Youssef Idris.. glorified victory in the Suez War and criticized the June setback

Cairo -

"The method is wrong, and the idea from the beginning is wrong, and the error extends and begins from the moment he decided to refer the exploration process to a major eradication operation, but the error extends far beyond, until the day when his teacher's surgery became practiced for surgery, and it became Operations and their owners - often among the poor who are helpless - are a field to prove their ability and mastery.

The previous paragraph of the story of “The Great Operation” by the great writer Youssef Idris, may seem at first glance another story from the world of medicine, who excelled by virtue of his studies and years of work as a doctor, but by looking at the writer himself, the time of writing and the circumstances of its publication, the reader can realize that there are hidden meanings behind this “operation.” “The Great.” So does Idris, in this story, symbolize the setback of “June 1967”?

The critic Dr. Jaber Asfour does not think that there is a case that occupied the consciousness of Youssef Idris - whose death anniversary falls today on August 1, 1991 - in writing such as the issues of freedom and democracy, but he had to maneuver and evade writing in multiple areas, he was able to say what he did not say others, both in his stories and novels.

June setback

Asfour sees - in an article in Al-Arabi magazine - that the prominent beginning was the defeat of 1967, and because he was not able to express his feelings directly, he decided, for example, to write his short story "The Great Operation" (published within his short story "Al Nadah"), which is what Asfour considers it "a symbolic short story symbolizing the June setback, a story of a symbolic nature, its eloquence in its metaphor, and its distinction due to its ability to speak the unspoken of what happened in 1967 when the unexpected disaster occurred."

The average reader may not notice the symbol in this story, which tells about the young privileged doctor Abdul Raouf who helps the famous professor of surgery Adham (the chief professor of surgery in the hospital) in a simple surgery for an old lady, but soon events develop when the great doctor makes a mistake and blood erupts from The patient’s arteries, and none of the assistants or nurses dared to ask Adham about the mistake he made or the hasty decisions he took, until Adham hid his fatal mistake with a medical trick, and everyone realized that the patient would inevitably die, and the disciple disappointed in his great teacher.

But the great critic Asfour sees that the story from beginning to end is a mockery of Dr. Adham (symbolizing President Gamal Abdel Nasser), and the catastrophic situation in which the people who trusted him with all confidence were placed, so he gave him a full power of attorney that led to a disaster (the setback of June), so was it A major operation or a major catastrophe led to arrogance, ignorance and miscalculation?

The novel "The Black Military" by the novelist Youssef Idris (communication sites)

Suez war

Politics has always occupied a distinctive aspect in Idris' literature, and he takes political debates and major wars to the level of the street and simple people in a direct manner when there is no danger in a clash with the authority.

In his story "She is a game" (within the city's bottom group), he tells the story of a quarrel between two families in a popular neighborhood, because one of the children hit another child while he was playing in the street, "the game of canal" (meaning the Suez Canal), in which the children represent the Egyptian army and the fleet. The Englishman, but one of the children revolts and refuses to surrender during play so that the English do not seize the canal, and the whole story indicates that the masses of the Egyptian people were affected by the Suez War or the tripartite aggression against Egypt in November 1956.

In the same collection of stories, Idris also wrote the story “The Wound” about the Egyptians who fought the English in Port Said, in the greatest guerrilla battle between the Egyptian people and their enemies. Only a week ago it was like a dagger stab, until, in our eyes, the hero became the one who was there and the sacred was the one who participated in it. Everyone who participated in it was surrounded by a kind of sanctification in our souls as if it were a legend.. Every resident there must have participated, and every resident is a hero, and every one Hundreds of enemies were killed..."

He tells about the mother who is looking for her guerrilla son who was wounded by the British, "She wants to find out what has happened to him, and how it was possible for her son who raised him and saw him as a child, how he was able to carry weapons and fight, and above all this she wants to be reassured that he is still her son even after his death." Fight like men and take up arms."

Avatar and boldness

In 1961, Idris wrote the "Black Military" that attacked the detention camps during the time of Abdel Nasser, and in 1969 he published in Al-Ahram newspaper the story "The Hoax", which some interpreted as a mockery of the frightening tyrannical presence of Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the story symbolized him with the head of a camel that appears to the hero everywhere. Idris was separated from Al-Ahram and soon returned to it.

Asfour sees - in an article in Al-Ahram newspaper - that boldness was one of the most important characteristics of Yusuf Idris in writing or in public life, as he could not conceal an opinion, but he sometimes resorted to symbolic writing to express his rejection of some state policies that were not Is satisfied with it or satisfied with it.

tampering with power

Idris was also one of the most intellectuals opposed to the Camp David agreement, so he published his controversial book "The Search for Sadat" in 1983, and the attacks on him continued, and Al-Ahram prevented the publication of Idris' responses to his attackers. The great writer, Idris published a letter addressed to Mubarak entitled "I complain to you about you."

In a press interview, Idris says that the authority has never tampered with him, but the opposite is true, “it has tampered with authority a lot, and the issue of a well-known writer tampering with authority is not easy, when a writer reaches a certain degree of fame and public presence, he looks at his words with accurate microscopes, and that the writer can Accessing the truth and expressing his opinion through these filters is a process that requires from him all his strength, intelligence and imagination.”

From medicine to journalism

Idris is considered one of the most important Egyptian writers. He was born in a village in the Sharkia Governorate on May 19, 1927. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University in 1951. He participated in the demonstrations against the British during his studies and was imprisoned. In 1954, he published his first collection of stories, “Cheapest Nights.”

He left medicine in 1960 and worked in the press, and his works alternated between plays, short stories and novels, many of which turned into famous films, such as "The Haram", "The Disadvantage", and "Al-Nadaha", and sparked controversy over his use of the Egyptian dialect (colloquial) in dialogue. With his stories, he was also famous for his political articles in the most important Egyptian newspapers, which made his relationship with the ruling authority always between tension and attraction.

Idris raised a great deal of controversy after Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for Literature, as he saw that he was more deserving of him, but his opposition to peace with Israel made the award go to Mahfouz, a supporter of Camp David.