Psychoanalysis in Egypt

Psychoanal Cult Soc https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-023-00369-6 COUNTERSPACE Psychoanalysis in Egypt between an ambitious past and an uncertain future Hussein Abdel Kader1 • Robert K. Beshara2  The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2023 Abstract In this essay, translated from French and with an introduction by Robert Beshara, Hussein Abdel Kader traces the history of psychoanalysis in Egypt after touching on the contributions of the Pharaonic and Arab civilizations to psychology. Originally published in 2004, Abdel Kader ends the essay with a critique of the International Psychoanalytic Association and a reflection on the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion, particularly in the Global South. Keywords psychoanalysis
Egypt
Arab world
history
religion
Global South Introduction Hussein Abdel Kader was a member of the first cohort that graduated in 1956 from the Psychology Department at Ain Shams University under the tutelage of Mustafa Zewar—the true Arabic Freud as will become clear later in this introduction. This pioneering cohort included nine individuals in total, according to Abdel Kader, and they were the first generation of Egyptian psychoanalysts trained under Zewar, who himself pursued his analytic formation in France. As Abdel Kader discusses in his essay on the history of psychoanalysis in Egypt, Taha Hussein, who was the Egyptian Minister of Education between 1950 and 1952, was the one to task Zewar with founding the Ain Shams Psychology Department. It is important to note here the significance of Taha Hussein as a symbol of Al-Nahda, Hussein Abdel Kader: deceased. & Robert K. Beshara robert.beshara@nnmc.edu 1 Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt 2 Northern New Mexico College, Española, NM, USA Kader or Arab Renaissance, which says something about the modernist intellectual milieu of that moment, which afforded for Egyptian psychoanalysis to flourish as a movement. Abdel Kader passed away in 2021, one year after the passing of Moustafa Safouan—whom Al Ahram called, ‘‘The Egyptian Oedipus.’’ Abdel Kader was an Egyptian psychoanalyst, who was also active in the underground Egyptian theater scene since the 1960s. Abdel Kader believed in the therapeutic power of the arts, especially psychodrama—after all, playwrights (and writers, more generally) have been investigating the human psyche for millennia before scientific experimentations from psychologists began in the late nineteenth century. Psychoanalysts would have neither the Oedipus complex without Sophocles nor narcissism without Ovid. According to Abdel Kader, speaking in a radio interview (Monte Carlo Doualiya, 2018), theater in modern Egypt dates back to the seventeenth century, particularly to Al-Saliba Street in Old Cairo, where many sociopolitical performances took place. The same street was also significant as the location of a ritual theater for the Mawlawı̄yah Sufi order, or the followers of Jalaluddin Rumi. Abdel Kader wrote his master’s thesis on drama therapy, and, in his thesis, he questioned the traditional argument that Jacob Moreno is the founder of psychodrama. For Abdel Kader, psychodrama began in ancient Egypt with the coronation of the pharaoh—an important ritual that the successor to the throne had to go through and which activated mythological scenarios of psychological import that were meant to therapeutically prepare the son to not only accept the change of power but also the death of the father. The second example that Abdel Kader cites is that of Ibn Sina (980–1037) curing a prince who thought he was a cow, again through drama therapy. Abdel Kader has directed, and acted in, numerous plays, including works by Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Ezz El-Din Al-Madani, and Mikhail Ruman, and was passionate about teaching psychoanalysis, particularly to fine arts students. He wrote a number of books in Arabic, including Cinema and Psychoanalysis (1976), The Splitting of Yugoslavia: A Psychohistorical Study (1996), Bush Jr. in Light of Psychoanalysis (2005), and The Memoirs of A Detainee in Guantánamo, Cuba (2013). Between 1976 and 1990, Abdel Kader taught psychoanalysis and psychodrama at the universities of Zagazig and Mansoura. As a scholar from Egypt myself, I have been engaging with psychoanalysis since my undergraduate years at the American University in Cairo, where I first read Freud. Similar to Abdel Kader’s trajectory, I was seduced by psychoanalysis through surrealism, for I studied theater, music, and film before pursuing a PhD in psychology with a special emphasis in psychoanalysis as a critical psychological methodology. Also, as a candidate analyst here in the United States, who is interested in the problems of decoloniality and cultural difference, I am naturally drawn to the question of the history of psychoanalysis in Egypt—and in the Arab world more generally. Only one text exists so far in English on the history of psychoanalysis in Egypt, which is Omnia El Shakry’s The Arabic Freud (2017). However, while I enjoyed reading this text, it leaves much to be desired, so I took it upon myself to investigate the issue further, and I ended up translating two essays from French to English in the Psychoanalysis in Egypt between past and future process, including this essay by Hussein Abel Kader (2004), which was originally published in a special issue of La Ce´libataire on psychoanalysis and the Arab world.1 It is worth noting the colonial aporia of Arabic-speaking psychoanalysts writing in