Nahdet Misr Publishing is presenting this year the book “On the Café of Dreamers of Tomorrow” by Dr. Hossam Badrawi, as part of the house’s preparations for the 51st Cairo International Book Fair, scheduled to start on January 22nd.
The book reviews Badrawi’s permanent dialogues with young people through the family of “Dreamers of Tomorrow and Those Who Work for It”, which he established during his university career. It contains discussions and records on many important and vital topics that occupied young people for three decades.
We mention from those topics that the book raises: God – religion – atheism – and Muslim philosophers – about politics – about the literature of the revolution – about childhood and the associations interested in it – about the role of women in society – about literature, art and beauty – about freedom – about philosophies of science – about man .
colors and music
The book is issued in color and includes a large number of fine art paintings by the author and a number of our great artists. Al-Badrawy also provided the book with music clips that you can listen to while reading through QRC technology. In addition, the book contains an introduction by Dr. Muhammad Al-Makhzanji, and Dr. “Murad Wahba”, and the great poet a. “Farouk Jweideh”. You can get your copy through Nahdet Misr Publishing pavilions at the Cairo International Book Fair.
Dr. Abdel Moneim Al-Saeed’s article about the book:
Three introductions and an author!
It is not easy to write about a book written by a friend, because quite a bit of what was mentioned is part of what was circulated in the friendship councils and their conversations, which do not end by phone, in a café, or in hospitality. Dr.’s book Hossam Badrawi “At the Café of Dreamers of Tomorrow” (Dar Nahdet Misr January 2020) remained at my desk waiting to wake up from the Corona pandemic, and when the call came to the need to coexist with reality, and it became important to follow the precautionary measures by staying for long periods at home, the major crisis became an opportunity to review a book that On the dialogue between a personality whose conditions have been fulfilled as a doctor, and above it a group of what he calls “the hobby of politics”, along with drawing, music, sports and other arts. This pluralism included his last book, when three were presented to him, referred to as the most illustrious: Dr. Murad Wahba, the philosopher who was taught by generations, our generation was one of them. And whoever knows our professor will not be surprised that his introduction struck the reformist predicament and his confusion from a purely secular angle that puts the intellectual choice on the edge of the sword, who rejects the exaggerated “moderation” when he asks what the opinion is if we only have one project without an alternative, which is the project of the Muslim Brotherhood? And “when we are in the middle, will backwardness prevail?” Dr.. Muhammad al-Makhzanji, physician, novelist, and multi-talented thinker, also presents to the “Dreamers of Tomorrow” café that the profession of an obstetrician creates a special relationship with the infant, and then with his journey from the womb to time, which in turn creates fatherhood, joy, dialogue with “youth” and dealing with Moderate with class differences, and here he differs directly with his predecessor when he sees passing the test of ease and class hardship as a path towards “human normality” and reaching the “valley of moderation and moderation,” until “wasatiyah” became a platform for the conduct and discourse of the author of the book.
The third introduction has become a poet – a. Farouk Jweideh – who, as poets do, sees in our author a “dreamer” approaching “Sufism” sometimes, combining three arts: “word, color, and rhythm”, and what follows are details. The author himself begins his book in the introduction by talking about happiness and the question that makes a person happy, and begins with what achieves his personal happiness in dialogue with his family and with young people.
