How can we mark our national Art Day without making a single mention of the author of this occasion: Rashad Rushdi? This great playwright and scholar was the first to conceive the idea of an annual celebration in which the state honours those who have dedicated their lives to art and to giving the people the type of satisfaction and happiness that can only be obtained through the arts. Rushdi left an indelible imprint on the theatre of the 1960s with his more than 20 plays, such as “The Game of Love”, “A Journey Outside the Wall”, “Shadow Play” and “O My Homeland”. Some of his works have been hailed as landmarks in Egyptian theatre. He was also the first non-foreign chair of the Department of English in Cairo University's Faculty of Arts, in which capacity he served for 22 years before becoming dean of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts and then head of the Academy of Arts. Rushdi contributed to producing new generations of outstanding intellectuals, writers and critics, such as Samir Sarhan, Abdel-Aziz Hammouda, Mohamed Enani and Nehad Selaiha. He was an influential and innovative art critic to whom is due much of the credit for ridding the Egyptian literary criticism movement of the residue of the 19th century Romantic School and, simultaneously, for sparing it from the clutches of socialist criticism. He bequeathed to us invaluable volumes of critical literature, not least of which are The Art of the Short Story, What is Literature? Essays in Literary Criticism and The Art of Dramatic Writing. It is a mystery to me why such works have not been reprinted. One of his most significant actions in his capacity as cultural advisor to the president was to initiate Art Day, which was taken off the national calendar following the death of president Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981. I would have thought that the revival of this national day would have been an occasion to commemorate the man who had conceived it. In fact, I would have thought that the originator of this event would have been the first to be honoured. Apparently, however, the event organisers have short memory spans or were more interested in momentary gains than in ensuring that the appropriate esteem is given to those who have passed away but to whom much credit is still due. The failure to honour Rashad Rushdi, or to so much as make mention of him on this occasion, will remain a black mark on those who cheered and applauded the occasion without giving a thought to its maker.
