For many considerations that I believe
are objective… with some of them have to do with the composition and stances of
Shiekh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammed Al-Qasimi; ruler of Sharjah Emirate and member
of the Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates’ rulers… and with some
others to do with Egypt; its role, status and hope… also, these words of Shiekh
Al-Qasimi, which I am going to excerpt, are inseparable of the current
circumstances our country is going through… these circumstances which I think
are very critical… so I ask your permission to excerpt some texts of Sheikh
Al-Qasimi from an interview of him published in the UAE’s newspapers on October
24, 2016.
Shiekh Al-Qasimi talked about the
role of the Arab Republic of Egypt and said: “Egypt’s nature is different to that
of other nations… as the situation in Egypt now is like the body that is
recovering from some issues it suffers… and this recovering requires a lot of
efforts… because the population is not few… 90 million people is a big nation regarding
the problems and challenges Egypt faces from abroad; from the east, south and
north… the president of the Arab Republic of Egypt; Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi is a
man of responsibility and he wants to find solutions… he is like the surgeon with
a scalpel in his hand to cut the body open… not to cause pain; but to remedy…
remedy here, amidst these circumstances and current events, needs patience… and
so, I assure you that Egypt is coming back and strong… but after we are done
with the calamity in Syria and Iraq… in Egypt, we have all the good… in Egypt,
we have an army that can defend the Arab nation… Egypt can run ten million
fighters with one military order… so, I tell you… in Egypt, we can find the
supporting back and security…
We could see that in other
countries, enemies were able to miss with their compositions and divide whole
nations into Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and Yazidis… in doing so, they were able to
dismantle them like Israel hopes… but they could and will not do this in Egypt…
because the Egyptian composition has been always, throughout history, free of
such rifts… despite what Egypt’s enemies did to hit its cohesive composition,
they were and will not be able to do what they did to the other nations.
This shall tell us about the reason
why our enemies succeeded in dismantling some countries… because there was no
common factor gathering the peoples of these nations… and so, we should stick
to the most important factor we have in common among us… that is the Arab
Nationality… so that we can be able to protect each other… and so, again I say,
Egypt is coming back”.
For many years, Dr. Sultan has
assigned himself the task of reviving the Arab culture… and so, he speaks of
his cultural project saying: “at the beginning of the Union of the Emirates, we
had education, commerce, agriculture, fishing and many fields available in the state…
but the culture was not there… because the role of culture is to add… it’s not
a source itself… I have my project which I have been working on since 1982… and
I am still going on developing it… Sharjah has something to add everyday in the
cultural domain… I myself follow the smallest details of these events… I have
my own program regarding this… this project is not only in the Emirate of
Sharjah or the state of the UAE… my cultural project is the Arab culture… and
so, if I want to achieve any renaissance in such domain, I have to initiate
this renaissance in the backbone of this region… and Egypt is the backbone in
many fields… any work faces problems… consequently, work requires stability…
also, work shall be grasped through repetition… and so, I have been working
very hard in this cultural project since tens of years until this moment… but I
am telling you, I have not achieved what I want yet… we should not hasten
making culture… because culture is about accumulations that have to be perceived
by the human mind… and so, we have to train the human mind on such discipline”.
Another text I excerpt of Shiekh Dr.
Sultan Al-Qasimi: “despite all the current events that have caused depression
to many people, I do not feel depressed… because when we look at the life of
nations, we realize very well that what is happening now is an emergency… and
there have always been many emergencies through time; whether bad or good, as
time is changing like the sea… we shall not fear these changes… despite they sometimes
bring death to our sons and throw their bodies on the European shores, we
should be patient and strong… as what we have been through during the time of Mongols
and Turks was much painful than this”.
This was the vision of a man who
sees the whole picture in Egypt and the Arab nation from a specific angle; that
is the perspective of the man-in-charge who knows well what responsibility means
…
Some may get surprised that this
Arab ruler is optimistic despite all the gloomy depression looming over the
region… but going through the context of his words about the secret of such
optimism, we find ourselves before a vision that is based, first, second and
last, on culture… culture here is about building the human and making balance
between the enlightened mind and the alerted sensitive conscience… the corner
stone of such culture is “Egypt is coming back” and “it is the base in any
future plans”…
I have known Shiekh Dr. Sultan
Al-Qasimi since 37 years exactly… and so, I am not about to narrate what he and
Sharjah offered for culture; whether in literature, arts or history… by
providing sources, references, and documents… also, what was offered for
motherhood, childhood, women and youth in more than one country… moreover, what
was offered in certain fields in our beloved Egypt and other Arab countries… since
he utterly refuses to talk about this…
I remember his clear decisive answer
regarding such thing when some tried to publish what was offered to Egypt
during his visit… he gave the example of a noble man who was tied and then his
enemies asked people to pelt him with stones… then those who love him came and
throw him with flowers while crying, thinking they declare their love to him
this way… but actually, this is not true because pelting is pelting… even if by
flowers.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article
was published in Al Ahram newspaper on October 27, 2016.
To see the
original article, go to:
#alahram
#ahmed_elgammal #sultan_alqasimi #Egypt #UAE #sharjah #culture
#cultural_renaissance
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