Al-Ahram: A Diwan of contemporary life (625) Inside parliament Events and issues within the Egyptian parliament are all brought together by Professor Yunan Labib Rizk Not in bias of Al-Ahram but rather for objective reasons can we state that the newspaper has always carved out a place for Egyptian parliamentary life. It is the oldest newspaper to have been set up, roughly within a decade of the founding of parliament in 1867. Al-Ahram always remained concerned with events within and outside the halls of parliament. So many articles were published in Al-Ahram about parliamentary life that it makes it difficult to draw them all together. Let us suffice, then, with just some of the scenes that took place in its history. Even events taking place far from the domes of parliament and yet related to it were followed in detail by Al-Ahram. For example, Al-Ahram covered the first election platform put forth by a candidate, that of Pasha when he nominated himself in the legislative assembly's elections of 1913. On the front page of its Thursday 30 October edition, Al-Ahram had the headline " Pasha and the elections" with the text of a long interview with him that ended, "and that is the programme [in English] of Saad Pasha should he be elected." His election platform consisted of five demands. The first was for the reform of the judiciary by amending the laws of Egyptian courts, "civil, criminal and otherwise from their flaws and the exorbitant legal fees and extreme drawing out of cases and the like that is the source of litigants' complaints." The experience Zaghloul gained from his public work formed the basis for his second demand on education. The published text stated "I have experienced the circumstances in schools, lessons and teaching for a long time, and I know the many needs of the nation for knowledge. If I am elected to the legislative assembly, I promise the nation to put all effort into expanding the scope of education to cover all classes of society and to assist the sons of the impoverished to excel like the sons of the rich." He then expressed his opinion on giving "the press the necessary freedom for its increased success and elevation in service to the nation. If the people of my motherland elect me I promise them I will study this matter closely and gather evidence and proof to persuade my colleagues and the government to devise a law that will safeguard the freedom of the press on the one hand and on the other protect public order from the danger of exceeding the proper bounds." Zaghloul dedicated his fourth demand to public services and elimination of "the constant complaints about the lack of light and sweeping and spraying of water and the lack of order and paving. If I am elected to the legislative assembly, I will not hold back in doing what I can within the limits of the law to make the government eliminate the people's complaints of these kinds." His final demand was of an economic nature; he promised to put the needs of most of the people at the centre of his attention, "particularly the needs of the farmers. I will strive to facilitate the means of agriculture and irrigation and extend railways and agricultural roads in the countryside. I will closely study the price of cotton and exert efforts to use the means available to protect the interests of agriculture so that it doesn't lose the profits of cotton to low prices and then is sold as woven at a high price." Al-Ahram 's editor considered Saad Pasha to have set a precedent in Egyptian elections. "The people in the provinces think that it's unacceptable for one to say to another 'elect me' for fear that that may be considered against freedom. Whereas if Saad Pasha, who understands the law more than others, spoke to the people and nominated himself and asked them to elect him, then that is evidence that it is permissible for other candidates to do the same." Al-Ahram commended Saad Pasha for his campaigning. It opined, "the prophets themselves did not wait for the people to come to them to receive their message but rather went out and presented themselves. A person is not prominent by claiming that he is so but rather through the significant work he does for his nation. In the past it was said, 'show me your house and field so that I can know your value,' and today it is said, 'show me your work so that I know your position.'" This was the first step towards presenting "programmes" and all of the interest surrounding them. The second scene we will glance at is the battle over allowing women into parliament. This was one of the battles Al-Ahram occupied itself with on the occasion of promulgating the constitution in 1923. Following effective female participation in the events of the revolution and the establishment of the New Woman's Association and other organisations, it was expected that the status quo would not remain in place while the constitution was being drafted that would allow for a real parliament. These circumstances led to the breakout of a battle on the issue of female participation, and Al-Ahram was its arena. The battle began in the form of a letter from a female reader from Alexandria signed "Miss Munira Th". She was Munira Thabet, who later gained significant fame as one of the pioneers of female Egyptian journalists. Under the title "Women and the Egyptian Parliament" in the 10 June issue of Al-Ahram, Munira Thabet wrote a long article in