28 Feb. - 6 March 2002
Issue No.575
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 Feb. - 6 March 2002 Issue No.575 |
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Dual-action ministrations
Youssef Rakha and Nevine El-Aref speak to Cherif El-Choubachi -- the newest player in the official cultural arena -- about his two new positions
Cherif El-Choubachi -- journalist, fiction writer, playwright and long-standing pillar of the mainstream cultural apparatus -- was the Al-Ahram Paris Bureau chief for two decades before returning to Cairo to occupy two Ministry of Culture posts -- Undersecretary for Foreign Cultural Relations and director of the Cairo International Film Festival.
At the Foreign Cultural Relations Department headquarters, a villa in Dokki, El-Choubachi receives guests with a quiet, obliging manner and a capacity for openness seldom to be encountered in government officials, though his willingness to communicate is consistently undermined by a seemingly unending busyness. "I'm sorry I have kept you waiting but this will have to be brief, I'm afraid. A very important guest is to arrive shortly..." In the spacious, extravagantly furnished room, El-Choubachi positions himself comfortably behind his desk, within reach of several periodically buzzing receivers. His hands toy with a scrap of paper as he listens, patiently, to questions; they stop only when he raises his head to respond.
The son of famous lawyer and writer Moufid El-Choubachi, he grew up in a house where the tearing of a book was punished severely, he explains, while the breaking of a vase, however expensive, was overlooked. His early love for the arts was nurtured by his father and those who visited his weekly Thursday "salon," an informal seminar organised by the lawyer. Such salon regulars, El-Choubachi recalls, included trailblazing literary critics Mohamed Mandour and Louis Awad as well as major litterateurs like Abdel- Rahman El-Sharqawi. He was initially drawn to literature but, El-Choubachi sighs, politics and society soon became fields of interest; before too long it was necessary to reassess his position vis- à-vis the West. A Lycée Français pupil, El- Choubachi had connections with the cosmopolitan side of the city from the start. His literary interests emanated from Corneille, Racine and Hugo as much as any Arab author; his first job was on the staff of Images, a French- language publication of Dar Al-Hilal.
This tension, it seems, has informed the progress of his career through its various stages of compromise. After Images, he joined the staff of Al-Musawwar, Dar Al-Hilal's weekly magazine; from the Egyptian radio's French service to UNESCO, he capitalised on his knowledge of French language and culture even as he entrenched himself in the fabric of the institution. He was appointed at Al-Ahram in 1985, soon to become the newspaper's Paris bureau chief. In France, living, as he describes it, at the centre of world culture, he relished the rich diversity of the latter, enjoying the arts and, whenever time permitted it, advancing his own literary career. El-Choubachi has produced four collections of short stories, two of which -- "A Hero From The South" and "Jerusalem Will Never Fall" -- have found their way onto the screen and the stage, respectively. The latter, translated into French in 1998, was lauded by President Jacques Chirac as "a commendable summary of the encounter between Islam and the West." A spokesman for Minister Farouk Hosni, on the other hand, more recently characterised El-Choubachi as "cultured, refined and with a huge circle of contacts," the better to be able to "exercise bilateral and multilateral relations."
Despite some intellectuals' reservations, then, El-Choubachi would seem to be an excellent candidate for his many new tasks. His familiarity with both the relevant professional requirements and the workings of Egyptian bureaucracy, indeed, makes him comfortable enough with this line of thinking. "I had spent 21 years in France and was already thinking of winding up there, as it were, and returning to my country" when he was officially notified of the Minister's decision to install him in place of Mohamed Ghoneim, the last undersecretary of foreign cultural relations, some four months after the said decision was made (in September 2001). Already he felt it was time "to be back, to return and establish a life here. Very fortunately," El-Choubachi seems to underline everything he says, "my being offered this post coincided with an existing desire to return to Cairo." A week later, Hosni informed El- Choubachi that he would also replace actor Hussein Fahmi as the director of the Cairo International Film Festival. He was somewhat less thrilled about this latter offer, it would seem, although he readily concedes that cinema has remained near the top of his list of priorities throughout his career: his interest in film and his contacts in the field are abundant, he implies; and, unlike Fahmi, whose policy was informed by purely professional standards, El-Choubachi is aware of the wider political, cultural and social implications of the festival inviting certain guests of honour or screening certain films. "The festival belongs in an Arab country," he asserts, "and it is the Arab identity that it should cater to." After answering another phone call, El- Choubachi reiterates one of the first points he made: "I was extremely excited about both positions."
As a newcomer to the Foreign Cultural Relations Department, El- Choubachi is eager to point out he is still implementing the programme conceived by his predecessor. As is evident from what he says in the course of one phone call, El- Choubachi believes that, for the first few months at least, no dramatic changes should be introduced. For now work will progress in the same way that it always has. "I have just arrived, I have barely taken over," he pleads.