The book represents a new experience in what it contains of fifty articles, it seems as if they were separate chapters, but it reaches wide areas of thought in which there is a lot of boldness, as it seems completely surrendered to the mysticism of God’s love and his remembrance, and is always rich in citing the verses of the comprehensive book, but he finds nothing wrong with it. In discussing the issue of atheism. He is captivated by circumstances and Egyptian life, but he does not dispense with touching deep philosophical issues that call for global experiences within the framework of dialogues that move from questioning to searching for answers in complex issues. While this seems to the café to be the product of a gathering of “strangers”, he always finds his family around him talking about “marriage” and his daughter “Dalia”, the owner of the happy ideas factory, and the will he might want in all kinds of “families” that are “grandchildren of the Pharaohs.” To “The Dreamers of Tomorrow”, which he used to take to Cairo Cinema to watch a new movie or to discuss a new book. Hossam Badrawi seems to him that the café is more spacious than it was in Ihsan Abdel Quddus, who made it a political club to discuss current issues, and Naguib Mahfouz (Qushtamar) made it a place for political arbitration for Egypt’s leaders. The café of our author is similar to that arena that Plato had, in which he conveyed Socrates’ essential questions about “the Republic” and “laws” in the origins of issues and states and what governs their development and transition from one condition to another. While it appears from the title that the central point of the book is a gathering of these Egyptians dreamers of tomorrow, there is little in the fifty essays that defines the nature of the Egyptian dream or that vague dream about progress that never comes. Most of the dialogues do not revolve around dreams, but rather to dispel nightmares that plagued the imaginations of young people or the interlocutors in general, and how to overcome them after standing up to them, and perhaps the need to wake up from them. The book thus contains a huge amount of brainstorming between an Egyptian political doctor and artist and groups who are looking for guidance and light the way, and sometimes this is a self-search for answers in a region tired of the inability to obtain satisfactory answers. But after all that, the inconvenient question remains: Why hasn’t after all these dialogues generated a reformist current among the youth?
The book contains a new experience that I have not seen before, and perhaps it will be dated as the first Arab book that created a relationship between political, literary and artistic dialogues with arts, literature, music and information at the same time. The book is rich in Hossam Badrawi’s paintings, rich in meaning and message, and which, in the humble opinion, are highly professional. There is no obstacle to discovering this when you find it present with the paintings of “Salah Taher”, “Basant Al-Kurdi”, “Heba Baybars” – the granddaughter – and others. Here, the book does not provide visual panels only, but also provides when the dialogue needs music that can be accessed immediately during reading through the “QR Reader” application, which can transmit to you musical pieces or “video” scenes related to the topic. The experience here is new for a book that is technically integrated between different sources of knowledge and literary sense, after the book is no longer a prisoner of its paper limitations, which in the past could be overcome with color, but adding music and informational support to it is a great thing and a qualitative shift in the world of publishing.
On October 3, 2013, I approached Dr. Hossam Badrawi at a wedding in order to ask him to forget politics, literature and art in our conversations in order to talk about crucial medical issues that concern me. Within days, a group of the best doctors in Egypt gathered to discuss the case and decide what to do next, at a time when I was terrified of doctors, who contradicted the description and treatment, and the patient remained among them in mortal confusion before the time came. The crowd came up with a description, and the roadmap for treatment gave me, God willing, six more years. This gives me three reasons to be thankful, Firstly, for the interest he did at the time, secondly for the fellowship of reform in difficult times, and thirdly for an interesting, modern and delicious book from a beautiful friend.
Introduction of the writer Dr. Hossam Badrawi
Author’s introduction:
I ask everyone around me, what makes you happy?
Name five things that you do to make yourself happy and cheerful.
The strange thing is that most of those I ask find it difficult to mention five things that make them happy!
Happiness is a positive decision, and it has components, if we do not seek it, we may not find it. It is true that some people, including myself, are genetically predisposed to joy, and they see in people the best in themselves, and in the events around them, the best in them. But if a person is not seeking joy, and seeking happiness, days may pass, and he does not see it because he is not looking for it.
And the collective mind of the family and society, may create positive energy and vice versa. This collective mind is driven by the community’s culture, community leaders, media and arts. And emotional preparation for it starts from childhood, at home, school and university, in the club and arena, in houses of prayer. Mosques, churches and temples…
Life is a blessing from the Creator, and joy in it is thanks to God, and we have to yearn for it and savor it, for it is a human right.
Why did you start with this introduction?
Because in discussing with my children, my family and my friends I found great happiness, and a great joy. I try to answer their questions, and become more familiar with their opinions and reactions.
For example, I am happy to read a book or an article with a new meaning, or clarifying knowledge that was hidden from me, or presenting something differently, but the truth comes to my happiness when discussing the book with my family, friends, students and children. And I always like to mobilize their minds with the new data of science, and together we re-measure our concepts about established beliefs with impartiality. We agree and disagree a lot, but with mental and emotional joy.
