EGYPT: Septugenarian Poet Keeps His Words Sharp

Ahmed Fouad Negm Photo:weekly.ahram.org.eg CAIRO (International Herald Tribune), May 13, 2006: "This is my sweetheart," said Ahmed Fouad Negm as he gently kissed the dried, motionless head of a dead tortoise, patted its shell and tenderly placed it back onto the ground. Negm was on the roof of his apartment building, high above a sprawling, chaotic, filthy, garbage-strewn neighborhood of Mokkatem, where he dispensed with formalities and introduced himself as a man who loved a tortoise. "Glory for the crazy people/ In this stupid world." The words were carefully painted in yellow on the wall, right beside his beloved dead tortoise. They were his words, the words of a poet, a harsh critic of power, who has spent 18 of his 76 years in prison largely because Egypt's leaders tended to despise his words. It was vintage Negm, a kiss, a comment, a bit of poetry. Negm is among Egypt's most popular poets, and has been for four decades. He is regarded as the first to have written in colloquial Egyptian, and from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Gamal Mubarak, the son of the president, he has skewered those he feels have led a once great country to the tangle of poverty and indifference played out in the fetid landscape beneath his rooftop. "Congrats our groom," he wrote in a widely circulated poem about the young Mubarak's recent engagement to a woman nearly 20 years his junior. "You of fortune and fame for who we're all inheritance/ be merry, be game/ We couldn't care less!" Negm is a bit of a folk hero in Egypt, and has remained popular even while the street - his street - has turned away from his vision of modernity, which would be largely secular. The changes on the street have only fueled his contempt for the ruling elite, as he says Egyptian identity has become less distinct, and more defined by faith, because of what he calls an illegitimate government. "The government has always been run by Pharaohs, but in the past they were honorable," Negm said, returning to one of his favorite topics. "Now, Egypt is ruled by a gang, led by Hosni Mubarak, and he is only there because America and Israel support him." It is that contempt for power, his giving voice to a desire for justice, which seems to keep him popular, keeps his books selling and recently led to a reprisal of a popular play called "The King is The King," which showcases his poetry. He loves to smoke. He loves to curse. He loves to boast with a wink and a smile that he was married six times, that his current wife is 30 and that his youngest daughter, Zeinab, who is 11 years old, is not forced to adhere to the strict religious practices that have spread throughout his country in recent years. "I am free," Negm said. "I am not afraid of anybody, because I do not want anything from anyone." And then, looking down from his rooftop perch, where children, dogs and donkeys competed for scraps in a pile of rotting trash, he lamented what has come of Egypt. "This is not Egypt. I weep for Egypt." And then a return to levity. "Coffee," he hollered over the ledge of the rooftop to the sidewalk six stories below. "Bring tea to Uncle Ahmed," he called in his raspy smoker's voice. That's how people know him. Uncle Ahmed. He has no formal education. In fact, as a young man in Cairo he was reportedly a thief and a forger, sent to prison for his crimes. But it was there, behind bars, that this slender man, with a narrow face and a large full nose, found his voice. In 1959, he published "Images from Life and Prison," a work he wrote while in jail on a theft charge. A few years later he became partners with a blind traditional singer, Sheik Imam Essa, and together they developed a biting satirical repertoire that won a huge following and the enmity of the head of state. "The state of Egypt is submerged under lies," Negm wrote after the Arab defeat to Israel in 1967. "And the people are confused "But everything is O.K. as long as our damned masters are happy "Because of the poets who fill their stomach with poems "Poems that glorify and appease even traitors "With God's will, they will destroy the country." Egypt tried pan-Arab nationalism under President Nasser. It tried peace with Israel under President Sadat. Both men jailed Negm for his mocking of their leadership. President Mubarak, who has avoided the bold moves of his predecessors, has not yet jailed Negm, but that has hardly spared him from Negm's contempt. "They are not rulers, they are dogs," he said of the Arab heads of state. "I challenge all our kings and leaders to step into the street without their guards for five minutes." Moments later, he is nearly blasted out of his plastic chair when the call to prayer booms from four speakers mounted on a roof nearby. He instantly feigns spitting toward the source of the sound, and then mocks the imam making the call to prayer. "His wife will not let him speak at home, so he tries to impress us with his big voice," he said. "Then he goes out and steals." It is all said with a smile and a laugh, and there is usually a punch line or coarse word to inspire a laugh. He is, after all, Uncle Ahmed, dressed in poor clothes, living in a small, crowded apartment, in a small crowded neighborhood. "Egypt is a candle submerged by the river," he said, when asked if Egypt is still the center of Arab thought and culture, and if not, why. "When the Earth is dark, Egypt comes out of the river and lights the world." But he despairs that the light he calls Egypt is, at least for now, not burning bright. "The people down there are not Egyptians," he said. "They are oppressed people." By Michael Slackman The New York Times