Al Tali'a
{{Short description|Political magazine in Egypt (1965–1977)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}}
{{Infobox magazine
| image_file =
| image_size =
| image_caption =
| editor = Lutfi Al Kholi
| editor_title = Editor-in-chief
| editor2 = Michel Kamil
| editor_title2 = Managing Editor
| frequency = Monthly
| circulation =
| category = Political magazine
| company =
| publisher = Dar Al Ahram publishing house
| founder = {{ubl|Michel Kamil | Lutfi Al Kholi}}
| founded = 1965
| firstdate = January 1965
| finaldate = July 1977
| based = Cairo
| country = Egypt
| language = Arabic
| issn =
| oclc = }}
Al Tali'a (Arabic:The Vanguard) was a monthly Marxist magazine which was based in Cairo, Egypt. It was in circulation between 1965 and 1977.
History and profile
Al Tali'a was established by Michel Kamil, an Egyptian Coptic, and Lutfi Al Kholi, and the first issue appeared in January 1965.{{cite thesis|author=Dominic Coldwell|title=Egypt's 'Autumn of Fury': The Construction of Opposition to the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Process between 1973 and 1981|degree=MPhil|year=2003|location=St Antony’s College, University of Oxford|archive-date=18 April 2016
|url=https://users.ox.ac.uk/~metheses/Coldwell.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160418114837/https://users.ox.ac.uk/~metheses/Coldwell.pdf}}{{cite web|title=Michel Kamel Papers|publisher=International Institute of Social History|access-date=3 November 2021|archive-date=29 October 2019
|url=https://search.iisg.amsterdam/Record/ARCH02449/ArchiveContentAndStructure|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191029051250/https://search.iisg.amsterdam/Record/ARCH02449/ArchiveContentAndStructure}} The magazine was published by the state-run Al Ahram company on a monthly basis, but its editorial was independent due to Mohammed Heikal's protection of Al Tali'a against government influence. Lutfi Al Kholi was the editor-in-chief, and Michel Kamil served as its managing editor until 1970. In the late 1950s the Egyptian Marxist and writer Latifa Zayyat was its editor for the cultural affairs.{{cite journal|author=Hannah Davis Taieb|title=The Girl Who Found Refuge in the People: the Autobiography of Latifa Zayyat|journal=Journal of Arabic Literature|doi=10.1163/157006498x00055|volume=29|issue=3|year=1998
|page=212}}
In a visit to magazine's offices in Cairo President Gamal Abdel Nasser expressed his views about the editors as follows: "Your role is like St. Peter – you’re here to do propaganda, but not to lead." Nasser's successor President Anwar Sadat dismissed Mohammed Heikal who had been the editor-in-chief of Al Ahram, and therefore, Al Tali'a lost its major defender. Al Tali'a was close to Nasser-era officials, including Sami Sharaf and Sharawi Gomaa, who were arrested in May 1971 after they resigned from office.{{cite journal|author=Pradeep Sen|title=Party system under Sadat. Change or continuity?|journal=India Quarterly|volume=37|issue=3|year=1981|jstor=45071641|page=415}} Following these events the relationship of the magazine with the Sadat government became much more strained, and in 1977 it was redesigned as a youth magazine.{{cite web|title=Al-Tali'a: tariq al-munadilin ila al-fikr al-tawri al-mu'asir [Al-Talia; the Vanguard]|url=https://www.abebooks.com/Al-Talia-tariq-al-munadilin-ila-al-fikr-al-tawri/1039754324/bd|publisher=Abe Books|access-date=3 November 2021}} Al Tali'a was closed down by the government in 1977, and the last issue was published in July that year.
Political stance and content
The magazine had a Marxist political stance and featured articles by the Egyptian Marxists.{{cite book|author=Reem Abou El Fadl
|editor1=Amal Ghazal|editor2=Jens Hanssen|title=The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Middle-Eastern and North African History|year=2016
|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=9780199672530|chapter=Nasserism|pages=224–247|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199672530.013.18}}{{cite thesis|author=Yasser Mohamed Elwy Mohamed Mahmoud|title=A political economy of Egyptian foreign policy: State, ideology, and modernisation since 1970|url=http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2753/|location=London School of Economics and Political Science|degree=PhD|year=2009
|page=129}} Following the defeat in the 1967 war against Israel Al Tali'a began to offer analyses of this incident.{{cite journal|author=Rebecca C. Johnson|issue=3|title=Cross-Revolutionary Reading: Visions of Vietnam in the Transnational Arab Avant-Garde
|year=2021|journal=Comparative Literature|volume=73|page=361|doi=10.1215/00104124-8993990}} The magazine published articles on the 1968 student movements in Egypt and in other countries written by Saad Zahran.{{cite journal|author=Patrizia Manduchi|title=Students and Dissent in Egypt: From the Khedival Period to the Protests of 1968|journal=Oriente Moderno|page=140|year=2015|volume=95|issue=1–2|doi=10.1163/22138617-12340078|jstor=44289938}} It also adopted an anti-Zionist approach and argued that until World War II Zionism had not been an influential ideology for the Jewish people in Europe and that Jews should be reintegrated into the Arab societies.
