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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Special Focus Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The end of history?
By Sahar El-BahrThose who attended the three-day seminar recently organised by the Egyptian Historical Association to commemorate the death of Mohamed Ali would never have guessed that the Association itself, founded in the reign of the penultimate scion of the Egyptian royal family, was in danger of undergoing some death throes of its own. Some 30 historians from all over the world participated in the lively discussions. Perhaps more than researchers in other fields of history, specialists in the Mohamed Ali period hold passionately to their views, and debates raged fast and furious over issues as diverse as Mohamed Ali's personality; Mohamed Ali and the Sudan: Ottoman expansion or Egyptian occupation?; administrative and military reforms in Bilad Al-Sham; Mohamed Ali in the school syllabus; the 19th-century penal code; and state policies in rural areas in early 19th-century Egypt.
This seminar, however, could be the last of the activities organised by the Association: plagued by financial problems, it is finding it difficult to gather the funds necessary for hosting such events, not to mention paying the rent. The Association's current headquarters, off Bustan Street, downtown, near the Diplomatic Club (formerly the Mohamed Ali Club) have seen historians come and go since 1945.
Raouf Abbas, the Association's president, explains that last year the rent was raised from LE60 to LE550, in line with the new tenant law. The sum will be increased a further 10 per cent every year, turning the financial pinch into a veritable squeeze. The owner of the building that houses the Association has already filed a lawsuit: "He wants us to pay as much as the companies and offices renting space in the same building -- LE800. We could be thrown into the street at any minute, and that would be the end of the Association, which has been preserving Egyptian history for 50 years." Abbas believes that the new rent law must differentiate between companies and the non-profit organisations like the Association when setting rent brackets.
In the '70s, according to Abbas, the owner of the building offered the Association a villa in Manshiyet Al-Bakri and LE30,000 to move its headquarters, but the board refused the offer.
Recently, though, a ray of hope appeared. Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni has raised the LE2,000 granted the Association by the ministry every year to LE10,000. Mufid Shehab, minister of higher education, has also allocated LE10,000 to the Association.
Even with such assistance, however, it will be extremely difficult to make ends meet.
Membership fees are rarely paid: of the 3,000 members, according to Abbas, only 200 pay the LE10 a year. Besides rent, the Association's expenses include water and electricity, as well as the salaries of the three part-time staff (a librarian, a secretary and an office boy). A second librarian has been appointed, and is to create an indexing system for the library. The Association must also find a way of funding the two lectures it organises every month, as well as the annual seminar and the periodical it issues. "Our demands are very humble. We just need to meet our monthly rent and fund our basic activities," Abbas explains.
The Association's library houses some 8,000 books, placed in random order in cupboards that may well have witnessed the inauguration ceremonies. There is no indexing system, but Abbas hopes the new librarian will remedy this lacuna, and even bring the Association into the computer age. About 10 researchers, mostly master's students, visit the library. "Many books have been stolen, so we don't loan books any more. There is no money to buy new books. So we depend on donations," the librarian explains.
This state of affairs is particularly distressing when one considers what the Association's library once was. In 1945, a budget of LE500 was allocated for the purchase of books chosen by a special committee. By 1948, the library held 4,000 works.
The Association is just one member of an illustrious institutional lineage: Gam'iyyat Al-Ma'arif (The Society of Knowledge) was established in 1868 to commission and select scientific works for publication; the Geographical Society was set up in 1875; the Islamic Humanitarian Association, established in 1878, sought to open new schools. Under King Fouad, many other associations were created. In 1945, renowned historian Mohamed Shafiq Ghorbal suggested that a society devoted to historical research be created, and the Royal Association for Historical Studies came into being.
The 1940s and '50s were a period of great activity: research was collected and published in English and French; visiting historians delivered lectures and, in turn, received assistance in their research efforts in Egypt. In 1954, the Association's board met with representatives of the Rockefeller Foundation to discuss ways of enhancing East-West relations. But this period of efflorescence soon came to an end, due to the financial crisis from which the Association has yet to emerge.
