Friday, May 30, 2008
Gulf News
Cairo: As Egypt's oldest-serving government minister, Farouk Hosni is no stranger to controversy. Having been the Minister of Culture for 21 years, Hosni has been at the centre of many rows. Late last year, Hosni, a professional painter, angered Islamists in this predominantly Muslim country when he termed the hijab (a headscarf worn by Muslim women) as a retrogressive sign.
Years earlier, he was the target of massive protests inside and outside the Egyptian Parliament for sanctioning the publication of a novel by a Syrian writer, deemed offensive to Islam.
He is now at the centre of a different controversy. Hosni, nominated by Egypt to be the chief of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), has recently raised Jewish ire for declaring in Parliament this month that he was prepared to burn Israeli books if he found them in local libraries.
"Hosni's comment was couched in the language and actions of Nazi [Minister of Culture] Joseph Goebbels," Shimon Samuels, the director for international relations at the Jewish Simon Wiesenthal Centre in New York, said in a letter to the Unesco Director-General Koichiro Matsuura.
"Hosni has now ruled himself out as a possible successor," added Samuels, who accused the Egyptian official of being anti-Semitic.
Protest
Hosni's remark, meanwhile, prompted the Israeli Ambassador in Cairo Shalom Cohen to lodge a protest with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979. Tensions in their ties have not been uncommon over recent years mainly due to Israeli attacks against the Palestinians. Playing down the significance of his remark on the Israeli books, Hosni said: "I am hostile neither to the Jews nor to Israel."
In statements to the local media this week, he added he would not be opposed to having normal cultural ties with Israel, if it "fulfilled its international commitments towards the Palestinians."
Hosni is due in mid-June to fly to France to drum up support for his Unesco candidacy. He said he would meet with Jewish leaders to "acquaint them with the efforts made by the [Egyptian] Ministry of Culture to preserve and restore the Jewish heritage" in Egypt.
"How can I be anti-Semitic, when I am Semitic myself?" he said. Hosni pledged the whole world "would be his home" if he were elected as the Unesco chief. Although several countries have voiced backing for his nomination, local observers predict that his bid for Unesco's top spot will not fare well.
Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.
