Al-Ahram Celebrates Heikal’s 91 Birthday

Al-Ahram celebrated renowned Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal’s 91st birthday at the institution’s headquarters in downtown Cairo on Tuesday.

Heikel took part in the paper’s daily editorial meeting, which he had not done for 40 years. A big cake was prepared for the occasion.

In attendance was Al-Ahram’s CEO, Ahmed El-Sayed El-Naggar, along with editors-in-chief and journalists.

At the meeting, Heikal asked Al-Ahram to form a working group in order to develop a vision of Egypt’s future, to be applied immediately.

Heikal called first for presenting a short-term vision with viable steps for execution and second a long-term vision through working groups that would present not only analyses, but realistic solutions tailored for different circumstances, according to Al-Ahram’s Arabic new’s website.

Heikal responded to El-Naggar’s confirmation that he preside over the groups by saying that, “there need to be new people who have not been burned by previous experiences, I have previous biases and we need to realise that every person’s biases increase with their experience.” He added that he is “from another time” and that his mission is “not to obstruct the future when it comes.”

Heikal was Al-Ahram’s editor-in-chief and CEO for nearly 17 years under former presidents Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Anwar Sadat. He is renowned for the quality of his analyses and his profound grasp of historic events.

Source : Ahram online