It is strange that Italy last week applied for the director-generalship of UNESCO, directly challenging Egypt that announced last year it was fielding Ambassador Moushira Khattab for the post. The candidate Italy has chosen is former Italian culture minister Francesco Rutelli who had also served as mayor of Rome. He is a well-known political figure whom I had met at the time he was minister of culture, tourism and antiquities — in Italy these all come under a single ministry. All last year he had been campaigning to win the Italian government's nomination to succeed Irina Bokova whose term as UNESCO director-general comes to an end later this year. He was competing with two female prospects — Minister of Education Stefania Giannini and former minister of culture Giovanna Melandri — as well as with Mayor of Turin Piero Fassino. Rutelli won. I was in Paris in October last year when Rutelli called in on the UNESCO headquarters and met with Bokova. I learned that he submitted to her two project proposals, one was for the establishment of a special force for the protection of intangible cultural heritage; the other was for the reconstruction of archaeological sites destroyed by terrorists. His name then faded from the scene as did rumours of any Italian desire to nominate someone to succeed Bokova because Rome, at the time, had begun to lobby for the leadership of two other UN organisations, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). However, in recent weeks it came to light that Italy failed in its bid for both posts which, apparently, rekindled its desire to bid for the top UNESCO job. In fact, Italy has a number of advantages in this regard. Firstly, it currently chairs the UNESCO Executive Board the term of which ends at the same time as Bokova's later this year. The executive board is the body that elects the new UNESCO director-general. In addition, Italy is one of the major funders of UNESCO. Let us recall that Japan, the second largest donor country (furnishing around 10 per cent of UNESCO's budget), had once used its financial clout to tip the scales in favour of Koïchiro Matsuura who turned out to be one of the weakest UNESCO chiefs. It is also important to bear in mind that the US, which had supplied 22 per cent of the budget, suspended its funding in 2011 because it, together with Israel, opposed the inclusion of Palestine in the activities of the organisation. Italian funding acquires greater weight in this context. Rome contributes only around 1.3 million Euro a year but its value increases in view of Italy's long and close cooperation with UNESCO, a concrete manifestation of which is the historic building in Venice that Rome has offered to UNESCO to use as an additional headquarters. Accordingly, Italy and its candidate pose serious competition. At the same time one can not help but to wonder whether the West is determined to prevent an Arab country from holding the top UNESCO post. Certainly, every time an Arab figure was nominated for that prestigious job, Western countries scrambled to block him. This applied to the internationally reputed Egyptian intellectual Ismail Serageldin, to the Saudi poet and diplomat Ghazi Al-Guseibi, to former Egyptian minister of culture and artist Farouk Hosny who, in the first round, won the highest number of votes ever in UNESCO history, and to former Algerian ambassador Mohamed Al-Bejawi, who won no votes. Is a similar scenario unfolding again? A journalist colleague of mine, Fathiya Al-Dakhakhni, recently published a very important book called Farouk Hosny and the Secrets of the UNESCO Battle. Parts of this study, which discusses previously unpublicised details of that episode, offer an answer to the question above. Above all, we learn that the problem that Hosny encountered in his campaign for that position, which has been held by every region in the world apart from the Arab region, was not really caused by that fleeting remark that was taken out of context and used against him. There is evidence of Western opposition to any Arab candidate whatsoever for that post because of what he or she might have to say about the constant Israeli assaults against Arab culture and heritage in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied territories as a result of Israel's unrestrained policies of Judaicisation and settlement expansion. I urge everyone concerned with this issue to read Al-Dakhakhni's book which falls under the heading of “instant history”, which is to say that it chronicles an event immediately after it occurs. It is a genre of historiography that is lacking in our Arab library and that is crucial to the process of preserving small but crucial details of major events that might otherwise be lost to future historians. The Arab candidate, today, is a woman who is regarded in UNESCO circles as the strongest of all the candidates on the basis of her qualifications. Armed with extensive experience in international organisations and an international outlook in view of her many years of service as an ambassador, Moushira Khattab is at once a representative of an ancient civilisation to which mankind has been indebted throughout history and a female representative of a society that is charged with the oppression of women. Everyone who has had anything to do with Khattab knows full well that she will not say anything that could be used against her to eliminate her from this contest. So what might they come up with this time? I happened to be in France recently only days before Italy announced its nomination of Rutelli. In an interview on France 24, I was asked how our country could field someone for the biggest cultural organisation in the world when its domestic policies conflicted with the aims of that organisation. The interviewer said, “you in Egypt still imprison intellectuals because of their beliefs and you arrest writers on the basis of their literary works. How can you expect to attain the post of director-general of UNESCO?” I explained to the host that the incidents to which she referred were exceptions and that they stirred outcries among all political and social forces in Egypt. Moreover, it was important to judge individual candidates on the basis of their qualifications and merits, not on the basis of their government's policies since the candidate, if elected, will not be representing her country but rather working to promote the aims of the international organisation she had been chosen to head. I have no doubt that the Egyptian candidate is personally capable of winning the necessary support. However, she has a tough road ahead. She has already begun to hone her weapons for the battle, but our government must also realise that it is a party in this battle and that it, too, needs to deploy appropriate weapons. Foremost among these is to promote that much needed reconciliation between some of its domestic policies and UNESCO's universally accepted goals.
