This piece was written for Egypt Independent's final weekly print edition, which was banned from going to press. We offer you our 50th and final edition here.
The equation governing the relationship between Akhbar Al-Adab and authority has always been complicated.
Akhbar Al-Adab is published by a state-run institution, Akhbar Al-Youm, and it conforms to the rules observed by state-run papers, which are to stick to the pro-regime line. But since the publication has a cultural nature, this issue was overlooked at the time of its establishment.
Additionally, most of the intellectuals in Egypt belong to the opposition current, in a broad sense of the word. And since its editors basically belong to that current, also in a broad sense, they had some margin of action.
Journalists had a margin of discussion with editors and editors-in-chief. Several arguments between successive editors and editors-in-chief produced this unique formula of a cultural paper that is published by a state-owned institution and yet opposes the official cultural authority.
It is hard to say that Akhbar Al-Adab was a revolutionary paper, but it incited revolution. Any revolutionary idea could find a way to its pages.
After Akhbar Al-Adab Editor-in-Chief Gamal al-Ghitany retired, the paper seemed to be collapsing. Another editor-in-chief came, Mostafa Abdallah, from a strictly authoritative background — that of the Culture Ministry and the Writers’ Union.
Institutionally, the paper was doomed. The reporters staged a strike against Abdallah. The 25 January revolution was still a vivid experience, with all the inspiration and dreams it brought, and so the journalists raised the ceiling of their demands and called for the appointment of Abla al-Roweiny, a journalist at Akhbar Al-Youm, as their editor-in-chief.
The then-ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces responded to their demand, in what could perhaps be the first example of editors picking their own editor-in-chief.
Roweiny worked as editor-in-chief for about one year, a golden year for the paper. But she was soon sent into retirement in accordance with a new law that banned extensions for people older than 60, the age of retirement.
Two journalists ran for the position — Tareq al-Taher, a journalist at Akhbar Al-Adab, and Magdy Afify, an editor at Akhbar Al-Youm who had spent a long time outside the institution and Egypt. Afify won.
From the outset, it seemed that the new editor-in-chief was uncomfortable around the journalists at Akhbar Al-Adab. He seemed confused and unable to decipher the orientations of the paper.
All he knew was that it belonged to Akhbar Al-Youm. The relationship between the editors and their editor-in-chief was tense.
Afify tried to assuage their fears with big, yet hollow, promises that writers would be given complete freedom. But the promise did not stand the test of time, with several articles getting amended or censored altogether, each time for a different reason.
Afify also came at a time when there was much controversy surrounding alleged attempts to “Brotherhoodize journalism,” under the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.
Soon after, Afify wrote an article titled “O Brotherhood! We are not the atheists of Quraish!” in a clear attempt to show that he opposed the Brotherhood. His Brotherhood affiliation remains a mystery. But it is clear that he subscribes to an extremely conservative culture at the linguistic, literary, ethical, religious and political levels.
Tensions surged, with 10 out of the paper’s 12 editors refusing to work with the editor-in-chief. Afify still managed to get journalists who agreed to work with him to get the work done, and he got others from outside the paper to contribute to the publication, his job becoming easier after the paper’s number of pages shrank from 36 to 24.
The editor-in-chief has a serious problem with his editors. He cannot challenge such a big number of them, especially since they are appointed at the paper, nor can he submit to their demands for him to go, write only a weekly column, or appoint a chief editorial team to run the paper.
On the other hand, the editors, too, are in trouble, for Akhbar Al-Youm does not have potential candidates who satisfy the conditions set in the law for the editor-in-chief position, as none of its journalists have worked 15 years at the paper. This fact shows how national papers, particularly Al-Akhbar, eroded under former President Hosni Mubarak and how the new Brotherhood regime is benefiting from that.
A second problem for the journalists is that the new Constitution states that state-run newspapers are now under the jurisdiction of “the National Authority for the Press and Media,” which will have the power to remove editors-in-chief and appoint others. But it has yet to be formed, and the law organizing its function has yet to be discussed.
For all those reasons, maintaining the status quo may be the best solution until an explosion happens. The vast majority of editors are on strike and frustrated — a state of despair that coincides with the nationwide mood after the Brotherhood rose to power, bashing the dreams that were envisaged following Mubarak’s fall.
The editor-in-chief is now literally nobody’s boss, with nobody helping him out and nobody reading his work. But he is also unresolvable. Everything is now quietly in place for an explosion.
Nael al-Toukhy is an Egyptian journalist, novelist and translator.
