No one would have heard about the meeting had the discussions not taken such a dramatic course that the press came out with the headline: “An MP Demands Imprisonment of Naguib Mahfouz.”

Last Monday, the parliamentary Legislative Committee (LG) held a meeting to discuss a proposal to amend Article 178 of the Egyptian Penal Code No. 58 of 1937. The proposal was made by Members of Parliament (MPs) Ahmed Sa’eed and Nadia Henry. Only six MPs voted in favor of the proposal, while 21 MPs voted against it.

No one would have heard about the meeting had the discussions not taken such a dramatic course that the press came out with the headline: “An MP Demands Imprisonment of Naguib Mahfouz.”

Last Monday, the parliamentary Legislative Committee (LG) held a meeting to discuss a proposal to amend Article 178 of the Egyptian Penal Code No. 58 of 1937. The proposal was made by Members of Parliament (MPs) Ahmed Sa’eed and Nadia Henry. Only six MPs voted in favor of the proposal, while 21 MPs voted against it.

Article 178 states: “Anyone who, for the purpose of trading, placarding or displaying, makes or possesses publications, manuscripts, drawings, ads, engraved or embossed images, paintings, photographs, symbolic signs, or any other objects or graphics in general that violate public morals shall be imprisoned for a maximum of two years and/or fined 5,000-10,000 Egyptian pounds.”

On February 20, 2016, novelist Ahmed Nagui, under the notorious Article 178, was sentenced to two years in prison for publishing a chapter of his novel ‘Use of Life’ in Akhbar Al-Adab newspaper. On December 4, a hearing will be held to repeal the verdict.

MPs Sa’eed and Henry did not propose revoking Article 178, which can be always used to prosecute writers and artists. They only suggested replacing imprisonment with a fine. This however means that art remains a moral question that can come under attack at any moment.

What is decent?

It is terrifying to imagine the LG discussions that ultimately maintained the article. The bloc of MPs who supported the government’s opinion in keeping the imprisonment punishment was led by journalist MP Mustafa Bakri who suggested differences between inventive work and indecent act. “If we do not maintain our society and its values, we will lose our constants,” he said.

Bakri confirms the old rhetoric we used to hear for decades. It is the discourse of generalities we never understood; the discourse of values and constants through which he, at his discretion and personal vision and knowledge, decides what art is and what pornography is. Although we used to consider the point highlighted by the supporters of the discourse to be very old, it now, according to new convictions revealed by other MPs at that meeting, seems post-modernist.

For instance, MP Samir Ramadan who rejected the amendment argued that it would encourage pornography by allowing the publishing of pictures of naked women or by filming a bad movie and depicting it as creativity.

There is confusion between art and porn and it is difficult to explain the differences for those who do not understand them. Can anyone imagine that an MP does not know the difference? But the sad thing is that this was not an individual vision concerning Ramadan; rather, it was a collective vision so much so that it caused Sa’eed to defend himself, saying: “I respect all opinions, but I do not accept being accused of submitting a proposal allowing pornography.”

Equal right to be imprisoned

During the discussions, Naguib Mahfouz was mentioned. While Sa’eed was defending his proposal, he asked what the criteria of violating public morals were: Did Mahfouz violate public morals in his two works ‘Sugary Street’ and ‘Palace of Desire’?

The usual logical, formal and functional answer is that there is a big difference between the creativity of a universal writer like Mahfouz and other non-artistic works that seek to demolish constants. An MP however stunned the LG and all of Egypt when he said Mahfouz’s works were shameless and that he should have been punished when he was alive.

The MP’s name is Abulmaati Mustafa, but that does not matter because his nickname has become ‘The MP who wants to put Naguib Mahfouz in prison.’ Mustafa uses weird arguments where he believes that the abolition of imprisonment in publication cases waste the principle of equality among citizens by bestowing on a certain social segment the privilege of not being imprisoned when it does shameless acts. He of course means creators.

Author MP Youssef Qa’eed said in a press statement that responding to Mustafa is not worth the trouble and that he certainly did not read any of Mahfouz’s works. Qa’eed strongly refused the defamation of the international author in the Parliament.

In fact, Qa’eed cannot be concurred with Mustafa’s statement, as it derives its strength from him being an MP, while Qa’eed’s rejection of the offense leveled against Mahfouz came too late. Who guarantees now that no one would file a complaint with the Attorney General demanding the withdrawal and confiscation of Mahfouz’s works because they embarrass him or her and that they almost had a heart attack when they read ‘Palace of Desire’, just like what the person with constants said in his complaint when he read Ahmed Nagui’s novel.

Welcome everyone to the courtroom!

The literally scandalous meeting ended with a crucial question by Mustafa: “Does creativity mean that I can film  sexual intercourse and broadcast it?”

“Oh, my God! You are putting us at risk,” replied MP Henry. And unfortunately, this is the case.

This meeting that should go down in history was held only one day following the refusal of an appeal to release Nagui. The appeal cited a group of reasons, most importantly the fact that “the verdict was problematic since it dealt with the chapter published in the novel as an article in an apparent disregard of the difference between a novel and an article where a novel is pure fiction. Our literary and cultural heritage is full of many such stories. Arabian Nights, under the same Article 178, was banned in the mid-1980s on the pretext that it was shameless, but in 1986 the Court of Northern Cairo ruled for the abolishment of the previous verdict and the re-publication of the novel as a literary work. The said rule differentiated between a criminal intent and a literary purpose. When authors imagine the worlds of their novels, they have no criminal intent to violate public morals or arouse sexual instincts. They however have a literary purose to provide a fictional novel that does not reflect reality.”

It seems that it is necessary now to provide some MPs with these arguments used by Nagui’s defense and to distribute them on a large-scale in society along with a list of reading to grasp the meaning of the term ‘art.’ Otherwise, we are about to witness one of the most farcical stages in human history where the entire history of Egyptian art might be taken to court.