14 - 20 December 2000
Issue No.512
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 14 - 20 December 2000 Issue No.512 |
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Declaration of faith
This week the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) celebrated the 52nd anniversary of the International Declaration of Human Rights, which was promulgated on 10 December 1948, at the Press Syndicate's temporary headquarters. The event, devoted to "solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people," was held alongside a Ramadan-special household commodity fair for journalists -- a fact that, while escaping the participants' notice, emphasised how little the ongoing saga of the Al-Aqsa Intifada had affected everyday life in the Egyptian capital since it flared up on 28 September 2000.
Journalist Karim Mahmoud, representing the Press Syndicate's Council, highlighted Egyptian sympathy with the Palestinian people's struggle for their rights. A major part of his speech focused on the failure of the Arab media to live up to the international battle waged by their Israeli counterparts. "While the Arab media managed to tranquilise the inside" (meaning the Arab peoples), "it has completely lost its battle against the Zionist media outside" the Arab countries -- an opinion recently expressed by Salama Ahmed Salama in his regular Al-Ahram column. Mahmoud's speech was also reminiscent of Salama's article in that he invoked a recent statement by the Queen of Sweden (to the effect that Palestinians were willingly letting their children die) in order to show how much the Israeli propaganda machine had managed to sway public opinion in the West. Meanwhile, Arab media, their access to the truth notwithstanding, fail to provide the world with adequate information. "In this palace of human rights and freedom of expression," Mahmoud concluded, referring to the Press Syndicate, "it is only apt that the rights of Palestinians should be affirmed."
CIHRS director Baheyeddin Hassan placed the current Palestinian struggle in the broader context of human rights struggles the world over, alluding to the suppression of human rights in the Arab countries (in which demonstrations in support of the Intifada were brutally put down, notably in Jordan) and to "the world community's shameful failure to protect human rights" in Palestine. For the benefit of an audience whose understanding of human rights may be blurred or incomplete, Hassan delineated the fundamentals of the collective rights of peoples and the individual rights of citizens, stressing the Palestinians' right to self-determination and throwing Israel's impunity into sharp relief. The remainder of his speech blended in with the statement of the Palestinian Institute for Human Rights in Gaza. It drew a connection between the human rights declaration and the declaration of the Jewish state (both of which occurred in 1948), pointing out that while the former promised humanity a guarantee of basic rights, the latter was the beginning of a long and unhindered series of crimes and abuses perpetrated against Palestinian rights by the Zionist state. With the aid of facts and figures, the statement also described Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians. Magda Adli, representing the Egyptian People's Committee in Support of the Palestinian People, not only spoke of the committee's activities -- submitting two petitions to the Egyptian Presidency and the UN as well as organising convoys carrying basic commodities to the Palestinian border -- but expanded on the theme of Israeli human rights violations.
The rest of the evening comprised poetry and music. In addition to the contributions of the Sunflower and Woman and Society choirs, poet Bahaa Jahin, the son of Salah Jahin, the phenomenally popular artist, poet and champion of Nasserism during the 1960s, read out one poem by his father and one by himself. Actor Mahmoud Hemeida, who has recently become a regular participant in left--wing events of this kind, read out poetry by perhaps the most widely respected colloquial Arabic poet of the last half century, Fouad Haddad -- all of which was topical, in the sense that it was originally written on specific occasions of Israeli aggression against Palestinians. There were more readings by contemporary poets, including Helmi Salem, whose excessively dramatic style of delivery took away from the immediacy of his poems, inspired as they were by the death of Mohamed Al--Dorra. Palestinian poet Mourid Al--Barghouthi, author of the acclaimed I Saw Ramallah, provided the highlight of the evening. His long, Intifada--inspired poem, addressed to a convincingly personified Death, communicated the sense of impossibility with which the position of the average Palestinian is imbued: "Is there no way to be away from you/Except being insanely close to you?" Quite understandably, Al--Barghouthi's poetic image of Palestinian determination -- "where the strength of our legs protects the land, not the gods" -- exacted more than a little applause from the audience.
The event coincided with the publication by CIHRS of "the first book on the Intifada," a detailed record of the events in question from 30 September to 18 October 2000, compiled, edited and commented on by Essameddin Mohamed Hassan. Copies of the book were available for the "token price" of LE5 outside the auditorium in which the celebration was held. Its proceeds are to be spent on supporting the Intifada.
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