US opposition to the candidacy of Farouk Hosni as director-general of UNESCO sits ill with the Obama administration's official policies towards the Arab and Islamic world, writes Mohamed Salmawy* Still euphoric over US President Barack Obama's speech at Cairo University in June, the Arab and Islamic world has nevertheless recently been stunned to hear another American voice, this time conveying a message with an entirely different tone and substance. In a campaign that has been reverberating through the halls of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, in Paris, this voice has strongly opposed the candidate supported by the Arab and Islamic world, Africa and some Asian and Latin American countries for the post of director-general of UNESCO, the vote on which is scheduled for 18 September. There is an alarming and glaring discrepancy between the message delivered by the US president in Cairo and the actions of the US delegate to this United Nations organisation. This discrepancy calls into question the credibility of the Obama administration's new approach toward the Arabs, Muslims and peoples of the Third World in general, and it sharply contradicts Washington's affirmations that its relationship with Egypt is a solid and strategic one. According to informed sources in UNESCO's Paris offices, the US delegate has been using every trick in the book to draw support away from the Egyptian nominee, Farouk Hosni. He has echoed Zionist accusations that the Egyptian minister of culture is anti-Semitic and advocates book-burning, and he has threatened to cut off US financial support to UNESCO. In a move aimed at dividing the Arabs on the issue, he has also attempted to persuade some Arab governments to vote for a Latin American candidate who happens to be of Arab origin instead. If Washington's current head of mission at UNESCO were a remnant of the Bush administration, one might understand such behaviour. It could be surmised, for example, that he was acting in accordance with old instructions that the new administration had not yet altered. However, Steven Engelken, the delegate in question, is an Obama appointee who took up his post when Obama took office and presumably follows the new administration's directives. Moreover, according to reports from Washington, Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has also vowed to cater to Jewish opinion on the subject of the new director-general of UNESCO. Surely it can be no coincidence that shortly after her appointment to the post, a new candidate entered the race for the UNESCO post and that this candidate, from Latin America, happens to be a personal friend of Hillary's? Israel recently made a pledge to President Hosni Mubarak that it would call off its campaign against Farouk Hosni's candidacy despite its opposition. Apparently, it has delegated this task to Jewish communities elsewhere, with the result that the US is now doing Israel's dirty work. This is hardly a virtuous position to be in, and it is certainly not consistent with the official policies of the US administration or with American interests. Shortly before Obama's visit to Egypt, the US ambassador in Cairo hosted a gathering with a senior US official who had come to Cairo to prepare the visit. As one of the guests at this gathering, I had the opportunity to ask the official whether the new administration in Washington would oppose the Egyptian nominee as UNESCO chief. He assured me in no uncertain terms that there would be no opposition to the nomination. A US embassy officer then entered the conversation to note that the US was on excellent terms with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and that during his posting in CairoEgyptian-US cultural relations had been both constructive and positive. "We have no problems with the Ministry of Culture here," he added, as if to underscore his point. US opposition to the Egyptian nominee for the post of UNESCO director-general had thus seemed to have subsided, along with a host of other negative attitudes and policies, with the passing of the Bush administration. Yet, it now appears that the State Department has adopted lock, stock and barrel the very position that Israel had earlier relinquished. As a result, Washington now presents the major obstacle to Egypt's chances of seeing its candidate elected to the post of director-general of UNESCO. Is this really official US policy? Or is this a case of the State Department acting on its own in the absence of explicit instructions to the contrary from the Oval Office? It has been our impression that the American practice of placating Israel at the expense of Arab rights had been consigned to the past when Obama ascended to the podium of Cairo University to give his speech. However, it now appears that those words may have been for public consumption, while from UNESCO comes the all-too- familiar ring of the Bush administration, with all its dictates, threats and ultimatums to withhold funding from the international organisation if it abides by the majority of world opinion, but angers Israel. * The writer is president of the Egyptian Writers' Union and editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo newspaper.
