I thank all who asked
about the absence of this article for the last two weeks. Actually, what the
writer writes has no use if no one is reading, following, and interacting with
him either by criticizing or evaluation. I admit I had to stop due to a mental
and psychological exhaustion resulting from my inability to answer the
traditional question: what next?!
What after writing,
diagnosing, and prescribing solutions? What after tackling arguments and
practices of movements opposing stability, development, and integration of
roles between our national army, the rest of state’s institutions and different
classes and groups of people? What after knowing that a specific group of
intellectuals are the only people invited for having discussions with the
president while many of them have previously sat to Sadat, Mubarak and Mursi
and later cursed them?! Many of those invited have never had a single real
fight against muslim brotherhood and their likes. However, all intellectuals
are branded by this bunch!
During the last two
weeks, many issues worth tackling and giving opinion came to the surface. I had
something to say – regardless whether it has any significance or use – and I
don’t deny that once I finished wondering the “what next” question, I was
stricken by what happened in the syndicate of journalists and followed directly
what happened to our martyr policemen who died in Helwan in a way that reveals
dangerous defaults in the system that we shall not give a blind eye to,
starting with the urgent necessity of having a high-performance training for policemen to
act in such cases, and the contingency measures that should be taken to
maintain their safety and secrecy, and to close all gaps that may enable criminal
terrorists to do their nasty job. I also wondered if those criminals received
any coverage from the society and if highly-dense and populated residential
communities provide a suitable environment for such terrorists… in addition to
other questions?
I was invited to a TV talk
show presented by Mr. Ibrahim Hegazi. The episode was talking about what
happened in the syndicate and to journalism in general including that some
people are involved in intentional attempts to viciously attack the Egyptian army role and to make
publicity to all that ignore and underestimate the big achievements made by the
state led by president Sisi in many fields. Such vicious attempts has two
targets; the first is to spread despair among people and create a gap between
them and the president whom they elected, trusted and loved in an unprecedented
incident in the last four decades. The second is to spread the idea that people
are ungrateful, ungracious and worth no sacrifice to be done by regime leaders
starting from the president and downward!
In the interview that
was aired last Thursday, I tried to connect phenomena to one another. I pointed
to the issue of “sacred state of places” and how such thing is an old trick, as
old as humans ever had sacred places. I gave an example of what happened
between Jewish priests of the synagogue and glorified Jesus when he entered the
temple and turned the tables of loan sharks saying: “My house is the house of
prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves”! I also recalled what was written in Quran
regarding Kaaba and how humans and society is more important that stone… in
al-Baqara Chapter, verse 217 says: “They ask you about
the sacred month - about fighting therein. Say, "Fighting therein is great
[sin], but averting [people] from the way of Allah and disbelief in Him and
[preventing access to] al-Masjid al-Haram and the expulsion of its people
therefrom are greater [evil] in the sight of Allah. And fitnah is greater than
killing."… Yes, indeed… Fitnah is greater than killing… those who resorted
to the syndicate to take it as a refuge while they are convicted of charges not
related to Journalism, writing or anything that has to do with the syndicate
made a horrible Fitnah in doing so. If they were aware of the consequences,
they wouldn’t have let it happen.
I wish the damage
inflicted was limited to dispute among members of the syndicate. However, it
extended to a bigger dispute in relations tying state institutions where the
syndicate is supposed to act like one among others in an integrated
constitutional order. No one would have stood yelling and shouting to nail the
prime minister or any other institutions supposed, as per the constitution, to hold
ministers accountable and set rules for evaluation and accountability process.
What happened is that some people acted like an involved party and judge in the
same time exceeding all constitutional criteria and playing roles not
determined for them, which is not acceptable!
I have already written
an article in another newspaper few months ago about unhealthy phenomena
dominating some groups of journalists, for examples phenomenon of spelling,
dictation, grammatical, political, religious and ethical illiteracy. I asked
the syndicate board to do its best and make use of all available resources to
erase all those kinds of illiteracy citing Prophet Jesus saying: “And why
beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceives not the
beam that is in thine own eye?”! It was due to both luck and chance that I have
worked with tens of colleague journalists throughout 30 year. I used to discuss
ideas and topics of some kinds of journalistic writings and also follow their
work in news, journalistic investigations, interviews and others. Of course, I
had to review their wordings and rewrite them... and what the hell of mistakes
I have found in their writings!
The fight for the
freedom of the press and other fights regarding putting restrictions on the
press is not more sacred or have top priority than other fights against
financial and administrative corruption in journalistic institutions, outdated
tools of journalism profession, tens of other defects we suffer from in
journalism like mixing news with advertising, fabricating resources, stealing
journalistic material from the archives or from other published material, in
addition to the dilemma of complex illiteracy I pointed to earlier in the
article. I believe it’s like the biggest Jihad Prophet Muhammed – Peace be upon
him – talked about after he considered battling and war a minor Jihad. He saw
that building the state and protecting and developing the society was the major
Jihad.
Our country is
recovering from many diseases and cancers that have inflicted it for decades.
Those diseases have or almost succeeded in destroying its immune system. There
are people who try to get our country through this current critical phase in
our history by reinforcing our national immune system through tens of
achievements in several fields. It’s not likely or even wanted that those who
are supposed to enlighten the public opinion are consecrating their efforts for
destruction and working in line with our enemies. Let us all unite on one word…
to fight our battles of freedom and independence of our profession and get
involved in our biggest Jihad.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This
article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on May 12, 2016.
To
see the original article, go to:
#alahram
#ahmed_elgammal #syndicate_of_journalism #journalists #Egypt #
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