France has her say
Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
Sept 7 2006
Despite the British occupation, French culture was the number one
foreign culture among Egyptians. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk explains
that even though the occupiers succeeded in introducing English to a
great number of schools, France was king
Abdel-Rahman El-Gabarti, the grandfather of Egyptian historians, was
contemporary to the French military expedition and wrote two books
about it. In the first he recorded all that he witnessed, and it came
out in four volumes under the title Ajaaib Al-Athar fi Al-Tarajim
Wal-Akhbar [the wonders of the vestiges of biographies and events].
This book was objective within the limits of the religious culture
that predominated in that age.
Rifaa El-Tahtawi
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His second book was released in one volume and was produced under
request by the first Ottoman pasha who arrived at the citadel
following the departure of the French. It consisted of excerpts from
the first book that defamed the occupiers who had only recently
evacuated the country and was titled Mathhar Al-Taqdis bi- Zawal
Dawlat Al-Faransis [the phenomenon of sanctifying the removal of the
French state].
The great El-Gabarti rejected in his second book much of what he had
been impressed with in the first. With regard to culture in
particular, following his visit to the library the military
expedition had established, he had expressed his bedazzlement with
its order. Likewise, upon his visit to the scientific institute the
military expedition had established, he had been awed by the chemical
experiments its scientists were conducting. He even wrote in
acknowledgment, “these matters are not comprehended by minds of our
likes.”
This is perhaps what led some Francophone Egyptians to coin the
metaphorical phrase stating that “Napoleon came with cannons and a
printing press, and he returned to his country with the cannons but
left the printing press.” This is also perhaps what led Sheikh Hassan
El-Attar, El-Gabarti’s teacher who had greater opportunity to mix
with the French, to advise his student Rifaa El-Tahtawi, when he was
sent by Mohamed Ali Pasha with the first academic mission to France
in 1826, to record all the details of life he would witness among
people there. El-Tahtawi did this meticulously, and his famed book
Takhlis Al-Abriz fi Talkhis Bariz [extrication of pure gold in an
outline of Paris]. This book was the first Egyptian overview of a
European society.
The saying that Napoleon left behind the printing press was not
accurate in actuality, however, for the men of the military
expedition in fact took their two presses with them when they left
the country. Yet it was true metaphorically, for French culture
remained the number one foreign culture among Egyptians until after
WWII (1945). It dominated its English counterpart despite the British
occupation of the country and the occupiers’ efforts and policies. At
the head of these efforts was the English consultant to the Ministry
of Education, Douglas Dunlop, who sought to Anglicise education.
These efforts ended in failure, however, and although the occupiers
succeeded in their aim of introducing English to a great number of
schools, they failed in Anglicising education and culture. The spread
of the occupiers’ language was limited to civil servants, and among
other Egyptian intellectuals, French remained lord.
This can be traced to a number of reasons. Most of the Egyptian
missions dispatched during the reign of the remarkable ruler Mohamed
Ali Pasha were sent to France. Statistics concerning the members of
eight missions sent during this period show that 372 were sent to
Paris, including a number of leading intellectuals such as Rifaa
El-Tahtawi and Ali Mubarak, while the number of those sent to England
was 47, sent to learn advanced industries. The second mission sent to
England, consisting of 21 members, was dispatched to learn the art of
carpentry. Austria only received seven delegates. In other words, the
primary bloc of Egyptian delegates to Europe during this Pasha’s era
headed to France, to the degree that the Egyptian government set up
special housing for them that was supervised by one of the academics
of the French expedition.
Mohamed Ali entrusted Frenchmen with the supervision of the advanced
military institutes he established — the war academy, the medical
school and the naval academy. Mohamed Ali’s initial establishment of
a modern education system in Egypt had coincided with the fall of
Napoleon Bonaparte (1815) and the release of a large number of
officers from the French army, whom the ambitious pasha welcomed into
the process of modernising the country he ruled.
