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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Achieving the impossible
By Dahlia Hammouda
After two days of touring Cairo, Hillary Clinton delivered, on Tuesday, the first speech of her planned 12-day North African tour in front of a packed audience at the American University in Cairo. In a wide-ranging speech she addressed women's rights and democratic values and praised Egypt's progress across a number of fronts.
Speaking of the values that must be preserved for the next generation, America's First Lady told an audience that included ministers, diplomats, alumni, donors, trustees and students of her vision for the future.
"We would want," she said, "to bring with us institutions that would permit us to make this journey into the future one that we could navigate with some sense of certainty... We would want to bring an economy that provides opportunities for all people... We would want a society in which we are not only consumers but also citizens; where we recognise the role of spirituality in our lives, not just materialism; in which we would be equipped as best we can, as imperfect beings, to be prepared to imagine a better world, not to retreat inward to the past, as is the temptation in a time of change."
But it is not, Mrs Clinton stressed, the sole responsibility of governments and economies to create citizens. "I often think of society with a very simple metaphor, as a three-legged stool," she continued. "One leg is the government, one leg is the economy and one leg is what we call civil society. Now, obviously, we could not sit on that stool if there were only two legs or even just one. We could not sit on it if one leg was much more powerful and longer than the other two. Creating that balance in society among these principal institutions that govern and, in many ways, define our lives together, is something we are constantly striving to achieve."
While stressing the importance of creating citizens "who understand democracy, who protect democracy, who appreciate the human rights of themselves and others," Mrs Clinton argued that this can only be achieved by nurturing civil society. "In our religious associations, with the freedom of the expression of our religious beliefs, with the spirituality that we choose to follow, with the voluntary associations, even the soccer clubs we support," she insisted, "we are creating civil society."
Recent experiences around the world have provided several lessons to better prepare for the future, the most important, Mrs Clinton argued, being investment in people. "We know now," she reiterated, "that we have to invest in all people, in their education, in their health care, in providing the credit and economic opportunity to them that allow individuals, both alone and together, to live up to their God-given potential."
"No nation can move forward if half of its citizens are fed last or least, uneducated, under-educated, overworked, denied credit and health care, subjected to violence inside or outside of the home or are otherwise left behind," said Mrs Clinton, echoing the conclusions reached five years ago at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. She went on to congratulate Egypt on the progress it has made towards realising such conference goals as reducing infant, child, and maternal mortality and making education a right for all, not a privilege for the few.
Mrs Clinton, who had visited shops to highlight a US-supported micro-credit lending programme that has helped small business operators, many of them women, to get started, said: "Just a small amount of money given to people with the spark of enterprise and the willingness to move forward enables them not only to have dignity but also to support themselves and their families... In micro-credit, which is a civil society function, you enable people to move into the larger economy -- out of the informal economy into the formal economy -- which benefits them and the larger society."
Mrs Suzanne Mubarak received particular praise for her staunch support of female education. "I know that Mrs Mubarak has been a great champion of girls' education," Mrs Clinton said, "and the results are there to be seen. There are more girls going to and staying in school in Egypt and that is creating a higher level of education, which is one of the principal ways we will be able to navigate into the future. It is hard to create and maintain civil society, it is hard to create citizenship, if we do not have educated people."
A leading supporter of the voluntary sector in emerging democracies, Mrs Clinton expressed her conviction that citizens involved in active groups to help themselves or help others are a critical and necessary component in building open, democratic societies. The rapid growth of NGOs in Egypt, she argued, provided evidence of positive social development.
In a symbolic push for religious tolerance, Mrs Clinton visited Egypt's oldest Muslim, Christian and Jewish landmarks. "Here in Egypt," she stated, "I know that throughout the ages Muslims and Copts have lived and prospered together... But we also know that in every religion there are those who would drape themselves in the mantle of belief and faith only to distort its most sacred teachings, preaching intolerance and resorting to violence against believers of other faiths. We know that that kind of enmity that can exist between peoples, stirred up by those who have an advantage to be gained, can rip apart the fabric of communities."
Mrs Clinton, who last year expressed her support for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, took pains to underline the significance of both the Israeli-Egyptian peace accord and Egypt's international role. "We will never and must never give up on the dream of peace that was ignited with the Camp David Accords... [It is to] the leadership and the example of Egypt that we will look not only for what can be done and must be done here in the Middle East, but around the world as well," she said.
Concluding her speech, Mrs Clinton played to her audience by referring to a line in one of Umm Kulthum's most popular songs: "I am the people, I am the people; I do not know the impossible".
"This country and its citizens have proven over thousands of years," she said, "that the impossible can be rendered possible." The wife of the American president exhorted her audience to "continue to demonstrate that, here at home, but abroad as well." She continued: "It would be a tragedy...were we to lose this opportunity to do more to realise our own humanity and to create the conditions that will enable us, well into the next century, to look back and say, 'I lived my life as well as I could, I made my contributions."
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