Hala Sami reviews contributions to last week's Cairo University Symposium on Comparative Literature, held under the title "Power and the Role of the Intellectual" Eighth International Symposium on Comparative Literature sponsored by the English Department, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, was held from Tuesday, 22 November to Thursday, 24 November. "Power and the Role of the Intellectual", the title of this year's biennial symposium, hosted and chaired by Mona El-Halawany and coordinated by Salwa Kamel, both professors at the English Department, Cairo University, clearly encapsulated the focus of the convention -- the relation and attitude of intellectuals towards power and authority. The symposium was divided into three principal sections: the keynote addresses, the panel discussions and the various sessions. On the first day, El-Sayed Yasseen, Egyptian journalist, thinker and professor of political sociology, gave a presentation entitled "The Intellectual as Mediator in the Global Age". He discussed the issue of whether the intellectual could represent the masses and communicate their requests and needs -- in short, their identity -- to the rest of the world. Yasseen also highlighted the role of the intellectual as a mediator between the masses and authority, concluding that -- largely as a result of the intervention of security apparatuses -- intellectuals have unfortunately fallen out of touch with the masses. On the second day , the well-known South African poet, intellectual, activist and professor of literature -- his latest publication, a volume of poems entitled Leaf Drift, was published this year -- gave a forceful speech on "Intellectuals and Activists: Contemporary Challenges in the Era of Globalisation". Brutus was imprisoned for his political opinions and twice escaped. As a South African he witnessed apartheid on a large scale; now, though, he believes that apartheid is being globalised. Brutus broached several issues, most prominent among them being the interference of transnational organisations in dictating the direction of the economies of the Third World and the ways in which large corporations monopolise the Southern economy. He openly disputes the determination of large corporations to write the agenda to be followed by developing countries, foregrounding the active collaboration of governments and international financial institutions. According to such institutions -- which include the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) -- a government is defined as good in terms of its obedience to the dictates of financial institutions and its amenability to large foreign corporations. While arguing that it is international and financial institutions that shape the global agenda and act to determine its direction for decades to come, Brutus underlined the equally powerful and authoritative efforts being made by transnational corporations across the globe. Brutus's concern is with the systematic and cynical transfer of resources from underdeveloped or developing countries to powerful states. Large corporations, he argued, are constantly involved in the pursuit of profit at the expense of people, the engines of a process that results in people's exploitation that leads to the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer. Brutus approves of globalisation, in the sense that a country should be open to the world through, for example, the Internet. He believes that we cannot live in isolation. On the other hand he strongly repudiates the determination of powerful corporations to write the international agenda. Brutus also touched upon educational institutions and the syllabi or material taught in such institutions, sounding a warning against international organisations that seek to tamper with education. Noting that the material provided for students often fails to cater to their needs, Brutus rounded up his speech by proposing that this is an area in which university scholars and staff members have a substantial role to play. We must all engage in the process of speaking the truth and allowing justice to prevail. Our duty is to have a commitment towards society. The third day's keynote speaker was Ali Hamed El-Ghateet, visiting professor of Constitutional and International Comparative Law at Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Berkeley Law School and Zurich Law School. He is principally associated with volunteering to defend the French thinker Roger Garoudi against his indictment on charges of anti-Semitism before the Court of Appeal in Paris and the European Court of Human Rights. In his speech El-Ghateet gave an account of his experience with Garoudi's case. The French thinker is known to have conducted extensive research on the history of the Jews. He was charged with anti-Semitism for questioning and challenging the credibility of the number of Jews exterminated in the holocaust perpetrated by Hitler's Nazi regime. Strangely, the French had passed a law forbidding anyone to dispute the authenticity of the figure of six million. Having done so, Garoudi was arrested and brought to stand before the court for questioning a piece of information that has been granted mythic proportions. Apart from the keynote addresses, panel discussions were held on two consecutive evenings. One panel revolved around the relationship of the writer and critic with power and his role in society. The participants included Egyptian novelist Bahaa Taher, Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti, theatre critic Nehad Selaiha, poet Hassan Telib and journalist and writer Mustafa Abdel-Ghani. The following day's panel included university professor Mohamed Badawi, artist Adel El-Siwi, actor, author, director and activist Khaled El-Sawi and film director Ibrahim El-Battout. They all presented personal testimonies concerning their contention with power. The symposium presentations revolved around and addressed various forms of power and authority, and the challenges that are confronted in the interaction with the latter. Foreign, as well as Egyptian participants, contributed significant research. There were over 100 presentations, 30 of which were given by foreign participants from Russia, Australia, the Emirates, US, Sweden, Romania, Italy, Lebanon, UK, Malaysia, Macedonia, Tunisia, South Africa and the Netherlands. The topic areas with which the papers dealt included oral literature, national narratives, the literature of exile, critics on critics, discourses of power, the production of knowledge, history and power, the legacy of Edward Said, cultural mobility and the role of literary criticism in society. In "Knowledge, Women's Big Feet and Discourses of Power" the speaker surveyed a large number of proverbs from around the world, highlighting gendered stereotypes and the way in which the proverbs reflect social myths about gender relations. The proverbs reveal a reluctance to establish equality in gendered social roles, and the long- term results of such a discourse were discussed. Another paper dealt with Francis Bacon (1561-1626) as one of the intellectuals who contributed to the development of scientific and analytical thinking at the beginning of the Modern Age. In highlighting Bacon's stress on memory as a vital tool in understanding the underlying principles behind human domination, the research identified modern theoretical trends and their relation to memory for further analysis. Yet another paper discussed the potential role of the university in confronting globalisation. Can the university continue to occupy its principal role in producing new knowledge or has it already surrendered such a position to "think-tanks", independent research institutes and other technical apparatuses? This is a brief glimpse of some of the interesting and substantial research papers contributed to the symposium. Rounding up and farewells took place at one of Islamic Cairo's most beautiful houses, Beit Al-Seheimi, where the participants heard recitations of poetry and live classical Arabic music.
