Al-Ahram: A Diwan of contemporary life (653) France has her say Despite the British occupation, French culture was the number one foreign culture among Egyptians. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk explains that even though the occupiers succeeded in introducing English to a great number of schools, France was king Abdel-Rahman El-Gabarti, the grandfather of Egyptian historians, was contemporary to the French military expedition and wrote two books about it. In the first he recorded all that he witnessed, and it came out in four volumes under the title Ajaaib Al-Athar fi Al-Tarajim Wal-Akhbar [the wonders of the vestiges of biographies and events]. This book was objective within the limits of the religious culture that predominated in that age. His second book was released in one volume and was produced under request by the first Ottoman pasha who arrived at the citadel following the departure of the French. It consisted of excerpts from the first book that defamed the occupiers who had only recently evacuated the country and was titled Mathhar Al-Taqdis bi- Zawal Dawlat Al-Faransis [the phenomenon of sanctifying the removal of the French state]. The great El-Gabarti rejected in his second book much of what he had been impressed with in the first. With regard to culture in particular, following his visit to the library the military expedition had established, he had expressed his bedazzlement with its order. Likewise, upon his visit to the scientific institute the military expedition had established, he had been awed by the chemical experiments its scientists were conducting. He even wrote in acknowledgment, "these matters are not comprehended by minds of our likes." This is perhaps what led some Francophone Egyptians to coin the metaphorical phrase stating that "Napoleon came with cannons and a printing press, and he returned to his country with the cannons but left the printing press." This is also perhaps what led Sheikh Hassan El-Attar, El-Gabarti's teacher who had greater opportunity to mix with the French, to advise his student , when he was sent by Mohamed Ali Pasha with the first academic mission to France in 1826, to record all the details of life he would witness among people there. El-Tahtawi did this meticulously, and his famed book Takhlis Al-Abriz fi Talkhis Bariz [extrication of pure gold in an outline of Paris]. This book was the first Egyptian overview of a European society. The saying that Napoleon left behind the printing press was not accurate in actuality, however, for the men of the military expedition in fact took their two presses with them when they left the country. Yet it was true metaphorically, for French culture remained the number one foreign culture among Egyptians until after WWII (1945). It dominated its English counterpart despite the British occupation of the country and the occupiers' efforts and policies. At the head of these efforts was the English consultant to the Ministry of Education, Douglas Dunlop, who sought to Anglicise education. These efforts ended in failure, however, and although the occupiers succeeded in their aim of introducing English to a great number of schools, they failed in Anglicising education and culture. The spread of the occupiers' language was limited to civil servants, and among other Egyptian intellectuals, French remained lord. This can be traced to a number of reasons. Most of the Egyptian missions dispatched during the reign of the remarkable ruler Mohamed Ali Pasha were sent to France. Statistics concerning the members of eight missions sent during this period show that 372 were sent to Paris, including a number of leading intellectuals such as and Ali Mubarak, while the number of those sent to England was 47, sent to learn advanced industries. The second mission sent to England, consisting of 21 members, was dispatched to learn the art of carpentry. Austria only received seven delegates. In other words, the primary bloc of Egyptian delegates to Europe during this Pasha's era headed to France, to the degree that the Egyptian government set up special housing for them that was supervised by one of the academics of the French expedition. Mohamed Ali entrusted Frenchmen with the supervision of the advanced military institutes he established -- the war academy, the medical school and the naval academy. Mohamed Ali's initial establishment of a modern education system in Egypt had coincided with the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (1815) and the release of a large number of officers from the French army, whom the ambitious pasha welcomed into the process of modernising the country he ruled. It was natural for these men to add a French flavour to their schools' programmes and to rely on the resources and methodologies they had learned from or taught with in their own institutes. This situation sped up the French to Arabic and Turkish translation movement, a fact that was followed by the Al-Alsun [languages] School being the first to be established alongside the military institutes to serve this need. During the final quarter of the 19th century, a class of large agricultural landowners developed and sent its children to the French schools that spread across the country, in particular the Jesuit and Frere Schools for boys and the Sacre C�ur and Bonne Pasteur Schools for girls. This further spread French culture among this class, to the point that the commonly used language