Al-Shaab carried out a fierce campaign against the novel "Banquet for Seaweed" by the Syrian novelist Haider Haider. Al-Shaab allocated a large number of its pages to tackling this issue. In its edition dated Friday 12 May about 4 pages dealt with the said issue.
El-Shaab’s front page opened with an anonymous article with the title: "Peoples outrage against disdaining of sacred things is continuing." The article stated: " The people’s outrage against Culture Minister Farouq Hosni has escalated and transferred from the Azhar University to the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Damieta. Meanwhile, State Security prosecution decided to renew the imprisonment of 75 students for 15 days for further investigations concerning the Azhar demonstrations. Hundreds of the University Students pursued their sit in demonstrations inside the University hostel in protest against the Security measures and the arrest campaign. Al-Azhar University President Dr. Ahmed Omar Hashim, in a bid to urge the students to end the sit in, told the students that the government vowed to release the detained students and that investigations with the Cultural Palaces officials were underway to find those responsible for publishing the novel.
However, the students voiced their determination to continue the protest to achieve their fair demands of kicking out Farouq Hosni and sending the officials in charge of publishing the novel to trial. The students welcomed the statement issued by the Religious committee in the Peoples Assembly.
The front page of Al-Shaab also reported that the students, in a message sent to President Mubarak, said that the motive behind their move was to defend the nation’s beliefs. Referring to the wide-scale arrest campaign launched by security men against their colleagues, the students said they were just performing their role as Al-Azhar youth and future Ulama’ of the country. They called for deposing Farouq Hosni and the release of the detained students.
On the same front page, the press syndicate denied reports that the Culture Minister’s advocates had held a conference to declare their solidarity with the Syrian writer Haider Haider.
Al-Shaab ran an editorial by Ibrahim Shoukry, the leader of the Labor Party, in which he wonders: why doesn’t the Minister of Culture submit his resignation?
Although the crime committed by the Ministry of Culture has been proved and inspire of the angry reactions in the streets and mosques, the investigations conducted by officials in the Ministry and the statement issued by the Religious unit in the Peoples Assembly the Minister still hasn’t submitted his resignation. Shoukry suggests that the Minister should resign to rescue the government from such a serious impasse.
Al-Shaab stated under the title ’Security agencies fired tear gas against students’ that:
the police used 4200 rubber bullets in the Azhar University incidents,
46 police vehicles and 12 armored vehicles surrounded the University,
270 students were arrested,
500 students participated in the hunger strike.
On page 3 Al-Shaab published an article by Ahmed Abdel Hafez showing the opinion of some Egyptian thinkers. He says that the professors of literature and thinkers emphasized that deep rooted creativity doesn’t prejudice the societies religious sanctities and values. Former Information Minister and member of the Islamic Research Academy Dr. Kamal Abu Al Magd said we line up with the freedom of expression secured by the Egyptian constitution. "But the writer should not prejudice the society for artistic considerations."
Dr. Abdel Aziz Al-Mata’ny, professor at the Azhar University, said the "Banquet for the Seaweed" is "an antagonistic act against religions and human values". He called the novel "a disgraceful and satanic act."
Abdel Ghafar Ouda, under secretary of the Ministry of Culture, said that creativity and art should be away from pornography.
On page four, Al-Shaab runs a report saying that the Peoples Assembly’s Religious Committee had denounced the novel "Banquet for the Seaweed" and calls for bringing its author to trial. The Peoples Assembly Religious Committee undertook, in its meeting of last Tuesday, the task of defending the sanctity of the religion and calls upon all people to be up to the responsibility of protecting religion and punishing Hosni and his advocates. The committee demanded that the novel be removed from bookshops and for it not to be published again, because of the harm it does to the sacred values of the Islamic religion. The committee also demanded the punishment of its writer and publisher and all those who contributed to its production as a novel.
The Committee suggested that the censors should submit a copy of any book that refers to religion to the Azhar, so that the Azhar can verify the information contained in such books.
The statement by the Peoples Assembly’s Religious Committee was delivered by Dr. Omar Hashem who said that the novel is full of bad words and sexual satanic images and it harms all religions, but most of all Islam. Hashem put responsibility for all that has happened on the shoulders of the Minister of Culture and demanded a trial for Hosni in front of the committee.
Dr. Mohammed Abbas wrote in the same paper an essay confirming that they are not against creativity or fighting against art. However, they do fight any atheist who dares say that the Qur’an is nonsense and that a whore is more sacred than Allah. Abbas said that those who try to protect themselves by using the name of creativity are those mainly responsible for destroying creativity. They spoiled the Arabic language, culture and values were destroyed in their era. He pointed out that 17% of female university students are involved in urfi marriage and 50% of all university students have smoked marijuana. He attributed this to the spoiled values spread by the publications of the Ministry of Culture.
