Ahmad Fo’ad Nijm (1929–2013): revolutionary hero

“Build up your palaces in the farming fields

From our own sweat and toil

And unleash your dogs [to attacks us] in the streets

Build pubs beside factories and prisons in place of parks…

Nevermind, we found our path.”

This is a song written by the poet Ahmad Fo’ad Nijm. It was sung by him and his long-time friend and comrade the late Sheikh Imam. Can you hear the deafening voice of defiant sarcasm in these words? No wonder that the masses across the Arab world kept singing, exchanging and rehearsing his songs throughout many upheavals, since the harsh repressive days of former dictator of Egypt, Sadat, in the 1970s.

Nijm (or Negm in Egyptian dialect) passed away aged 84 on Tuesday 3 December, in his home in Muqattam, Cairo.

I was deeply saddened by his loss, alongside many in the Arab world and progressive forces around the world. For my generation and those at least 20 years older, in Palestine and other sites in the Arab world, Nijm and Sheikh Imam captured the persistent fighting spirit against imperialism and the reactionary Arab regimes.

They were always criticising dictators, agitating for rebellion, reflecting on local and global political events. They paid the price by being locked in prison for long periods of time.

Who was this rebellious poet renowned for his sharp tongue – dubbed the “poet of the poor” by some, the “poet of the people” by others, and the “obnoxious poet” by Anwar Sadat?

Nijm was not your typical Arab poet. He wrote in colloquial (Egyptian) Arabic. In doing so, he was one of the first and most prominent colloquial Arab poets. Nijm developed his style from wedding or romantic street songs into new political heights as his lyrics were taken up by militant unionists, workers, protesters and even Palestinian freedom fighters.

Colloquial Arabic was thrown into the thick of the struggles. Nijm’s compositions from the 1960s to the 1980s were sung all over again by thousands of Egyptians camping in Tahrir Square in early 2011.

Ahmad Fo’ad Nijm was born on 23 May 1929 in Kafr Abu Nijm village. At the time, Egypt was a monarchy under British rule. Nijm worked numerous small jobs at the camp sites of the British army, while undermining them by aiding the guerrilla fighters.

As a result, he was detained for three years under false charges. Later he met communist workers at the printing centres in the cities of Suez Canal, where he started to develop his political consciousness. His poems, which he started writing in detention, were smuggled far and wide in Egypt. He joined the mass protests against the British in 1946, during which a national committee to lead students and workers was formed.

Nijm worked in the postal service and railway from 1951–1956, after which he started to publish his own books. His honest and open defiance, coupled with his scathing criticism of Egypt’s presidents, resulted in a further 18 years of imprisonment during the reigns of Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. Nijm served his time alongside the blind singer Sheikh Imam, whom he had met in 1962.

Nijm and Imam formed a highly effective revolutionary duo, so much so that their songs were banned on Egyptian radio and television stations. However, they were popular among ordinary people. I can vividly remember growing up in the Arab world – the smuggled tapes of Nijm-Imam during the 1970s and 80s gave us great inspiration.

Nijm’s words expressed our anger then, and still do now. The following translation from one of Nijm's works following the Arab defeat in Israel’s 1967 war illustrates their power:

“Oh how amazing, our officers have returned from the front line,
Life is just great so long as his excellency and entourage are fine,
Don't Sina-me or Sinai-me-not,
So what if a whole nation is humiliated or lost?”

Despite a regrettable split between Nijm and his comrade Imam in the late 1980s, their legacy continues to inspire in poems such as “Guevara has died”, “Long live my fellow countrymen”, “Build up your palaces”, “The lady’s dog”, “Pablo Neruda”, “Oh Palestinians, I want to travel to be with you” and “Who are they, and who are we”.

Nijm's appearance and lifestyle matched the bluntness and the nature of his verse, immersed in the language of the poor. He wore a Galabiya (a flowing Egyptian robe), at all times. He chose the Egyptian dialect to speak to the working class and the poor so his words would reach from the heart to the heart, as he once said. He simply found in his poetry a space for freedom.

One of his daughters, Nawara, who has inherited her father’s vocal bluntness and politics, became a leading activist in the Egyptian revolution. Nijm was an enthusiastic supporter. He has become known since then as the “poet of the revolution”. And despite the revolutionaries’ disappointment with Nijm in his last months (for supporting General al-Sisi), they attributed this political confusion to his illness and old age and overlooked it when compared to his rich legacy of struggle. As activist Basma al-Husseini wrote:

“Let no one forget that he remained a thorn in the side of every regime. No matter how much we differed with him, it is enough that he raised his voice against Nasser at the height of his power, against Sadat at the height of his arrogance, and against Mubarak at the height of the silence of the poets and intellectuals.”

“You may not find in the life of your father something to brag about, but you will certainly not find anything that you will be ashamed of”, Nijm wrote once when dedicating a book to his children. “That is the belief I defended and happily paid a price for.”

Upon hearing of his death, Palestine went into mourning. Palestinian activists in Haifa city (Palestine ‘48) held an evening called “Palestine farewells Ahmad Fo’ad Nijm”. That was followed by more events in Yaffa and Ramallah. Tributes flowed from writers’ unions in different parts of the Arab world – and indeed from the rest of the world. The French paper Le Figaro eulogised him as the symbol of the Arab defiance, while the French poet Luis Aragon said, “His poems have a strength that destroys walls”.

In his tribute to Che Guevara, Nijm wrote that “the exemplary battler has died”. I take Nijm’s own words to mourn his own death. An exemplary battler has died indeed, but the revolutionary spirit that he ignited lives on.