Fahmy Howeidy

April 2007
Fahmy Howeidy
Just back from a tour of Iran, where he met with high-profile Shi’a politicians, prolific writer and Islamist thinker Fahmy Howeidy turns his attention to the Sunni-Shi’a divide and how outside powers might exploit it
By Manal el-Jesri



Fahmy Howeidy is one of Egypt’s most controversial writers. Or: Fahmy Howeidy is one of the nation’s least controversial writers. Your view on that particular question depends entirely on the side of the political aisle on which you sit. But one thing is inarguable: He enjoys the distinction of being the columnist most-censored by his own employer. Every few months, and sometimes every few weeks, we hear that his Al-Ahram editorial has been cut.




“I thank them for doing this,” Howeidy says. “I have already published my censored articles in a book, and I am putting together a new one.” The censoring, for those not aware, is completely pointless and unnecessary for the busy journalist, whose pieces run simultaneously in eight different newspapers. Any persistent reader can access the ‘missing’ by simply pushing a button.

Flitting between his commitments as an Islamic thinker and writer, Howeidy has no time for the attitude Egypt’s premier government-owned newspaper takes toward his work.

We must agree that the US does not care about Shi’a or Sunnis. All they want is to protect their own affairs. They just want to use both as pawns.
“I have no explanation for the censorship; those who censor are to be asked. When I write, I do not think about who will agree and who will oppose. The reader is the one on my mind. Sometimes, I write things I feel will not be published, but I still have to say them. We are not employees; we are writers. I am not concerned about President Hosni Mubarak. My concern is the man on the street. my pen is not connected to the state. I serve the reader, but the government wants people to serve it,” he complains.

Unwilling to mince his words, Howeidy’s opinions are strong and unadulterated. Case in point is his view of the increasing tensions between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims.

As a member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), he recently visited Iran and engaged in debate with the political and religious leaders of that predominantly Shi’a country. His visit preceded Seymour Hersh’s already infamous March 2007 New Yorker story “The Redirection,” in which the veteran investigative journalist exposed Washington’s involvement in widening the gap between Muslim sects to serve US goals in the region.

“One of the most important things Hersh said was how the Americans are playing on this issue and are [bent] on fanning the flames when it comes to the relationship between Shi’a and Sunnis,” Howeidy says. “This is one point. What I want to say is that the Americans want to infiltrate the region through the sectarian cracks. Many of the American studies do not talk about Iraq as a country, but as a group of sects. As if there is no Iraqi citizen, just sects,” he says.

To Howeidy that’s not new direction in American foreign policy, but something that the current US administration has been pursuing from the word “Go.”

“When [Paul] Bremmer first came to Iraq, he divided the council to represent the different sects. This was back in 2003. This makeup then transferred to the ministries. They gave some ministries to the Shi’a, some to the Sunnis, while the Kurds got the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And then the ministers tried to color their ministries with their own sectarian colors. Things started to develop from there, until the sectarian differences spread to [geographical] regions. Then we started talking about Shi’a in the South, a Sunni triangle in the middle, Kurds in the North. For you to make an area Shi’a, you have to move the Sunnis out. The American role has been very, very [negative],” Howeidy says.

American meddling, believes Howeidy, has given a voice to extremists in each of the religious and ethnic sects, but Iran, he maintains, must share some of the blame.

You may have a number of observations against Iran, but you have to admit it is an independent country that can afford to make its own decisions. They support the Palestinians, who are Sunnis. They supported Bosnia, which is Sunni.
“When Iran found the atmosphere was suitable, it decided to spread out. They have started to expand into Iraq. Some of the groups in Iran, not necessarily endorsed by the government, and encouraged by the Ayatollahs, started to spread Shi’ist centers. Iran’s responsibility lies in not standing firmly against this. Iran has not acted like an Islamic country, but like a sectarian one. They were happy to see Shi’a Islam spreading, but did not notice that by gaining Shi’ism, they were losing their friends. We are amongst those friends, and we criticized them and spoke to them about our concerns when we were there last month,” Howeidy says.

