The Arab Writers Union will return to Cairo. But what does that mean, asks Rania Khallaf Last week Cairo hosted the general conference of the Arab Writers' Union (AWU) for the first time since 1979. Just a few hours before the closing ceremony of the week-long 23rd round, which met at the Arab League headquarters, news spread that Egypt would once again become home to the Arab Writers' Union (AWU), and that Mohamed Salmawy, chairman of the Egyptian Writers' Union (EWU), would become the secretary-general of the AWU. While the conference's main focus was the work of Naguib Mahfouz, with sessions discussing Mahfouz's historical novels, political stances, realism and experimentation in his works and his impact on Arab cinema as a scriptwriter, speeches delivered at the opening ceremony, by the Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, former chairman of the AWU Ali Okla Ersan and by Mohamed Salmawy, were overtly political. During the closing ceremony the Palestinian poet Samih El-Qassem was announced as the winner of the $10,000 Naguib Mahfouz Prize for the Arab Writer in a citation that mentioned "his absolute commitment to struggle against all attempts to uproot the Palestinian identity". The announcement came as no surprise given the emphasis the conference had placed on supporting the culture of resistance and its opposition to normalisation with Israel. "We, the Arab writers, reject any interference in our countries and our nations' issues, whatever the excuses given. In the critical circumstances we face, we will stand up to the challenges entailed by our nation, and to any attempts to tarnish our identity," Ersan said in the opening ceremony during a speech that mentioned the ongoing sectarian struggle in Iraq and Israeli attacks against Palestinians in Beit Hanoun. In the weeks leading up to the conference there had been suggestions that Syria, Egypt and Jordan would compete for the secretary- generalship of the organisation. But when Syrian Minister of Culture Riad Nassan Agha visited Cairo earlier on 17 November to discuss, with his Egyptian counterpart Farouk Hosni, ways of boosting joint cooperation and relations in the cultural domain, many suspected a deal over the leadership of the AWU would be struck. According to The Writers' New s, the news bulletin produced by the EWU daily during the conference, Egypt was unanimously chosen to host the headquarters of the AWU, and Salmawy to be secretary-general. The Sudanese delegation, it reported, proposed Egypt, a proposal that received the backing of the Palestinian delegation and then the rest of the Arab delegations attending. Egyptian novelist Khairy Shalaby said Salmawy's earlier refusal not to nominate himself as secretary-general of the AWU had proved a clever tactic. Two weeks before the AWU conference Salmawy had said that while Egypt would be happy to head the AWU it would do so only if that was the unanimous wish of the members. Egyptian candidates would not, he said, stand for any contested post. "There was some competition between Jordan and Egypt but also attempts behind the scenes to come to some sort of agreement between the Arab delegations on Egypt's leadership of the AWU at such a historic juncture," Sudanese poet Omar Kaddour, the AWU's assistant secretary- general and the first to nominate Egypt, told the Weekly. "The AWU is not an Arab political party but an efficient example of Arab solidarity and unity," he added. "This move comes in recognition of Egypt's historic role in the Arab world, acknowledges that the AWU was born in Cairo, and is an expression of our belief that the AWU will thrive under Egyptian leadership," he explained. After winning the three-year term, Salmawy said he appreciated the trust shown by Arab writers and Arab Writers Unions. He promised that the coming stage would witness concerted and serious work towards "attaining the goals and dreams of Arab writers and break all the shackles on the creative freedom of writers". While welcomed in political circles and by those writers with ties to the state, news of Salmawy's election and the return of the AWU to Egypt was met with indifference among many of Egypt's most prominent writers, most of whom abstained from attending any of the activities of the conference. While novelists Bahaa Taher and Radwa Ashour, poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoudy and historian Abdel-Wahab Elmesseri refused to comment on the developments, they all agreed that they did not feel represented by the EWU, an institution they considered redundant. "The AWU's headquarters moved from Cairo in 1979 after Egypt signed the Camp David Peace Treaty with Israel. It is now returning when policies of political normalisation are, if anything, even stronger. What, one can ask, is the significance of the move?" says eminent critic Sayed El-Bahrawy, a former member of the EWU's board. Nor does he think the move likely to attract writers back to the EWU, which "suffers two drawbacks -- a powerless board of administration governed by an archaic law and a meagre budget".
