The legend Mohammed Hassanein Heikal is not a legend

Written by Nasser Kandil,

I intended to borrow his phrase about Gamal Abdul Nasser  by saying he is not a legend, on the day of the Arab public opinion loss of an important status which is the “professor” as he always deserved to be called, the journalist, writer, thinker, historian, and the politician Mohammed Hassanein Heikal. Heikal said that against those who were deifying Gamal Abdul Nasser despite that they were neither in a position nor in a status that allow them to bid on Heikal in his love to Abdul Nasser, so he told them that Abdul Nasser is not a legend, half of them have wanted from deifying Abdul Nasser to prevent the criticism, to prevent the evaluation and to sterilize the mind in order to make the prospective reply for every criticism that seeks for an answer of the question about the failure here and the stumbling there. He is Abdul Nasser so who are you to evaluate and to discuss what he has done and what he has said. The other half wanted to encourage and to justify the lethargy, the weakness, the subservience, and the dependence under the pretext that Abdul Nasser was an exception that cannot be taken as an ideal, however if you say that Abdul Nasser has done that, so you can do that as well, thus the prospective reply is; he is Abdul Nasser, and who can be like him?

In the departure of Heikal we hear and witness the same two logics, Heikal has become the legend as an expression of the need of two halves, one half wants sterilizing the mind, criticism, and the right through which Heikal has exhausted his age in order to enrich his personality, it is the right of thinking independently and practicing the second right which is associated with it, it is the right of the free expression without question about consequences, the second half wants to deify the man to justify the laziness, the lethargy, the subservience, and sometimes the subordination, so you cannot tell the first half that Heikal has committed a mistake here because if you say that, then it is a diminution of divinity, those cannot bid on ones like me in his love, because certainly they did not read for him as much as I did, in return you cannot tell the second half that Heikal has done that and you can do the same, because the divinity becomes a proactive weapon to respond, and the sustaining in advance to take the challenge especially when the challenge is an imitation of Heikal and taking him as an example, the subordination comes as a result of the refusal of the money of a governor, sheikh, or a prince, or a result of being too proud for the subordination to intelligence, a regime, or the ossification to  a creed or a political position that became divine because it is uttered by a leader or a symbol that you cannot disagree with or to be different from, the challenge is the perseverance, perfection, making effort, alertness, and the review till the text sees the light strikingly with deepest meaning and abundance of knowledge and information.

The loss which is difficult to be compensated with the absence of Heikal was not the talent or the stardom alone and was not only the smooth attractive text and surely not the closeness to the source of information which is usually available from the source of governance and then it is often reflected, in order to justify the inability of those who praise Heikal within the game of divinity of keeping up with him in the seriousness to build their conclusions and to link them with information, and in order to justify the inability of those who praise Heikal of keeping up with him by refusing presenting his story as divine texts that do not need an attribution and do not accept the discussion, but usually the source of information and its closeness are inserted due to the envy not out of justification of  laziness and arrogance only. The loss of Heikal is too much deeper, and farer of his opinions, positions, and conclusions, the positions and the opinions are as the conclusions and the analyses; they are human outcome that is subject to agreement and disagreement. Neither Heikal was a profit nor are we. Any way we were granted through his sticking to freedom of thought, thinking, expression and the dependence of the critical   referentiality his intercession against the bidders when we disagree, as we were granted through the credibility of his national choice the legitimacy to agree.

The first thing that we lost in Heikal is that he has presented a unique sufficient example in ensuring the inevitability of the combination between the journalism as a profession and practicing the public affair at the same time. Heikal was professional to the extreme, boasting about being a journalist, a reporter, editor, documenter and examiner, he was serious in practicing his profession, respecting its rules and committing to its controls where there is no place for addition. Heikal was till the end of his age practicing his profession seriously with perseverance and perfection, attracting through his easy interesting hilarity style, the containments of the speech which is full of ideas, backgrounds ,and information, and the seriousness in provoking the mind and the thinking and presenting the issues including what can affect the contraband and broaching  the taboos, but he has turned in his professional career every resort to press to a source of livelihood insulting the profession and all those who practice it. The journalism is a profession of the public affair as the diplomacy and the soldiery, it is not mere making money out of mental or physical effort, that can falsify the destination of its use according to the whims of the owner of money, the article is not a dining table that is designed by the carpenter according to the desire of the owner of the house, he colored it and decorated it with the drawings he likes even if it was contrary to the public sense or contrary to the rules which he leant to practice his profession, knowing that among the craftsmen those who refuse to do what is contrary to the assets of their profession and their artistic sense, while the big number of writers in press is as a “ porter who made the ear of the jar as the owner of the pottery wants”. The press lives in the heart of the public affair and it is affected by its morals and controls, it is as a school that must be grateful in the Arab world for Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, even if the Arab press has already known similar before him, but because he has alone transformed these values into a school, he practiced them with all nobility, uprightness, challenge, and bravery, the journalist does not receive money for what the owner of the money wants to be mentioned in an article. The journalist does not allow for a politician or a security man or any governor to hire him in the game of propaganda for marketing and promoting the policies, improving or distorting, praising, or satirizing people and policies.

