150 شخصية روائية مصرية «6» فتحي غانم.. «يوسف عبدالحميد السيوفي» في «الرجل الذي فقد ظله»

Fathi Ghanem.. “Youssef Abdel Hamid Al-Siyoufi” in “The Man Who Lost His Shadow”

A life biography full of exciting and discordant events on both the subjective and objective levels

His journalistic star emerged in the second half of the 1940s, and became more radiant after the July Revolution after establishing close relations with its leaders.

He simply moves from trench to trench and from loyalty to loyalty.. He is with the authority no matter how much it changes and changes, without adhering to political or intellectual constants.

Mohamed Nagy is one of the victims of an opportunistic person, even though he is the professor and mentor who leads him to shine in the world of journalism

Over time and generations, history has been written in letters of light by the names of novelists and creators who illuminated our lives, our lives, and our values. The creative writer Mustafa Bayoumi completed an ambitious project to write about these greats. Through these readings, Mustafa Bayoumi approaches Egyptian life in its various aspects, based on his questioning. Project: “Is it like the novel in its ability to provide comprehensive testimony through which we can look forward to the better future that we seek? Through these readings, Mustafa Bayoumi approaches Egyptian life in its various aspects, starting from his legitimate question: “Is it like the novel in its ability to provide comprehensive testimony through which we can look forward to the better future that we seek?”

During the year 2019, Al-Bawaba published chapters of this valuable study, and we are republishing it to bear witness to eras rich in the depth of Egyptian literature and its soft power.

The central character in the “The Man Who Lost His Shadow” tetralogy is born on September 6, 1922, and begins narrating his vision and presenting his testimony, the fourth and final part of the novel, on October 9, 1956. Between these two dates, the biography of his life is shaped, full of exciting and discordant events. On both the subjective and objective levels.

The father, Abdul Hamid Al-Suwaifi, is an average teacher, and the mother who leaves early leaves painful effects deep inside him that go beyond the feeling of orphanhood, and cannot be forgotten. Obtaining a Bachelor of Laws with a grade of “Acceptable” does not give him the opportunity to work in the prosecution, hence his turn to journalism. He joins “Al-Ayyam” newspaper, and begins the journey of climbing to the top, reaching the editor-in-chief position, succeeding his professor, Mohamed Naji.

His journalistic star emerged in the second half of the 1940s, and became more radiant after the July 1952 Revolution, where he maintained close relations with its leaders, and found little difficulty in moving from trench to trench, and from loyalty to loyalty. He is with the authority no matter how much it changes and changes, and with every era he prevails. Without adhering to political or intellectual constants. His ambition is purely self-interested, based on personal interest, his professional skills are in the service of those who run the institution within which he works, and his ability is unprecedented to embrace and defend what he is called upon to defend. In this context, Youssef moves effortlessly from capitalism to socialism, and from beautifying the lives of the pashas to chanting the slogans of the revolution.

The first three parts of the novel serve as the necessary long, well-constructed prelude to the fourth part, in which the flag passes to Youssef to narrate. In the first parts, the events are narrated from the perspective of Mabrouka, Samia Sami, and Muhammad Naji, each of whom played a dangerous and influential role in Youssef’s career, and all of whom were also his victims.

Mabrouka’s story

Mabrouka, his father’s wife and widow and the mother of his half-brother Ibrahim, and Samia Sami, his lover, who is retiring from film acting and preparing to marry him. As for the great journalist Mohamed Naji, he is his teacher who teaches him journalism. All three of them receive harsh lightning strikes from the journalist, who seems innocent, kind, weak, peaceful, and with good intentions, and in their stories The details are many and the events are diverse, and Youssef Abdel Hamid Al-Suwaifi remains the steadfast subscriber, with all his meanness, baseness, opportunism, and careerism.

Mabrouka, of poor rural origins, begins her working life as a child working as a maid in the house of Hassan Bey Ratib, a distant relative of Youssef’s father, and in the house of her employer, in her adolescence, she has a relationship with his young son Medhat, before she moves to Abdul Hamid Effendi’s apartment as a maid, advancing her body to marriage. From the old teacher who is addicted to chess, and the closest in his behavior to children, Youssef knows a lot about the details of the relationship between his stepmother and his friend Medhat, and he desires her as much as he fears getting close to her. From Abdul Hamid’s unequal marriage, Ibrahim is born, but the selfish, opportunistic journalist disguises himself for his brother and his stepmother after… The death of her father, and Mabrouka turns to professional prostitution after the Cairo fire, and lives a life of loss in which she is preoccupied only with hatred for those who lead her with his negativity and failure to the abyss of collapse: “I wish he would die a slow death in which he would be tortured. I wish I had opened his stomach with a knife, reached my hand into his wound, pulled out his liver, and ate it.” With my teeth, I wish I could push my nails into his eyes and blow them out, if I could drink his blood. Sometimes I ask myself how I reached this hatred, and what its afterlife will be. It takes my breath away and haunts me day and night, even when I look at Ibrahim’s face, his image disappears, and I see Joseph’s face, and I wish I could stand up and break his ribs.”