Sometimes I touch their hearts with the arts I read to them, and the music, singing and poetry we exchange together, made possible by modern technology. And sometimes they touch my mind with bold opinions, broad horizons and depth that enlighten me with an idea to expand my study or an opinion that makes me reconsider my beliefs..
As for the political aspect, my wife has the largest part in the discussions, most of the time to prevent me from expressing my thoughts, or trying to keep me away from political work out of fear for me, and out of pity for me. During the past twenty-five years, I have had the best of assistance, with wise counsel and sound opinion.
In the mid-nineties, in the youthful vigor of my youth as a junior professor in the College of Medicine, I was a participant in college students in establishing one of the largest university families, which we called the family of the descendants of the Pharaohs. The family used to publish a monthly magazine that witnessed an unprecedented distribution in the university, reaching five thousand copies, called “Hello Doctor”. Within two years, the number of family members between Al-Qasr Al-Aini and other universities reached ten thousand students. I rented out a Cairo cinema on the first Thursday of every month and invited students to watch a new movie. The family has a group for music and another for acting, and all kinds of arts. We invited the senior intellectuals to the theater of the Faculty of Medicine to meet the students in lively and lively discussions. The acting team presented a play on the small opera theater in the presence of the Minister of Education, Hussein Kamel Bahaa El-Din, and the President of the University and Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni at the time.. The family’s youth decided to enter the Student Union elections, which was completely occupied by Islamic groups and they managed to win 62 seats out of 72 and this was what was not The security services could achieve it with their pressures at that time. Descendants of the Pharaohs is a stage in my life that I see as luminous, fun, and filled with positive energy, which increased my confidence in the youth and capabilities of the Egyptian people.
And I thought about these young people after graduation, from all colleges, and we decided to establish an association that we included, which we called “The Dreamers and Workers of Tomorrow.”
And we held the first conference of this association in the great conference hall, attended by 1,500 young men and women from all parts of Egypt in 1998. The themes of the conference were talking about democracy as a way of life, about student life, a space for enlightenment, the role of Muslim and Coptic youth in strengthening the national fabric, planning the practical life of youth, self-discovery and communication with the different other, small industries and their role in providing job opportunities..
The association still exists and is active, and it is still in contact with a large number of its youth, the youth of the grandchildren of
the Pharaohs, and other students from universities and schools whom I meet and who ask me and debate with me with inspiring and beautiful love and affection. From the youth in a group of dialogues that I think will add a lot to society.
Topics of dialogue are multiple, and different. Some are cultural, some are social, and some are political..which is what makes the book a special taste and flavour. It is important for the reader, especially in political dialogues, to know the history of the dialogue because it reflects the moment and may be appropriate for a time and not appropriate for a later time. The reader must make a connection between the history and the topic.
In this book, I also tried to integrate digital culture with traditional writing in order to raise the reader’s conscience in a new way, and stimulate the idea of I have writers and publishers to contribute to the digital transfer of the whole society to a new theater.
I also share with the reader some of my paintings that I draw as an amateur, as I learned to use and express colors a few years ago and discovered a talent that was hidden, which deepened in my soul.
I chose some of the paintings that I drew myself, and some of the paintings that were drawn by a rising plastic artist named Basant Al-Kurdi. And some other artists
I chose from Basant Al-Kurdi’s paintings and put them in dialogues entitled about atheists, a dialogue with a patient, a meeting, and the concept of class.
When I spoke about the homeland and the government, I chose a caricature of Professor Khairy Al-Sharif, which expresses the reality and meaning of dialogue.
In another interview on the dreamers’ quarters entitled We have a strong army, a painting was placed by Professor Ahmed Qaoud on the valor of the Egyptian army.
As for my great friend, Professor Salah Taher, I put a painting for him that he gave me about twenty years ago in the introduction to the book, and two paintings from a stage in his life and I found them to fit in with two conversations with myself and with God Almighty.
