Notorious Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm’s new book “Ya Ahly ya Hoby ya Heta men Alby (Ahly, My love; You’re a Piece of My Heart) is essentially a collection of satirical articles that feels like a friendly conversation with the great poet on an ahwa baladi (local coffee shop).
Negm’s poems, especially those sung in duets with Sheikh Imam, brilliantly captured the spirit of the Egyptian streets’ discontent with tyranny and social injustice from the 60s to the present day. Some pundits believe that Negm has slightly lost touch with current Egyptian reality; that his glory days are far behind him.
In 30-plus articles, Negm proves he remains as sarcastic as ever. Yet his anecdotes and social critique does indeed lack the blaring ferocity and immediacy of his best work and there are times when he does indeed seem irrelevant. The book covers various topics across the board, from the history of Egypt’s premier football club Al-Ahly, Negm’s experience with Abdel Halim Hafiz to the story behind Al-Fagoomy, the nickname Negm goes by.
Most Egyptians are known to be certificated first-grade football referees as well as deft experts on everything related to football, from club elections and its hidden politics, player/coach relations, and of course the non-stop behind-the-scenes conflicts of the national team. Based on this tradition, Negm takes his readers through a tour, replete with detailed commentary, to the long history of Al-Ahly. Reminiscing about the old days and great players such as Mokhtar Al-Tetsh, Abd Al-Karim Saqr, Yehia Emam, Mahmoud Al-Khateeb and Ali Abou-Grisha to name a few,
Negm’s articles occasionally veer towards acute nostalgia catered for the readers of his generation. Younger readers may find it difficult to connect with names and times they hardly recognize.
Apart from his stark criticism of the current state of Egyptian football and its referees and coaches, the other wittier and funnier articles are what render the book a worthy read.
In one rare piece where he attempts to evoke national pride, Negm recounts a “fable he heard about an unidentified Egyptian sports champion that suggests how an athlete can easily be transformed into a national hero. In the Berlin Olympics of 1936, Adolf Hitler was attending the weightlifting contest himself in anticipation of a German gold medal. After an Egyptian champion (presumed to be either Sayed Nouseir or Khedr Al-Toony) managed to pull a major upset and snatch the gold medal, the Fuhrer told him he wished he was German. In this anecdote, along with several others, Negm is more concerned about the basic notion of storytelling and the story’s moral rather than the nifty details.
In another set of entries, Negm dwells on his own reservoir of personal memories. The highlight of the bunch centers on his relationship with legendary singer Abdel Halim Hafez whom he met as a child at an orphanage following his father’s death in 1936.
Most insightful of all entries is the one in which Negm unveils the connotation behind his nickname.
Al-Fagoomy, Negm explains, means impulsive; a confrontational man who can’t stand still in times of injustice, an irrational person always prepared to fight the powerful guardians of corruption.
Throughout the book, Negm illustrates the Egyptian gift of dealing with disasters with humor, along the lines of the popular saying “shar al-baleya ma yodhek (The worst misfortune makes you laugh). Negm weaves several historical ruler-against-peasant stories where, at times, the peasant outsmarts the ruler. At other instances, the peasant is cruelly punished for his attempts to challenge and defy the system in an ironic tragi-comic fashion.
In the most bizarre article of the book, Negm claims that Egyptians correctly realized that the “Sa’ayda (Upper Egyptians) jokes, which became popular after the October 1973 win, “were not Egyptian and that the purpose behind them was to destroy Egyptian morals.
Negm goes as far as denouncing these jokes as “a Zionist conspiracy targeting the south in particular since the roots of the Egyptian value system stem from that region.
Overall, “Ya Ahly ya Hoby ya Heta men Alby is light, frothy and entertaining. It’s not the book to buy for a serious examination of Al-Ahly’s history, or any other kind of history for that matter. The few stimulating poems and distinctively witty anecdotes might be the only reasons why the book may find its place in a selective bookshelf, especially if the bookshelf belongs to Zamalak fan.