Mabrouka’s hatred does not arise out of nowhere, because Youssef was able to rescue her from the miserable fate she was facing, but he turns his back on her and his brother, and does not move a finger knowing that she is staying with his friend, the communist painter Shawqi Mahmoud, and the only thing he does when she calls for help is to grant his brother… One pound as if he were a beggar, and his salary at the time was more than two hundred pounds, but his influence was able to provide unlimited support.

On the other hand, Youssef does not hesitate to trade cheaply on the fall of Mabrouka, and exploits her tragedy to get closer to the leaders of the new era, proving through it that he is a victim like her of the corruptions and evils of the monarchy era described as defunct: “I am a martyr, I came out of poverty, I was stained with shame, I am the son of this people.” “The one who was cruel and suffered humiliation.”

Mabrouka is a professional prostitute who sells her body to anyone who pays a low price, and the famous journalist is a professional in political and intellectual prostitution, and sells his pen for a high price.

Sublime bitterness

Samia Samy is a second victim of Youssef Al-Suwaifi. She loves him and imagines that he loves her, and for his sake she sacrifices the opportunity to star in cinema, but he lets her down on the wedding night, and travels on a journalistic mission to follow Hosni Al-Zaim’s coup in Syria.

Samia does not hide her bitterness and hatred, and there is no doubt that his disgraceful behavior justifies what she says, revealing her negative position: “For his sake, I gave up the opportunity of a lifetime and rejected the starring role. As for him, the opportunity had barely dawned on him until he kicked me with his foot and left me rolling and descending, and he continued to rise and rise.. lonliness”.

Samia may be naive and innocent, and Youssef may be a deceitful and deceitful, but what is constant and unshakable is that he is the maker of her tragedy, the ghost that haunts her and disturbs the peace of her life, and she cannot get rid of the nightmarish memories even after her marriage to his old teacher, Muhammad Naji.

Youssef disguises himself as Lambrouka because, with her poverty and the misery that dominates her life, she will necessarily draw him into a circle from which he wants to escape. His opportunistic stance is repeated with Samia because being married to a movie actress offends him and turns into a weapon used by rivals and political enemies to slander him and distort his positions.

Youssef disappears hours before the wedding, and Samia sees his picture in the newspaper, under which it is written in a frame that pops out the eye: “This morning, Youssef Abdel Hamid, deputy editor-in-chief of Al-Ayyam, will fly to Syria, to follow Al-Ayyam readers with the news of Hosni Al-Zaim’s coup.”

Youssef prefers to leave her and seeks to rise to the top of professional glory, then comes back to apologize, express remorse and ask for forgiveness, before disavowing her again and running behind the editor-in-chief’s seat.

Samia’s life is filled with many tragedies and calamities, and in her black room of memorabilia there are various nightmarish incidents that preceded Youssef’s presence in her life, but the deceitful opportunistic journalist is the wound that does not heal, the unforgivable insult, the unforgettable abuse, and the painful treachery that reshapes the path of the beautiful young woman who… She wants a stable life with him, but he slaps her with his indifference, his obnoxious selfishness, and his constant willingness to sell anything and everything for the sake of his personal gain and ambition to ascend.

Mohamed Naji is Youssef’s third victim, even though he is the professor and teacher who leads him to shine in the world of journalism. Then the scales change and the rules of the game change.

Naji begins his story by announcing his defeat in the struggle with Youssef: “Everything changed. My place was taken by that genius tramp in hypocrisy, the master of hypocrisy, Youssef Abdel Hamid Al-Suwaifi, a funny thing that raises pity. This boy has become more important and dangerous than me.”

Muhammad Naji is not an ideal angel declaring his defeat before an accursed devil. He is a devious, manipulative villain capable of dealing with the laws of the jungle, which he is proficient in applying. However, the student outperforms the teacher and displaces him to be alone at the top. Before the July Revolution, Youssef succeeds in taking over the mind of newspaper financier Shahdi Pasha, content to become an instrument of revenge in the hands of the heartless millionaire. After the revolution, with which the map of political and social life changes, Youssef becomes close to the men of the new era, and Naji had to He lives under his protection, content with the evil care of the journalist who has lost his shadow.