Yet this does not mean that El-Choubachi has no position on the department's future. "Cultural diversity" is the new undersecretary's catch phrase, and he uses it with appropriate restraint, elaborating on its application where necessary: "My aim is quite simply to develop and improve foreign cultural relations. My job will of course include placing and implementing programmes and protocols, sometimes in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs." In this context, El-Choubachi is intent on prioritising the developing world, promoting an increased sense of solidarity with the rest of the Arab World and reviving cultural protocols and agreements that, having been signed, were not fully implemented. "Countries in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa have so much in common with us," he affirms. "I don't mean to imply that I am an authority but I do have a vision for improving Egypt's cultural links with these countries." In Arab cities, too, a series of "cultural weeks" will see not only Egyptian dance troupes but -- and this is the kind of contribution El-Choubachi envisions -- art and antiquities exhibitions and film screenings. The upcoming Italian-Egyptian festival (starting next year) will feature exhibitions in Italy of objects d'art from the Antiquities Department and the Mahmoud Khalil collection as well as performances by the Tannoura, Nubia, Luxor and Port Said dance troupes, among other activities.
Logistically, El-Choubachi believes that sending a dance troupe to only one city in a region like Latin America is both costly and limiting. If a troupe is to perform in Santiago de Chile, for example, it should also perform in Bogota, Buenos Aires and Brasilia. Overall this would reduce the cost of managing such tours and increase the degree of "cultural benefit" to be gleaned from them. "These are very simple, but very relevant modifications," he says. "One's budget is inevitably going to be limited and therefore one should make the best possible use of it."
Budget, indeed, is "the perennial problem" that plagues both the Department and the festival. "There are no other problems to speak of," El- Choubachi attests. His personal budget having plummeted on his return (El-Choubachi would rather not mention this), there is an element of sacrifice, almost, in taking on board his two new positions and the tasks that go with them.
Expanding the festival's budget is only one of El-Choubachi's goals, however. He will attempt to achieve it primarily through the state apparatus; the role of the private sector, he insists, will be at best complementary; for the kind of consistent, wide-ranging private-sector support that he annually witnessed at the Cannes Film Festival is impossible to manage in Egypt. "First, one has to make contact with various state institutions that might have an interest in the festival, for it is irrational to assign the huge task of funding the festival to the Ministry of Culture alone. There is, to mention but two examples, the Ministry of Tourism and the Cairo Governorate; and both parties, truth to tell, have displayed a remarkable interest in the festival and willingness to support it."
Here, too, cultural diversity will reign supreme; and though the final decision rests with the viewing committee, El-Choubachi's curatorial policy will, so far as possible, stress diversity. "The criteria for the selection of films will be diversity, quality and popularity -- in this order." Guests of honour, too, will henceforth be selected largely on the basis of their position vis-à-vis the Arab World. "Of course," El-Choubachi qualifies this statement, "this doesn't mean that they will all be Arab sympathisers or unconditional supporters of, say, the Palestinian cause. But there are those in whom one can see a willingness to be sympathetic; they will be at the top of the list. For there is no festival without stars," he adds, "but those who are explicitly anti-Arab, or those who have adopted distinctly anti-Arab positions as public figures, will no longer be invited."
El-Choubachi will attempt, in addition, to use the festival as a vehicle for promoting Egyptian cinema elsewhere in the world, especially in those countries, like Azerbaijan, with which he feels Egyptian relations would do well to improve. "The worst problem besetting Egyptian cinema is inefficient distribution. Even Arab markets, which Egypt monopolised for many years, are slipping away with ever larger numbers of Syrian, Iranian and Indian films being sold there. Now the role of the festival is not to support and vitalise the Egyptian film industry, but by virtue of the opportunity it provides for meetings and agreements to take place, it can contribute to resolving marketing problems. We will therefore invite major distributors from various parts of the world and attempt to initiate a dialogue with them." One such invitee, for example, is the main film distributor in Azerbaijan, whose presence at the festival has been encouraged by the Azerbaijani ambassador to Egypt. His counterparts throughout the former Asian Soviet republics are expected to follow suit.
Prior to the arrival of his guest, El-Choubachi has time for only a few, brief remarks on his new life here in Cairo. "The strangest thing is that, on arriving here to live, it was as if I had never left. This surprises even me. Of course there is a difference: the traffic, the rhythm of life, Cairo's throbbing and tiring nights -- I had not stayed up this late for years -- and the strange familiarity that I instantly enjoyed with everything, even though I'd been away from it for so long."
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