French or English to communicate about psychoanalysis in the Arabicspeaking world. Who are we writing for? On the other hand, I find Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s statement ‘‘We defeated the English by loving the language’’ (in Akademie der Künste, 2018) to be provocative, for it suggests that the English language can be used by non-native speakers, such as Abdel Kader and myself, in a decolonial way. Furthermore, I have interviewed Neveen Zewar (see Beshara, 2022), the daughter of Mustafa Zewar. Arguing against El Shakry, Neveen Zewar believes that her father (and not Yusuf Murad) is the true Arabic Freud, and we find support of her argument in Abdel Kader’s essay, wherein Mustafa Zewar is acknowledged as the pioneer of the psychoanalytic movement in the Arab world with the caveat that such a primal father figure tends to also be a ‘‘castrating tyrant.’’ In her book, Omnia El Shakry (2017) argues that Yusuf Murad is the Arabic Freud even though he was a psychologist and not a psychoanalyst like his colleague Mustafa Zewar. The latter, of course, taught psychoanalysis to many students, like Hussein Abdel Kader, who ended up becoming brilliant scholars, such as Moustafa Safouan (who worked with Jacques Lacan in France), Ahmed Fayek, and Sami Ali. Thus, while Murad certainly translated the concept of the unconscious into Arabic— as al-la-shu‘ur, ‘‘a mystical term taken from the medieval Sufi philosopher Ibn ‘Arabi’’ (Shakry, 2017, p. 21)—Zewar can be credited for leading a psychoanalytic movement, which entailed translating and teaching the works of Sigmund Freud among other psychoanalytic thinkers and practitioners. There are, of course, a number of diasporic Egyptians, such as myself, Mohamed Abdou, Sarah Hammad, and Omnia El Shakry, who are engaging with psychoanalysis, particularly from a decolonial perspective that acknowledges the alterity of non-European cultures and languages, and the important contributions of nonEuropean theorists and practitioners. However, the transmission of psychoanalysis in Egypt is currently at risk of becoming extinct. As Abdel Kader shows, this state of near extinction is a function of numerous factors, which are chiefly political and economic in nature as opposed to religious. This is not to say that the question of culture is not significant, for Abdel Kader recognizes ‘‘the importance of the language of formation [in Egypt or the Arab world], which is the Arabic language.’’ He is arguing against the Orientalist assumption that Islam may be the problem blocking the expansion of psychoanalysis in the Arab world, and he shows that even atheists cannot bracket questions of faith. In other words, the problem, for Abdel Kader, lies in the ‘‘political, economic, and social reality’’ of postcolonial Egypt, that is, ‘‘the storms that have hit [the] country’’ since 1952. According to Neveen Zewar, whom I interviewed recently, psychoanalysis in the Arabic-speaking world is thriving in two countries in particular: Morocco and 1 The other translation, of an essay by Raja Benslama (2010), is forthcoming in the journal Language & Psychoanalysis. Raja Benslama is a Tunisian psychoanalyst who practiced in Cairo for some time and who happens to be the sister of Fethi Benslama, the author of Psychoanalysis and the Challenge of Islam (2002/2009). Kader Lebanon. In Egypt, there is only one organization that is dedicated to the transmission of psychoanalysis, which is The Arab Psychoanalytic Group in Cairo—a member of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies. In 2002, Neveen Zewar founded The Cairo Group, which includes eight other members.2 Furthermore, psychoanalysis is taught at a number of Egyptian universities, such as Ain Shams—the academic fountainhead of psychoanalysis in Egypt—Zagazig, Mansoura, etc. There is no denial, however, that psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioral therapy are currently the two dominant psychotherapeutic modalities in the country. Therefore, my effort with translating this essay has been to shed light on the history of psychoanalysis in Egypt for two reasons: first, to inform readers in the Global North about this history; and, second, to inspire a new generation of Egyptians (and Arabs) to take interest in psychoanalysis by learning about this little known history, so that they can write their unknown future through a knowledge of the unconscious. Psychoanalysis in Egypt between an ambitious past and an uncertain future Knowledge without gaps is not knowledge. (Al Niffari) The Ebers Papyrus, dating from 1580 BCE, contains twelve incantations aimed at calming the patient’s state of mind: for example, when Isis was consoling Horus regarding his burns, when administering medication, or when dressing a wound. It was a complementary therapy. Even before this papyrus, in 2980 BCE, certain temples in Memphis were nicknamed house of life. If we move from the Pharaonic civilization to the Arab civilization, we will see that medicine went through a great development with Al Razi and his book Al Hawi (The Comprehensive Book on Medicine). A Jew from Sicily translated this book into Latin. Similarly, Ali ibn al-Abbas al-Majusi and Ibn Maymoun (Maimonides), Saladin’s physicians, have produced milestones in the history of medicine. But we will stop particularly at Ibn Sina (980–1037), who wrote a treatise titled Mabhath ‘an al-quwa n-nafsaniyya (Inquiry Concerning Psychic Faculties), wherein he actually treated cases of hysterical paralysis and used the system of free association. He made use of psychodrama to treat his melancholic and anorexic patients, who mooed like cows. Dressed as a butcher and followed by two apprentices, Ibn Sina would see the patient and say, ‘‘Bring this cow for me to slaughter!’’ He would sharpen his knife, put the patient on the floor as if to slit their throat, then declared that the animal was too thin to be slaughtered. And the treatment began with this strategy (Al Aroudi al Samarkandi, n. d.). We can equally evoke the eleventh century book ‘Uqala al-Maganin (The Wise Psychotics) by Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Habib abu al-Qasim al-Naysaburi (Al-Naysaburi, 1924). This book includes a chapter on the language of psychotics and original interpretations 2 For more information about The Cairo Group, see https://sites.google.com/site/egypsa2/english. Psychoanalysis in Egypt between past and future classifying mental disorders by degree, while distinguishing them from mental disability. He reports in this work a famous phrase from one of his patients called al Farkandi: ‘‘O son of Adam, you destroy your life from birth.’’ This phrase evokes Freud’s (1920/1955) theses on the drives (Trieb), which he defines as an essential compulsion of organic life, a return of the living being to their primitive being. It is not surprising, in this context of Pharaonic and Arab civilizations, that the bimaristans (the first hospitals, some of which housed departments to treat mental disorders) were created in Egypt. Jabril ibn Bukhtishu, by order of Harun Al Rashid in 800 CE, was the first to build these institutions in Baghdad. Nowadays, you can find in Cairo one of these hospitals, which was founded by Sultan Qalawun. If we get to modern Egypt, starting from Muhammad Ali, we can cite Rifa’a atTahtawi, sheikh of the Egyptian missions in Paris, and his book titled al-Murshid alamin lil-banat wal-banin (The Trusted Guide for Girls and Boys) (1875), which included chapters dealing with psychology. Sheikh Hassan Tawfiq [Al Adl], professor of Arabic at the Oriental College of Berlin, took a further step in his book The Scientific Pedagogy (2 vol.). One chapter dealt with the psyche and its relationship with the body, the mind, memory, and the imagination; in addition to an appendix on the I and the we. We can also mention a doctor, Suleiman Nagati, who did his studies in Paris, and whose book, Uslub al-Tabib fi fan al-Magathib (The Doctor’s Know-How Concerning the Art of Psychosis) (1892), was taught at the Khedive [Kasr AlAiny] Medical School: there is a remarkable chapter on the clinical interview and the necessity of not interrupting the patient when they are speaking. In 1895, Sheikh Mohamed Sherif Selim completed a book titled Kitab ‘ilm alnafs (The Psychology Book). This book was required at the Normal School of Cairo in 1911. It contains chapters on primary perception, the perception of ailments, pleasure and pain, love and hate, as well as a chapter on associations: There is the association of ideas, whose evocation supposes a connection between them. When thinking takes its course … like the links of a chain, even if [these ideas] look detached from each other … it is only an external appearance … Chance exists in neither the natural nor the psychic world. Everything has an origin, be that material or moral. (Selim, 1911) Selim emphasizes the importance of self-knowledge, and the relationship between psychology and language. He talks about what he calls the sarira (inner self): his work is mainly about the mysteries of lapsus linguae (slips of the tongue) and the unconscious. The ideas of this Al-Azhar University sheikh have preceded the Freudian notions. From the beginning of the twentieth century, or in 1915, a group of teachers, trained at the University of Exeter, began citing the name of Freud in their psychological works.3 In 1929, The Institute of Pedagogy was founded for the training of teachers, following the report presented by Édouard Claparède, a Swiss national who was 3 We can cite, for example, the works of Hamed Abdel Kader, Mohamed Atteya al Ibrashi, Mohamed Mazhar Said, Moustafa Amin, and Ali al Garem. Kader invited by the Ministry of Education to reform pedagogy in Egypt. It was natural that special attention was given to psychoanalysis. However, it was in the 1930s that psychoanalysis played an essential role in Egypt. The psychoanalyst Shokri Effendi Guirguis was accused of being part of the British Psychoanalytic Association. He was taken to court for opening a clinic on Clot Bey street without having obtained prior authorization from the Egyptian Ministry of Health. Among his works, let us mention al-Tahlil al-nafsi (Psychoanalysis) (1939), al-Tibb al-nafsi (Psychiatry) (n. d.), al-Ghariza al ginsiya wa mata’ibuha (The Sexual Instinct and Its Problems) (n. d.), and al-Amrad al-nafsiya wa ‘alaqatuha bil ghariza al ginsiya (Mental Disorders and their Relationship to the Sexual Instinct) (n. d.).4 He was fined, his clinic was closed, and his license was revoked.5 This process was ratified in 1937 by the Court of Appeals, based on articles 14 and 15 of the law governing medical practice in Egypt. This case is similar to that of Theodor Reik, who—albeit supported by Freud—was brought to court in Vienna on the same charge.6 The lawyer Mohamed Fathi Bey, who was a judge, was interested in psychoanalysis and has even practiced like an analyst after having left the bar. He was appointed professor of criminal psychology at the Institute of Criminal Sciences, which was part of Faculty of Law at Fouad I University (currently Cairo University). In 1944, the court