HAGGAG HASSAN ADOUL: NUBIA’S HUMAN ASPIRATIONS
Interview conducted by Hosam Aboul-Ela
Can you tell us something about your childhood and particularly whether or
not your consciousness as a Nubian was something that was always with you as you
grew up in Alexandria or was something that crystallized at a particular moment?
I was born in a poor section of Alexandria that was inhabited by people who had
migrated from the villages of the Delta and Upper Egypt. About half of them were
Nubians from my village, Tomas. I never really had any sense of how poor we were until
around age 10 when my father suffered through a long period of unemployment.
Eventually, he started trying to make ends meet by walking the streets selling socks,
handkerchiefs, and underpants. Later, he went to work running the cash register in the
canteen of a large company. During his tenure there, I would hear him complain to my
mother every night about the employees who cheated him by making away with extra
items in the midst of large crowds when he was busy with someone else. The old canteen
owner made a practice of taking the resulting shortages out of his daily wages.
I felt at the time that I was different. I was aware of my blackness, but never saw
myself as inferior to anyone, since I was usually surrounded by Nubians. The primary
school that I attended was set up by Nubians, attended largely by Nubians, and even
called itself “School of the Nubian Awakening.” While living in that same neighborhood,
I fell in love for the first time, with a white girl of Syrian ancestry, who was the
granddaughter of the owner of our building. Later, an even whiter looking girl from
Upper Egypt, who had chestnut hair, fell in love with me. There was actually a crowd of
young men--both Nubians and non-Nubians--gathered around this second girl. She was
my neighbor in a house that we moved into because it cost less than the one owned by the
Syrian. Unfortunately, she and I were both plagued by the fact that I was shy and lacked
self-confidence as a result of my family’s extreme poverty.
Later, we left this neighborhood to live in a swanky part of town where my father
had found work as a bawab, or live-in doorman, in one of the buildings. We all lived in a
single room on the roof. I think I was 14 when we first moved in. My sense of my
Nubian-ness was heightened at this time, as I began to see the complex ways in which we
as Nubians were entrapped on a lower rung of the social ladder. I don’t know whether
people meant to be harmful or not, but those around me always called us by the Arabic
word for “barbarian.” I began to routinely taste the degradation of being a black, who,
according to the society I lived in, was by definition inferior in all respects... in
appearance, in intelligence, in social standing. The role of the black was to serve whites.
Nubians were characterized by cleanliness, trustworthiness, and loyalty. These
characteristics made them “naturally qualified” to work with foreigners in simple servicerelated things, including bawab, houseboy, cook, and driver. The irony was that
foreigners and aristocrats seemed to prefer us because of these traits I’ve mentioned, but
the average Egyptian still managed to look down on us on the basis that we worked as
servants, although they themselves may have been working in even more degrading jobs.
They worked in morgues or cleaning sewers or as porters in train stations or on docks or
shining shoes and cleaning cars. Still, they looked down their noses at us. But if the truth
be told, we also looked down on them. Our own contempt was so widespread, in fact, that
once most foreigners left Egypt, and the aristocrats found themselves under siege in the
aftermath of the ‘52 revolution, many Nubians refused to take up their old positions in
service of the new elite that rose up to take the place of the old aristocrats and the
foreigners. The Nubians had their own word for this new class. They called them
Arabadas, or Arabs, implying that they were not of a stock that deserved to be served by
others.
In reality, we as Nubians never dealt in a racist or oppressive way with any group
of common people...ever. The parallel reality was that they always looked down on us.
This air of superiority certainly seemed to be a sort of racism. No one seemed even to
notice that Egyptian television employed absolutely no broadcasters with dark skin. We
never heard of a single black diplomat. There was no recognition of the contributions and
sacrifices of the Nubians, even as their lands were repeatedly drowned by dam building.
Even today, the pain inflicted on us has not been acknowledged. In spite of all this, we
find ourselves accused of racism if we call for any sort of return or restoration, or even for
the meager reparations that have already been promised. The other groups within
Egyptian society seem to appreciate us only as long as we are silent traitors to our own
cause; as long as we are nothing more than quaint folklore; and as long as we are satisfied
with inferior status. However, they reject us as soon as we try to pull together as a living
community with our own unique lifestyle. They become complete racists as soon as we
mention our rights or reparations. But this sensitivity to racism was not that prominent at
the time we’re discussing. My identity as a Nubian was very different back then.
Nubia was like a river rushing through my insides. I don’t believe I really sensed
the catastrophe of the Nubian migration or the particular sufferings of the Nubian people.