in many of its households was French rather than Arabic. Many also sent their children to complete their education in France's universities, particularly to law colleges and the universities of Sorbonne and Montpellier. Law schools were the most common type of French educational centre. At one time, when the French felt that their influence was waning in the khedivial law school, they established an adjunct French law school that gained wide acceptance among members of the class of large agricultural landowners. Moreover, legal education, which the French excelled in, was like the royal door for those who wished to gain a high position in the judiciary and then in political life. A number of Egyptians who forged paths in these fields benefited from this situation, including Saad Zaghloul, Mustafa Kamel, Mohamed Farid, Qasim Amin, Ahmed Lutfi El-Sayed, and many others. French thus became the primary foreign language for the communications of the Egyptian government's ministries, and particularly the ministries of justice and foreign affairs. A look at the various rounds of negotiations that took place starting in 1920, including those known as the Saad-Milner negotiations, and until 1936, in the negotiations that ended with the treaty of friendship and alliance between Egypt and England, shows that Egyptian negotiators used French while British negotiators used English. Moreover, a look at the foreign press issued during that era confirms that some of it was read by Egyptians as well as the foreign communities whose languages it was written in. French took the lion's share in this, and it is sufficient to note that Al-Ahram was the first to publish a French edition called Le Pyramides. Other French language newspapers including Le Progrès Egyptien and La Reforme, and were widely read by Egyptians. In contrast, English culture did not enjoy a similar share. The occupying state did not have strong enough missions to compete with French missions in the field of education, and the most it could do was to establish Victoria College in Alexandria, most of whose students were members of the British community in Egypt alongside small numbers of Egyptians. While American missions were more active in this regard, most of their efforts were spent on urging Coptic Christians to change their sect from Orthodox to Protestant, which was opposed by the national church. In addition, they established schools in the areas they were concentrated in, Assiut in Upper Egypt and Tanta in Lower Egypt. They also attracted members of the small middle class who did not have a strong social or cultural influence as did the aristocracy who joined French schools. Yet even when one of the American missionary groups established the American University in Cairo in 1920, it did not receive sufficient attention because it was at first more of a high school and did not target Egyptians as much as minorities such as the Armenians, Greeks, and Jews. Another indication confirming the preponderance of French culture arises in the war waged by the high commissioner's headquarters in Cairo when the affiliation of the local university's administration was transferred to the Egyptian Ministry of Education in 1925 and it was turned into a royal university. Lord Lloyd, the British high commissioner, tried by all means possible to make the majority of its colleges' teaching staff English. While he succeeded with regard to the colleges of medicine and sciences, he failed with regard to the colleges of arts and law, the majority of whose teaching staff remained of French culture, whether Egyptians or Frenchmen. A final observation, and although it may seem superficial, is in fact highly significant. A large number of French vocabulary items slipped into the speech of ordinary Egyptians, such as bonjour, bonsoir, au revoir, and others, more than their English counterparts were used. We can still witness this in the dialogues of cinematic films produced during that period. THIS LENGTHY HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION explains what took place in the period following the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. This treaty, while settling many of the problems between Egypt and the occupying state, also removed many of the obstacles the British authorities in the Egyptian capital had placed before the natural relations between Cairo and Paris. In the period following the signing of the treaty, cultural relations between the two states grew active again in an unprecedented manner. While the French-English agreement signed in 1904 known as Entente Cordiale guaranteed France some advantages that maintained its cultural relations with Egypt, and particularly with regard to French schools and the post of the director of antiquities remaining with a Frenchman, WWI and the resultant growth of the nationalist movement drove the British authorities to withdraw most of the advantages the French had held onto. Their excuse was always ready -- that Egyptians had the competence to fill the places that had been agreed to be left to the French. To the point, following the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, Egyptian-French relations regained their former position of prominence, this time through the will of both sides. And Al-Ahram played a role in this change. This role is apparent in the trip organised by Al-Ahram for those wishing to visit the Paris international exhibition that