Hala Halim looks back on the year in culture If one were to judge the state of culture this year exclusively by the annual and occasional "cultural events" punctuating the calendar, then 2005 would seem to have been a reasonably full year. There was no dearth of "anniversary" and biennial conferences -- the one on Muhammad 'Ali, marking the bicentenary of his accession to power; the Muhammad 'Abdu conference, marking the centenary of his death; the conference devoted to Muhammad Mandur, the scholar and literary critic who died 40 years ago; the one on Sartre, commemorating the centenary of his birth; the Third Arab Novel Conference; the symposium marking the 30th Anniversary of the Egyptian Writers' Union. Cinema, likewise, was prominent on the cultural calendar with the usual range of festivals -- the Cairo International Film Festival, the Alexandria International Film Festival, and the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Short Films, among others. There is no doubt that these and other events in different fields end up showcasing some genuinely valuable work that should not be dismissed. However, on the level of policy, what such events attest to is the funds at the disposal of the establishment to be lavished on the ever more frayed discourse of an ongoing enlightenment and regional cultural leadership. The true hallmark of the year, it may be claimed, is the increasing politicisation, or more precisely radicalisation, of culture. This phenomenon, while not confined to 2005, was more distinctly visible this year. Already in 2004, against the earlier backdrop of the situation in Palestine and Iraq, and motivated specifically by an acute discontentment with conditions in Egypt, the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kifaya, or "Enough"), campaigning against the reelection of President Mubarak and the possible succession to the presidency of his son Gamal, was formed. Other similar groups subsequently came into being, such as Youth for Change. It was in summer 2005 that Writers and Artists for Change (WAC) was founded. Sharing Kifaya's general orientation, WAC also has more specific demands, relating to the cultural field and the imperative felt by intellectuals to oppose state cultural policies and to uphold freedom of expression. As with Kifaya, WAC's members are of different generations and political stripes. The defining event of 2005 came on 5 September when, at a theatrical performance in a cultural palace in Beni Sweif, a fire broke out and claimed about 50 lives and left many injured. As one critic aptly put it, "the Beni Sweif disaster coloured all that came before it and all that came after it." Beni Sweif laid bare the vacuity of state cultural policies and the establishment's contempt for basic citizens' rights, as seen in the lack of safety measures in public venues that had led to the fire, and in the relevant governmental bodies' disengaged way of dealing with the disaster and its consequences. All but coinciding with the presidential elections, the catastrophe further galvanised WAC and other groups campaigning for change, and led to the formation of new, ad hoc ones, such as the Fifth of September Group, comprising hitherto largely apolitical people involved in the theatre. The various groups involved in the Beni Sweif campaign concertedly called for a full investigation into the causes of the disaster, putting on trial those responsible for it, according the victims the status of martyrs, and offering their families pensions. The resignation of Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni in the wake of the disaster and its rejection by President Mubarak were dismissed by critics as "playacting", more so when a petition pleading with the minister to remain in his post, signed by a number of writers and intellectuals many of whom have establishment profiles, was published. The Ministry of Culture- sponsored 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre in late September became a focal point for the Beni Sweif controversy with campaigners rallying for its boycott, given that their demands had not been met by what they described as a ministry that favours a "culture of festivals" while overlooking underprivileged areas -- with the result that the theatres were nearly empty. Four months after Beni Sweif, and despite legal measures taken by the campaigners and the families of the victims, no final official report on the disaster has been released. The Beni Sweif disaster deprived Egyptian theatre of many of its finest writers, directors, actors, critics and translators as well as a number of young talents. Taking place as it did in a cultural palace, it exposed the depletion of the 1960s "mass culture" project of spreading theatrical appreciation in the provinces. The death of eminent playwright Alfred Farag (b. 1929) earlier this month sealed the sense of this year marking the end of an era in the world of Egyptian theatre. As a writer, Farag's signal contribution was his consummate adaptation of the Arabic pre-modern heritage, both canonical and popular, in plays that critically, and often allegorically, address postcolonial issues; he had also made a distinguished contribution to the mass culture project in the 1960s. Mourning friends and colleagues who died in Beni Sweif in his Al-Ahram column of 11 September 2005, Farag paused to pay homage to the unknown young members of theatrical troupes who lost their lives in the fire: "Is it really the case that I do not know them? I feel that I belong to them and they belong to me: we are, like a tribe stricken by the frenzy for art and united by a passion for theatre, strangers in many [contexts and] situations -- and strangers are close to each other." Now that the presidential and parliamentary elections are over, and given their results, the question to be asked is whither the movement for change among intellectuals is headed. How will the cultural field respond to the growing de-secularisation of the country, witnessed in the sectarian violence in Alexandria in late October, and in the seats won by the Muslim Brotherhood in the parliament? WAC, for one, according to its spokesman Adel El-Siwi, did not premise its mission solely on the question of the presidential elections, and is concerned with more long-term goals such as reclaiming the intellectual's social and public role. Hence its journal, the first issue of which is scheduled to appear in March 2006, will be devoted to a reevaluation of all the discourses of change in search of a new conception of the role of the intellectual. Preparations are underway for a WAC conference planned as a forum for discussing freedom of speech and the impact of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. And it may well be this aim -- more than any number of "cultural events" -- that will be the test of the leverage and vitality of intellectuals and artists for several years to come.
