WATANI International
10 October 2010
Mossaad Sadeq…Shahidun ala Ayyam al-Aqbat wal-Irhab (Mossaad Sadeq…Witness for the Days of Copts and Terrorism); Mariam Mossaad; Watani corporation for Printing and Publishing; September 2010
“This book cites the biography of an Egyptian who may be counted among those who were most concerned with their country and its people. He chose to struggle for the well-being of his homeland and to help the needy through one of the hardest but most rewarding professions, journalism.” This is how Watani editor-in-chief Youssef Sidhom introduces the latest book in the Watani Book series, and its subject Mossaad Sadeq (1916 – 2000) to the readers.
Beginnings
Mossad Sadeq…Days of Copts and Terrorism was written by Sadeq’s daughter Mariam Mossaad, herself a bright, young journalist. Mossad writes about her father with a mix of love, objectivity, and a highly developed skill of narration. The first of the books eight chapters tells of the early years of Sadeq’s life, under the title “Roots”.
Born in Minya on 14 May 1916 to an upper-middle class Coptic family, Sadeq grew up to make a career out of journalism. He worked at Kawkab Al-Sharq paper in 1936, and was invited by Salama Moussa—among the most prominent enlightenment figures in the first half of the 20th century—to work at the daily Misr Al-Yawmiya where he became famous for his column “To the core”. This was a title he was to use for later columns in the other papers he worked for—the last of which was Watani in which he wrote since it was founded in 1958 and till he passed away.
Sadeq also worked with al-Ahram and with several other papers, including a number of Coptic papers among which was al-Tawfiq and Madaaris Al-Ahad together with Tawfiq Habib and Edward Benyamin. In 1952 he founded his own al-Fidaa’ magazine and al-Yaqatha magazine, both of which were later closed for political or financial reasons. In the later 1950s Sadeq joined Antoun Sidhom who was in the process of founding Watani; it was he who suggested the paper’s name meaning “My Homeland”.
Struggles and troubles
“Looking for Trouble” is the name of the second chapter; it tackles the history of al-Fidaa’, literally the Redemption. al-Fidaa’ aroused controversy on account of the many thorny issues it took up, not least among which were the discrimination against Copts regarding the building of churches, the separation of religion and State, and the new Egyptian Constitution which was drawn following the 1952 Revolution. The then Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel Hadi, the great Coptic lawyers and politicians Makram Ebeid and Mirette Ghali were among those who drafted it.
The third chapter, “The price of redemption”, explains how he paid the cost of his courage and frankness. It included parts of Sadeq’s memoirs when he was imprisoned for two months, for some reason he never got to know. In his memoirs, which he published under the title When the Thick Walls Contained Me he describes, in very calm language, the details of his imprisonment. He was not married then, but he paints in moving words how his mother would roam the streets around the prison hoping to get a glimpse of her son from behind the bars of some window. It is a scene that seems to come right out of a Dickens novel.
As soon as he was released, Sadeq received the shocking news that he had been dismissed from the Journalists’ Syndicate, and institution he had been pivotal in founding. The fourth chapter gives the details of his struggle to rejoin, which succeeded in 1955. The syndicate’s declaration of his reinstitution was a condemnation of the injustice he suffered and of his disgraceful dismissal, as well as a testimony to his worth as a journalist and one of the founders of the syndicate.
Eye-witness
Starting from the fifth chapter, the book focuses on Sadeq as a witness of his time so it bears the name of “From the heart of events”. It includes Sadeq’s eye-witnesses testimony to the apparition of the Holy Virgin above the domes of the church consecrated in her name in Zeitoun, Cairo, in 1968. He was the first one to write about the hermit, Father Abdel-Messih al-Maqari, who was canonised after he died in 1970. Sadeq opened the file of the Coptic monuments grossly neglected by the State, including Abu-Maqar monastery in the Western Desert, St Abadeer church in Assuit, Mar-Mina monastery at Fumm al-Khaleeg in Old Cairo, and many others. Many of these, if not all of them, have today been restored and are in good order.
The book includes some of Sadeq’s articles and features. The most important of them are collected in a chapter under the title “The patriot…The Copt” in which he wrote about the terrorism waged by Islamists against the Copts during the 1990s. He wrote on the murder of nine Copts, four Muslims and a pregnant woman in Nag Hammadi in 1997, the killing of three visitors and two monks at al-Meharraq monastery in Assiut, Upper Egypt, in March 1994, the crimes against the Copts of Meir village and Ezbet al-Aqbat in Assiut in 1996; and many others.
The book ends on a gentle note. “Husband and father” narrates how he married in 1978, and his four children. His sons Sadeq, Ghobrial, and Abra’am today have their own families and careers in engineering, IT and graphics design; and the youngest, Mariam, is a journalist and the writer of the book. All agreed that their father taught them that life is a mission that has to be accomplished to one’s very best ability and conscience.