which she revealed her intention to follow it with others. The opening to the article was scorching; she demanded that every conservative "angry over every move women make on their path of development, withdraw from before us. We don't want from these reactionaries encouragement or assistance for our demands." The article grew more searing still as she wrote about the general displeasure with which public opinion received the formation of the constitution committee in which "we did not find any women among its members in promulgating the constitution while we saw that it included among its members people whose competency and level of education are limited." She saw this as a violation of the rights of Egyptian women and concluded her article with a programme for Egyptian women to address this situation including that the right of membership in the council of representatives and the senate should not differentiate between women and men. She called on all Egyptian women to "participate with me in demanding our rights to membership in parliament and in protesting against those who attempt to deprive us of these rights." Despite the fierce attacks some waged against the demands of this young woman from Alexandria, she was determined to advance the battle. Al-Ahram supported Thabet by publishing another article of hers in which she declared that she did not care about the reaction she was receiving and that she was determined to continue the jihad in support of the principle of "the liberation of Egyptian women from all the worn-out restrictions and ancient customs and to make them equal to men in all rights... Indeed I am determined, I, the Muslim Eastern woman, to follow up on obliterating those customs that bear ignorance under which Egyptian women have been oppressed for ages." On 3 July Al-Ahram published a third article by Thabet in which she responded to some of her critics. This encouraged other men to support her, including one Ismail Wahbi, a lawyer from Cairo, who admitted that all of the arguments presented by "the young lady who defends women's rights" were sound. Another was Salama Moussa, who recommended following the "step-by-step" policy on this issue. This support did not bring the desired results, however, as women waited another 30 years to gain this right. The third scene we will look at from outside parliament revolved around the events of the first real parliamentary elections in 1923. They took place on a partisan basis and were conducted after Egypt gained its legal independence with the 28 February 1922 declaration. Al-Ahram noted that the country was flooded with flyers of every type in which candidates expressed their intentions in nominating themselves but that due to their haste they lacked any objective vision or set agenda. It criticised this methodology and viewed it as an outcome of a psychological state created by the press and the talk of the nation. The most important of Al-Ahram 's writings about this occasion were fears that a group of Egyptians might monopolise the electoral process while others remained seated spectators, or that local struggles would be reflected in the atmosphere of the election battle. It appears that Al-Ahram was blowing into a broken bagpipe, and unfortunately it's still broken. Al-Ahram called for the composition of the representative council "from all constituencies and the best of them in terms of integrity, solicitude, and knowledge, not from one constituency or one sect". It also called for voters not to neglect performing their duty, and encouraged the spread of an unprecedented phenomenon that was never repeated, the formation of non-governmental organisations to protect candidates and voters from oppression by the administration. There was, for example, the Association of Supporters of Free Elections that was formed in the Abdeen district and the Association for the Defence of the Rights of General Elections in Al-Menoufia. As was Al-Ahram 's wont, it took sides with the national movement embodied by the Wafd Party, a fact made clear by its participation in the celebrations welcoming Zaghloul, after his return from exile, in entering the election battle. The paper's representatives who followed the celebrations admitted that "the pen is incapable of describing the scenes of this welcoming." On Sunday 13 January Al-Ahram issued in bold font the headline "Results of the representative elections in the Egyptian homeland, members of the Egyptian council of representatives by telegraph and telephone from Al-Ahram 's correspondents -- an impressive victory for the Saadists." The most significant source of surprise was the victory of Ahmed Maraai Effendi, the Wafd candidate, over "His Excellency Yehya Ibrahim Pasha" the prime minister, in Al-Sanafin district in Al-Sharqiya directorate. What really irritated the foes of the Wafd Party was their winning 192 seats out of 214, a percentage of 90 per cent, while the Liberal Constitutionalists only garnered nine seats. THE OTHER THREE SCENES that we will follow took place within parliament and were selected for the effect they have had on the performance of parliament until this day. The first is related to the customs and etiquette that were set by the first parliament. In the final week before its opening, preparations were put into place and it was determined that attendance would be in evening dress for members of the two councils -- representatives and the senate -- full gala uniform and decoration for "those invited from the military," gala uniform and decoration for "those invited among Egyptian and foreign employees," evening dress and decoration for Egyptians and foreign employees without rank, dress tails and decoration for those invited among foreign dignitaries, and customary dress "for those of native dress among members of the senate and council of representatives and those invited." At this first session, Fouad swore the constitutional oath, which Al-Ahram called the "royal oath" and Zaghloul gave the speech from the throne. But if we leave aside detailed descriptions of this commencement and flip through the pages of the following issues of Al-Ahram, we find that many customs were established which Al-Ahram 's representative compared between the legislative assembly and the new council of representatives. Visitors entering the legislative assembly weren't subjected to the "clamour and raised voices from all directions as is the case today in the representative council. They didn't hear the bell ringing without stop or continuous loud clamour and successive complaints about granting the right to speak to this rather than that, or deprivation of those with proposals from exhaustive treatment of their study." The regulation of the members' right to speak was another issue Al-Ahram addressed in this detailed study. Al-Ahram held the opinion that it was not "the right of members to speak without asking permission and being granted that permission. If they are granted permission to speak they must do so standing either in their place or on the podium. It is not permissible for speakers to digress from the topic and if they diverge, the president must call them on this, and if they persist in this infraction the president may ask the board to bar them from speaking." This encouraged several members to publish studies in the paper on the customs and etiquette of parliament. One of them was member Mohamed Sabri Abu Alam, who submitted a study that was published in Al-Ahram in two articles. In them he addressed the "speech from the throne" and following its history, the constitutional oath that members take, and the selection of the president of the council of representatives, as well as the method of organising discussions within the representative councils. Sabri Abu Alam dedicated a section of his study to what he called the "etiquette of listening", by which members should remain in their place "and when they enter and leave the council they should do so in silence and with a dignified bearing. They should not traverse it in an unseemly manner or read newspapers, magazines, speeches or books during the speeches to amuse themselves. They should remain silent and not whistle or interrupt." The second scene we will look at from within parliament is related to a collection of images conjured up by Fikri Abaza, the well-known writer and member of the third Egyptian parliament (1926-1928). They were published in a series of articles exclusive to Al-Ahram and presented as a series of portraits. The subject of the first portrait was president of the council Zaghloul. The main thread in this study was that the health of the leader of the nation improved with his direction of the representatives and not with the medicines lined up by the pasha's doctor, Suleiman Azmi, on the top floor of Beit Al-Umma, Zaghloul's home referred to as the "home of the nation". Abaza recommended withdrawing these medicines and adhering to a new prescription he wrote himself -- 50,000 grammes of discussion and dispute, 30,000 grammes of debates and persuasion, 20,000 grammes of warnings and instructions, three kilogrammes of rebuke and affront, and one speech paper. "This is the treatment under which Zaghloul's health has improved, for he was the strong young lad, and we were the frail old men." Another thread in this portrait study was the council president's monopolisation of speech to the extent that it seemed as though there were two councils, one for all of the members and another embodied by Saad Pasha. Abaza asked readers to count the number of words spoken by the leader of the nation and those by the members of parliament, certain that Saad's would not be less if they were not in fact more. In this portrait the representative from Senhua also tried to dive into the depths of the revered president. "What is surprising about this man is that when he roars you feel as though you are before a storm and when he calms down and his mood evens, he rains down upon you a shower of appropriate, well executed jokes. How often the rapture of his charm has driven me to leap onto the podium to kiss him." This characteristic was emphasised when he noted that the dignity of the council was sacred to Saad Pasha. When it was compromised, his agitation would be "violent, no matter the results or the circumstances, and may even snatch up his supporters along the way. The treatment for this dangerous condition: a rest during which the roaring, storming wind may calm and a gentle breeze may fall in its place." The second portrait was that of the government of Adli Pasha Yakan. It began with devoting expansive space to the prime minister whose "aristocratic" character impressed Abaza and how he had put great effort into copying him "to the point that I had a squirrel suit cut like his but the results were a failure". This admiration was undercut by surprise that the man (of Turkish origin) "spoke formal Arabic with superior fluency". Abaza's writings on Adli Yakan were effusive with the reasons for his admiration, "when he stands on the podium of the council of representatives reading his statement and receiving questions from the representatives he responds with a smile accompanied with humbleness and friendliness mixed with anticipation." It was natural for Fikri Abaza to praise Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat, the minister of foreign affairs, not only for his position in the cabinet but for his political status as the former prime minister and his role in the Egyptian-British negotiations that ended the 28 February 1922 declaration. All of these accomplishments were considered in the national representative's portrait of Tharwat Bey. He described him as "a specimen of a magnificent creature rare in Egypt. They entrusted him with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because it is the ministry of 28 February and he is the minister of 28 February." Affirmation that Fikri Abaza was drawing portraits and not writing biographies was provided by what he wrote about Marcus Hanna, the minister of finance, that he had the "snout" of a minister. He admitted that the Ministry of Finance was one of the few ministries that had been spared the council's campaigns concerning the contents of the budget. The reason? "He personally undertook defence of his ministry and the fact that it was not responsible for the past and thus preserved its honour, a magnificent attribute." The final scene from within parliament we will be privy to relates to an issue that remains a source of contention until today, and that is the "right of the representatives to withdraw confidence from the government." Al-Ahram was interested in this issue because of what transpired with the government of Adli Yakan. On the evening of Monday 18 April 1927 Adli Pasha, the prime minister, read a short statement to the council of representatives: "During the report of the budget committee the government heard criticism from many of the representatives present. These criticisms were followed by a decision taken by the council in this session that the government, given the criticisms and blame it included, sees as calling upon it to preserve its dignity by relinquishing rule." The details of this story are many but it can be summarised in that the Adli government was attacked by some of the Wafdist representatives because of the exorbitant provisions in the draft budget. The council ultimately refused to extend the customary thanks to the government. After the first session of the council was completed at 7.30pm and resumed at 9.30pm, the president said that the government was deeply affected by what had taken place before the recess in terms of the rejection of the proposal that included thanks to the government as well as other requests related to the Bank of Egypt. It appears that it considered this rejection to imply a lack of confidence in the government, a fact that drove most of the representatives who had spoken to deny this intent and explain that there was a difference between confidence in the government and extending thanks to it. Most thought that the matter ended here, and that the government and its head, Adli Pasha Yakan, had received sufficient extrapolation, but this was not the case. There were real reasons behind Adli employing the issue of confidence to submit his resignation. Among these was the council's attempt to devise a law making the post of amudiya by election, something opposed by Abdeen and Al-Dubara palaces for they viewed it as an attempt to "Wafdicise" this sensitive post. Another reason was what Adli learnt of the intentions of some Wafdist representatives to stir up the issue of increasing the size of the army and limiting the powers of the British inspector general. When the prime minister heard of this, he warned them that Britain would not allow such a law to pass. In the editorial of the 20 April issue of Al-Ahram titled "The resignation of the Adli government", the newspaper asserted that public opinion was shocked "for it is not aware of any import to the resignation and does not know its reasons or a sound explanation." It then censured Adli Pasha, for it saw that the relationship between the council and government did not need to shoulder more issues than it already did. It described the representatives of the majority party as chaotic and not addressing one unified plan. The newspaper was not intimidated from frankly pointing out that a motivation behind the many positions of representatives was to satisfy greed and to boast before the public. "Such activity is harmful and is not permissible under any circumstances to be considered political activity for it is closer to juvenile behaviour than anything else." While Al-Ahram was expressing this opinion, events were escalating. At 2.30pm on Thursday 21 April, a statement was issued declaring that "His Majesty the King has accepted the resignation of the government on the condition that the ministers continue to undertake their duties until the new government is formed." And thus took place the first resignation of an Egyptian government on the pretext of not gaining confidence of the parliament. To this day, it has also been the last to do so.
