Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.
Egyptian Publisher: Rally an Answer to Divisive Islamist Rule
by Reuters
Egypt's revolution has been a double-edged sword for Mohamed Hashem.
As manager of Dar Merit, one of Cairo's most respected publishing
houses, he's been happy to see the spread of a fresh political and
cultural awareness since the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.
But the revolt also ushered in an Islamist-led government that he and
other literati view as an autocratic group bent on imposing
conservative social views on Egypt's 84 million people - including the
liberals who allied with them against Mubarak.
President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood may have come to
power through the ballot box, but for Hashem and liberals like him,
their promulgation of religious values is totalitarian and divisive,
and reason enough to take to the streets on Sunday, the anniversary of
Morsi's inauguration.
"This is not a democratic force that believes in elections and the
transfer of power," Hashem, 55, said in an interview in his dusty,
book-lined office around the corner from Tahrir Square, center of the
2011 uprising.
He said Egyptian Islamism "believes in its own religious authority and
that there is no authority above it."
Of course, things were never easy for artists under Mubarak.
Hashem opened Dar Merit in 1998 to give life to an arts scene that
stagnated under corruption, censorship and mismanagement during the
autocrat's three decades in power, and its struggles have won it
Western press freedom prizes in 2006 and since the revolution.
Violence in the Air
When Mubarak fell, Hashem was accused of inciting violence by the
council of army generals who took over, although the case was
eventually dropped.
The main twist under the Islamists, Hashem said, was a new tolerance
among officials of threats of violence against those they do not agree
with.
He pointed to the mob killing of five Shi'ite Muslims this month, which
happened just days after Morsi sat silently at a conference while Sunni
clerics derided Shi'ites, including one who called them "filth."
"Their violent rhetoric is what's left people unable to bear even a
year before saying they have to go," said Hashem, who keeps a gas mask
and blue helmet on his desk.
Many of Egypt's artists are still haunted by a radical Islamist's knife
attack on Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz in 1994.
Officials deny trying to pack cultural institutions with Brotherhood
loyalists to carry out an Islamic morality campaign.
But puritanical Salafist Muslims, enjoying newfound freedom after
decades of repression under Mubarak, have grown bold enough to call for
an end to public ballet performances and belly-dancing, and to demand
censorship of screen romance.
''The appointment this month of a new culture minister, Alaa Abdel
Aziz, a 52-year-old academic from a small Islamic party, unnerved
artists who feared a religious-tinged clampdown.
Filmmakers, writers and performers infuriated by Abdel Aziz's dismissal
of the head of the Cairo Opera have staged a sit-in to preventing him
entering his ministry, and scuffled with his Islamist supporters this
month.
Reflecting the Revolution
Abdel Aziz's taste for both Hollywood and international arthouse movies
sets him apart from many Islamists, and he denies having any moral
agenda, but he does say he wants cultural spending to reflect the
changes Egyptian society brought about by its revolution.
"My concern is providing cultural services throughout Egypt, not
financial benefits for a few intellectuals," he told Reuters last week.
Hashem, fearing for a cosmopolitan cultural scene long envied across
the Arab world, disagrees with the approach.
"The assault is on the national identity of Egypt - not just on
culture," he said.
Dar Merit has steadily grown in prominence since it was founded, with
titles including "The Yacoubian Building," Alaa al-Aswany's novel of
corruption and social deterioration under Mubarak. Its headquarters are
a battered, high-ceilinged building in downtown Cairo, a relic of the
decaying grandeur the novel portrayed.
Business has got worse since the uprising - Dar Merit used to publish
50 to 70 books a year, and it is now under 30. But Hashem tries to look
to a time when, as he sees it, Egypt's democratic revolution finally
becomes inclusive.
"People are going to learn more and read more," he said.
__________________________________________________________________
[1]http://www.voanews.com/content/egypt-publisher-morsi-islamist-rule-c
ulture/1691593.html
References
1. http://www.voanews.com/content/egypt-publisher-morsi-islamist-rule-culture/1691593.html