what they called the dark forces (Islamic movements), and in fact, they were the cultural and intellectual cover for Mubarak’s regime with all its corruption, bloodiness, and stagnation.
[1]) Egyptian Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=191&page_id=8
[2]) Egyptian Writers Union website (old), access date 20/ 5/ 2019, http://egwriters.com/ar/?pg=pressReleases&item_id=192&page_id=8
[3]) See: Jaber Asfour reveals the reason for his resignation from the Ministry of Culture after 9 days in 2011, Al-Shorouk newspaper, Cairo, https://cms.shorouknews.com/news/view.aspx?cdate=20102017&id=22c1be39-cad0-4ea2-b6a5-03487931e8eb
[4]) See: Jaber Asfour…the last Minister of Culture during the Mubarak era returns with Mahlab