My father didn’t tell me stories, nor did my mother discuss with me life in our old Nubian
village. Why? I’m not sure. I really don’t know. Was it because it was that generation’s
plight to struggle just to gather up enough food for us to eat and enough cloth for us to
cover ourselves and the most basic opportunity to be educated? Perhaps. They were
unschooled themselves. They were also traumatized psychologically. I don’t think it
would be an exaggeration to say that they were broken people. My generation and the
ones that followed were all overwhelmed by nostalgia for old Nubia, which we had only
seen a few times, if at all. How much deeper must the pain have been for that generation
that had been born there and lived their childhood and their youth there! And what pain.
Damn all those responsible for it! All that generation cared about was hanging together.
They just wanted to avoid extinction and to keep together all the following generations.
When my father was working as the bawab in this building, I was around fifteen.
That was really the time when my consciousness began to form. I began asking myself
why the majority of Nubians were poor. There was my father who had taught himself to
read and write Arabic. He could also speak Nubian, Italian, French, and some English. As
poor as he may have been, he insisted upon reading the newspaper every morning after he
had swept the stairs and cleaned the entrance to the building. Why was it that my father
happened to be the bawab while some of the tenants that were really riffraff lived in fancy
apartments and insisted on looking down on my father? This period marked my
consciousness’ first stirrings with respect to Nubia and its pain.
My parents may have had their own reasons for not talking to me. It could have
had to do with me in particular. I was always very sensitive, both as a child and as a
young man. I was closed off, even to the point that I might see my mother sick and not
tell her that I hoped she felt better. This really bothered her, to the point that she once
asked me, aren’t I your mother? She had no idea that when I was alone I could cry the
bitterest of tears. One day my little brother went out with me to the Nubian club building.
He was only about eight at the time. When we returned, as soon as he saw our mother he
ran toward her with his face filled with wonder, and he swore to her that he had seen
Haggag laugh! Then he swore over and over again that what he had said was true.
You mention a moment at which your identity as a Nubian took on a political
dimension. How does politics fit into your current view of your ancestral home?
I don’t think politics has much to do with my outlook to tell the truth. My vision is
a cultural and a humanistic one, which perhaps carries within it the political dimension to
which you refer. But certainly this essentially cultural vision of mine is not directed
against any individual or any state or any race. True culture is simply pro-human, projustice, and pro-pleasure. It is to the furthest extent possible opposed to humanity’s evil
side; it struggles against repression, betrayal, and degradation. In general, we can say that
it’s simply pro-human in all its manifestations.
Does such a vision manifest itself in my literature? I would certainly hope that it is
there aesthetically. When bitterness overwhelmed me as a result of the condescension that
surrounded us, I had to switch temporarily to a form somewhat distant from the literary in
order to expel my bitterness so it would not negatively influence my creative writing. I
was forced into article writing, which I came to believe could play a complementary role
beside creative writing. I see my primary role as producing literature. A creative vision
inheres within literature. Surely, such a vision can influence professional politicians, no
matter how much they would prefer to ignore it.
What comparisons would you draw between the Nubians in exile in northern
Egypt and other diasporated peoples like the Palestinians, African-Americans, and
Jews?
Every ancient people shares the same distinct character. This character consists of
four basic parts:
1--A distinct humanist element.
2--A definite patch of earth to call home.
3--A language originating in the above-mentioned land expressing a particular culture.
4--A long history in which these three elements are intertwined.
The forced exile of an ancient people from their natural environment means the
destruction of a vital system particular to that place, since that environment is inevitably a
basic element of that system. The other three elements cannot flourish outside that
environment. Such ancient peoples cannot really live and practice their natural life
outside of this environment. Therefore, of course, all exiled peoples suffer miserably and
in order to deaden their pain somewhat, they hold fast to their hopes and are nourished by
their traditions. They live by them and for them, as a sort of temporary substitute for the
land they’ve lost. The tradition itself, in my opinion, is the heart of the fourth element of
the distinct character. It is the ancient times, but also the melting pot of the ages that has
melted the first three elements into a unity. At the same time, it lets off a specific multilayered atmosphere made up of a group psychology and a collective pool of thoughts and
feelings. The tradition is a memory of a bygone era that becomes an account that can be
drawn upon. No matter how much the tradition is emblazoned in the collective
consciousness, it gradually dissipates in the place and times of the Diaspora. Its clear
colors fade. Its strong tones are deadened. Even its very collectivity is broken down when
the exiled ones are barred from the place of origin.