Actress Soha Elbey
Introduction Dr. Muhammad Al-Makhzanji
Introduction by Dr. Muhammad Al-Makhzanji
Believable Conversations
Written by: Muhammad Al-Makhzanji
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“When you extend your finger to caress the hand of your newborn, he will hold your finger, and he will possess you forever.” Perhaps the author of this saying is Gabriel García Márquez, the most important international novelist of the last quarter of the twentieth century, and until now, in my opinion. It is a saying that not only summarizes the relationship of fatherhood and biological filiation, but extends to apply to our sense of those whom we bore young, children of relatives and friends, but even those who are neither relatives nor friends. We remain engrossed in what looks like a sense of paternity towards those whom we bore when young, and we feel a kind of sympathy for them as they grow up. Rather, we remain emotionally weak in front of the miracle of these beings that we experienced as small and we saw them grow with time, becoming boys and girls, men and women, and we always keep looking at them. Against the backdrop of their distant maiden image, we look upon them in the spirit of fatherhood. That parenthood that means love, sympathy, understanding, and even surprise or amazement in the range of friendliness, and diligence in their understanding.
And if that is the case, then what about who is the first person to carry these human beings who grow up, boys and girls, young men and women, as soon as they emerge from their mothers’ wombs, tender, tender pieces of meat, which this person gently pushes to catch her first breath of the air of this world, and hear her first screams, which are not like any other Screams, for they are cries of joy at the arrival of new people joining our human gathering on this planet, and they are cries as much as they spread rejoicing, as much as they announce the success and ingenuity of those who brought them safely into our world. They are moments of joy and pride that undoubtedly delight the hearts of obstetricians. And it makes them – subconsciously – look at these beings as they grow up, that she gave them this precious feeling of joy and pride, and subconsciously these doctors keep feeling that they owe them to these beings for giving them those charming moments of their professional and human life, a religion that makes the worst of them in a position of understanding, sympathy and love, almost The patriarchal, rather, above the patriarchal, towards those who have grown up years after their exodus into the world at their own hands.
In this context, Dr. Hossam Badrawi, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Al-Qasr Al-Aini, advances to be in the first ranks of those most straightforward who have emerged on their white hands into the light of this world, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, who have become young men and women, which together testify to the instinct of man and his path In medicine, politics, and societal mobility, so when he undertakes the duty of dialogue with the young generation in our country, I believe him, and everyone who knows him, and everyone who reviews his biography and career, believes him, and then we must listen to this dialogue, his contexts, his goals, and most importantly: that spirit that runs It has dialogue with young people, which I see that the most important characteristic of it is the spirit of fatherhood of a very special kind, paternity that is friendly, honest, companion, and gentle, does not tend to dominate, and does not tend to possess, and therefore it is a fatherhood capable of discussing everything with young people, and without dictation. There is no arrogance, which is what the contents of this book attest, which is actually a book of dialogues, between the paternity of a friend, and the paternity of a friend, a situation that is rarely found, but the fates and the journey of life are abundant for Dr. …
Many – most likely – do not imagine that hardship is like ease as a test for man in his upbringing, while both are an extreme test. Blessed are those who cross it together, for hardship is cruelty that tempts to adopt cruelty against those who suffer from it, and ease is prosperity that tempts those who enjoy it with lightness in life and to belittle others, and they are more harmful and cruel. The harshness of the harsh cruelty of the sons of hardship who did not pass the misery of his examination. It is known that Dr. Hossam Badrawi is the son of a wealthy upbringing, but his dealings with the world and people, since his youth, and monitoring his interactions in life activities in its various aspects, as a promising football player in Al-Ahly Club, a medical student, a young doctor, a professor of medicine, a politician, and a social activist, all testify that he He was not characterized by lightness in dealing with life, nor by the people around him, which are two shortcomings that disfigure many of the children of the abundance of upbringing. This is why many people have been confused for a long time: How can one of the members of the “Badrawi” family be so friendly and kind, that they endear people to him wherever they meet him?
