A blast from the past

I was invited yesterday for a chat about internet activism over tea with Muhammad Abdul Qudus, the head of the Press Syndicate’s Liberties Committee, who wanted to discuss social media and how bloggers can help solidarity campaigns with detainees, etc. Though I’ve known Abdul Qudus for years through activist events, demonstrations, which he hardly misses any, I had never gone to his home before.

What took my breath yesterday however was his flat. I never knew he lived in the same Zamalek apartment that belonged to his dad, the legendary liberal writer Ihsan Abdul Qudus (1919-1990), whose novels and movies I was addicted to in prep and secondary school years.

Abdul Qudus took me on a tour in the apartment after we were done with our chat, showing me his dad’s office, library, handwritten notes, old fantastic black and white photos of Ihsan and his mother Fatma el-Youssef, personal items like Ihsan’s tin cup that he used during his imprisonment in the military prison in 1954 and which he insisted on keeping as a reminder of his first encounter with the “revolutionary regime,” beautiful paintings including a self-portrait by Salah Jahin, framed sketches and cartoons of Ihsan as depicted by Egypt’s most high profile cartoonists. I also saw the young Abdul Qudus’s “trophies” which include the massive gate chain of Cairo U which was smashed and “confiscated” by anti-Gulf War protesters in 1991.

We went from room to room, saw where virtually all the cultural symbols of royal and republican Egypt came to chat, party, drink, celebrate and fight, including Om Kolthoum, Farid el-Atrash, Abdel Halim Hafez, Salah Jahin, Souad Hosni, and, and, and, and. Name one writer, actor or painter and Abdul Qudus will be quick to mention a story about him related to that home.

I left the house in euphoria.. It was like watching Egypt’s history running in front of u on a filmreel. It was a blast from the past. That house needs a proper photoshoot, and I’m thrilled Abdul Qudus has already given me the permission to do so. I hope I manage to do that sometime soon.