28 March - 3 April 2002
Issue No.579
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 March - 3 April 2002 Issue No.579 |
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 During the opening ceremony of the Seventh International Student Leadership Conference (ISLC), held at the American University in Cairo, on 26 March, Gamal Mubarak, chairman of the Future Generation Foundation, held an open forum and a debate entitled "Bridging the Divide: The Role of Future Leaders."
Conference sessions are taking place from 27 to 30 March, with the introduction of six workshops that cover leadership-related issues and others that touch upon economic and social matters. The participants will discuss topics like role models; defining or redefining the family; selfishness, human nature and the desire to control; differentiating between reality and fiction; development and modernisation; and ideas that can create or destroy societies. In addition to young people from national and private universities in Egypt, a wide array of international students are coming from Spain, Germany, the United States, Bosnia and Canada to attend. |
 Students of the Tal'at Harb Secondary School for Girls seem to rather enjoy touring the Al-Ahram offices, since they have just paid us a third visit, at the invitation of my diligent colleague Mahmoud Bakr. At Al-Ahram Weekly, Bakr delivered a lecture on the role our paper has played in raising environmental awareness. He also discussed with the students the Weekly's unique style, which distinguishes it from Al-Ahram's other publications. The students, who are all members of the Centre for Protecting Natural Resources, were instrumental in earning their school first place among the 336 schools competing to implement environmentally friendly measures. On their tour, they were accompanied by school headmistress Nadia Khalaf and the founder of the centre, Abdel-Hamid Hamza.
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 The promising bass baritone Ashraf Sweilam has just returned from the United States after obtaining first prize at the undergraduate studies competition for opera singing held at the University of Colorado this month. The competition featured 80 singers from all over the United States, but Sweilam blew them out of the water with pieces by Brahms, Debussy, Verdi and Rossini. As a member of the Cairo Opera Company, he won another prize for excellence in an operatic singing contest held in Germany last year. Sweilam learned his art and his craft from star Egyptian tenor Raouf Zeidan, and received his master's degree from the University of Colorado. His repertoire includes Basilio in II Barbiere di Siviglia, the title role in Don Pasquale, Saratro in The Magic Flute and Collin in La Bohème. He has released two CD compilations of international lullabies, and presently teaches music at the American University in Cairo -- even now, when he is so busy rehearsing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, to be performed at the Cairo Opera House's Main Hall on 30 March.
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 I am happy to tell you, dears, that the Cervantes Institute is resuming its cultural activities with a series of unique exhibitions by contemporary Spanish artists. This week, Antonio Serrano's exhibition, titled "La Granada Nazar’ y el Valle de Lecr’n" (Granada in the era of Bani Nasr and the Valley of Lecrin) was inaugurated by cultural attaché José Mar’a Laviña and director of the centre Antonio Gil de Carrasco. Members of the diplomatic corps and the Spanish community in Egypt turned out in force. The exhibition, which lasts until 31 March, features bright oil paintings of Granada's landscapes and remarkable Islamic architecture.
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 Jean-Paul Hertzog, Hilton International vice-president for Egypt and Sudan, recently held a grand reception at the Alf Leila ballroom of the Nile Hilton in honour of general manager Hassan K Hamza, who is retiring on 1 April after 34 years of service. The new manager, Jean-Pierre Mainardi, a seasoned member of the Hilton Hotels family, has many years of worldwide experience. Many important personalities attended, including government officials, diplomats, travel agents, prominent businessmen and members of the press. My dear friend Farida Mansour, public relations manager, welcomed them all.
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 It has been 25 years since his death, and everything may have changed save for Abdel-Halim Hafez's enduring ability to captivate the Arabs' imagination. His tragic disappearance, aged 48, left his contemporaries bereft; even those born long after his death mourn him somehow, although their nostalgia has at its centre the void of a subject they never experienced fully. Abdel-Halim's love songs still shape every teen's first stirring of emotion, inform every expectation of how romance should feel; and his patriotic hymns -- especially today, as the leaders in Beirut seek to salvage unity from the shreds of national aspiration -- still bring Arabs to their feet, from the Gulf to the Ocean. This portrait, by Gamal Kamel, was the one Abdel- Halim cherished most
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What a beautiful concert it was that commemorated the anniversary of legendary singer/composer Mohamed Abdel-Wahab's birth at the Cairo Opera House. Mrs Suzanne Mubarak attended, giving the event special prestige. Syrian vocalist Safwan Bahlawan, whose voice, critics say, sounds exactly like Abdel-Wahab's, was accompanied by the National Arabic Music Ensemble, with maestro Selim Sahab conducting. The recital started with Ilayha (To Her), played on the oud by Sayed Mansour; then Khaled Abdel- Ghaffar performed Abdel- Wahab's famous poem Al- Seba wal-Gamal (Youth and Beauty). The wife of Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam and the wife of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq El-Hariri both attended, as did the spouses of other dignitaries from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan -- all of whom were in Cairo especially to attend the concert. Culture Minister Farouk Hosni and director of the Cairo Opera Samir Farag received these illustrious music aficionados.
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