India's independence hero Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) might have had a point when he said, “Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit”. As it wanted to widen its mind and spirit even more, The Egyptian Gazette, the Middle East's oldest English language daily, took a lesson from India's first Prime Minister when it started to celebrate its 130th anniversary last Sunday, even though it came to existence almost ten years before Nehru was born. The staff of the newspaper brought together the men and the women responsible for spreading foreign cultures in this country of 80 million people, namely the heads of the foreign cultural centres in Egypt, and listened to what they had to say about their work and the tools they use to create cultural links with the people of Egypt. Present in the gathering were Russian, Turkish, Japanese, British, Hungarian, Spanish and Indian culture officials who comfortably talked about their cultural activities in Egypt, a country that used to be a melting pot of cultures and civilisations for centuries. “Similarities between Indians and Egyptians make our task easy and interesting,” said Bijay Selvaraj, a third secretary at the Indian Embassy in Cairo. "For Egyptians, Indian culture is popular,” he told the gathering. In front of and beside him sat other people who longingly waited to hear his account about Indian culture. They were men whose mission was not totally different from that of The Gazette. Since its early days, this newspaper, which is now staffed by a group of ambitious journalists ��" young and old ��" whose mission statement is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable through their coverage of Egypt's news, seek to create bridges of understanding with the foreigners who live in Egypt and yearn to cope up with this country's news in a language they understand. One of the guest speakers, Paul Smith, who heads the British Council in Cairo, was keen to show how people-to-people culture was even stronger than war. He said even when Britain took part in a three-state aggression against Egypt in 1956 during the Suez crisis, the doors of the British Council were not shut down. "The Council has been in Egypt for 75 years,” Smith said. “But, our purpose isn't just to promote British culture in this country. We aim to secure and build cultural relations,” he added. Smith, a man with a smiling face and bright eyes full of optimism and cordiality, said the British Council offered English language courses to around 25,000 Egyptian school students every year. He added that the website of the council offered English language tips to around 200,000 users every year as well. In this, Smith and other British Council officials might be lucky. These people bask in this increasing demand for English, not only in this populous country where many consider English to be their second language, but also everywhere else. The surprising thing, though, is that Russians seem to be revelling in a similar demand for their language and culture. This was evident in what Natasha Kokash, the head of the Public Relations Department at the Russian Cultural Centre in Cairo, had to say about the activities of her centre. According to her, more and more Egyptians sought Russian language courses at her centre to keep up with a rising flow of Russian tourists to Egypt. “A number of Egyptians also seek to pursue post-graduate studies in Russia and this made Russian a prerequisite for them,” she added. As she talked about the efforts she and her colleagues at the centre made to serve as a magnet to Egyptian youth, Kokash might have invited the attention of many in her audience to one simple fact: how culture could be a proponent of peace and co-existence, not a tool for rivalry. They might have also seen for themselves that the proponent of a clash of civilisations has lied and very strongly at that. Here was Kokash, a blond and a slender Russian woman with a black-yellow hair, who spoke Arabic so fluently that many in her Egyptian audiences were obliged to envy her articulate command of the language. She might have wanted to say that things that used to be international for a long time had become local and things that used to be local for a long time had become international. This, in a way, puts The Gazette and its staff who strive to bring the world's news to Egypt and Egypt's news to the world, giving both a local touch, in a stronger position. By giving its readers a detailed account of Egyptians' daily life, this country's problems, its political and economic transformations, its religious, cultural, and social debates, the newspaper just wants to put stress on the messages Natasha and the other foreign culture officials who attended its two-hour seminar on Sunday wanted to deliver. They came to the premises of the newspaper in central Cairo to say that the boundaries between what is Egyptian and what is not are no longer there. They also wanted to say that soft power could be a thousand times more effective in winning people's love and confidence than coercion and arms. Whenever Egyptians met Selvaraj, the third secretary at the Indian Embassy in Cairo, on the streets, they asked him about India's acting icon Amitabh Bachchan. Spain also seems to be betting on cinema to get closer to the people of Egypt. Luis Javier Ruiz Sierra, the director of the Cervantes Institute, said cinema could be the best tool for spreading culture. That might be way the Cervantes Institute puts much of its effort in hosting and displaying Spanish movies to Egyptians. “Spanish language movies are the best way to introduce the culture and the experiences of 450 million speakers of the Spanish language in 23 countries around the world," Sierra said through an interpreter. “Since its opening in 1992, the Cervantes Institute has become the best friend for Spanish language learners in Egypt. It offers courses for all levels by giving access to the biggest Spanish library in the Middle East, a library with 25,000 different titles,” he added. More interesting still is that the institute also has a website that contains 300,000 pages for teaching the Spanish language. Spain seems to be doing everywhere else what it does in Egypt: spread its culture vigorously. The Cervantes Institute has 76 branches around the world with 120,000 students, and 6,000 different cultural activities a year, according to Sierra. He said the institute received about 8,800 Egyptian students a year and could organise between 250 to 300 activities. “This makes the Cervantes Institute in Cairo the fourth biggest institute branch in the world,” Sierra said. Six Egyptian universities teach the Spanish language to date and around 1,200 Egyptians graduate with degrees in Spanish every year. Around 50 Egyptian schools also teach Spanish as a second language. But this seems to be a friction of the attention Spain gives the Arabic language, according to Sierra. He said 50 Spanish universities tought the Arabic language. “The Spanish consider Arabic to be a necessity for understanding the history and the civilisation of Spain," he added. The best thing about Sunday's gathering is that although The Egyptian Gazette is an English-language newspaper, it managed to be a meeting point for people with different nationalities and languages. True, most of these people cherished their mother tongues, but they still could see in the newspaper a window on Egypt with a language they could understand and enjoy. Actively speaking in the gathering was Gstian Zimonyi, the cultural counsellor at the Hungarian Embassy in Cairo. He said Egypt was the first non-European country where Hungary opened a cultural institute. The Hungarian Scientific and Cultural Centre started its activities in 1974 and at the request of the Egyptian government in 1977, the institute was transformed into the Office of the Cultural Counsellor, functioning as part of the Hungarian Embassy in Cairo. “Despite this change in the name, the new office could maintain a continuous Hungarian cultural presence in Cairo,” Zimonyi said. Furuya Masato, the director of the Japan Foundation in Cairo, said the Cairo branch of the foundation was the only branch in the Middle East and Africa. This could be an indication to the level of relations between Egypt and Japan. But more interesting still was that Masato liked to open the curtains to the contents of the foundation to the gathering on Sunday. He said it had 2,000 books in English, Arabic, Japanese, and other languages as well as 200 Japanese language books with cassette tapes. “We also offer Ikebana courses,” Masato said. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It has been practiced in Japan for more than 600 years. Masato added that the Japan Foundation also offered courses in Origami, which is the traditional Japanese folk art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century AD and was popularised in the mid-1900s. Equally enthusiastic was the way Turkey conducted its cultural business in this country. Sadi Altinok, the first counsellor at the Turkish Embassy in Cairo, said his country vigorously pursued its cultural programmes here, capitalising on the very good relations it had with Egypt. To many in Egypt, Turkey is a sister country. To others, it is a mother from which most of Egyptians' cultural practices originate. He said close links between the Turkish and Egyptian peoples made it easy for Turkish culture officials to conduct their business here. The gathering, which saw heavy presence from local media, is the first in a series of events The Egyptian Gazette will organise this year to celebrate its 130th anniversary. As this newspaper celebrates the 130th year of going to press, “It's still young at heart” as its current editor Ramadan Abdel Kader always says.
