Last weekend, Egypt lost two renowned figures who had made indelible prints in the literary and journalistic fields.
The prominent literary critic Ragaa’ al-Naqash, who was born in 1937, died of cancer. Naqash was the editor-in-chief of one of the most respected Cairo literary magazines, the monthly al-Hilal (The Crescent), and the weekly al-Kawakeb (The Stars) which specialises in cinema. His masterpiece work, however, was his book Naguib Mahfouz: Pages from his Memoirs in which Naqash published the many interviews he had conducted with Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. The book openly discussed several critical issues on the Egyptian cultural scene. It is a real pity that Naqash was much better known with the cultural elite than with the general public.
Magdy Mehanna, on the other hand, who died of cirrhosis at the age of 51, was well-known with both the elite and the general public. He began his career as a journalist in the Cairo weekly Rose al-Youssef, then moved to the daily al-Wafd. In the 1990s, he waged a campaign against the then Interior Minister Zaki Badr and, after the latter was laid off, he published a book The Dismissal of Zaki Badr.
When the Cairo independent daily al-Masri al-Youm —one of the topmost Cairo papers today—was in the dry-running phase Mehanna was editor-in-chief and held that position for some six months. When the paper went on the news stands Anwar al-Harrawy was assigned the chief editorial position. Mehanna accepted the new situation and committed himself to his well-read column Fil-Mamnou (Banned Talk) which boldly tackled many thorny issues. He later adapted the same concept to a TV talk show which he again named Fil Mamnou and presented on Dream satellite channel, and yet again on Egyptian national TV under the name Baed al-Mudawala (After Deliberation).
Though Mehanna was known for his severe criticism of the ruling regime, he was obviously well respected by the officials. Leading political figures including Gamal Mubarak, Kamal al-Shazli and the Culture Minister Farouq Hosni walked in his funeral.
Despite his stand for freedom, Mehanna wrote in his column against the issue Watani raised in December 2006 condemning Mohamed Emara’s book The Sedition of Apostasy in which he referred to Christians as apostates whose blood should be shed. Emara apologised and the publisher, the State-run Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, recalled the book and later re-published it in a corrected form. Mehanna’s opinion, however, was that Emara’s apology should have been sufficient to appease the Copts. It was expected from the enlightened writer Mehanna to call for the confiscation of the outrageous book or at least to amend the offensive texts—which is what actually happened—but he apparently missed that.