The Jordanian ambassador to Cairo Hany Al-Mulqi spoke to me once about how as the Jordanian foreign minister, he once boarded a flight with then King Hussein who used to enjoy flying the plane himself.
During their trip from Jordan to Morocco the plane flew over the entire Arab region with its lush green areas, mineral-rich deserts and oil-gorged stretches of land.
“The King said: ‘All the Arab land we are looking at now is just as wealthy as the US. All the signs of prosperity and natural resources over there are also found here. What then is the difference between us and them’? Al-Mulqi recalled.
“Your Highness, I believe that the difference between us is in management. Over there, resources are managed with utmost efficiency, while here we suffer from mismanagement and complete lack of efficiency, replied Al-Mulqi.
Al-Mulqi was right when he spoke about management. Management sciences have developed exponentially over the past century, especially in the US where there are now specializations and sub-sciences we had never heard of before.
Among many other new disciplines developed over the past 25 years, Yale University now offers a degree in the Management of Cultural Heritage, for instance, which is certainly different from running a factory, a hospital or a TV station.
Perhaps one of the most important specializations is the one concerned with managing states, which, as indicated by the consecutive crises we’ve encountered in Egypt lately, many of our ministers desperately need.
If our education minister came up with the ingenious idea of examining school teachers to assess their qualifications before we put the fate of our children in their hands, then why is it that we don’t have similar exams for government officials before the fate of our whole country is placed in their hands?
Because of their mismanagement we wake up every other day to news of burning trains, sunken ferries, burnt down historical sites and huge boulders crushing people’s homes and killing them.
Any device usually comes with an instructions manual, explaining how to work the machine. Just try to imagine that this was the most important machine of all, the one running the state itself. Shouldn’t we carefully study how to work this machine before it breaks down and causes endless catastrophes?
The principles of running state institutions are no secret. They are known to all, but we must make sure that our officials know them and know how to implement them instead of experimenting on people with a series of trials and errors the way doctors in Kasr Al Aini hospital use their patients.
We would find, for instance, that safety measures on trains are only implemented after disaster strikes and insurance against fire in government buildings is only thought of after the fire.
By contrast, the smallest buildings abroad are set up with elaborate fire alarm and extinguishing systems that prevent fires from breaking out in the first place. While staying at hotels abroad, we often experience their monthly fire drills.
I hereby call on the United Nations to publish a small manual on how to run state institutions. This manual is to be given to all countries about to join the UN – in fact these states should not be allowed to join unless they pass a special examination proving that they are not only aware of these basic principles, but have also memorized them the way Egyptian students memorize their lessons by heart.
As for countries that are already members of the UN but have no clue how to run their states, they should be given the treatment meted out to Egyptian schoolteachers.
What a great idea it would be if UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon followed in the footsteps of our very own Education Minister Yousry El-Gamal, subjecting all member states to a small test to check their familiarity with the principles of running their respective countries.
He should give each of them a grace period in which they can study the aforementioned manual to put an end to the shameful loss of human life brought about by negligence and gross mismanagement.
Mohamed Salmawyis President of the Arab Writers’ Union and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo.