The solution to these people’s sufferings is return. By bringing back the element
of the land, the foundation for bolstering the four basic elements can be formed. By
returning and being productive, a part of the ancient times can be transported toward the
future. In exile the original language loses its strength... and with the passage of time, it
is stored in the closet like the dead languages that are studied in academe. Perhaps, as in
the case of Nubian, it remains alive but is emaciated until it is left devoid of all vitality. It
becomes a shallow, brittle language, infiltrated mercilessly by other languages that chip
away at it a bit more every day. Under these circumstances, it may manage to maintain
some of its outer trappings, but in reality it becomes little more than folklore, of interest
only to museum curators and not really good for anything other than being observed.
Manners and customs in general soon become empty rites for display because they have
lost their meanings, their vitality, their unique viewpoint, and their particular way of
understanding the world, all in one fell swoop.
The exiled people always find themselves stuck between the hammer and the
anvil; that is, the hammer of the majority that surrounds them and commits itself to
dissolving their uniqueness, and the anvil of the inner brokenness as a result of the loss of
the land of origin. That’s why I would argue that all attempts to preserve an exiled culture
in generations that are born and raised in exile with no connection to their place of origin
will inevitably fail. It’s inevitable that they return to the traditional place of origin. Of
course, I’m not talking about being isolated from other peoples or trying to turn back the
clock to a pre-modern time. I’m simply arguing for some connection with the place of
ancestral origin in order to preserve as many humanistic and cultural characteristics as
possible.
When you see the ancestral peoples outside of their own natural environment, they
are not really themselves. They are simply entities within a real-life museum. Lions are
only lions in a forest. Lock them in a cage, and they become mere distortions. An
elephant in its native habitat inspires awe, but in a circus, it is a freak attraction.
African-Americans, of course, are a special case. It’s impossible for them to return
to Africa, yet I’m sure that there is a solution that will allow them to lighten their
suffering and their yearning for a place of their own, even if no such solution has been
implemented yet. To tell the truth, I’m sure that there are many strong ties binding me to
them; just as I am growing increasingly certain that Nubian literature shares many
distinguishing characteristics with their literature, for not only are we both African, but
we also share many parallel hopes and heartaches.
I think perhaps the best way to conclude this response is by quoting something I
saw written by a famous British director, who had taken a special interest in Africa, Asia,
Australia, and Latin America. He wrote, “In order for us to understand the intense
attachment of these peoples to their land, we must consider the fact that the land is their
very Bible.”
When and how did you start to write?
My personal and familial setbacks blocked me from doing any sort of selfinvestigation until I reached age forty. One of the main reasons I could not really examine
myself was because of this same old problem of lack of self-confidence.
With reference to my late start, I would also note that I was a soldier in the
Egyptian army during the war years with Israel. I spent seven years that amounted to a
true curse upon me from a psychological, a physical, and a material point of view... and
from every other point of view for that matter.
Later, around 1984, my first marriage failed, leading to several painful
breakdowns. I lost my job because I refused to join in the dishonest actions of the general
manager’s little mafia. Instead, I naively tried to expose their wrongdoing. I spent all my
savings (which at the time was a lot by my standards) on a visa to one of the petrodollar
countries--a forged visa I should say. I stayed there for a year without work and utterly
impoverished. I lived in a small rundown flat in an old building and asked myself every
night if it would be the night in which the whole thing collapsed and killed all of us
inside.
My only choices were to give up completely or to challenge myself as I never had,
and I chose the latter. A sudden and strange determination and self-confidence swept over
me. It was then that I grabbed a pen and began to write in order to prove my talent. When
I found my talent acknowledged, I kept writing in order to prove my genius. It was that
simple.
The use of the phrase “Nubian literature” is, I believe, fairly recent and
controversial here. I mean you have certainly been attacked in the press for
embracing the term. How do you explain these attacks? What exactly do you mean
by Nubian literature? What are its special characteristics and its history? In other
words, what distinguishes it from all other Egyptian literature?
The use of the phrase “Nubian literature” only dates back to about 1990. It was an
annoying phrase for many, and as the phrase began to gain momentum, annoyance turned
into flagrant opposition. It didn’t stop there, either. The rejection of the term on the part
of some increased until it became an accusation. They accused the Nubians who were
using this of racism and separatism.
How could such a phrase deserve so harsh a response? What is it about it that
justifies impugning the patriotism of those who use it and slandering them as separatists
and hotheads?