“I spoke to the foreign minister, and to Ali Wilayati, Ali Larijani, also to [Hashemi] Rafsanjani. We spoke to seven or eight high-level officials. They are all moderate and were able to understand our point of view that you can gain 100 new Shi’a in Egypt, but lose important support. In a country with a population of 72 million, 100 Shi’a will not make a difference. But in small countries like Tunisia, or in remote areas in Sudan, things are different. When clashes started happening, the Sunnis had to speak out.”

The IUMS, a Sunni organization, is trying to open channels to the Shi’a world, which could prove priceless in preventing anyone from exploiting the Shi’a-Sunni divide, Howeidy says. “We must agree that the US does not care about Shi’a or Sunnis. All they want is to protect their own affairs. They just want to use both as pawns. They occupied Iraq with help from the Shi’a. Now they aim to attack Iran, so they need to court the Sunnis. They want to create a Sunni axis to confront Iran. But these are all plans that could change later on,” Howeidy says.

The aims Howeidy speaks of are, as he puts it: oil first, and providing protection for Israel second. “The most important thing is to protect these two goals. Anything else can go to hell,” he says. While the US administration constantly warns of the formation of a Shi’a crescent in the region, which if united may pose a threat to Sunni states, Howeidy believes a united Shi’a front is out of the question.

“Let me tell you why the idea of a Shi’a crescent is difficult. Iraq will not stabilize, bombings will continue. The Sunnis are still quite strong there. What is the next part of the crescent? Syria? The Alawite regime is not everlasting. In Lebanon, yes, the Shi’a are strong, but what can the Shi’a of Lebanon do on their own? I believe the idea of a Shi’a crescent is an American creation. The US is just trying to build up support in the Sunni world for a strike against Iran,” he claims.

In “The Redirection,” Hersh writes of Sunni militias in various areas of the Arab world, supported by the US and Saudi Arabia.

“There is a lot of talk about such things,” Howeidy agrees. “We heard talk about the Future militias of [Saad] Hariri, and we also heard about Palestinian training in camps in Lebanon. Rumors about such things fill the country, but I have no facts that I can give you. I can tell you, though, that there are efforts to heat things up. Rumors, inaccurate and accurate information are used to tarnish the situation in Lebanon, and to abort Hassan Nasrallah or silence his March 11 supporters, and thereby prop up the Hariri and Siniora group. They also want to decrease Sunnis’ admiration for Iran, so that when Iran is bombed, the Arab world will just sit and watch,” Howeidy surmises.

But does he think the US really will strike Iran? “When we talk to Americans, they say that by any sane calculations, such an act will not take place. Some Americans say, ‘But who said [the Bush administration] is sane?’ There are arguments on both sides. Nobody knows who will win in the end.”

Back in the 1980s, the prolific writer penned a book investigating the Iranian experiment and what would happen in the event it would emerge as an independent Islamic country. He points out that the book was written when the Iranian revolution was 10 years old — 17 years ago — and things have changed.

“You may have a number of observations against Iran, but you have to admit it is an independent country that can afford to make its own decisions. They have a high degree of democracy, much more than other countries. Iran the state is not antagonistic toward the Sunnis. They support the Palestinians, who are Sunnis. They supported Bosnia, which is Sunni, and when Shi’a Azerbaijan clashed with Orthodox Armenia, they supported Armenia. There is a degree of pragmatism in Iranian politics that we cannot overlook. Yes, there are some extremists, like there are Egyptian extremists who fight here and there. Nobody accuses the Egyptian government of supporting them,” Howeidy maintains.

What angers the writer is the absence of an official Egyptian role in this whole discourse.

“The Egyptian role has either diminished or disappeared completely. This contrasts with how the Egyptian people feel. The people stand strongly by Palestine and Lebanon. Part of the country’s crisis is the inability of the government to mirror society correctly. When America boycotts Palestine, why must Egypt close its Rafah borders?” asks Howeidy, who complains that Egyptian politicians would rather focus on domestic issues than on the country’s role in regional affairs.

According to Howeidy, this weakness can clearly be seen in the increasing outward manifestations of the Islamic identity. “It is good that people are expressing their identity, but this expression must be active. When people cannot find a strong government to protect them, they resort to their sects for protection,” Howeidy says.

“The country does not share a common project; common grounds do not exist. There are no great national battles for us to fight as one, so instead of identifying ourselves as Egyptian citizens, we talk about being individuals with individual goals.

“When the national identity wanes, it is each unto himself.” et