had designated him as an expert in another trial against Shokri Guirguis, for violation of article number 434/1944, that is, the perpetual and illegal practice of medicine. Egyptian public opinion was naturally fascinated by this case; however, the second trial was interrupted by the death of the accused, after his appeal. He had been sentenced in the first instance to a fine of 100 piastres in addition to the closing of his clinic and the revocation of his license. Nonetheless, the court had indicated in its judgment that it appeared that psychoanalysis was not a part of medicine as such, and that those who practiced it did not need to be doctors. This point of view was supported by the expert Mohamed Fathi, but the court also considered that there was no legislation concerning the practice of psychoanalysis by non-physicians, hence the verdict. Before we get to the 1940s, let us note an article in the daily newspaper al Messa (The Evening), whose headline announces: ‘‘Suicide of the Egyptian laureate, bachelor of arts and law student, poet and storyteller, Ahmed Al Assem. How did he arrange to kill himself? A Freudian analysis of his poems and stories.’’ The author of this article was a lawyer and a famous man of letters, Mohamed Lotfi Gomaa. What is remarkable here is the interest of intellectuals in psychoanalysis at that time, and this was amidst the nationalist movement against the British occupation. Thus, Egyptians equated the struggle against the occupier with the desire to be 4 In al-Tahlil al-nafsi (1939), Guirguis includes letters of thanks from patients as well as reports from patients dating from 1931–1936. It is surprising to see the author publishing personal letters that reveal the identity of his patients. He also included one of his articles, which was published in the Cairo daily newspaper Al Ahram. 5 6 Case Number 580/1936, Court of Al Azbakeya. See Freud’s The Question of Lay Analysis (1926/1959). The field of psychoanalysis, as Freud said, includes a number of subjects, which are not related to medicine or medical practice, such as the history of civilization, as well as the psychology of religions and literature. Psychoanalysis in Egypt between past and future intellectually on a par with the West. A new magazine titled al Magalla al-gadida [The New Magazine], founded by Salama Moussa, made a large place for the works of Freud, and its editor published a large number of articles on Freud and his conception of psychoanalysis. Some doctors wrote articles on this topic, such as Sabri Guirguis, a psychiatrist, who wrote an essay in 1936 with the title, ‘‘Sigmund Freud.’’ He states, ‘‘We realized that Freud’s opinions mark a new era in the history of discovery, research, science, and human progress.’’ Sabri Guirguis also translated a book on psychoanalysis in 1944. He published a book with the title Jewish Zionist Literature and Freudian Thought (1970), with the subtitle ‘‘Shedding Light on Sigmund Freud’s Zionist principles.’’ Moreover, Sabri Guirguis was the associate editor of a magazine titled Al Siha al-nafsia (Psychic Health), whose editor-in-chief was Mustafa Zewar.7 Let us emphasize that Sabri Guirguis was very interested in psychoanalysis. As a psychiatrist, he had acquired a Doctor of Letters with a dissertation titled The Problem of Psychopathic Behavior: A Study on Medical Psychoanalysis (Guirguis, 1946). Mustafa Zewar wrote a foreword to this dissertation, in which he praised the author and his work. Sabri Guirguis, on his end, had sung the praises of Mustafa Zewar. However, in the 1970s, Sabri Guirguis reversed his position: after having defended Freud and his theories, he disavowed them. But, in fact, the target was Zewar, and not Freud. A similar case will be found, later, in Professor Kadri Hefni, a disciple of Zewar. Zewar had recommended Kadri Hefni for a university position after the latter spent five years (1959–1964) in a concentration camp at the Kharga Oasis for being a Marxist. But man is man: if he feels ashamed of the idea of parricide, all means of compensation are good. As a popular Egyptian saying goes: ‘‘The one who cannot tame his donkey struggles with the saddle.’’ Kadri Hefni (2000) actually wrote an article with the title ‘‘Freud between science and Zionism.’’ Mustafa Zewar’s destiny seems to have been in the form of an ideal father. One of the functions of the ideal father, according to Moustafa Safouan, is to ‘‘strengthen the foundations of desire over a repressive law.’’ The father is the double who possesses what the son thinks he lacks, ‘‘the phallus.’’ Thus, he appears to the son as a competitor. Let us mention again the case of Mustafa Zewar. In 1941, Zewar returned to Egypt from his trip in France, where he started his formation with René Laforgue. He then went back to France to complete his formation with Sacha Nacht. Zewar had already gone to France in 1930 for a doctorate in philosophy: he received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and logic, and also procured a diploma in psychology. However, he turned to medicine after attending a lecture by Georges Dumas. He asked Dumas how to train in psychoanalysis. The dominant scientific tradition then in France required that one become a doctor. Zewar asked his father, who was the chief medical officer in the Ministry of Education, for permission to go down this path. It was natural for the father to accept his son following in his footsteps. Likewise, the son also found a solution to his Oedipal conflict. Thus, Zewar entered a new field, and, in 1941, obtained