I was reluctant to go to Egypt, as the news coming out of “the mother of Earth” as Egyptians like to call their beloved country was not encouraging. Security-wise, Egypt was not safe to visit, but the call of duty prevailed in the end. Kuwait was the guest of honour at the 39th Cairo Book Fair, taking place from January 29 to February 7, where I had to deliver a lecture on the influence of Egyptians on the development of cultural institutions in Kuwait. Apart from traffic jams, Cairo is calm, unlike what appears on the evening news on our television sets.

The first surprise was my room number which made me pessimistic; it was 911— in a luxury hotel overlooking the Nile but with very poor occupancy. The tourist industry in Egypt has been suffering for the past three consecutive years. It has made tourism revenue come down from millions to a few thousands. Most people in Egypt are tired of the last three years of political upheaval, especially the middle class and lower middle class and are looking for stability. That is why everywhere, one can see the pictures of Marshal Abdul Fatah Al Sissi, the army chief who sided with the people in rejecting the short-lived Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt. It is Al Sissi fever, one Egyptian friend told me, pointing to the posters hanging from the light poles. The hot-selling book at the book fair this year was a memoir of the great television presenter, journalist and political activist Hamid Kendell, who first started working with Egyptian Television when it started in the sixties and later in a number of Arab countries, including Dubai Television. He became famous with Egyptian Television in the glory days of the sixties and seventies, met with a number of Arab leaders, including Syria’s Bashar Al Assad and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and married a famous Egyptian film star Najla Fathi.

Programme stopped

The book is quite interesting. He paints a very vivid picture of events he participated in or people he met. In fact, he was famous with his Arab audience because of his programme, A Pencil, which has a double meaning in Arabic. When he was young and finding his way with the newly established Arab Television (which was later named Egypt TV), he was asked to review a daily programme on the local and international press, picking what is interesting for the audience, and commenting on them. After his first week, his boss told him that the authorities think that he has to stop the programme. He was puzzled, no one told him why he was stopped. Later he learned that he was relieved because he put a news item on president Jamal Abdul Nasser towards the end instead of at the beginning of his programme, so he decided to go to Nasser’s office to clarify. He met with Nasser’s secretary, told him why he was relieved from his work and wanted to know Nasser’s point of view. The secretary, after conversing with Nasser, came back to him and said: The president says that you go from here to the television station and continue your work, and don’t pay attention to anyone. He did and for the next seven years nobody said anything to him.

His encounter with Al Assad is also worth noting.He met him four times [as a friend and proficiently as interviewer]. The first meeting was at the request of Al Assad himself, who wanted to meet Kendell. When the meeting convened Al Assad asked Kendell, “Why do you still believe in Arab nationalism?” The writer tells us that he was very frank with Al Assad in all meetings, and the ones which were broadcast. He asked Al Assad many times to release political prisoners and introduce freedom and liberty to the Syrian nation. Everytime Al Assad promised to do so, but did nothing later. Titled Lived Twice, the book is fascinating. It exposes Kendell’s talent as a storyteller and at the same time it’s a harsh trial of a fascinating Arab era of glorious dreams and failure.

Mohammad Alrumaihi is a professor of political sociology at Kuwait University.