The Sixties Generation
THE SIXTIES GENERATION / REALITY OF WRITING
A SET OF VISUAL MATERIALS COLLECTED IN A BOOK, 2012
The military regime started its rule in Egypt in 1952 with a certain persuasion that it used to follow up till now, which is that every intellect should follow the state, reflect its ideology, be part of the hegemonic movement and a fundamental component of the public opinion. From here, the state found that the inclusion of intellects is crucial and this created two waves of them each came out with the rise up of the regime since it is an organic part of it even with some differences between them. One of these waves was close to the regime accompanies its services, gives reason to it and spreads its ideas. While the other wave tried to choose its inspiration to correspond with the regime’s status quo. Both of these waves were from a middle social class and on the political level they were classified under several views such as communist, liberal, nationalist, Marxist and even sometimes religious who would refer to the scripts and translate it according to his personal judgment.
Opposing both waves and especially after the loss of June 67 against the Zionist enemy, the sixties generation came up as a literate phenomena with new tools, avant garde vision, fresh sensitivity and it played an important role in such a phase especially after two generations and thus the most common logic in this sixties novels was more based on realism and it is still continued in the contemporary Egyptian literature. This logic thought that the main cause of a novel was to reveal reality with all its features using the aesthetical language that was contemporary back then. This initiate was similar to the saying that the adventure is over and that it is can become an strong phenomena if it passed the period of creation to a period of influence, creating new tools and models of scriptures that have become a good exemplar of what is called “ the phenomena of the sixties literate generation”.
At the beginning of the sixties, the left wing in Egypt had already the abandoned on its proletariat project and focused on opposing capitalism, it abandoned the communist project and followed the Nasserite project, it forsaken its own organized parties and became involved in the regime’s parties. In-fact, the loss of the 1967 was a fatal point in the Egyptian history as it meant the downfall of Nasser’s regime. The slogan of the war forced itself and was adopted by everyone among both the intellects and the commons. Demonstrations was spread all over the country in each city, village, factory or university calling for war to get rid of disgrace of loss and raise up the national cause.
The changing conditions of the Egyptian society after the revolution in 23rd of July 1952 made the sixties generation develop a desire to understand the world and change it, as they essentially had a political stance towards the reality that aims towards the continuous interaction between the self and the world to make the world submit to the self’s personal will.
The novel in the sixties introduced a different type of heroes. Heros that live without a vision, a stance or ability to do. Heros without heroism. And in most of these novels, you will never find a hero with a project or social vision exactly like the failure of Nasser in the desserts of Sinai in 1967.
And after this explosion of the loss of 67 which has shaken the whole Arab region has raised the question of whether the environment that was under the military power gave space for creation and innovation, as the crisis has yielded its own culture and the culture of the crisis is the sum of all historical mourns. A period where patriotic wars is mixed with civil war, modernity with westernization, authenticity with orthodox, where the differentiation between them would be based on the one in control and the one who is controlled. This type of writings seeks to rediscover the Arabic condition again and aims to change it and to break the text that is depicted in the pyramid of operation to declare that culture is struggle, freedom and change.
The work sheds the light on how the visual element was used in the 60s in Egypt, as each era is distinguished by its visual trend. The work demonstrates, via the visual elements, the relation between the military rule and the intellectuals during Naser’s mandate and the adoption of the Nasseri project and its effect on June 67’s defeat and the uprising of the religious current and the demolition of the cultural project.