his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Lyon. The topic of his dissertation was a description of cerebral 7 This journal appeared in 1958 and only published three issues. Kader aphasia and left-handedness. He returned to Egypt that same year. Taha Hussein— who had done a fellowship in Paris—was then the dean of Cairo University: he decided to appoint Zewar as assistant professor of psychology in the department of philosophy at Farouk University (currently, Alexandria University, which was attached to Cairo University). Among his first class of students, of which there were three, was Moustafa Safouan. He will then accompany him in his scientific career. Here is what Safouan said: ‘‘Zewar’s teaching method was completely unprecedented, despite the fact that we compared him to Socrates. It was not work but a pleasure to be his student’’ (1994). A new generation trained under Zewar’s aegis. Safouan followed him to Paris by boat from Alexandria to Marseille on December 31, 1945. Zewar completed his formation in psychoanalysis, which had been interrupted by the Second World War, and, simultaneously, he was the head of the clinic at the University of Paris. Safouan, for his part, entered the world of psychoanalysis. For, encouraged by his teacher, he realized that psychoanalysis was a personal necessity. He began his own analysis under the direction of Schlumberger. Another student of Zewar, who was also a trained artist, added to this movement the touch unique to great artists. This student was Sami Ali, who later became professor at Paris 7 University and director of the Psychosomatic Institute. Let us pause for a moment to note that Zewar had left Egypt in 1945, after having co-founded with his colleague Yusuf Murad the quarterly Magallat ‘ilm al-Nafs al fasilliyah (Journal of Psychology), which appeared between June 1945 and February 1953. Its last issue had published an article with the title ‘‘Sawt akhar yaskut’’ (Another voice is silent). It was in this journal that Zewar had published his first articles on psychosomatic medicine and had inaugurated a new current in psychoanalysis. Since the late 1940s, we begin to see more and more publications, which are representative of this field. There was the famous work of Mohamed Fouad Galal, The Principles of Psychoanalysis and Its Practices (1946). In 1947, Mohamed Kamil el Nahas translated Anna Freud’s (1935) work on child psychoanalysis. Articles on Freud were published not only in specialized journals, such as the journal of the Faculty of Education at the Egyptian [i.e., Cairo] University, but also in Al Tatawwur (Development), a journal which was published by the Association of Art and Liberty to which belonged a group of Egyptian surrealists.8 When Zewar returned to Egypt in the early 1950s, Taha Hussein had become the Minister of Education and had issued the decree founding Ibrahim Pasha University (currently, Ain Shams University). Taha Hussein chose his disciple Zewar to found the Department of Psychology in the university’s Faculty of Arts. Consequently, Zewar promulgated the regulations of his department. Divided between his loyalty to psychoanalysis and his role as founder of the psychology department, he imposed psychoanalysis only in the second year and psychopathology in the fourth year. He 8 The Faculty of Education’s journal, Modern Pedagogy, was edited by Amir Boktor. The motto of Al Tatawwur (Development) was: ‘‘We want and we know what we want’’ (Nahnu nurid wa na’araf ma nurid). Psychoanalysis in Egypt between past and future himself taught through his own conception of psychoanalysis, and this lasted until Moustafa Safouan joined to teach psychopathology and took over the teaching of psychoanalysis in the second year. Ahmed Ezzat Rageh, who studied in Paris and was appointed to the Faculty of Pedagogy in Alexandria, translated Freud’s Introduction to Psychoanalysis.9 In the early 1950s, Ishak Ramzi had also returned to Egypt from his studies in London, where he obtained his doctorate and completed his formation as a psychoanalyst. He translated Beyond The Pleasure Principle. It would have been desirable for him to collaborate with Zewar and other psychoanalysts like the psychiatrist Horace Wissa Wassef. At the same time, Fayza Ali Kamel returned from London after completing her analysis. She was the first child psychoanalyst in Egypt, and took up a position in the Ministry of Education. Shafik Fahmi was another Egyptian psychoanalyst, and member of the British Psychoanalytic Association, who was analyzed by Anna Freud. He returned from Paris in 1958 after having been trained by Lagache and having obtained a State Doctorate on projection. Sami Ali also became a psychoanalyst. Thus, Egypt had at least seven psychoanalysts among its citizens: Zewar, Wissa Wassef, Shafik, Ishak, Safouan, Sami Ali, and Fayza Kamel. The movement of translating psychoanalytic works had developed. In 1958, Safouan translated The Interpretation of Dreams: a beautiful and unique translation, which defies the capacity of the Arabic language. Unfortunately, Safouan left Egypt for France on January 1, 1959 after most of his friends had been arrested on New Year’s Eve and imprisoned for being Marxists. Sami Ali, in turn, translated Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, which he preceded with a personal preface that, in itself, represents an innovation. He established the foundations of psychoanalytic terminology. Meanwhile, Zewar, in collaboration with Abdel Moneim el Miligui, translated Freud’s biography. The beginnings of the 1950s were promising, but