9 - 15 August 2001
Issue No.546
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 9 - 15 August 2001 Issue No.546 |
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The oppressed versus the oppressors
A newly-formed Egyptian organisation is tackling the fight against racism. But as Nadia Abou El-Magd reports, unlike the upcoming World Conference Against Racism in Durban, its agenda is topped by the struggle against Zionism
Although the timing of the formation of the Egyptian Association for Combating Racism (EACR), coming barely three weeks before the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) opens in Durban, South Africa, on 31 August, was coincidental, one of its founders called the coincidence "a good omen."
In a statement issued by 15 of the association's 22 founding members at the EACR's first meeting on Sunday, the organisation stated that its main goals are: fostering the spread of a culture of equality among all intellectual trends, combating the racist Zionist project by legal means and coordinating with NGOs engaged in the same activities, inside and outside Egypt. The EACR's goals also include combating all types of cultural and religious discrimination.
The association's 22 founding members include people from across the political spectrum and different fields of endeavour. From the world of politics, founding members include Magdi Hussein, secretary-general of the frozen, Islamist-oriented Labour Party; Abdel-Al El-Baqouri of the leftist Tagammu Party and former Assistant Arab League Secretary-General Mamdouh Azzam. From academia and journalism, founders include Mohamed Emara, a Muslim scholar; Nasserist journalist Gamal Fahmi, leftist writer Ahmed Sharaf and Mohamed Salah, a Cairo correspondent for the London-based Al-Hayat daily. These individuals, along with their co-founders, will meet on 20 August to select a head and a board of directors for their organisation.
Despite the existence of anti-normalisation and pro- Intifada groups, which champion some of the positions advocated by the EACR, Montasser El-Zayat, a lawyer for Islamist groups and one of the EACR's founding members, believes that the current situation necessitates more institutionalised bodies.
According to El-Zayat, this new NGO is the first institutionalised body in Egypt with the specific goal of combating Zionism, in particular, and racism, in general. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that the association will "use all Arab and international mechanisms to revive a UN General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism." The UN had dropped that resolution after Israel and the Palestinians took part in the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991.
The association will also work to revive a request submitted to the Egyptian parliament in 1947 warning against Zionism and demanding a law equating it with racism.
The idea of establishing the association came when some of its founders were preparing for the mock trial of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which took place at the Lawyers Syndicate in June.
El-Zayat and Islamist writer Mamdouh El-Sheikh thought then of addressing the broader issue of Zionism. El-Zayat said he had not heard at the time of the Durban conference.
Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri, a founding member and author of the Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism, believes that some "themes," especially those concerning Zionism, which are highlighted by the organisation, had been gaining currency within Egyptian society even before the eruption of the Al-Aqsa Intifada last September. Elmessiri told the Weekly "We have to capitalise on the international trends, including victimology... If the world is still compensating the victims of the holocaust, why not the victims of the Western holocaust [imperialism]? By condemning racism, we will be very much on the bandwagon more than in the 1970s and 1980s," he added.
However, Elmessiri warned against "chauvinism" and said "My main goal is to humanise or give a human context to Arab and Islamic discourse. Things shouldn't boil down to 'us versus them' and 'Jew versus gentile,' but the issue should be 'the oppressed versus the oppressors'."
Wahid Abdel-Meguid, a founding member and chief editor of the Arab Strategic Report, issued by the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, believes that international mobilisation against crimes against humanity is a natural by-product of globalisation. "We should make the best use of countries which are changing their laws to make it possible for them to bring to trial perpetrators of crimes against humanity," he said. "The precedent of trying war criminals in Bosnia and other regions should encourage us to bring Sharon and his likes to trial."
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