opened on 16 June 1937. The young King Farouk I and the president of the French republic participated in the opening of the Egyptian section. Speeches were given by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey, the commissioner of the exhibition's Egyptian section, and the exhibition's general commissioner. Cultural relations between the two countries occupied the greater part of the two men's speeches. In Khalil Bey's speech, he compared between "Egypt, the mother of the arts" and the "vestiges of Napoleon" left behind in Egypt. Of the first, he said that "the antiquities of Isis, who Egyptian artists have glorified here, and the restoration of her tomb, this is what speaks of us in this dialect." As for the latter, he placed two volumes of the encyclopedic Description of Egypt before him and described them as an innovative work that "all those who love your country and ours must be familiar with." As for the commissioner's speech, it was replete with praise for Egyptian civilisation. He said that the participation of Egyptians in the exhibition "shows with the clearest of indications that you are worthy of being the successors of ancient Egypt and the great territory with which is formed the Egyptian homeland, the producer of a civilisation established 6,000 years ago, a civilisation of arts and industries that, in their glorified appearance, we applaud this year between deference and dignity in the shadow of peace." Another occasion presented itself in the form of a celebration of the end of the school year for the Jesuit Fathers School in Paris. Mahmoud Fakhri Pasha, the Egyptian minister plenipotentiary, attended the event on the occasion of his son succeeding in his baccalaureate with the grade of "very good". He indicated that he, in turn, was a graduate of a branch of the same school in Alexandria, "whose work in the Nile Valley in particular had been fruitful and successful. Many academics, statesmen and prominent men are graduates of the Jesuit Fathers schools. Last May, the French-Arabic school opened in Heliopolis and on this occasion Ahmed Ziwar Pasha, a former Egyptian prime minister, gave a speech, saying that there is no country more ready for this education than Egypt. Putting spirit and thought before materiality was one of the truest traditions of ancient Egyptian civilisation." A third occasion was provided by the International Conference for Foreign Writers of French. Egypt's part in it was a speech made by Georges Cattawi under the title "Egypt's writers and French literature." At the head of these writers was Wasef Ghali Pasha, the Egyptian minister of foreign affairs at that time. Cattawi began by documenting the national role of the pasha, who was the son of Boutros Pasha the Great and the uncle of Boutros Ghali, the former secretary-general of the United Nations who once told this writer that Wasef Pasha had been the highest role model he had emulated throughout his life. Yet despite his national role, Cattawi stressed, "he did not overlook the craft of literature, historical studies, and the writing of poetry. The traces of his pen can be counted through the merits of prose and the choicest works of poetry. He made it clear that the West and Christianity have borrowed greatly from Islamic civilisation." Cattawi did not limit himself to Wasef Ghali, however; in his speech he also made observation of other Egyptians he praised for writing in French. "No writer in Egypt such as Lutfi El-Sayed, Taha Hussein, Ahmed Deif and Mansour Fahmi failed to publish even a small amount in French on the margins of their precious writings in Arabic. It is sufficient to mention Ahmed Deif, in partnership with a Frenchman, wrote the story Mansour and others. He described the charms of the Egyptian countryside, the life of sailors on the Nile and in Alexandria's harbour, and Al-Azhar University." Ahmed Rasim Bey, the undersecretary of the Cairo governorate, also participated in this conference. Al-Ahram introduced him as a "renowned poet in the world of French literature." The title of his report was "Egyptian poets who write poetry in French," and readers may be surprised by the number of poets Rasim Bey addressed. They included Haidar Fadl, a descendent of Mohamed Ali with two volumes of poetry in French, Flowers spattered with blood and An Eastern collection. They also included Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat, the famous politician, with a volume titled Love among the Arabs. There was also Marios Shumayl Bey, who was described as the owner of the Egyptian World magazine and who had a volume titled Against forgetfulness, Fouad Abu Khatir, who had two volumes of poetry in which he "sang in a musical lilt of his joys, grief, melancholy and grievances," as well as Mohamed Zulfiqar, "who let free his genius and forged a path no one had traversed in terms of style, which was guided by Eastern culture." At the end of his valuable study, Rasim Bey also made an observation of a number of female writers who had participated in the literary movement in Egypt and were of great consequence. He mentioned Madame Nelli Zananiri, the delicate poetess and scrupulous writer, Madame Amy Kheir, of Lebanese origin and a novelist and poet who praised the charms of Egypt, Princess Qadriya Hussein, who had written verses titled "Royal ghosts" and who charmed readers with their formulation, and Mai Ziyada, the great Arab writer who composed valuable writings