Dialogues of Naguib Mahfouz: Supporting change By Mohamed Salmawy Much has been said about the way Naguib Mahfouz viewed the July 1952 Revolution, with most people focussing on literary works in which he criticised what followed. I once asked Mahfouz about what he thought of the July Revolution. "I was one of the revolution's most ardent supporters," he said. "How could I be otherwise when the revolution embodied all the nationalist goals my generation and previous generations had aspired for, such as independence, social justice, and pan-Arabism? When the revolution took place, I spent about seven years with nothing to write about. I had just finished writing The Cairo Trilogy, which was a denouncement of the conditions that existed in the first half of the 20th century. Then the July Revolution came to enforce our national demands, and we needed to give it time to prove itself. A few months later, the revolution introduced agrarian reform and abolished the monarchy. A few months after that, it expelled British troops from the country, following 70 years of occupation. "So I found myself in a quandary. What would I write now, and what point would I make if all our national demands -- it seemed -- were on their way to fruition? When I went back to writing in 1959, I tackled a new kind of work. The new work wasn't about the problems of the nation, as the Trilogy was, but about major philosophical problems, such as the human quest for justice. That's how Children of the Alley came to life. The July Revolution had a deep impact, not only on Egyptian society but also on Arab society. And I believe that it was the most significant political and social phenomenon the Arab world experienced in the 20th century." "You went back and tackled this new society created by the revolution in your novels and many of your short stories. But you were critical of the political and social conditions that existed at the time," I said. "That was in the 60s. At the time, the revolution had started to show certain failings that affected political and social life in the country -- the lack of democracy, for example; also reliance on one political party, which I addressed in Miramar. Following the 1967 defeat, I wrote Adrift on the Nile about the sense of loss and lack of direction. In Karnak, I tackled the excesses of the intelligence services. I supported the revolution in its achievements, and only criticised its failings," Mahfouz said. "Why was your criticism of the failings louder than your support of the achievements?" I asked. "Because literature has a duty to warn of the dangers ahead, not to praise the good times. Had the authorities listened to me, perhaps we could have avoided much of the misery and defeats we were yet to encounter," the novelist replied.