Let’s start by looking at the part of your question dealing with history. The first
thing to be written by a Nubian and printed in Arabic was a poetry collection published in
1948 entitled Zhilal Al Nakhil(Under the Shade of the Palms) by the late poet,
Muhammad Abdel Rahim Idriss. Over the course of the next 25 years, nothing else was
published. Then, in 1964 two publications were issued that put Nubian literature on the
map. First, Muhammad Khalil Qassem published his masterwork, the novel
Shamandoura(The River Gauge). The same year, an important collection of poetry by
various Nubian poets appeared called Sirb Al Balshoun(Flock of Pelicans). About eight
other Nubian works appeared around the same time including poetry and novels, but they
were much more modest works, and none had anything like the influence of the two that
I’ve mentioned.
Then, in 1989, the floodgates of Nubian titles in Arabic opened. At the forefront
of this group was a collection of stories by Ibrahim Fahmy called Al Qamr Bouba(The
Medallion). Since 1989, a plethora of Nubian literature of various kinds has appeared.
This recent tidal wave was the basis for the coining of the term “Nubian literature.”
During this same period, I was awarded the State Initiative award for 1990 for the
collection Vintage Nights of Musk, further legitimizing the Nubian literary movement.
Three years later, another Nubian writer, Yahya Mukhtar, was given the same award for
his short story collection, ‘Arous Al Nil(Bride of the Nile), meaning Nubians had been
awarded the prize two out of three years (since it was withheld in 1992).
With this brief overview, we can now tackle this question of the particulars of
Nubian literature. There are indeed several characteristics that suggested this
nomenclature and that have led to its taking root. All of this writing is set primarily in
Nubia. Nubia’s rich details give it a distinct singularity in its ways of life. There’s the
ancestral language that’s still used even though so many of the languages that originated
around the same time, or even later, have died out. Then there’s the long, special history,
and the clear participation in the bequest of human civilization, and the role in the
delivery of the world’s great religions. There’s also characteristics of environment and of
the colors which blend to produce a rich social tapestry of a very special sort. The near
isolation that reigned for so long over Nubia allowed the society to fully digest and
Nubianize all foreign groups that passed through or settled there, including outsiders from
the maghrib countries to the west or from the Arabian peninsula to the east or from subSaharan Africa to the south or from the northern regions of Egypt itself. This, of course,
does not include all the Turks, Europeans, and Asians that came to Nubia as rulers or
soldiers. All of this created a complete life-cycle with its own culture, sense of humanity,
and tastes. After the forced migration of the Nubians in 1964, there arose yet another
distinctive characteristic: a splinter planted in each Nubian’s heart stirring pangs of
yearning for that natural environment that was an essential part of their being, both as
individuals and as a community... a sense of depression at having been thrown into an
artificial environment that neither accepted them nor was accepted by them. They came
to be characterized by a unique historical experience of human suffering that was not felt
by the rest of Egypt.
Since Nubian writers express these various unique particularities of Nubian
society, which all come together under the banner of the Nubian character, they produce a
literature that tends to have its own particularities as well. Consequently, there was a need
for a broad category that could collect this group of work as a body of literature, and store
it in its own file.
The unique character of Nubian writing is certainly there; so why all this
opposition to the term in Egypt? There is a clear reason at the core of the term’s rejection,
even if the rejectionists tend not to come out and say it. Historically, it is well-known that
old Nubia was actually an empire and an independent kingdom. At the same time, we also
know that it was part of the Egyptian empire for centuries, just as it is true that there was
once a period in which Egypt was actually a province of Nubia.
Since before the dawn of recorded history, there has been a mixing of the two
nations. Nubia flowed down to the North, and the North drifted upstream to the South,
and the people of the North mixed with the Nubians. That’s why in many parts of nonNubian Upper Egypt one finds Nubian features, just as one finds northern features in
many Nubian faces. We all became parts of one whole once Islam entered Nubia, and the
local culture incorporated the Arabic culture that had already spread through the rest of
Egypt. Arabic became the lingua franca instead of Nubian, which took on a secondary
role in the area. (Incidentally, Nubia, which is made up of three major provinces, includes
a province that is totally Arab whose origins go back to the Arabian peninsula, and whose
people speak no Nubian aside from a few words that have infiltrated their language as a
result of constant interaction with the other Nubian groups around them.) For us, there is
no conflict between being Nubian and being Egyptian; unfortunately, this is not true of
our detractors.