Dr. Abbas pointed out that English Law prohibits any attack on the Bible. The film "last Supper", Al Ashaa Al Akheer, was forbidden in England and the movie theaters that screened it in Paris were subjected to the anger of the people. Thus the Qur’an should be treated as something sacred in its own land.
The lies of the Culture Minister and his fellows were disclosed as they announced that the novel was allowed in all Arab countries. However, Haider said in Akhbar Al-Adab, issue no. 356 on Sunday 6th of May, that he was attacked in all Arab countries and most of his books were published in the Lebanon where there is no censorship of books. Abbas blamed intellectuals who refrain from dealing with such issues, describing the defenders of the novel as worshipers of presidents that accept insults of Allah and the Prophets and cannot even criticize the smallest official. Addressing President Mubarak, the writer said that such people will harm the President himself more than his enemies.
Adel Hussein, secretary-general of the Labor Party wrote in the same paper an article with the title: "If you want to face the whole nation, do it, but don’t wail and cry afterwards."
He argued that it is not a big deal that the opponents of the novel hadn’t read the whole text, as the target is not to criticize the artistic aspect of the novel. What we are against is the insulting words about the Qur’an and Allah, which are quite obvious in the novel.
He said that censorship cuts hot shots from movies so why are they angry when we want to do the same with a text that insults what is sacred to us " he who lives in this country should respect Allah, the Qur’an and the Prophet Mohammed whatever his beliefs".
Adel Hussein pointed out that the constitution of the country stipulated that its reference is the Shari’a. "The state loses its authority and validity if it challenges flagrantly and directly the Islamic Shari’a. Besides this, most of our citizens are religious people, the majority of them are Muslims and they won’t hesitate to face the government if it uses its authority to humiliate religion and what is sacred to us."
He blamed the silence adopted by the official media saying that it reflects the negativity, and hesitancy of the country and shows its inability to act positively. He pointed out the stance adopted by a Christian writer in Al-Akhbar, Said Sonbul, who defended the novel and attacked the Labor party. The writer wonders what Sonbul’s stance would be if a novel was published insulting Jesus Christ, peace be upon him? The writer was astonished regarding the opinion of the writer Salah Eissa that defends the novel, contradicting his previous honorable stance and also by the articles published in Al-Arabi Newspaper published by the Nasserists party. However, he expected the attacks launched by Al-Ahali newspaper upon the Labor Party.
Concerning the claim made by Farouq Hosni and his group accusing the Labor Party of stirring up the public to gain more votes in the coming elections, the writer commented sarcastically that as the elections in this country are so fair, they have to fear the Labor Party as there is a possibility for the Labor Party to defeat the National Democratic Party.
Regarding the committee formed on the orders of Minister Hosni and the irrelevant report issued by said committee, Adel Hosni confirmed that the committee and the report were both rejected because the committee focused on the literary and artistic aspect of the novel. It was formed upon orders of the Ministry, but the report of the committee does not imply any solidarity for the Minister although he is the main person to be blamed.
The writer calls for forming a committee to study all the publications of the Ministry of culture in order to prove that Hosni’s policies spoil the culture. He described the statement delivered by Farouq Hosni in the peoples assembly as nonsense and he wondered how the Spokesman of the Parliament could hand over the issue to the Committee of Culture and not the Committee of Religion !! He thinks it’s a kind of punishment to the religious committee and its chairman Omar Hashem who calls for the novel to be burnt.
On page seven Al-Shaab published the call of the Azhar scholars upon President Mubarak to consider the mistakes made by the Ministry of Culture. The statement was signed by 60 Azhar scholars. They called upon Mubarak to intervene personally in order to clear the Ministry of Culture of all those who harmed religion and ethics and spent public money on destroying the nation. The statement includes excerpts from different novels published by the Ministry, all of which include very sexual phrases and the word Allah is used in improper phrases and contexts which proves the point of view of the scholars.
Al-Shaab ran a story on page seven written by a student of the Azhar who described the actual incidents of the street demonstrations made by the Azhar students. She confirmed that they were conducting a peaceful demonstration. It was just a march where the students chanted slogans supporting Islam. It was the policemen who started the riots by shooting rubber bullets and more than 15 tear gas bombs, causing many injuries among the students. A large number of the students were choked by the tear gas and most of them suffered from eye wounds and some were blinded because of the bullets.
