21 - 27 June 2001
Issue No.539
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539 |
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The natural philosophers
Last Thursday Minister of Scientific Research Moufid Shehab, in his capacity as head of the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, announced the names of the recipients of the Science and Technology State Awards for 2000.The Mubarak Awards (LE100,000 each) went to Mohamed El-Shafie El- Zawahri, professor of dermatology at Cairo University (science) and Mohamed Ghoniem, director of the Centre of Nephrology at Mansoura University (advanced technological sciences).
State Merit Awards (worth LE50,000) went to Mohamed Kamal El-Aqqad, president of Tanta University and Aziza Youssef, professor at the Centre of Metallurgic Research and Development (basic sciences); Galal El-Sayed El-Hattab, professor of agriculture at Cairo University and Abdel-Moneim Balbaa, professor of agriculture at Alexandria University (agricultural science); Samia El-Tamtami, professor at the National Research Centre (medical research) and Mohamed Fayyad, professor of gynecology at Cairo University and Mustafa Hafiz, professor at Mansoura University (medical sciences); Farouq Ismail, former rector of Cairo University and the late Abdel-Moneim Youssef, formerly a professor at Cairo University (engineering).
The academy also announced the winners of State Distinction Awards (LE25,000), State Incentive Awards (LE10,000) and the State Awards for Environmental Research and Environmental Education. Also announced were the National Bank Awards for Creativity in the Sciences (LE25,000) and the Mohamed Abdel-Salam Chemistry Award. The Academy of the Third World Award in Biology was withheld.
"The universities are no longer leading scientific research alone," Shehab announced. As the awards demonstrate, "research centres are now working hand in hand with the universities and competing with them, making for a more vital scientific environment."
In the footsteps of Bahaa
The Friends of the Ahmed Bahaaeddin Foundation held its third annual scholarship and awards ceremony last Wednesday at the Cairo Library in Zamalek. The ceremony was attended by the family of the late Ahmed Bahaaeddin, members of the foundation, friends and society figures including Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher El-Sayed, Youth and Sports Minister Alieddin Hilal, economists Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, Galal Amin and Hazem El-Beblawi, as well as Abdel-Azim Anis, Ahmed Mustagir, Mohamed Mustagab, Helmi El-Touni and Safynaz Kazem among others. And yet, despite the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the establishment of the foundation, this annual ceremony remains its only public activity (the only exception was hosting Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish at the Opera House three years ago).The foundation's awards are divided in two parts. The first are scholarships of LE5,000 each, granted to select junior scholars based on research proposals judged by a committee headed by Tareq El-Bishri. A year later, the completed work is submitted and an award of another LE5,000 is given to the most thoroughly researched. The foundation also helps the winner in publishing his or her research. Shadha El-Khatib's Madinat Al- Quds (The City of Jerusalem), the previous winner, is now available through Dar Al-Shorouq.
Six scholarships were awarded: Shaaban Mustafa Qazamil will research the history of medicine in Arab Muslim civilisation; Afaf Abdel-Mu'ti the symbols of freedom in Egyptian women's writings; Mohamed Abdel-Hamid Dawud the security of water in the Arab world; Mohamed El-Baz little-known newspapers, ignored in the history of Egyptian press; Mahmoud Ahmed El-Esheiri modern literary criticism and Hani Labib Morgan citizenship and globalisation. The second award is to be withheld this year.
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the leading political analyst and a close friend of Bahaaeddin who moderated the last two ceremonies was conspiciously absent at this year's gathering. In keeping with a tradition he started, however, this year's moderator, Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, invited several members of the audience to speak briefly about the late Bahaaeddin and the issues of the day. All agreed on Bahaaeddin's broad intellectual horizons which included politics, economics, history and culture in general and his ability to explain whatever issue in a simple, lucid manner.
"There is no idea, no matter how deep, that cannot be explained in 200 words," he is reported to have once said.
Saddam's literature
The French authorities approved the entry into France of a selection of Iraqi books to be exhibited at the sixth binannual Euro-Arab Book Fair organised by the Arab World Institute, which closed last Sunday. The decision to allow Iraq to participate in the book fair runs contrary to the dictates of the embargo imposed on Iraq by the international community and was therefore not approved until institute officials promised the French Foreign Ministry to return the books in question to their country of origin as soon as the exhibition was over.The books were exhibited for two days, reaching France long after the opening of the book fair, having been seized at the airport as Iraqi exports that should not be sold in France. Yet the French authorities refused to concede the connection between the event and Iraqi-French relations, which have recently been deteriorating due to France's position on the Iraqi problem.
One of the books in question is a novel attributed to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Zabiba wal Malik (Zabiba and the King), a fact, it is said, that could only exacerbate the objections of French officials.
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