6 - 12 December 2001
Issue No.563
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 December 2001 Issue No.563 |
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Obituary
Scientist and humanist
Osama El-Kholy
(1923-2001)
This is not an obituary, but a recollection of a friendship that lasted over 50 years.
Osama El-Kholy
(1923-2001)
It was in 1946 that I first met Osama El- Kholy, when we were living in London. He had come to Britain on a government scholastic mission to study aeronautics, which was at that time a new subject, and El-Kholy was the first Egyptian to study it. At that time I was a young man working as secretary of the Egyptian Institute in London. We immediately struck up a friendship that continued until his departure. Being more or less of the same age wiped away the divide between a student and a civil servant.
El-Kholy became a family friend and together he, my wife and myself began to explore the art and culture life of London. We went to plays and concerts and visited the city's landmarks together. El-Kholy loved music and played the violin, hence our regular attendance of the Promenade Concerts.
El-Kholy joined London University and soon showed his genius. His reports from his professor were unmatched. His interests, however, went further than his academic discipline. El-Kholy, was a political thinker and nationalist -- one who worried about the state of affairs in Egypt. This was why we joined a study group, a cell if you like, initiated by the late Mustafa Musharrafa. In our own way we were fighting for the cause of Egypt in England. Together we published a booklet titled "Egypt and the Labour Government," in which we explained the situation in Egypt and expressed our hope that the then newly elected Labour government would meet our national demands and deal with Egypt in the same way that it had dealt with India.
El-Kholy got his PhD and returned to Egypt where he established a department of aeronautics at Cairo University's Faculty of Engineering. Meanwhile he acted as an adviser for aeronautical research.
Although we did not meet often, we kept in contact by phone. Years later our paths crossed again in Moscow where El-Kholy was posted as cultural counsellor during the period 1970-1975. He was always available to help out the hundreds of Egyptian postgraduate students there on scholarships provided by the Soviet government. I was surprised to find him speaking Russian fluently. He was a genius with languages.
My frequent visits to Moscow gave me the chance to see El-Kholy, and together we resumed our exploration of art and culture, regularly attending performances of the Bolshoi and visiting the city's dozens of museums.
Upon El-Kholy's return to Egypt he was made chair of Cairo University's aeronautics department. In 1979, he became the Acting Director of the Arab League's Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (ALECSO). El-Kholy worked for the United Nations on numerous projects concerning the environment and other areas of scientific research. He travelled throughout the world, participating in conferences, advising governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In his capacity as consultant for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), he carried out several missions in the Arab world. He acted as a senior consultant to the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) between 1980-92 and was the co-coordinator and co-editor of a publication entitled The World Environment, 1972-92. He was truly the progressive and intellectual voice of Egypt abroad.
El-Kholy always had a global outlook on problems. This is why he joined the movement for an international institution for intellectuals, which was initiated by the late Lotfy El-Kholy and happily brought us into close contact once again. We often reminisced about our long friendship, remembering our days in London and Moscow.
I shall always remember his voice over the phone from an Arab country, crying over the death of my son Hamdi. "You remember," he said "I used to baby-sit for him." Of course I remember. How could I forget?
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