Al-Khuli, Fikri: The Journey

På egyptiska "al-Rihla". En självbioagrafisk skildring av arbetaren och kommunisten Fikri al-Khuli. Han skildrar livet på det enorma textilindustrikomplexet Misr Spinning and Weaving Company i Mahalla. Flaggskeppet i Egyptens industrialiserings och självständighets strävanden.

Boken sägs vara unik i Egypten vad det gäller skildringar av arbetare och fabrikslivet. Enligt Joel Beinin andra självbiografier är skrivna av självgoda fackpampar och kommunister som målar upp en konstlad bild mest för att framhäva sig själva och sina organisationer.

Many workers in these mills were from peasant backgrounds. Fikri al-Khuli, one such peasant boy, went to work at Misr Spinning and Weaving in 1928 when he was eleven and remained until 1942. His autobiographical novel, al-Rihla (The Journey), the only first-hand account of life from the perspective of the mill floor by an Egyptian textile worker, vividly relates the harsh labor control measures and supervisors’ frequent abusive treatment of workers. Al-Khuli and his workmates understood their work experience in radically different terms than the Misr management and its political allies.

Fikri al-Khuli, al-Rihla, 3 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Ghad, 1987-92). For an extended analysis of this text see chapter 4 of Joel Beinin, Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).