It is indeed an honor to see how Egyptian efforts have come together to support the name of Egypt in assuming the helm of the largest cultural arena in the world, the Unesco.
It’s an effort that makes one trust the sense of patriotism of our institutions, especially our esteemed media where the national press has teamed with the opposition in a bid to rise above all other considerations to serve the cause of Egypt.
No sooner had the President announced his nomination of Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni for the position of Secretary-General of the Unesco, than all our state institutions combined their efforts to support this nomination in every possible way.
Some of them found out that best way to do so would be to come up with a bribery scandal against one of the Minister’s close aides, Ayman Abdel Moneim, head of the Cultural Development Fund.
It seems the scandal has wet the appetite of our glorious media to such an extent that it decided to not simply limit the coverage of the Minister’s nomination to its front pages or even its cultural pages, but it relegated it to the crime pages as well where it still continues to publish new details every day about the bribery case.
Strange enough, another non-Arab Third World country had announced its intention to nominate one of its subjects currently employed at the Unesco for the organization’s top position, but the nomination of the Egyptian candidate took precedence over it because of allegations of financial impropriety against that candidate. But it seems that our overly alert institutions quickly stepped into the picture with the bribery case to say, in effect, that the pot shouldn’t be calling the kettle black.
It’s still likely of course that investigations will prove that the whole bribery scandal was a frame-up, just like so many other similar cases, the latest being that of Abdel Rahman Hafez. The former head of Media Production City was recently pronounced innocent of all charges against him, along with all the other defendants in the case. In its verdict, the court criticized the weakness of the evidence, and described the charges as ‘deductive.’
But clearly the court ruling is inconsequential in our case. What matters here is the timing of the accusation coming immediately after the accusation was made. If the innocence of Ayman Abdel Moneim is revealed, he will be released immediately just like former minister Tawfik Abdo Ismail before him, even though he spent eight years in jail awaiting his innocent verdict.
If the court can revoke false accusations years later, then what the press is doing is nothing short of character assassination, which will continue to have an effect even after the innocence of the defendant has been proven.
Therein lies the alertness of our pioneering media which jumped at the opportunity not only to play its role in hurling accusations against the accused, but also against that real target, that is, the Minister himself – the one Egypt has officially nominated for one of the most prestigious international positions.
In this respect, both the national and the non-national media were right to condemn the Minister for trusting his aides. He should have been suspicious of them all, for rule is ‘officials are traitors until proven loyal.’
Indeed the Minister should have known that the head of the Cultural Development Fund will be accused of bribery, because he must know everything, even the the future.
In fact, the Minister should have known that his aide was bribed; didn’t the press – with no help at all – know it immediately and ventured to label him as such even before a court ruling to that effect? With that, it seems the press has closed the case and saved the court the trouble of investigating it to reach the right verdict.
I am, of course, aware of the existence of naïve conspiracy theorists who believe it’s all a set-up to discredit the Egyptian candidate internationally and that perhaps Israel is behind it all.
I disagree completely with those conspiracy theorists simply because I don’t believe exaggerated claims that Israel has reached such a level of genius that it can manipulate Egyptian state institutions as well as the national and non-national media in one coordinated attack.
Indeed this perfect harmony we see today between official and unofficial bodies is an expression of Egyptian, not Israeli, genius; for it not only targets the Egyptian nominee but almost guarantees that the Egyptian flag, will, for the first time in history, fly high atop the most important international cultural organization in the world – a position which Egypt, one of the 20 founders of Unesco, rightfully deserves.
Mohamed Salmawy is President of the Writer’s Union of Egypt and editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo. This article is syndicated in the Arabic press.