It was natural for these men to add a French flavour to their
schools’ programmes and to rely on the resources and methodologies
they had learned from or taught with in their own institutes. This
situation sped up the French to Arabic and Turkish translation
movement, a fact that was followed by the Al-Alsun [languages] School
being the first to be established alongside the military institutes
to serve this need.
During the final quarter of the 19th century, a class of large
agricultural landowners developed and sent its children to the French
schools that spread across the country, in particular the Jesuit and
Frere Schools for boys and the Sacre CÏur and Bonne Pasteur Schools
for girls. This further spread French culture among this class, to
the point that the commonly used language in many of its households
was French rather than Arabic. Many also sent their children to
complete their education in France’s universities, particularly to
law colleges and the universities of Sorbonne and Montpellier.
Law schools were the most common type of French educational centre.
At one time, when the French felt that their influence was waning in
the khedivial law school, they established an adjunct French law
school that gained wide acceptance among members of the class of
large agricultural landowners. Moreover, legal education, which the
French excelled in, was like the royal door for those who wished to
gain a high position in the judiciary and then in political life. A
number of Egyptians who forged paths in these fields benefited from
this situation, including Saad Zaghloul, Mustafa Kamel, Mohamed
Farid, Qasim Amin, Ahmed Lutfi El-Sayed, and many others.
French thus became the primary foreign language for the
communications of the Egyptian government’s ministries, and
particularly the ministries of justice and foreign affairs. A look at
the various rounds of negotiations that took place starting in 1920,
including those known as the Saad-Milner negotiations, and until
1936, in the negotiations that ended with the treaty of friendship
and alliance between Egypt and England, shows that Egyptian
negotiators used French while British negotiators used English.
Moreover, a look at the foreign press issued during that era confirms
that some of it was read by Egyptians as well as the foreign
communities whose languages it was written in. French took the lion’s
share in this, and it is sufficient to note that Al-Ahram was the
first to publish a French edition called Le Pyramides. Other French
language newspapers including Le Progrès Egyptien and La Reforme, and
were widely read by Egyptians.
In contrast, English culture did not enjoy a similar share. The
occupying state did not have strong enough missions to compete with
French missions in the field of education, and the most it could do
was to establish Victoria College in Alexandria, most of whose
students were members of the British community in Egypt alongside
small numbers of Egyptians. While American missions were more active
in this regard, most of their efforts were spent on urging Coptic
Christians to change their sect from Orthodox to Protestant, which
was opposed by the national church. In addition, they established
schools in the areas they were concentrated in, Assiut in Upper Egypt
and Tanta in Lower Egypt. They also attracted members of the small
middle class who did not have a strong social or cultural influence
as did the aristocracy who joined French schools. Yet even when one
of the American missionary groups established the American University
in Cairo in 1920, it did not receive sufficient attention because it
was at first more of a high school and did not target Egyptians as
much as minorities such as the Armenians, Greeks, and Jews.
Another indication confirming the preponderance of French culture
arises in the war waged by the high commissioner’s headquarters in
Cairo when the affiliation of the local university’s administration
was transferred to the Egyptian Ministry of Education in 1925 and it
was turned into a royal university. Lord Lloyd, the British high
commissioner, tried by all means possible to make the majority of its
colleges’ teaching staff English. While he succeeded with regard to
the colleges of medicine and sciences, he failed with regard to the
colleges of arts and law, the majority of whose teaching staff
remained of French culture, whether Egyptians or Frenchmen.
A final observation, and although it may seem superficial, is in fact
highly significant. A large number of French vocabulary items slipped
into the speech of ordinary Egyptians, such as bonjour, bonsoir, au
revoir, and others, more than their English counterparts were used.
We can still witness this in the dialogues of cinematic films
produced during that period.
