اقرأ باللغة العربية The five-hour flight transported me from Cairo's heat to an unseasonably cold Paris. Temperatures in the French capital ranged from eight to 12 degrees. The drizzle was non-stop and blustery winds made one feel colder yet. I headed to UNESCO headquarters, at 7 Place de Fontenoy in the Seventh Arrondissement. There the temperatures are getting hotter by the day amid the frenzy of preparations for the first round of the vote for the next UNESCO secretary general. Nine candidates are running for the post, from France, China, Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Guatemala and Egypt. The latter candidate, Moushira Khattab, is in the lead. I do not say this out of my bias for her as a fellow Egyptian. Rather, it is because I have found that the prevailing opinion here in the corridors of UNESCO is that the competition will eventually narrow down to the candidates from Egypt, France and China. Each candidate is backed by a powerful country that is working assiduously to ensure the success of its own candidate. At the level of personal qualifications, the people at UNESCO are of the opinion that Moushira Khattab outshines both her French and Chinese rivals. For example, her presentation of the vision for UNESCO was comprehensive and thorough. She addressed how she would approach the management of the organisation if elected, the most important issues that UNESCO should focus on in the coming phase, and the attention that needed to be given to the organisation's bureaucracy – the wheels and cogs that would implement her vision. The French candidate's presentation was conventional and that of the Chinese candidate was unremarkable. At the same time, Khattab's human touch in her personal contacts here has impressed everyone I have spoken with in UNESCO. It is also widely believed in the organisation that former president Hollande nominated former culture minister Audrey Azulay, who is of Moroccan Jewish origin, only hours before the nomination deadline in order to insert one of his close staff members in a respectable post before he left the Elysée Palace. As for Azulay, herself, she strikes people as cold and she lacks the dynamism and vitality that characterised the Egyptian candidate during her meetings with the members of the UNESCO executive board. With respect to the Chinese candidate, who has served as Beijing's permanent representative in UNESCO for years, the rumour is that China, which is the largest funder of UNESCO, will back him with its financial clout. The executive board has set the first round of voting for 9 October. If none of the candidates wins an absolute majority of the board's 58 members — something that rarely occurs — re-votes will be held over the course of several days. There can be no more than five voting rounds. If none of the candidates win, a final ballot is held between the two leading candidates. Although the French nomination defied the accepted principle that the next UNESCO secretary general should be an Arab, the general opinion in UNESCO is still overwhelmingly in favour of this principle. The Arabs, who contributed to the creation of the organisation, have yet to have an opportunity to head it. In order to correct an imbalance in the geographical distribution of seats on the board, all members of UNESCO are grouped by regional electoral groups. Group I (Europe and North America) has held the secretary general post six times. The other groups, apart from the Arab regional group, have all held the post at least once. In one of the galleries in the UNESCO building there is a superb exhibit of works by a group of Bahraini female artists, foremost among them being the well-known Balqees Fakhro. The exhibit presents an image of Arab women that does them justice. We see, through their art, women who are sophisticated, talented and independently minded. This model of the progress Arab women have made is generally overshadowed by stereotypes circulated by the Western media. A French journalist friend of mine who has been following the race for the top UNESCO post was amazed by the timing of the exhibit. He felt that it was deliberately timed to serve the cause of the election of an Arab female candidate. I was certain that the timing was not deliberate. I did not venture to tell him that the Arabs do not organise their affairs in this manner and that coincidence tends to serve us better than advanced planning. Another coincidence that serves us here, and that I know Egyptian candidate intends to take advantage of, is the 200th anniversary of the Italian archaeologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni's discovery of Abu Simbel in 1817. That great temple offered an occasion for an unprecedented collaboration between Egypt and UNESCO. In 1959, Egypt, together with UNESCO, issued a global appeal to save that unique monument which, in fact, is actually two temples. Together, they constitute one of the most important antiquities in human civilisation. At the time, UNESCO had never taken part in a project of such a scale. However, combined efforts on the part of the international cultural organisation and the Egyptian government succeeded in rallying the international community behind the project. Therefore, the fact that this temple complex stands tall and proud today behind the High Dam, with the colossus of Ramses II guarding its facade, is testament to the fruitful cooperation between Egypt and UNESCO. In addition, that success encouraged UNESCO to undertake other large-scale rescue projects. In 1966, it supervised the operations to save Venice from the ravages of the flood that had almost submerged the city. It undertook similar operations to rescue endangered human heritage in Indonesia in 1972, in Cambodia in 1993, in Bosnia in 1995 and in the Congo in 2000. The Egyptian-UNESCO collaboration to save Abu Simbel has another very important value. That appeal to rescue the temple succeeded in bringing on board major powers which, less than three years earlier, had been in an open state of war with Egypt. Now they were ready to work with Egypt, under UNESCO auspices, to help safeguard the human heritage that abounds on our land. This acquires special significance in today's world which is plagued by warfare and bloodshed at many levels. It is a sign of what Egypt, the land of civilisation and history, can do through its chairmanship of UNESCO in the service of international understanding and cooperation.
