Naguib Mahfouz - Before the Throne

“We needed a period of transition to fix the foundations of our revolution,” Abdel-Nasser asserted.

“That is a feeble dictatorial claim that we always hear from the nation’s enemies,” Mustafa al-Nahhas, Zaghloul’s successor as head of the Wafd Party, retorted scornfully. “You had at your disposal a popular Wafdist fundament which you crushed with your tanks. You were incapable of creating an alternative to it, and the country suffered in a vacuum instead. You stretched out your hand to the criminals of the land, falling into an unfortunate contradiction between a reforming project whose spirit had come from the Wafd, and a style of rule inspired by the king and the privileged elites — until this way of running things frustrated all your fairest designs.”

“True democracy to me,” swore Abdel-Nasser, “meant the liberation of the Egyptians from colonialism, exploitation, and poverty.”

“You were heedless of liberty and human rights,” al-Nahhas resumed his attack. “While I don’t deny that you kept faith with the poor, you were a curse upon political writers and intellectuals, who are the vanguard of the nation’s children. You cracked down on them with arrest and imprisonment, with hanging and killing, until you had degraded their dignity and humiliated their humanity, until you had had eradicated their optimism and smashed the formation of their personalities — and only God knows when their proper formation shall return. Those who launched the 1919 Revolution were people of initiative and innovation in the various fields of politics, economics and culture. How your high-handedness spoiled your most pristine depths! See how education was vitiated, how the public sector grew depraved! How your defiance of the world’s powers led you to horrendous losses and shameful defeats! You never sought the benefit of another person’s opinion, nor learned from the lessons of Muhammad Ali’s experience. And what was the result? Clamor and cacophony, and an empty mythology — all heaped on a pile of rubble.”

“I moved my country from one condition to another, just as I shifted the Arabs and the course of helpless nations. The problems will be treated until they disappear. In time, they will be forgotten, while what was helpful to humanity will remain. Then the people will affirm my true grandeur.”

“If only you had been more modest in your ambitions, if only you had stuck to reforming your nation and had opened the windows of progress to her in all areas of civilization. The development of the Egyptian village was more important than the world’s revolutions. Encouraging scientific research was more urgent than the campaign in Yemen. Combating illiteracy was more imperative than confronting global imperialism. Unfortunately, you wasted an opportunity that had never appeared to the country before. For the first time, a native son ruled the land, without contention from king or colonizer. Yet rather than curing the disease-ridden citizen, he drove him into a competition for the world championship when he was hobbled by illness. The outcome was that the citizen lost the race, and himself, as well.”

Here Isis had her say.

“My joy at the return of the throne to one of my children cannot be contained!” she exclaimed. “His magnificent accomplishments would need all the walls of the temples in order to record them. As for his faults, I do not know how to defend them.”

Osiris then announced his verdict.

“If our trial here had the last word in your judgment,” he declared, “we would be compelled to give long and difficult consideration to arrive at justice. Certainly, few have performed so many services to their country as you have for yours, nor brought down so many evils upon it as you have, as well. However, in your case, being the first of Egypt’s sons to occupy her throne since olden times, and the first to devote himself to the laboring people’s welfare, we will suffer you to sit with the Immortals until this tribunal ends. Afterward, you shall go to your final trial with an appropriate recommendation.”

HORUS HERALDED, “Muhammad Anwar Sadat!”

A trim, dark-complected man of middling stature came in. He continued on his way until he stood before the throne.

Osiris invited him to address the court.

“I was born in the village of Mit Abul-Kom,” Sadat began, “and raised in a poor family. There I met with many daunting hardships during my studies. Filled with patriotic passion since I was small, I took part in Wafdist demonstrations. I was able to enroll in the War College, which opened its doors to people of lowly backgrounds like mine after the treaty of 1936. From the time of my graduation, I was appalled that the army was under the control of the British military. Seized by the idea of armed revolution against the English, I created the first secret apparatus in the army in 1939. I contacted the Muslim Brotherhood and was much impressed by their activities; during the war, I also tried to be in touch with the Germans. For that I was arrested and put on trial. Not only was I acquitted, I was returned to army service, as well.

“At that time, Gamal Abdel-Nasser contacted me and recruited me to his organization. When the 1952 Revolution occurred, events kept cascading one after another until Abdel-Nasser died, and I succeeded him as president in a moment of acute crisis. I was well aware of the negatives that decayed the greatness of the Nasser era, so I launched a new revolution to save the nation from imminent doom. I smashed the centers of power, then moved slowly toward establishing security and democratic rule. On October 6, 1973, I surprised not only the occupying enemy, but the whole world with an unforeseen victory. I achieved a triumph that saved the Arab soul from despair as it redeemed honor from shame, before embarking on another adventure by boldly entering the enemy’s land to call for a settlement between us using words rather than weapons. My long quest ended with the accords at Camp David. I launched the great opening, al-Infitah, to rescue the nation’s economy, and made new advances toward representative government. Yet I was hindered by obstacles that I had not taken into account, for the opposition deviated from the true path, as the fanatic religious tendency suddenly began to menace the nation with violence. In the face of all these challenges, I adopted a resolute position from which there could be no retreat — but matters ended in my assassination on the anniversary of the day on which I had brought my country the pride of victory.”

Akhenaten was first to reply to Sadat’s speech.

“I hail you as a fellow apostle of peace,” he told him. “Nor am I astonished at your opponents’ accusing you of treason. They made the same charge against me, and for the same reason.”

“Your victory reminds me of that of Ramesses II, which culminated in a pact of peace and the marriage of his son to the daughter of the Hittite king,” said Thutmose III.

“A ruler is responsible first and foremost for the life of his people,” added Ramesses II. “From this starting point, he resorts to war or turns toward peace.”

“I sincerely believed in the futility of continuing a war policy,” said Anwar Sadat.

“How much you resemble me, Mr. President,” Amenhotep III admitted, “in your love of the good life for your people and yourself. Both of us reveled in pageantry and ease, in grandeur and palaces. Yet my age allowed me to bask in luxury without vexation, while in yours you tasted the bitter with the sweet. Permit me to express to you my sympathy and my affection.”

“You ruled in circumstances similar in some respects to those which confronted me during my first reign,” Horemheb said, “after the death of the aged King Aya. I concede that you performed truly noble deeds, and that you took some beneficial steps. Yet you were so lax in combating corruption and corrupt people, that it seemed your victories were turned into defeats.”