Hala Halim finds seminar audiences at the 38th CIBF ready and willing to disagree with the panelists Fredric Jameson famously described globalisation as a version of "the proverbial elephant, described by its blind observers in so many diverse ways". Such definitional diversity may have commended globalisation as the central theme of the main seminar series at the 38th Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF), organised by the General Egyptian Book Organisation (GEBO), the state-owned publishing house. The 2-4pm seminar sessions have traditionally set the tone for the main series of seminars, as distinct from other series occurring on the fringe, as it were, in venues such as the "Cultural Café" tent. As in past years the theme occupying the central slot of the main seminar series appears to have been chosen because it is sufficiently capacious to form the subject of a debate that extends over several days while eschewing or containing topics that have more immediacy and hence might occasion greater controversy. This year, for example, one might have expected themes such as secularism or democracy to form the focus of the seminars: such issues were repeatedly broached in discussions, and were indirectly summoned in the subtitles given to specific seminar sessions, hence "The Impact of Globalisation on Cultural Pluralism" and, still under the globalisation rubric, "Dialogue between Civilisations or Religions." The invited speakers -- academics, media figures, intellectuals -- though not without credentials to tackle the topic, appeared nevertheless to have been selected so as to exclude discourses one might reasonably have hoped to be represented in panel discussions of "globalisation". Whereas some speakers registered their opposition to globalisation, this should not have precluded from the panels, say, the Anti-Globalisation Egyptian Group (AGEG) or, in related vein, members of non-governmental organisations represented in that capacity (as distinct from panelists who happen to be members of NGOs). The latter omission is significant given the multiple and sometimes incommensurate ways in which NGOs relate to phenomena associated with globalisation -- as enabled by new communications technology and media; as furthering (neo)colonial agendas through questionable funding sources (an interpretation of NGOs presented, in the Egyptian context, in Sana' Al-Masri's book Tamwil wa Tatbi': Qissat Al-Jam'iyyat Al-Ghayr Hukumiyyah [Funding and Normalisation: The Story of Non- Governmental Organisations]); or as resisting globalisation by defending the human rights of variously defined groups seen as compromised by its phenomena. The overriding concerns that emerged from the two sessions attended -- "The Impact of Globalisation on Cultural Pluralism" (21 January) and "Peoples' Identities in a Unipolar World" (22 January) -- were whether globalisation is synonymous with American hegemony and modes of relating to otherness, whether within or without the nation-state, in the current world order. Moderated by Mustfa El-Fiqi, head of the parliament's Foreign Relations Committee, the first panel included the following speakers: professor emeritus of English literature, Ain Shams University, Abdel-Wahab El-Messiri; entrepreneur and cultural commentator Tarek Heggi; Gonzalo Fernandez Parrila, director of the Toledo School of Translators; Denis Pryen, founding director of l'Harmattan French publishing house; and Assad Abdullah, a professor from the Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University. On the second panel, moderated by Nabil Abdel-Fattah of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, were art critic and head of the National Institute for Civilisational Coordination Samir Gharib; Editor-in- Chief of Al-Ahali newspaper Nabil Zaki; and Ahmed Zayid, professor of sociology and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. Of the two panels the first offered a greater diversity of opinion on the issue of globalisation and American hegemony. Citing the inadequacy of definitions of terms borrowed from the West, El-Messiri asserted that whereas the definition of "globalisation" is usually given as the revolution in communications technology and the openness of economic exchange, in practice multinationals are based in the West, often in the US, and "globalisation is a form of Western hegemony" that presses secular ruling elites into its service at the expense of the economic interests of the rest of the world. Heggi, on the other hand, expressing regret that terms like "globalisation" and "secularism" have acquired a bad reputation, said he preferred to talk about the "post-Cold War world" where the US has come to the fore as the chief world power. Adducing the Arab world's unacknowledged internal heterogeneity and the "Arab mind's" lack of interest in the other, he contrasted this with the plethora of research centres in Washington, DC, focusing on the Middle East and called for a reciprocity of intellectual curiosity. During the question and answer session a young man responded to Heggi's intervention by questioning his call for Arabs to acquaint themselves with the US, a country they have long since come to know through its military incursions. A man in Islamic garb, drawing on the term secularism that had been repeatedly used, said that the foundations of governance are that the religious majority should be privileged. A bearded man, referring to El-Fiqi's opening remarks about how all three monotheistic religions had a universal message and called for contact with the other, asserted that whereas both Judaism and Christianity address a given people, only Islam is a universal religion that addresses all peoples and races. El-Fiqi, in turn, rejected this take on Christianity and Judaism, and went on to cite anecdotes demonstrating Coptic Pope Shenouda III's intimate acquaintance with the Quran. For his part, expressing his surprise about the emphasis on religion in this discussion of globalisation, Pryen commented that in the West people assume that the Arab world is steeped in religion, an assumption "which is really bad for you". He went on to say that he wished intellectuals would keep a distance from religious discourse: "as Christians we do not always take permission from the Pope to have a human thought." Panelists on the second day of the globalisation debate contested the perception, as encapsulated in the title of their session, that we live in a unipolar world. Zaki suggested that anxieties about American hegemony are receding given the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and US inability to solve the Palestinian problem, and in view of the fact that several Latin American countries have succeeded in eluding the grip of the US. While he would not dismiss the cultural threats that attend the dominance of market economies, the thrust of Zaki's argument was that selectively retaining the brighter aspects of one's heritage should by no means be seen as incompatible with interaction with other cultures. For Gharib the notion of a "unipolar" world, premised on the earlier "bipolar" world is suspect, given that there was a third force, that of "nonalignment". By the same token, he suggested, the current world order may not be "unipolar". Citing examples from Chile's recent elections, from Cuba and from the failures of the US and Israel in Palestine, Gharib suggested that the military threat is perhaps less than is generally assumed while the cultural threat is more acute, especially in the most vulnerable parts of the Third World. Whereas he went on to recommend that new media be appropriated in favour of diversity he also critiqued Egyptians for "non-democratic characteristics". Zayed also rejected the notion of a "unipolar" world led by a given country, suggesting instead that we should speak of the triumph of a capitalist economy, led mostly by the West though it does include countries like Japan. Discussing the uneven distribution of modernity in different parts of the world, Zayed turned his attention to Egypt where, he suggested, lifestyles, systems and world views from different epochs of the country's history are coextensive, the contradictions never annulling each other but weakening identity and productivity. A member of the audience, a woman lecturer in sociology from Alexandria University, critiqued the panelists, specifically Gharib, for the elitism with which they spoke of Egyptians: "the failures of political projects -- as happened in 1967 -- are always blamed on 'the Egyptian personality' whereas Egyptians as such are thoroughly adaptable and versatile." The charge of elitism underpinned the interventions of other members of the audience during the two panels. One young man said "you talk about the globalisation of rulers, but there is also the globalisation of the ruled, as in the many people the world over who took to the streets to rally against the war in Iraq perhaps without even knowing where Iraq is on the map". A woman who said she does grassroots work with children phrased her criticism in an apt metaphor, recommending that the speakers address "the base of the pyramid" rather than its apex.
