Adrian Grima talks to Abdelrehim Youssef and Omayma Abdel-Shafy, who both participated at the Mediterranean Literature Festival last week.
Egyptian writer and translator from Alexandria Abdelrehim Youssef was in Malta to take part in the three nights of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival held at the Garden of Rest in Floriana last week. He was one of 14 writers from nine countries who participated at this festival dedicated to the Arab Spring of Dignity and Freedom.
In an article published in Le Monde on February 12, this year, Révolution post-islamiste, the French professor of social and political theory Olivier Roy, who has published widely on the Arab world and Islam, described the popular uprisings in North Africa and Egypt as “post-Islamist”. This new generation, he wrote, is not interested in ideology: “The slogans are pragmatic and concrete (“erhal”, leave) and they do not refer to Islam like their predecessors in Algeria and at the end of the 1980s.”
I ask Abdelrehim Youssef and his wife Omayma Abdel-Shafy, an Alexandrian short-story writer, who were both actively involved in the revolution in Alexandria, whether they agree with Mr Roy’s assessment of the secular nature of the revolutions. Ms Abdel-Shafy is categoric: “These were not Islamic revolutions. People were moved by social, economic and human motivations. So, despite the attempts of the Islamic powers to seize political authority in the aftermath of the revolutions, the people will always look for those who can fulfil their ambitions.”
Mr Youssef agrees with Mr Roy’s assessment too and he applies it both to the popular movements in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that have led to the overthrow of the three Presidents, and also to the Syrian and Yemeni popular revolutions that are taking place now. “It was after the dismissal of Zein Al-’abdin and Hosni Mubarak that the Islamic powers began manoeuvring to occupy the scene and get into conflicts with the other parts, whether liberal or socialist, with the aim of building Islamic countries, as they say.”
Mr Youssef, born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1975, works as an English teacher in a governmental primary school and as a cultural operator in the Gudran Association for Art and Development in his home town. He is an Egyptian slang poet with many published poems in several literary periodicals and has three published books of poetry, and has written songs and theatrical works.
Ms Abdel-Shafy was born in Alexandria in 1979 and studied in the Arabic Department of the Faculty of Islamic Studies. She has worked as a teacher of Arabic and now works for the Gudran Association for Art and Development. She is also a member of the board of Eskendrella Association for Cultures and Arts. She published her first book of short stories in 2010.
How important were the events in Tunisia, and the sacrifice of Mohamed Bouazizi, for the revolution in Egypt, and how did they, in Alexandria, follow what was happening in Tunisia, especially in the early days?
“I like to see what happened in Tunisia as the first spark for the Egyptian Revolution,” says Ms Abdel-Shafy. “It said that there is ‘hope’ for complete change.” Mr Youssef tells me that he followed the Tunisian events, including the symbolic sacrifice of Bouazizi, mainly through Facebook, which has been a basic source of information and alternative media for him since 2007.
“Actually, I didn’t expect the events in Tunisia, or even later in Egypt, to achieve these results. I thought it was just a small heave of anger like the many small, or big, demonstrations, strikes and sit-ins that have taken place in Egypt since 2005. Many Egyptians on Facebook encouraged and admired the Tunisian Revolution, and there was a kind of envy, on one hand, and grief for what they saw as Egyptian stagnancy on the other. Perhaps this feeling of envy was among the so many elements that led to copying the Tunisian revolting spirit with this inspiring slogan ‘People want to overthrow the system’. In Arabic: El Sha’b yorid esqat el nezam.
I ask about the role of NGOs in the uprisings in Alexandria and Egypt generally. Mr Youssef remembers that on January 28 of this year, they began to use the office of Gudran Association for Art and Development as an emergency space for injured Alexandrian writers, artists and intellectuals who began to move together in the demonstrations that started on January 25. “All the members of the group had the telephone number of the office, among others, to tell a volunteer the latest news or emergencies, because the government cut the mobile and internet services on January 27.
“We used also other facilities of the office, the computer, the printer and eventually the internet when the service was restored. We also used another place run by Gudran, El Dokan, as a gathering place for meetings, workshops of writing and drawing slogans and signs, and as a storage place for signs and amplifiers. A little later, many cultural NGOs gathered in what they called the Coalition of Independent Culture to work on organising artistic and cultural events in many Egyptians cities and towns under the title of “Art is a Square. This is held on the first Saturday of every month.”
Ms Abdel-Shafy says that “the role of women was quite equal to that of men. We went out to take part in the demonstrations, in sit-ins and shared in all voluntary services”. I ask about her role as a writer in these events. “As a writer, whether female or not, I feel that this moment is one of action more than of writing. It could be a moment of inspiration and monitoring for people not from the Arab world.”
What kind of new Egypt would Mr Youssef like to see? “I would like to see a civil, democratic and ambitious Egypt. I do not consider myself as an “engaged” writer. I only find great pleasure in writing poetry I like. However, in such a new Egypt, the future will be promising for all.”