THIS LENGTHY HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION explains what took place in the
period following the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. This treaty, while
settling many of the problems between Egypt and the occupying state,
also removed many of the obstacles the British authorities in the
Egyptian capital had placed before the natural relations between
Cairo and Paris.
In the period following the signing of the treaty, cultural relations
between the two states grew active again in an unprecedented manner.
While the French-English agreement signed in 1904 known as Entente
Cordiale guaranteed France some advantages that maintained its
cultural relations with Egypt, and particularly with regard to French
schools and the post of the director of antiquities remaining with a
Frenchman, WWI and the resultant growth of the nationalist movement
drove the British authorities to withdraw most of the advantages the
French had held onto. Their excuse was always ready — that Egyptians
had the competence to fill the places that had been agreed to be left
to the French.
To the point, following the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, Egyptian-French
relations regained their former position of prominence, this time
through the will of both sides. And Al-Ahram played a role in this
change.
This role is apparent in the trip organised by Al-Ahram for those
wishing to visit the Paris international exhibition that opened on 16
June 1937. The young King Farouk I and the president of the French
republic participated in the opening of the Egyptian section.
Speeches were given by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey, the commissioner
of the exhibition’s Egyptian section, and the exhibition’s general
commissioner. Cultural relations between the two countries occupied
the greater part of the two men’s speeches.
In Khalil Bey’s speech, he compared between “Egypt, the mother of the
arts” and the “vestiges of Napoleon” left behind in Egypt. Of the
first, he said that “the antiquities of Isis, who Egyptian artists
have glorified here, and the restoration of her tomb, this is what
speaks of us in this dialect.” As for the latter, he placed two
volumes of the encyclopedic Description of Egypt before him and
described them as an innovative work that “all those who love your
country and ours must be familiar with.”
As for the commissioner’s speech, it was replete with praise for
Egyptian civilisation. He said that the participation of Egyptians in
the exhibition “shows with the clearest of indications that you are
worthy of being the successors of ancient Egypt and the great
territory with which is formed the Egyptian homeland, the producer of
a civilisation established 6,000 years ago, a civilisation of arts
and industries that, in their glorified appearance, we applaud this
year between deference and dignity in the shadow of peace.”
Another occasion presented itself in the form of a celebration of the
end of the school year for the Jesuit Fathers School in Paris.
Mahmoud Fakhri Pasha, the Egyptian minister plenipotentiary, attended
the event on the occasion of his son succeeding in his baccalaureate
with the grade of “very good”. He indicated that he, in turn, was a
graduate of a branch of the same school in Alexandria, “whose work in
the Nile Valley in particular had been fruitful and successful. Many
academics, statesmen and prominent men are graduates of the Jesuit
Fathers schools. Last May, the French-Arabic school opened in
Heliopolis and on this occasion Ahmed Ziwar Pasha, a former Egyptian
prime minister, gave a speech, saying that there is no country more
ready for this education than Egypt. Putting spirit and thought
before materiality was one of the truest traditions of ancient
Egyptian civilisation.”
A third occasion was provided by the International Conference for
Foreign Writers of French. Egypt’s part in it was a speech made by
Georges Cattawi under the title “Egypt’s writers and French
literature.” At the head of these writers was Wasef Ghali Pasha, the
Egyptian minister of foreign affairs at that time. Cattawi began by
documenting the national role of the pasha, who was the son of
Boutros Pasha the Great and the uncle of Boutros Ghali, the former
secretary-general of the United Nations who once told this writer
that Wasef Pasha had been the highest role model he had emulated
throughout his life. Yet despite his national role, Cattawi stressed,
“he did not overlook the craft of literature, historical studies, and
the writing of poetry. The traces of his pen can be counted through
the merits of prose and the choicest works of poetry. He made it
clear that the West and Christianity have borrowed greatly from
Islamic civilisation.”