Naji and Youssef belong to the same school, and the great journalist’s bet on the promising young man was not evidence of naivety, as he reads his life well, and is under the illusion that his student will remain obedient and subservient, unable to escape and rebel: “When I learned of Mabrouka’s story, I pitied him and was happy for him. I thought he was weak. Hurt. His stepmother is the mistress of a colleague, and he is unable to do anything. coward. servile. I can do whatever I want with it. He is fit to be my servant, I can control him, exploit his weakness. Whenever I thought about his plight, I said to myself: This is the man whom I will make grow up without fearing him. This is the one who will remain humiliated forever, who will not raise his eyes. I adopted him, a toy that I make and move as I please, a vile creature that derives its authority from me. “I was a fool.”

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Naji was truly a naive fool, because he did not reach the depths of his student, who had an innocent face and outward behavior that was different from what was going on deep down. Naji tries to take revenge, relying on his obsolete traditional weapons, and he loses sight of the fact that opportunistic weapons are developing, so he has no choice but to die.

Millionaire Shahdi Pasha is Youssef’s fourth victim. The man played a prominent role in the rise of the young journalist, and then he suffers his share of abuse after the balance of power changes.

It did not take Youssef long to discover that serving the interests of the Pasha, through various forms of journalistic editing, was the goal of the newspaper that Shahdi owned, and that he did not have enough time for direct daily supervision of its affairs. The newspaper is part of his extensive empire, and the editor-in-chief is responsible for implementing his will. Muhammad Naji is useful at a certain stage, while Youssef is qualified to lead after World War II and the changes that result from it. Shahdi’s enthusiasm for Youssef is not merely a desire to take revenge on Naji, his wife Soraya’s lover, but it is also a search to benefit from his ability to deal with a new reality afflicted by radical transformations that threaten his interests.

The entire era ends with the July Revolution, and Youssef’s loyalty shifts from “the individual” to “authority,” and the vocabulary for expressing opportunism remains unchanged. The cards change hands, and the approach to the game is no different. Youssef is the strongest, and Shahdi continues to seek help: “He begs me in the evening to understand his economic theories so that I can convey them to the officials. I shake my head, blow smoke in his face, laugh, and reassure him, knowing the decision to nationalize his company. He is a dog, nothing more than a dog. He wanted to exploit me, he wanted to turn me into a tool to extend his influence and commit his crimes. He thought I was another Muhammad Naji. These capitalists must be eliminated one by one.”

What Joseph says is an outright lie. If Shahdi is a dog, then what is Joseph? Does the “revolutionary” journalist deny that he is, in essence, a servile slave? Flashy slogans do not hide his truth, and can only influence gullible people with weak memories. The idea of ​​slavery does not change, and the loyalty that he declares to the revolution and its trends is nothing but an extension of the subordination that he previously boasted of to Naji and Shahdi, and he is able to transform his loyalty to everyone who rules and controls.

Youssef blows cigar smoke in the Pasha’s face. Will he forget the story of the cigar in his life? In the first meeting between them, after a long wait for the interview, Shahdi points to the office and Youssef runs to offer him a cigar. In the second meeting, Shahdi offers the new subordinate a cigar that he is smoking, as if he is announcing with this gift that he has accepted his credentials as a servant in his court.

Many are the victims of Youssef Abdel Hamid Al-Suwaifi, and Youssef himself is a victim of his choices and the climate in which he lives. He can seek excuses for the defeats that befall him and the wounds that exhaust him: the cold, sterile childhood, the early death of the mother and the bitterness of orphanhood, the shock of a failed first love with Souad Rateb, his father’s marriage to a servant whose close friend was messing with her body, the brutality of society that resembles an enormous mill that does not have mercy on those who stop. On its way; But all of these excuses do not deny that he is a unique type of villain, and the most dangerous thing about his evil is that he does not rely on the common and widespread weapons of traditional villains.

Youssef may be an unconventional devil in his ingenuity, and unparalleled in his innovative methods, and he may be an evil child who deceives everyone with his childhood, but the firm certainty is that he is a multi-dimensional human character. Fathi Ghanem excels in presenting his features without tension or prejudice, and does not get involved in condemning him through direct speech. The squeaky bastard. Hence his brilliance and uniqueness, and those who are upset by his behavior can only sympathize with his extremely complex crisis.

Zahir Youssef exudes kindness and innocence, and the secrets of his childish face betray simplicity and naivety, but he is addicted to overthrowing everyone around him, and does not hesitate to cause harm to his close friends Shawqi Mahmoud and Saad Zaghloul Abdel Jawad. What is surprising is that he commits his crimes in the innocence of someone who does nothing.