by the end of them Safouan had left Egypt, along with Shafik Fahmi and Horace Wissa Wassef. A conflict broke out between Ishak Ramzi and Zewar, when one of Zewar’s patients fired a shot at Ramzi. Ramzi then filed a complaint against Zewar at the International Psychoanalytic Association, which acquitted Zewar. In spite of that, Ramzi, who was wounded in the leg, decided to immigrate to the United States. He died there in 1992, exiled from his country of origin. In 1956, Sami Ali also left Egypt after repeated efforts to obtain a work permit. Thus, before the end of the 1960s, Egypt had lost its main psychoanalysts, except for Fayza Kamel and Mustafa Zewar. Safouan wonders how Zewar managed to stay in Egypt when all his colleagues had left.10 Zewar encouraged the most capable amongst us, especially those who attached importance to psychoanalysis, and particularly those students who were writing a dissertation in that direction. They filled, as much as they could, the void caused by 9 10 The translation was published by Al Anglo in 1952 as part of the ‘‘one thousand works’’ project. In Al Mohallim, Safouan (1994) wrote, ‘‘It is in my opinion, a miracle which, I confess, always amazes me.’’ Kader the departure of his colleagues. However, an Arab proverb says, ‘‘The wind does not blow in the direction of the sailboats.’’11 Ahmed Fayek was among the first to graduate from Ain Shams University. He was also forced to leave Egypt in 1971 to settle in Canada, even though he had been appointed as a lecturer and had written his first book, Psychoanalysis Between Science and Philosophy (1967). He had received the State Encouragement Prize while imprisoned as a result of a state security trial. Imprisoned from November 1968 until March 1969, he did not return to the university but was transferred to the Ministry of Social Affairs.12 In 1974, we asked Ahmed Fayek to return to Egypt, which he did. His clinic welcomed many patients, and he was also a consultant at the Behman Psychiatric Hospital in Helwan. However, Egypt was entering into a new period, which Fayek could not accept, so he returned to Canada. In this way, we again lost the possibility of a new beginning for psychoanalysis in Egypt. But, at any rate, a decisive minority remained to teach psychoanalysis and psychopathology, and their clinics were open to psychoanalysis. The study of analytic theory, the publication of books and translations, and the formation of psychoanalysts require a scientific tradition. It is vital to know that there are two or three educational centers of psychoanalysis, namely the Faculty of Arts at Ain Shams University and—since Salah Mekhemar started teaching psychoanalysis there—the Faculty of Arts at Zagazig University. Salah Mekhemar, a former officer in the Egyptian Army, was stricken with blindness as a result of an injury sustained during the Second World War. He enrolled in the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University, and received a scholarship to study in France, where he completed his doctorate under the direction of Daniel Lagache. After returning to Egypt, he was appointed professor in the Faculty of Pedagogy at Ain Shams University. He translated into Arabic some twenty works, including Freud’s Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Anna Freud’s The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, and Fenichel’s Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. He trained a whole movement of psychoanalysts. Under his direction, one of his students, Abdallah Askar, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled, Clinical Depression Between Theory and Diagnosis, and became chair of the department of psychology at Zagazig University. Then he wrote An Introduction to Lacanian Analysis (2000), and trained young researchers in Lacanian theory. All this does not exclude an important number of psychoanalytically trained researchers from different Egyptian universities. They have established an important foundation for the constitution of an Egyptian school of psychoanalysis, but we are faced with a reality that cannot be denied: the absence of an international organization of psychoanalysts. This system does not work in Egypt. I have evoked the distant past of the Pharaonic civilization, followed by the Arab and Islamic one, and leading to the contemporary era. Even before Freud and psychoanalysis entered Egypt, this land was extremely fertile. We saw its condition 11 12 Ta ‘ti al-riyah bima la tashtahi al-sufun. He ended his analysis, which he had started in Egypt with Horace Wissa, in Canada. He became a member of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Association. Psychoanalysis in Egypt between past and future in the early 1950s. This fertile ground has been depleted. It has turned into a wasteland. Doesn’t the past need to be interpreted to avoid making the same mistakes again? A first answer can be found in what Safouan said in a book dedicated to his teacher Zewar: If the students of Zewar had stayed in the motherland, they would have established a school that would been unmatched in creativity with its equivalent in any other country, but the storms that have hit our country have brought all kinds of rupture between us and any valid creation from abroad. This is what we could not bear … Except for Dr Mustafa Zewar, who was the only one to stay stoically in Egypt. (Safouan, 1997) I think this reflection takes us back to Egypt after 1952. It expresses the full weight of a political, economic, and social reality. However, something else remains: the return