How have those who claim that the proponents of a Nubian literature are antiEgyptian managed to forget so easily how we rushed into battle beside our brothers
during the Egyptian/Israeli conflicts, and how our Egyptian-Nubian blood watered the
sands of the Sinai and the canal region? How have they so easily forgotten Nubia’s
repeated bitter sacrifices of its lands so that it could be turned into a water storage area for
the whole country? These sacrifices began with the very first dam in 1902, then were
repeated with the expansions in 1912 and 1933, until finally the inundation was
completed with the completion of the High Dam in 1964. But our victimization is quickly
forgotten. It is forgotten that Nubians came up river into the Egyptian cities with no
support or reparation from the government that had displaced them, even though many
faced barriers of language and all faced the barrier of disorientation in a new and strange
setting. In spite of all this, the weapons of distrust were loaded and the swords of
suspicion were drawn the moment the Nubian character in all its uniqueness began to
leave its mark on our literary map. Thus, in the end, the attacks upon the Egyptian
patriotism of the advocates of a Nubian literary movement tell us much more about the
attackers than they do about the attacked.
Most of us here in Egypt are mentally and psychologically formed to join the herd
of followers of a one-party system representing one point of view and following one
mode of operation, even if we advertise ourselves as proponents of democracy. Deep
down, most of us are of the same stripe, because deep inside ourselves, we feel that we
are weak citizens of a state that crushes our human concerns. Our detractors insist that we
as Nubians also feel the same sense of loss and lack of self-confidence that they live with
constantly. They reject variety by calling it division, and they reject cultural continuity,
preferring instead cultural imperialism. They reject innovation as well on the pretext that
it challenges cultural roots; and they reject a deep knowledge of Nubia because that
would make it impossible for them to forget. If they knew, for example, that the first
collection of Nubian poetry was published in 1948 by Muhammad Abdel Rahim Idriss,
who was a member of the Egyptian National Council for several sessions, or if they knew
that Muhammad Khalil Qassem, the author of the first Nubian novel, Shamandoura, and
the mentor of us all, was a fierce Egyptian patriot, it would be impossible for them to
make their accusations. Indeed, anyone who could forget the patriotism and courage of
Zaki Murad, the Nubian poet and politician who contributed to the Flock of Pelicans
collection, would be in serious need of a basic refresher course on our national history.
Who is the contemporary writer Yahya Mukhtar but a disciple of that same Qassem, who
was imprisoned along with others for his pro-nationalist resistance. There are other
Nubian heroes to be mentioned in this context: neither Kleft nor Shindy nor the popular
singer Muhammad Hammam nor any number of others were imprisoned for being Nubian
or for promoting racism or advocating the secession of Nubia. Rather, all of them landed
in jail because they called for Egypt, in the whole of its vitality and diversity, to be for all
Egyptians and to live up to its glory and strength. Now that we live in a time in which
Nubian writers are branded racists and separatists, we must turn around and ask who
among the branders is more patriotic than Khalil Qassem or Zaki Murad?
Yet another question remains to be asked: is this a simple matter of aesthetic or
literary jealously? I would say that it is. Was not the Alexandrine novelist Edward Al
Kharrat slandered as a proponent of a Coptic project? Why? Because he is a literary
figure whose efforts have yielded him a great deal of prestige. When his rivals found
themselves unable to challenge his justified literary prestige, they looked for some other
pretext to attack him and settled upon the specificity of his religious belief. Similarly, in
the case of Nubians it is becoming increasingly difficult to deny the weight of the Nubian
literary movement. Thus, the Nubian writer is dragged far from his literary production
and asked to defend his consciousness as a Nubian.
Of course, I myself have suffered such accusations, and I never hesitate to answer
them in kind. But the fact of the matter is that in the end, none of these outbursts and
swearing and foolishness matter a damn, because if the phrase “Nubian literature” is
describing a real phenomenon with deep roots, then it will endure irrespective of attacks
launched against it. Similarly, I should be objective and say that if there is no real need
for the term other than as an expression of our inflamed emotions at this moment, it will
surely die out on its own, even without the screeds of our opponents.
What are your future plans as a writer?
The Nubian question is my basic concern as a writer. My goal is to preserve the
traditions and culture of Nubia and to advocate the return of the Nubian people to their
land of origin. My personal plans as a writer cannot be extracted from this Nubian
question. Lately, I find myself less and less obsessed with this idea of proving some
literary genius; this has become secondary. I remember Stefan Zweig making a comment
to the effect that he wanted to be neither the greatest writer nor the greatest critic, but
simply a great contributor to humanity. I’m finding that this is becoming my goal as well.
I simply want to make a contribution to humanity. The simplest way for me to do this is
to continue to wage my struggle to turn the world’s attention to Nubian culture and to
provoke the world to recognize and promote its renaissance.