This week marks a signal achievement in the history of Egyptian journalism. Al-Ahram, Egypt's oldest newspaper at 140, launched its English-language mouthpiece 28 February 1991, making it 1,000 issues old this week. Born as the world lurched into the eerie era of a lone superpower bent on shaping the world to its needs, Al-Ahram Weekly began life as an analytical forum for domestic and foreign affairs and soon eclipsed other foreign-language print media in Egypt, establishing itself firmly as the authoritative voice of not only Egyptian but Arab and Third World writers. It styles itself as "semi-official", a critically supportive voice of the Egyptian and Arab intelligentsia with its only "bias", a moral and ethical one, of liberalism and civil rights. These were issues that were once considered taboo, but the Weekly deftly managed to popularise the new openness later picked up by the independent press. Ibrahim Nafei founded the paper, independent of government pressure, though the political establishment was delighted by the prominence the Weekly soon achieved, providing a much needed interlocutor between rulers and ruled, officials and ordinary people. The late Hosny Guindy was the first editor-in-chief, and is fondly remembered by all as an articulate, sympathetic voice with an uncanny sense of where to focus the Weekly 's efforts in order to attract readers and to effect its influence for the good of Egypt and Egyptian relations. The Weekly has prided itself on being a workplace characterised by equal opportunity, both for men and women, Muslim and Christian, local and foreign alike. Now, at a time when the Muslim and Arab worlds are under unremitting attack in Western media and by Western governments, with much false information about our way of life, our hopes and aspirations, the Weekly has provided an invaluable mouthpiece for correcting the many distortions, for reaching out to those around the world who are searching for a way out of the imperial impasse. As alliances change, moving the world towards accommodation, away from the aggressive brinkmanship practised by both the US and Israel, the pages of the Weekly continue to strive to keep pace with the rapid developments, to bring the Arab world and Egypt in particular towards a new grouping of nations and policymakers intent on pursuing a peaceful path in a dangerous world. Egypt's recent insistence on Israeli compliance with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in pursuit of a nuclear weapon free Middle East is, for instance, strongly supported by the Weekly. Such noted anti-Zionist critics as the late Edward Said, as well as Naom Chomsky and Eric Roulleaux and Azmi Bishara have been powerful voices in bringing the world's attention to the plight of the Palestinians through the pages of the Weekly.