of some was seen as an exploratory expedition camouflaging the unconscious desire of not wanting to stay in Egypt. This return was the equivalent of a bribe to satisfy the superego, a way to get rid of the feeling of guilt. On the other hand, there are those who have adopted a new Western way of life. We don’t wish to burden them with more than they can handle. Nobody tried to convince them to stay in their country. Furthermore, it does not appear that Zewar tried to persuade them to stay on board with him. Ishak Ramzi left in anger, for he had followers who would have continued his work. Sami Ali left in a similar state. And we think that if he had been appointed to the Department of Psychology at Ain Shams University as opposed to Alexandria [University], where conflicts were numerous, he would have probably stayed in Egypt. We must also point out some aspects of Zewar’s personality, according to other accounts. Zewar embodied the figure of a patriarch: we were always looking forward to meeting him. When he talked to us about a patient, we listened carefully to his opinion, and eagerly absorbed all his remarks. He trained us, and when he gave his lectures, he made us rethink our opinions. He played an important role in our scientific education. What is behind the spontaneity of my words? Zewar represented the detested father and the castrating tyrant. That’s why he rarely had friends who were not close followers, because his pride was seen as a sign of great narcissism. We must underline a certain form of ambivalence between the personalities of the medical analyst and the lay analyst. When the regulation of psychoanalytic practice was proclaimed and imposed on psychologists and analysts, Zewar adopted a passive attitude and did not support the psychologists who wanted to obtain a licensure. Among them, for example, was Osman Nagati, who had received his doctorate in London: he was appointed professor of psychology at Cairo University and translated three works by Freud.13 How he would have liked to approach the great creator of psychoanalysis in Egypt! But how could Zewar reach out to him from the heavens? This is why Nagati, like others, has never forgiven him because they met a 13 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality; The Ego and the Id; and Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety. Kader proud, snobbish Zewar. The case was simpler than we thought: some looked at it through the lens of the non-castrating primal father, others saw a castrator. Is this interpretation of Zewar’s personality sufficient? We must also ask ourselves: what did Zewar do to bring his disciples back to Egypt? He did nothing in this sense, using the repressive regime in power as an excuse. His followers may have realized his own unconscious desire to expatriate himself: it was as if he was the one who was exiled. Here is the image of the one in whom we had placed all our hopes at the beginning of the 1950s. In fact, by the end of the 1960s, only Zewar and Fayza Kamel remained in Egypt. All the others were exiled. In effect, they were living in a situation of anxiety as a result of their membership of a group that was researching the political environment, but did nothing to maintain it. Each counted on the other staying in Egypt; each was a prisoner of his or her own desires. All of them negated their anxiety, which was, in fact, only the alarm signal of a political situation for some or of a professional situation for others. This is evidence that we do not wish to ignore, but it is the façade of another hidden experience. Some changed and others remained with the same worries. The concern to preserve the role of psychoanalysis is, in my opinion, a deceptive attitude in the Hegelian sense. The lie is revealed in the subject’s contradiction. In other words, it is the contradiction between the role of psychoanalysis and the idea that we have regarding the subject. Zewar died in 1990, shortly after Fayza Kamel’s death. The very framework of psychoanalysis has been crumbling in Egypt, but the desire to develop psychoanalysis in certain faculties of arts and pedagogy remained. Efforts are being made to bring together these psychoanalytic enthusiasts. They have a good understanding of psychoanalytic concepts, but there is a major problem. This problem is the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), whose leaders have turned into priests of a sacred temple. This reminds us of Freud’s (1918/1957) essay on the taboo of virginity and the marital right of the lords of the Middle Ages, or the patriarchal system in force in pastoral societies. These metaphors aside, there is much to be said for the regulations that were instituted by the first generation, and in particular with the Bad Homburg conference in 1925. Since then, the tyranny of the association has not ceased; its members have constituted a true clergy, for, as Lacan says, religious rites are passed down. This has led to many ruptures due to the cacophony of bureaucracy and dogmatism. I think that France, since the Lacanian revolution, has suffered more than other nations from these dissensions concerning pedagogical standards. One can say a lot about the IPA. Psychoanalytic relations have become social relations, and priestly institutions are blocking any opening to new domains in psychoanalysis. The cause of dogmatism currently prevails in Egypt. Therefore, it is necessary to reform the IPA, to ask it to reevaluate itself, to set new rules that take into account the specificity of each country. This will not prevent it from