in French. TRAVEL LITERATURE formed another side to the expression of cultural relations between Cairo and Paris. An example is provided by one of the participants in the trip organised by Al-Ahram, Mohamed Awad Gabril, who grasped the opportunity to write a long article about his overland trip to Paris. It was titled "From Cairo to Paris -- 5,500 kilometres in five and a half days." During that time he passed through Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Switzerland, until he finally reached France "without boarding a plane or having a ship transport him above the depths of water." During that time he made note of everything he found strange or unusual. For example, there was the Taurus Road, which began in Tripoli and "crossed Anatolia between snow-covered mountains reaching heights of 1,500 metres. The train continued through these views for about 26 hours, during which we traversed 42 tunnels and passed through Ankara, modern Turkey's capital." Gabril could not deny his wonderment after the trip continued into Europe. "We moved through redolent gardens. From meadows whose trees were adorned with fresh flowers to soaring mountains from which water gushed and wide lakes and flat steppes, the most beautiful sight my eyes beheld was two mountains cloaked in a green robe of trees. The space between them was so narrow that it only allowed the passage of the train and the river running alongside it... We traversed the Simplon tunnel, the longest in the world at 16 kilometres by 700 metres, and passed through Montreux, Lausanne and Dijon before reaching Paris." In the French capital, the pen was passed from Gabril to the Al-Ahram special reporter accompanying the trip. The first thing that caught his attention was the excessive speed with which Parisians moved about in their daily lives, reaching the point of madness "as it seems to us strangers, having grown accustomed in our country to a life other than this one." Another thing that caught his attention was the absence of an electric tram in the capital, for it had become one of the greatest factors obstructing traffic. Instead it moved underground, and the reporter stated that Paris had in fact become three cities -- one under the ground, on one the surface, and a third in the sky. The speed characteristic of advanced industrial societies was a source of wonder for the reporter. The speed of cars reached the point of madness "and their movement in the street is not restricted by a system like that present in Egypt. Watching this movement and speed I remembered those constables who move on motorcycles through the streets of Cairo and collect the numbers of cars speeding, even a little, and bring their drivers to trial and the payment of fines... It is astonishing, in such crowdedness and speed, to not hear horns. Everyone knows their duty and what they must do. Everyone upholds order and the law, and it is impossible to find someone crossing the street other than in the place allocated to do so. And thus, accidents rarely take place and rarely are there victims of cars in this capital crowded with millions, in contrary to our own situation." And this situation has remained in place! Then the reporter spent some time on the Seine, noting that it was no comparison to the Nile in terms of size, width or beauty. "And yet the French have benefited from it in a manner that some may need to see to believe. They benefit through shipping, electricity generation, transport, recreation, the construction of cafes and everything that science, rationale, and creativity might suggest. As for Egypt, the masses just wish to find a spot to sit in so as to enjoy the beauty and grandeur of the Nile that foreigners envy." It is fortunate that the man did not live to see Egyptians crowding both sides of bridges crossing the Nile in search of a breeze during Cairo's hot summer nights. Al-Ahram 's reporter accompanying the trip allocated another long article to Paris' markets and places of entertainment. It is the habit of Egyptians on such group outings, once completing the shopping they are passionate about, to attempt to persuade one another that they got a better price and diminish the worth of what their counterparts purchased. As for places of entertainment, it was a free for all. The reporter wrote of the Latin Quarter, where there were underground bunker-like bars with rectangular wooden tables and champagne glasses lined up. He also wrote of a dance hall whose last dancers were youth who slept all day and stayed up all night "although their dancing is no different from any other in terms of modesty and decorum." After that, they visited one of the most famous places of entertainment in Paris -- Moulin Rouge. After viewing what they pleased, the reporter wrote that "the theatres and entertainment halls in France are not subject to government monitoring and therefore you find the door to innovation consistently open and unrestricted before the public." The trip also included a visit to the Paris mosque, and rather than performing prayers, the participants sat in its garden drinking Arabic coffee. "There were some Moroccan crooners singing Arabic songs to the tune of the oud and qanun and the beat of a drum, but it was nothing compared to the singing and musical artistry of those we are accustomed to in Egypt. At any rate, however, it brought great joy to our hearts after having spent days in a purely Frankish environment."