Here I find that I smile my smile with pity for the perplexed, the first of which is a rejection of the injustice of generalization, because the children’s path on the path of parents, behaviorally, is not a genetic inevitability, so how many children of wicked people are good, and how many children of good people are evil. As for the second smile of compassion, behind it is a fact that not many people know. Hossam Badrawi is not a descendant of the feudal “Badrawi Ashour” family whose biography is stained with cruelty that is almost criminal in what is being told about it – if these stories are true, and even if true, it does not represent a genetic determinism transmitted from the ancestor to the back. Moreover, Hossam Badrawi, the son of the Badrawi family, is different. It is the “Badrawi Ahmed” family, which can be classified within the category of the “rich intelligentsia” or the educated Egyptian aristocracy, whose children are interested in good education, good taste and good morals. It is a segment that in the history of the human renaissance was a protector and a motivator for many of humanity’s great creators in literature, arts and thought, not only from its sons and dynasties, but from the sons of others, the gentle people who show brilliance worthy of care and a talent that calls for support, and the history of the flashes of the Egyptian renaissance, and decades of enlightenment, provide evidence There are many on this, the closest to the mind, such as the musician Muhammad Abdel Wahhab and the planet of the East Umm Kulthum.
And in connection with the effect of upbringing, I (as Mansouri) cannot miss the fact that Dr. Hossam Badrawi is one of the sons of the city that was the witch of beauty, Mansoura, which was Dr. Muhammad Hussein Heikal, one of the sons of the educated Egyptian aristocracy – and also belongs to Mansoura as well – was describing this city – What happened to the miserable times in Hawa
Introduction Dr. Murad Wahba
This book is out of the ordinary. Its chapters are brief, and most of them begin with a painting that may be his or others’ brushes, and this or that expresses the meaning of the chapter. But all chapters begin with a piece of music that may have been written by him or by other famous classical musicians. And his owner was almost one of those responsible for managing the country. Above this and that, he is one of the prominent figures in medicine at Cairo University and in other universities. He is Professor Dr. Hossam Badrawi. He does not owe anyone to make his life what he wants he achieves. He taught himself music, became a musician, taught himself to draw, and became a painter, and he wanted happiness, so he came to him. Nevertheless, he is a lover of dialogue with the other, and the café is a place for dialogue, but its place is in “Dream Street” and its pioneers are young people, but it is stipulated that they are dreamers of tomorrow, and if you want another expression, say that they are young people with future visions that are the subject of dialogue, and the ideas that revolve around them Dialogue may be the subject of agreement or separation. Hence, a plaque can be placed at the entrance to the café with the inscription “I like a thought” as an alternative to “I like tea”. In this context, I want this café to be one of the components of the current situation in order to contribute to pushing young dreamers of tomorrow to go out and be creative.
I, in turn, want from this presentation to contribute to raising three questions that may be latent in the dialogue and may be on the sidelines of the dialogue. In both cases, I want it to be an introduction to an upcoming dialogue in a second part of this book. What calls me to this what I want is that Prof. Dr. Hossam Badrawi’s conversations involve fruitful excitement without stopping. For example, this question:
Reason is present in these dialogues, but it is not in the present situation. There is no evidence for this from his questioning about the fate of the Arab peoples when the division of Yemen, Sudan and Iraq took place, and Syria and Libya were destroyed, and Egypt almost entered this political game. Here, the author warns us not to search for others besides us who are the cause of this division and destruction. Then he goes on to say: Here is Ibn Rushd talking about bad conditions that deserve to be weeped over before any colonization or conspiracy. After that, it remains for us to be the cause. Would our identity, which has not developed since the time of the Pharaohs, have contributed to this that afflicted the Arab countries? Just a question directed to the dreamers cafe tomorrow.
In the same context, Prof. Dr. Hossam Badrawi believes that the election fund may bring a dictator or a democrat, and the choice here depends on the existence of an alternative project and project. But what is the opinion if we only have one project without an alternative, and that is the Muslim Brotherhood project?
In the same context, the owner of the cafe says: We are always in the half. Neither a religious state in its full sense nor a civil state in its full sense. However, we are doomed to a strict Salafist cultural invasion that owned money and controlled the economy. The question, then, is: When we are in the middle, will backwardness prevail?
After that, there remains a conclusion that needs to be noted, which is that the author of the book “At a Café.. Dreamers of Tomorrow,” Professor Hossam Badrawi, tells us that “man is a message,” and therefore it can be said that a person without a message is meaningless.