Writing is a very interesting activity. By writing we turn our ideas and feelings into words. Writing makes us feel some different good feelings. We really enjoy writing, this feeling of joy looks like the joy of the lover when meeting his beloved. Writing helps us to release many ideas and feelings which by releasing them we feel joy and relaxing. But why do we write? Just for fun, joy, or amusement?

But actually writing, as a career, is a painful activity. The writer suffers beginning with thinking about the idea of a subject till the publishing of his essay, passing by many phases like studying the subject he is going to write about, writing down some notes and drafts, and finally writing his effective essay. Then come the next suffer of waiting to see the effect of his writings on the feelings and thoughts of the people of his society. Some essays take their writers to higher positions, and some other essays cause serious problems to their writers.

Writing for some people is a mission of life, in their point of view; the writer should write and write and write till the last moment in his life, exactly like the soldier who should fight and fight till the last minute of the battle even if it was the last minute in his life too. It doesn’t matter if he is poor or not, but what really matters is to write, to fight till the end. But there are many writers who write only about trivial subjects. They write with a typical mechanism about common traditional ideas all the time, and as a result; their writings exactly look like the big bubble, big but not effective, full of nothing but air.

For another section of people, writing is a craft. There are writers and journalists who are paid large salaries just for writing. I’d like to inform those people that there are million writers in the countryside who are paid nothing, and in spite of this; they struggle to write and inform people about their ideas and thoughts. Those writers in Egypt are called “The Rustic Authors” as a new way of discrimination and dividing the authors into classes.

Actually writing is a mix of many different things; a hobby, an endowment, a craft, strife, a painful mission of informing, guiding and counsel honestly. In this respect I remember my reportage with an Arab thinker, Dr Yousif Ez El-dien, 15 years ago, in which he told that he consider writing as a human necessity. Man always has a desire to talk and express himself and his thoughts by words or even by words that don’t seem making any sense.

In spite of the great importance of writing, it is still a voluntary activity for some people. Some one may appreciate an essay he read in a newspaper, so he keeps this paper and read this essay every time he gets the chance to. The same paper may seem for some one else just a trash.

Writing is considered to be the basic means of guiding, criticism, and planning; so why don’t we give it more attention? It should be given a special care and independent authority because of the great effect that it has on every thing in life. I suggest constructing an independent ministry only for books and authors. It might be called “The Ministry of Guiding”. It would work on studying the ideas and thoughts, which are discussed by writers in their literary works, and the possibility of carrying them out to develop our community. The writers will have a role to contribute in developing the communities by their creative imagination about a better future for their nations and how they see this future in their writing about it.

In any community there are the legislative power, the judicial power, and the executive power. Also the creative imagination should be a power. By the creative minds of our writers we can see a better future for our countries. We should give them our attention and study their thoughts and ideas and plan to carry them out. The great nations were built mainly upon creative cultured minds, and the others were the result of the traditional poor way of thinking.

By the creative minds of our writers we can see the future 20 or even 50 years forward. They offer a true picture of the society they live in, and by their expectations, that never were wrong, they draw the picture of its future. So, through the suggested ministry, we can correct the faults of our society and live a better future.

In the past, there was an official job which was called “the king’s poet”. The king used the poet to speak about him, his heroic deeds against enemies, and also to praise him. This job appeared in England about 400 years ago. My suggestion is close to this picture, but it will be more organized official work, without any complement, and clear from any self interests of any kind.

We notice that the essays’ effect on the audience are seen in no more than a reply of a minister, or a letter from one of the readers, or a comment in the web site of a journalist. But the real existence of a ministry, which will be specialized for writers, would help to  would affect people and serve them.

Theses dreams can come true only by hard working. The existence of a ministry for writers will help in making this dream true. Every writer will attribute by his creative mental efforts in the process of reconstruction his country.

Some may think that the idea of constructing a ministry for writers is not a good idea. Those people are afraid of being this step a chance for writers that gives them more power and authority. This twin, power and authority, were always connected to the social and political tyranny and the dissatisfaction of peoples’ needs. But if we work on making independence, the social and ideological supervision, and the needed power; all available, we will be able to determine and correct the relationship between writers and power. Also we need to give them our attention and listen to their advices, opinions, and suggestions, then we will have a new ideological, political, and social source of new ideas.

Some people say that writers can never agree on the same point of view, every one has its own point of view that is out from his ideological, political, and social beliefs. They all have completely different ideas. This mixture of all these different ideas may be not accepted by people. But by the organized discussions and democracy, we can get over this problem. The discussions will be taken by discussing all possibilities and then by the democratic voting.

Some people may make satire on the whole ides because the international and universal ignoring of some governments for their writers and their literary works. Those people’s evidence is that there are some syndicates for writers in some countries who struggle to secure salaries for its members. And that was their evidence that there are some governments who really don’t pay any attention for its writers and journalists.

And I think that it will be the first step to achieve a better future for all. Many huge institutions, which became so famous and successful, were just an idea raised from some creative minds, and then it was strictly refused in the beginning. We have “The World Trade Organization” as an example.

Some people may say that we already have the “Ministry of Culture” which can satisfy these needs. But the point is not having a ministry that cares for the cultured and well educated people, the point is to have a ministry that cares for the creative minds that produce creative ideas in their writings, and the ministry I mean needs to have its official effective position in our government as “The Ministry of Planning”.

We have a lot of ministries, but we still don’t have the “Ministry of Writers” in spite of its importance. This ministry will give all the writers the ability to take part of ruling by sharing their ideas and thoughts. Their thoughts, which they express in words, will turn from being mere words into huge powerful motifs that push our counties towards a better future.