Heikal has worked with the important rulers of the largest Arab country but he did not follow them, even in the era of Abdul Nasser and his majesty, he remained free in his thinking and independent in writing, the values which were formulated and protected by Heikal are the values of the free thinking and the independent decision, they are the values of the public affairs which without them the practicing of the values of the public affair does not move correctly. These are the ruling criteria in the politics, thought and journalism, the integrity is in the deeper and farer concept than mere the financial integrity and honesty, it is the integrity of the thought by the search, and the abstract integrity without preconceived ideas and prospective virtual impressions, leaving the free thought moves in the rich and abundant world of information till it settles on a conclusion, so the stardom is in the newness, that is not imposed by the attraction of claiming the distinction, because the distinction is the outcome of the spontaneity and the smoothness , but neither the smoothness of the formulation is an alternative of the depth of the content nor an intended making that attracting it, he is not affected by the attraction of the aesthetic equations in the speech and language, since he is a master in its formulating but this is not at the expense of the solidity of the sequence of the intellectual conclusion, The oral bravery is as the integrity, it is not the bravery of the body and the muscles but it is the bravery of the readiness of bearing the consequences and confronting the challenges, it is the bravery which granted Heikal the immunity to say what angered the President Anwar Al-Sadat, thus he threw him in the jail without the hesitation of Heikal of saying a word or announcing a position.

Heikal has embodied throughout three quarters of a century in which he spent in press and politics together an example of uncompromised patriotism and unresisting nationalism, these two limits associated without hesitation with the prestigious humanity that biased to the issues of the poor and the freedom’s revolutions, the wars of independence and resisting the occupation, Palestine was an intensive combination of the patriotism, nationalism and humanity of his choices and options,  he was faithful to them and defend on them and on the right of its people and the originality of its resistance, he denounced every abandonment, betrayal or reluctance, he exposed every conspiracy or a promoting for a bargaining or a planning for a deal of waiver, he was a source of concern for everyone who was involved in a plan or a conspiracy that affected  Palestine or any thought of affecting it, if the document reached Heikal then the distress on those who involved, so neither the intimidation nor the awakening of a desire will ensure deterring Heikal or preventing him from exposing and disseminating them and putting them at the hands of those who are dealing with truth and exchanging the right in practicing what they find that it is their legitimate right against the conspirators.

In the thorny and complicated track of what was known as the Arab Spring especially regarding what Syria has exposed to in the heart of this track by describing it with the most complicated episode, Heikal has stood where it is supposed that the one who is not controlled by the prior positions stands, he biased to what he saw as a people revolution and a movement of change, since he was a refuser, so he would not be an advocate of a governor or a regime, because what has passed of facts are enough to say that what is going on is neither a revolution nor a project  of reform or a change, he has stopped his program on Al Jazeera TV, he wondered is it possible that the Saudi King  Che Guevara and that the prince of Qatar the General Giap are the leaders of the revolutions of the resistance and the liberation in the nation, he left the question till he reached to the conclusion to stand with Syria the country, the army and the people, he said that yes we were wrong against the President Bashar Al-Assad, he admitted to the leader of the resistance Al Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah that he has a vision, he was honest and brave in his historic decision of  the fighting in Syria because it is the right and  the correct decision.

Truly he was the legend of the century’ press in the whole world, the written press was actually born, it got its prestige actually in this century in which Heikal lived, he was its undisputed global teacher in the abundance, accuracy, professionalism, quality and the diversity of the production, and in drawing the behavior’s rules which he made during his life which was not exhausted by writing as much as it was exhausted by tiredness and anxiety. He was the legend of the global press, but he is the biography which everyone who aspires to be a hard number in the world of journalism must get from it, the example which every hardworking, preserving, researcher for the honest difficult achievements deserves to take him as an example, does not taking into consideration his description as a legend as a pretext of laziness, retreat, and compromise.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh .