Building cultural bridges

Cairo University's African Research and Studies Institute is a beacon of Africanism in Egypt. Gamal Nkrumah takes a close look at this unique centre of learning
Building cultural bridges
With efforts well underway to forge stronger economic and political ties with Africa, there is a growing consensus that Egypt must also focus on cultivating closer cultural relations with the rest of the continent. To complement official efforts at cementing ties with Africa, such as the hosting of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) summit, academic institutions are increasingly called upon to play a more prominent role.
The twin flagships of African academia and culture in Egypt at the moment are the Institute for African Research and Studies (IARS) at the University of Cairo and the African Society in Zamalek. While the African Society has recently fallen on hard times, the star of the IARS among African scholars has been rising fast. But at the same time there are worries that ordinary students can no longer afford the fees and are seeking education elsewhere.
There are high hopes for the institute. Originally the Institute of Sudanese Studies, this unique academic centre in Egypt became the IARS in 1947. The institute has six departments -- Anthropology; Geography; History; Languages; Political and Economic Science; and Natural Resources. Some 100 professors, lecturers and research fellows are affiliated to the institute which has a well-stocked library with over 4,500 books in Arabic and 6,000 books in foreign languages, including many in African languages especially Kiswahili, the lingua franca of East Africa; Hausa, widely spoken in West Africa; and Ethiopia's Amhara. The library also holds some 550 doctoral and masters theses and subscribes to 17 Arabic language journals and 21 foreign language journals with an African focus. The institute also has a new state-of-the-art information centre.
Many look to the IARS to create cadres of Egyptian Africanists and to reach out to Egypt's African communities. Last month, the Senegalese Students Association in Cairo held a three-day seminar at the Institute to celebrate their country's national day. Senegalese Ambassador Mamadou Sow was guest of honour and the Institute's director, Sayyid Ali Feleyfel, was keynote speaker. A large number of faculty professors, African diplomats and students attended. Issues ranged from the Senegalese democratic experience to that now de rigueur theme at Africa seminars - "the impact of globalisation on Africa." The IARS hosts many similar seminars in its large and well-equipped lecture hall, which seats 200. Many African student associations also use the institute's conference facilities; these gatherings provide valuable opportunities for fruitful exchanges between Egyptian academics interested in African affairs and the African student community in Egypt.
The IARS's mission to become an entrepôt of African affairs is helped by the steady stream of overseas scholars and researchers who visit. Some come as exchange students; others want to use facilities at the Institute that are perhaps unavailable in their home countries. The institute has close ties with the University of Mohamed V, Morocco; with Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal; and with the Africa Institute in Pretoria, South Africa.
The institute certainly takes its mission seriously. Mahmoud Abou El-Aineyn, head of the institute's new Centre for African Research, spoke animatedly about a seminar on the African Union project to be convened next month. "We are inviting some of Egypt's most distinguished Africanists, many of whom have been closely associated with the institute in the past. The seminar will tackle a wide range of topics, including conflict resolution and security concerns in Africa; the role of non-governmental organisations in development; the strengthening of civil society and democracy in Africa; the proposed African Parliament; and relations between the Arab League and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)," Abou El-Aineyn said. He noted that among the speakers will be high-level Ministry of Foreign Affairs diplomats, African affairs veterans such as Ambassador Ibrahim Hassan, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Africa; Ambassador Madgi Hefny, former Egyptian ambassador to Ethiopia and representative at the OAU; and Ambassador Ahmed Haggag a distinguished Egyptian diplomat and assistant OAU Secretary General. The Libyan Ambassador to Egypt, Gomaa Al-Fazzani, himself a noted Africanist, is also among the main speakers.
There have been complaints, though, that amongst these high level conferences, more mundane priorities are being lost. African students in Cairo are particularly unhappy with the cost of study at the institute. Many African students in Cairo already struggle to make ends meet. Few can also afford the Institute's prohibitively high tuition fees: currently 4,000 British pounds a year (about LE22,400). This price effectively makes it impossible for most Africans from countries south of the Sahara to enroll. Invariably they opt for other, less expensive institutions of higher learning such as Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the Islamic world's oldest and largest institution of higher Islamic learning.
Fortunately Al-Azhar has its own venerable links to African scholarship. For centuries, students from Sudan, western and eastern Africa found their way to Al-Azhar in search of higher learning. The numbers of students increased in the 20th century. Students from predominantly Muslim countries travelled long distances to Al-Azhar, mostly to enroll in the Arabic language and religious studies departments. The numbers of African students at Al-Azhar peaked just after the revolution of 1952 when former president Gamal Abdel-Nasser transformed Al-Azhar into a modern university teaching secular as well as religious subjects. This coincided with the national liberation era in Africa when African Muslims started to send their children to Al-Azhar as an alternative to universities in the countries of their former colonial rulers. In the early 1960s, Al-Azhar was briefly a credible alternative to the new red-brick universities of post-war Britain, if not quite up to the standard of Oxford or Cambridge. Alas, those charmed days were short-lived. Africans were not encouraged to join the new secular faculties at Al-Azhar University and were urged to continue pursuing traditional religious studies and Arabic language. Over the years, African students in Egypt came to resent this exclusion. To make matters worse, the scholarships awarded to African students in the 1960s remained frozen, their real value dwindling sharply. It became impossible for African students to live on Al-Azhar's handouts, and many sought greener pastures in the new universities of the wealthy Arabian Gulf. African students left Egypt in droves in the 1980s, until the Higher Council for Islamic Affairs, of the Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) stepped in. The Ministry provided substantial new scholarships which today are worth far more than those from Al-Azhar.
Despite this, many Africans still cannot afford to enroll at the IARS: the best centre of African learning in Egypt. The first foreign student to complete a doctoral thesis at the Institute was neither Arab nor African, but a Greek. All is not gloom, though. Many African students, wherever they study, use the library, and they will readily tell you that it is the best stocked in town as far as African learning goes. The library is almost always crowded with researchers from Africa and even though it has no lending facilities, the professors go out of their way to provide all the assistance that students need. Professors even photocopy books and doctoral theses for them. It is a reciprocal relationship, for the African students are often an important source of insight into the cultural, social and political realities of their home countries. Despite the awkwardness of high tuition fees at the institute and the parsimony of Al-Azhar, African studies in Egypt are finding ways to flourish.
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