“The believing president, Muhammad Anwar Sadat. I have dangerous secrets that concern the security of the State and your personal safety, which can only be revealed in your presence ”, is a telegraphic message sent by a poor peasant, whose son was martyred in the October War, to the Presidency of the Republic, and the world becomes a “high and low”! In short, this is the central event in Saeed al-Kafrawi’s story “The story of the eloquent peasant Mutawa Abd al-Sabur Abu al-Azayem with the faithful President Muhammad Anwar Sadat himself.” The story was published in the late 1970s in the Lebanese magazine Al-Hawadith, and at the time he was residing in Saudi Arabia, where he worked as an accountant for many years. The story was transformed into a film produced by the “Iraqi Film Foundation” in 1979 titled “Mutawa and Bahia”, starring Karam Mutawa, Suhair Al Morshedy, Abdul Rahman Abu Zahra, Saad Adrash and Sana Shafaa. It is considered the only film based on one of Al-Kafrawi’s stories. Mutawa, who lost a sister in the October War, reads and watches Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem and the peace negotiations. Send your short message and the world turns against you. They take him to the police station for questioning to try to uncover the secrets he knows and wants to report personally to the president. But he responds: “Dear Officer, these are personal matters between the President and me, and it is not possible, as I said to your sovereignty in the answer, I tell them to another person. The subject is dangerous, scholar, and I can only reveal it to the president. The officer is not convinced, so Mutawa is imprisoned, where he is tortured. After his release, he goes back to the Post Office, to send the same letter to the president, adding to it the torture that happened to him at the police station. They take him back to the police station, and his wife and daughters are arrested and tortured in an attempt to pressure him to confess the serious secret that threatens the security of the state and the president, but he is unable to extract a confession and the official spits on him. After his release, Mutawa sent a third telegram to the Presidency of the Republic: “He reminded the president that the son of Adam is generous and that it is not correct to spit in his face, and that he will not say what he knows except him personally , even if the resurrection occurs ”. Thus, Mutawa goes to meet the most responsible governor, who tempts him to give him money, land or a job, but Mutawa remains silent, “The matter is personal between the boss and me.” Mutawa leaves the meeting with the governor at the post office to send his last five pounds a “telegram” to the president. Sensing that he has a big secret that threatens the president’s personal safety, a date is set for a meeting. And before he moves in, the townspeople meet him, each with a problem that he wants to present to the president. In front of the president, the eloquent peasant spoke: “Hey, I come to you from the field. I tell you three words: make peace with the Jews, President.” Mutawa felt that he had thrown his heavy load into the storm and rested. Mutawa disappeared.
After that, the people of his village found out what happened, and they all wanted to meet with the president to tell him something similar to what Mutawa, who became a popular legend like Saad Al-Yatim, and Adham Al-Sharqawi, even one of them (as Al-Kafrawi relates) said: “Mutawa won in the face of the chief and said: You Who authorized you to reconcile the Jews”, and that the president was afraid of him. The film, directed by Iraqi Sahib Haddad, wrote the script for him by Zuhair Al-Dujaili, and with the participation of Karam Mutawa, and was produced during the migration of Egyptian creatives into various Arab and international exiles over the years. seventies and early eighties. After publishing his story, Al-Kafrawi did not visit Egypt until after Sadat’s departure in 1981 for fear of arrest.
