The bust of Taha Hussein, the blind intellectual who was among the pillars upon which Egypt’s enlightenment movement was built in the 20th century , is back on top of the pyramid-shaped pedestal in the main square of the capital of his home district of Minya, Upper Egypt.
Minya town council swiftly commissioned and installed a new bust to replace the one which had stood there but was ruined and removed some two weeks ago.
The new bust was sculpted in a matter of 10 days, by orders of Minya governor Mustafa Kamel Eissa who swiftly responded to the outrage expressed by writers, intellectuals, and Minya’s man of the street at the disappearance of the first bust. It is not yet known who ruined and removed it, but fingers point at radical Islamists who hold the concept that statues are idols. The name of the artist who made the statue has not been announced, other than it was a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts.
Watani International
1 March 2013
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