The topics covered in Al Tali'a were mostly about the Arab socialism and the relationships with the Soviet Union. However, it also included articles about various policies implemented in Egypt, including educational policies.{{cite book|author=Ahmed Abdalla|title=The Student Movement and National Politics in Egypt, 1923-1973|publisher=American University in Cairo Press
|year=2008|isbn=978-977-416-199-5|pages=109,253|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uFPoWgTLq0EC&pg=PA253|location=Cairo; New York}} The magazine was a mild critic of Gamal Abdel Nasser.{{cite book|author=Fawaz A. Gerges|author-link=Fawaz A. Gerges|title=Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash that Shaped the Middle East|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2018|isbn=978-0-691-16788-6
|page=289|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JW2YDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA289|location=Princeton, NJ; London}} Lutfi Al Kholi published many articles emphasizing the barriers against the revolution which had been included in the nationalist charter developed following the 1952 revolution in Egypt. He also made interviews with the leading figures of the period, including the Fatah leader Salah Khalaf which was featured in June 1960s.{{cite journal|author=Yehoshafat Harkabi|title=Liberation or genocide?|journal=Society|volume=7|issue=9–10|year=1970|doi=10.1007/bf02804064|page=63|s2cid=144048700 |author-link=Yehoshafat Harkabi}}
The political and military communiques of the Palestinian Fatah group were published in Al Tali'a in the late 1960s although their publication was banned by the Arab states.{{cite thesis|year=1973|author=Judith Nottingham|title=A study of the ideology of Palestinian Arab nationalism since 1948|page=79|degree=MA|location=Durham University|url=http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10102/}} The magazine also published the Israeli communiques about the operations to avoid legal sanctions. An article of George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was featured in the magazine.{{cite journal|author=Michael C. Hudson|page=81| title=Developments and Setbacks in The Palestinian Resistance Movement 1967-1971|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|volume=1|issue=3| date=Spring 1972|doi=10.2307/2535867|jstor=2535867}}
In addition to the political content Al Tali'a also featured comprehensive analyses about literary tendencies of the writers at that period.{{cite journal|author=Yasmine Ramadan|title=The Emergence of the Sixties Generation in Egypt and the Anxiety over Categorization
|journal=Journal of Arabic Literature|year=2012|volume=43|issue=2–3|doi=10.1163/1570064x-12341242|pages=409–430}} One such analysis was published in 1969 which reported the findings of a survey collected from writers and articles. From 1972 Al Tali'a published a literary supplement of which the editor was Yahya Haqqi who had been fired from the editorship of the cultural magazine Al Majalla in 1970.{{cite journal|author=Sabry Hafez|title=Cultural Journals and Modern Arabic Literature: A Historical Overview|year=2017|journal=Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics|issue=22|jstor=26191813|pages=22–23}}
=Contributors=
Some of the contributors of Al Tali'a included Mohammed Sid Ahmed and Abou Seif Youssef who also headed the magazine.{{cite book|author=Didier Monciaud|editor1=Cynthia Nelson|editor2=Shahnaz Rouse|page=172|title=Situating Globalization. Views from Egypt|year=2000
|chapter-url=http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/23390|publisher=transcript Verlag|location=Biefeld|doi=10.14361/9783839400616
|isbn=9783933127617|chapter=Struggling and Surviving: The Trajectory of Sheikh Moubarak Abdu Fadl. A Historical Figure of the Egyptian Left|series=Globaler lokaler Islam |hdl=20.500.12657/23390 |url=https://openresearchlibrary.org/ext/api/media/b98cc36f-1fe0-43cb-8f24-e85235112a1d/assets/external_content.pdf }} They provided the ideological basis for the left-leaning leadership in the country. In the early 1970s Samir Farid worked for the magazine as a film critic.{{cite journal|author=Hugo Darroman|title=Towards a decentered history of Palestinian revolutionary cinema ? Case study of the film Tall El Zaatar in the audiovisual archives of the Italian Communist Party|url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03533540v1
|journal=Regards. Revue des Arts du spectacle|issue=26|year=2021|page=4}}
References
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Category:1965 establishments in Egypt
Category:1977 disestablishments in Egypt
Category:Defunct Arabic-language magazines
Category:Defunct political magazines published in Egypt
Category:Magazines established in 1965
Category:Magazines disestablished in 1977
Category:Defunct magazines published in Cairo
Category:Defunct Marxist magazines
Category:Monthly magazines published in Egypt