This is not an obituary. I am not writing about Hazem Azmy because he died.
Hazem Azmy (1967–2018) was Assistant Professor of Drama and Theatre Criticism at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt and co-founder of the Arabic Theatre Working Group in the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). He passed away unexpectedly during the 2018 IFTR Conference in Belgrade, Serbia.
This is a reading into what someone can achieve as a theatre critic and a scholar when they have faith in change. Hazem Azmy was that someone.
Hazem was not traditional. He was not docile. He was extremely liberal, believed in freedom until the end, and fiercely fought for what he thought was right. He never took sides for any personal benefit, and always talked in honesty and in support of the future. Again, this is not an obituary.
His work for the International Federation of Theatre Research as co-convener of the Arabic Theatre Working Group was outstanding. He was among the very few who could bring the realities of Egyptian theatre to the outside world, bridging the gap between international studies and Egyptian theatre, and bringing local works before the eyes of foreign scholars and academia. This task was not at all easy. He invested in it his skills as a translator, as a critic, as a mediator, as a scholar and, above all, as a nomad.
He ‘visited’ all places without dwelling in any. He always carried his journey within him, as if he was internally travelling across all the places he visited, extending his ‘tour’ after the University of Warwick (UK), where he obtained his PhD. For Hazem, Warwick was not, after all, an ‘other’ land, it was just a land, and he could belong there and anywhere. After several years in Warwick, Hazem returned to Cairo and joined the theatre department of Ain Shams University. When he returned, the passion of the nomad was strong in him.
In all the Egyptian committees that he joined Hazem tried very hard to introduce dialogue and rational thinking against a tradition of loud voices, obsolete thinking and cultural conflict. He fought to support intellectual openness, transparency and good governance in the arts sector. He brought faith in change and kept retrieving the hope and sense of possibility that were once born in Tahrir Square on 25 January 2011. He criticized all forms of ignorance and corruption in the cultural field, and took upon himself the mission of enlightening those who were still open to knowledge. He was a messenger for hope and creativity against a backdrop of authoritarian thinking and rule. Hazem's role was necessary for the healthy functioning of our theatre field. He was our shield and messenger.
The nomad saw everything with a special eye: the eye of the traveller. He saw theatre and cultural policy through the critical perspective of an entrepreneur who understands how the whole machine works, and how he can contribute to reinventing it without necessarily becoming part of it. In everything he wrote or taught, he supported the new generation, and understood that the authoritarian machine would be reluctant to make room for those artists and thinkers who deserve to occupy the stage.
His support for the progressive and the provocative was expressed in written as well as in spoken form, during long conversations he had with young artists and students. Hazem was convinced he should serve change in every way possible: he was convinced that the face-to-face encounter is necessary to establish a shared understanding and to emphasize the role of human bonding in exchange and solidarity. I cannot help thinking that in this exercise of fostering friendship and human bonding through personal conversations and encounters, we also find a trace of the Egyptian critic Nehad Selaiha (1945–2017), another being who believed in mobilizing all one's life for the passion of theatre.
In this sense, Hazem was also his own kind of pedagogue: one who is not only a ‘teacher’ but a mentor, one who defies the hierarchy of knowledge and introduces his students to critical thinking and to democratic learning. Together with his colleagues, he created a forum where he could invite scholars and artists to talk to students and prepare them as future professionals/colleagues. For Hazem, the students were not just ‘students’ but were a potential source of power to change our present. This form of activism within academia and criticism is rare.
Hazem was a specialist in interdisciplinary approaches. He brought the perspective of cultural studies to theatre analysis and criticism, and he opened up space in which to understand our performative realities within the intersections of arts–politics–history. In his writings he was also nomadic, jumping from one discipline and perspective to another, weaving approaches, and painting a full picture of our daily struggles. Those struggles, of course, also contained an identity crisis for the nomad who belongs everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Nonetheless this identity crisis could be calmed every time he succeeded in implementing change, and he succeeded several times. The thing that kept him going, even through the darkest times, was his faith that the theatre field in Egypt would flourish anew and young artists would assume their well-earned leadership positions. At least two years of our friendship and late-night conversations were dedicated to this dilemma: when and how can the new generation – already ageing quickly – replace the old guard of theatre? When and how can the political dynamics of power and authority be reversed to the benefit of change and justice?
The sudden ‘disappearance’ of Hazem Azmy on 10 July 2018 in Belgrade, where he was participating in the conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research, remains a riddle to me. How can such a dreamer and lover of life disappear, proving everything that he wanted to negate? We have no choice but to pursue his dream. Now that he's gone we no longer have the luxury of pessimism, though it is well to remember that time is not on our side.
