At a Bibliotheca Alexandrina conference, Arab intellectuals chided authorities for the slow pace of political reform. Gamal Nkrumah attended "I hope that this forum can protect those who are subjected to intimidation by the state, who are forcibly denied the chance to speak their mind, to freely express themselves." Visibly agitated, Lebanese publisher Hassan Yaghi told participants at the Beacon for Freedom of Expression conference held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina earlier this week about Syrian writer Thaer Deeb, who was detained a few days ago at Damascus airport, and banned from flying to Egypt to attend the conference. Several other participants concurred, noting that if the Alexandria gathering was to be more effective, it must have teeth. Akhbar Al-Adab Editor-in-Chief Gamal El-Ghitani proposed the establishment of a watchdog organisation to monitor freedom of expression in the Arab world and protect journalists and authors. "Unfortunately conferences bringing intellectuals together often end up as meaningless talking shops. Little or no action is taken afterwards. We need more than words and empty sloganeering," El- Ghitani told Al-Ahram Weekly. The thrust of efforts to date has been to change laws pertaining to press freedom and censorship. Several speakers stressed the need for building an institutional framework to protect and nurture freedom of expression. The Alexandria conference, which was sponsored by the Norwegian government, brought together a large number of Arab and Egyptian intellectuals and writers. "We see the same faces time and again at such conferences and they reiterate their familiar lines," El-Ghitani told the Weekly. Participants agreed that impediments to freedom of expression in the Arab world require a unified response by Arab intellectuals, as well as those who work in culture and media. The search for maximum consensus, not surprisingly, dominated discussions at the Bibliotheca. Curiously enough, the first controversy to crop up was the venue of the conference itself. Indeed, the General-Secretary of Egypt's Supreme Council for Culture Gaber Asfour was even more outspoken than usual. "We do not see the works of Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid on the shelves of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina," Asfour pointedly told conference participants. Asfour, of course, was referring to the Islamic jurisprudence scholar who was declared an apostate by a Cairo Appeals Court in the late 1990s. As such, the court ruled that he should be divorced from his wife. The case of Abu Zeid provoked widespread discussion and controversy in Egypt and the Arab world. Without addressing the actual question posed by Asfour, the Bibliotheca's director, Ismail Serageldin, made a somewhat generic attempt to come to the venerable institution's defence. "Libraries are the champions of freedom of expression because it is their vocation to be custodians of the products of the human mind," Serageldin said. Intellectuals, and culture and media experts are supposed to be the traditional guardians of civil rights, invariably standing on the frontlines of the fight for greater freedom of expression. Some, however, noted that the prevailing conservative climate means that not only do they battle with authorities, but with the even more obstinate and conventional society at large, and with religious authorities in particular. The secularist media and intelligentsia in particular have emerged as villains. At the risk of sounding like an apologist for Arab regimes, Serageldin pointed an accusing finger at the new international order and the demonisation of Arabs and Muslims in the West, which in turn engenders an anti-Western, conservative and religious reaction in the Arab and Muslim worlds. "In Egypt today, the climate of concern and the general feeling of anger and frustration with a world that seems to many Arabs to be hostile to the aspirations of the entire Muslim and Arab peoples, leads many to seek a lost purity and a sense of security in a golden mythical past," Serageldin explained. "This forces a discourse where deviations from appearances of religiosity, and adherence to the prevailing political views of the majority, is severely sanctioned socially and in vehement political attacks, and even occasionally in physical threats, abuse and even assassination. It takes courage to stand up for the contrary view," Serageldin said. He elaborated further. "The real issues of censorship from Taha Hussein to Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid are not so much government actions or the legislative climate, even if that can certainly be improved. The real issue is in the intolerance that permeates a society. "Frequently people give in to this tide of obscurantism and xenophobia and undergo a self-censorship that is as draconian as any that is imposed by the state," he told participants in his opening address. "It is here that principle must triumph over pragmatism." The conference itself proved to be most informative on the state of the Arab media today. Serageldin noted that the number of licensed newspapers in Egypt went from 27 in 1982 to 504 today, not counting about 1,100 journals of which 585 are scholarly. Radio and broadcasting channels went up from 106 in 1982 to 529 today. Public television channels likewise increased from two in 1982 to 32 today, plus six privately owned channels. "But the real revolution is happening on the World Wide Web," the head of the Bibliotheca said. From 1996/97 to today (2004), the number of websites located in Egypt (ending in .eg) has gone from 591 to 24,226, while the number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has gone up from 40 to over 200 and subscribers went from 75,000 to 3.3 million. "Just let me add that the number of books published last year was 7,675, and this year, 2004, from January to August, over 5,000 books have been published." Many participants strongly opposed interference by the United States in particular, and Western powers generally, in Arab cultural affairs. The US, which ostensibly demands democratic reform in the Arab world, was the first to stalk pan-Arab satellite channels such as Al-Jazeera, each and every time a broadcast of some news did not appeal to its policies. "There is no such thing as objective reporting. Writers are entitled to their opinions," said Sami Khashaba, head of Al- Ahram 's cultural section. He added that Arab governments' new mantra seemed to be, "you [intellectuals and the media] say what you want to say, and we [the rulers] reserve the right to do what we please." In much the same vein, Sonia Dabbous, assistant editor-in-chief of Akhbar Al- Yom and affiliate professor of Journalism at the American University in Cairo, was sharply critical of the state-controlled media in Egypt and the Arab world. "More independent-minded newspapers have appeared, challenging the iron grip of the older, state-sponsored press on political opinion, news and information," explained Dabbous. Dabbous, whose conference paper focussed on the Egyptian print media, said that the only Arab countries where legislation allows journalists to obtain information are Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Jordan and Syria. "Still," she elaborated, "in these countries sharing information is restricted and national and international newspapers can be censored and confiscated." Dabbous said that the situation in other Arab countries is even grimmer, where in some instances the authorities forbid the public from connecting to the Internet. She noted that in many Arab countries the press is regarded as a tool of nationalism and politics. As such, the lack of free opinion in the press is often linked to issues of national security and the well being of the state.