keeping some fundamental rules. We, others in Egypt, represent a living example with our attempt to save psychoanalysis and not let it die. This requires the help of the IPA to prepare a new generation to take over. The need is great in our country, and it is not true that Psychoanalysis in Egypt between past and future religion is an obstacle. What is the relationship between religion and the formation of the psychoanalyst? There are many Egyptians who desire to become psychoanalysts. There are numerous Muslim analysts in different international institutions and some of them are Egyptians. On the other hand, what is the obstacle, raised by religion, to being psychoanalyzed? Given that religion is a linguistic structure, what inconvenience is there in Islam for the faithful to go and be psychoanalyzed? The truth is that we need to know our unconscious so that fantasies don’t lead us to make mistakes. We run after our image and we only listen to our voice. And I think this is narcissism. We are both lovers and enemies of ourselves. The discourse of all religions requires the knowledge of an unknown place. The construction of the unconscious is not separate from religious knowledge. As Freud (1927/1961) states, ‘‘religion brings with it obsessional restrictions, exactly as an individual obsessional neurosis does.’’ This did not, however, prevent him from claiming that the attempt to replace thought with religion failed during the French Revolution: ‘‘The same experiment is being repeated in Russia at the present time.’’ Then he adds, ‘‘we need not feel curious as to its outcome’’ (Freud, 1927/1961). And the result is visible to everyone. This led Moustafa Safouan (2001) to say: ‘‘If the will to power in the name of religion results from bad faith, and often from fraud, to oppose it is equally absurd. The Soviet Union paid the price for this.’’ We think that it is psychoanalytical to agree with Safouan when he says, ‘‘monotheistic religions are basic beliefs in our societies. To imagine their disappearance is to ask for the disappearance of these very societies, since for them religion is the place in which rights are preserved.’’ It is natural that the psychoanalysts’ clinics are filled with believers. And in Egypt, because of the high proportion of Muslims, many patients are Muslims who accept psychoanalysis. We even find in the psychic structure of some atheists a powerful underlying faith, in the depths of the unconscious. Zewar indicates that, in Egypt, he came across all kinds of neuroses and psychoses, borderline disorders, sexual perversions, and personality disorders (e.g., narcissistic disorders). Zewar believed that cases of traditional neurosis (hysteria, phobia, and obsession) have gradually begun to decline.14 However, we would say that the two decades during which religion has returned, under the pressure of economic and political circumstances, has resulted in people living simultaneously in the past and in the present. The cases that Zewar thought would diminish have come back with a vengeance. We have to deal with it, without misplaced sensitivities. It is necessary to avoid giving pre-established diagnoses or interpretations alienating the psychoanalyst from their subject. It is the analyst’s task to stop all complicity with his or her own unconscious. We must emphasize the importance of the language of formation, which is the Arabic language. The unconscious is built on language. A language imposes itself on the individual, just as society imposed itself on him or her. I would add with Goethe: he who takes charge of something great must limit their action. I think I have to say that we will not know our mistakes if we do not examine 14 In an unpublished article, ‘‘Psychotherapy Conference in Egypt,’’ Al Markaz al Qawmi lel bouhouss al Igtimaeya (The National Center for Sociological Research), June 24–25, 1980. Kader ourselves. 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Uslub al-Tabib fi fan al-Magathib [The doctor’s know-how concerning the art of psychosis]. Selim, M. S. (1911). Kitab ‘ilm al-nafs (The psychology book). Al Matbaa al amiriya. Safouan, M. (1994). Al Mohallim [The teacher]. Review of Letters and Criticism, 109(Sept). Safouan, M. (1997). Mustafa Zewar: The teacher. In O. Khalil (Ed.), Mustafa Zewar: In memory of the scientist, artist, and human. Institut du monde arabe. Safouan, M. (2001). Al kitaba wal-sulta [Writing and power]. Al Anglo. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Hussein Abdel Kader (1936–2021) was an Egyptian psychoanalyst, educator, actor and theatre director. He was a pioneer of psychodrama, who combined his knowledge and experience in psychoanalysis and theatre. He was the president of the Association of Arab Psychiatrists. Robert K. Beshara is the author of Decolonial Psychoanalysis: Towards Critical Islamophobia Studies (Routledge, 2019), Freud and Said: Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis (Palgrave, 2021), and From Kanye To Ye: The Legacy of Unconditional Love (Punctum, forthcoming). He is also the editor of A Critical Introduction to Psychology (Nova, 2019) and Critical Psychology Praxis: Psychosocial Non-Alignment to Modernity/Coloniality (Routledge, 2021). He is the translator of Mourad Wahba’s (1995) Fundamentalism and Secularization (Bloomsbury, 2022). He is the founder of the Critical Psychology website: www.criticalpsychology.org. He works as an Assistant Professor of Psychology & Humanities and Chair of Arts & Human Sciences at Northern New Mexico College. For more information, visit www.robertbeshara.com.