Cattawi did not limit himself to Wasef Ghali, however; in his speech
he also made observation of other Egyptians he praised for writing in
French. “No writer in Egypt such as Lutfi El-Sayed, Taha Hussein,
Ahmed Deif and Mansour Fahmi failed to publish even a small amount in
French on the margins of their precious writings in Arabic. It is
sufficient to mention Ahmed Deif, in partnership with a Frenchman,
wrote the story Mansour and others. He described the charms of the
Egyptian countryside, the life of sailors on the Nile and in
Alexandria’s harbour, and Al-Azhar University.”
Ahmed Rasim Bey, the undersecretary of the Cairo governorate, also
participated in this conference. Al-Ahram introduced him as a
“renowned poet in the world of French literature.” The title of his
report was “Egyptian poets who write poetry in French,” and readers
may be surprised by the number of poets Rasim Bey addressed. They
included Haidar Fadl, a descendent of Mohamed Ali with two volumes of
poetry in French, Flowers spattered with blood and An Eastern
collection. They also included Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat, the famous
politician, with a volume titled Love among the Arabs. There was also
Marios Shumayl Bey, who was described as the owner of the Egyptian
World magazine and who had a volume titled Against forgetfulness,
Fouad Abu Khatir, who had two volumes of poetry in which he “sang in
a musical lilt of his joys, grief, melancholy and grievances,” as
well as Mohamed Zulfiqar, “who let free his genius and forged a path
no one had traversed in terms of style, which was guided by Eastern
culture.”
At the end of his valuable study, Rasim Bey also made an observation
of a number of female writers who had participated in the literary
movement in Egypt and were of great consequence. He mentioned Madame
Nelli Zananiri, the delicate poetess and scrupulous writer, Madame
Amy Kheir, of Lebanese origin and a novelist and poet who praised the
charms of Egypt, Princess Qadriya Hussein, who had written verses
titled “Royal ghosts” and who charmed readers with their formulation,
and Mai Ziyada, the great Arab writer who composed valuable writings
in French.
TRAVEL LITERATURE formed another side to the expression of cultural
relations between Cairo and Paris. An example is provided by one of
the participants in the trip organised by Al-Ahram, Mohamed Awad
Gabril, who grasped the opportunity to write a long article about his
overland trip to Paris.
It was titled “From Cairo to Paris — 5,500 kilometres in five and a
half days.” During that time he passed through Palestine, Lebanon,
Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Switzerland, until he
finally reached France “without boarding a plane or having a ship
transport him above the depths of water.” During that time he made
note of everything he found strange or unusual. For example, there
was the Taurus Road, which began in Tripoli and “crossed Anatolia
between snow-covered mountains reaching heights of 1,500 metres. The
train continued through these views for about 26 hours, during which
we traversed 42 tunnels and passed through Ankara, modern Turkey’s
capital.”
Gabril could not deny his wonderment after the trip continued into
Europe. “We moved through redolent gardens. From meadows whose trees
were adorned with fresh flowers to soaring mountains from which water
gushed and wide lakes and flat steppes, the most beautiful sight my
eyes beheld was two mountains cloaked in a green robe of trees. The
space between them was so narrow that it only allowed the passage of
the train and the river running alongside it… We traversed the
Simplon tunnel, the longest in the world at 16 kilometres by 700
metres, and passed through Montreux, Lausanne and Dijon before
reaching Paris.”
In the French capital, the pen was passed from Gabril to the Al-Ahram
special reporter accompanying the trip. The first thing that caught
his attention was the excessive speed with which Parisians moved
about in their daily lives, reaching the point of madness “as it
seems to us strangers, having grown accustomed in our country to a
life other than this one.”
Another thing that caught his attention was the absence of an
electric tram in the capital, for it had become one of the greatest
factors obstructing traffic. Instead it moved underground, and the
reporter stated that Paris had in fact become three cities — one
under the ground, on one the surface, and a third in the sky.
The speed characteristic of advanced industrial societies was a
source of wonder for the reporter. The speed of cars reached the
point of madness “and their movement in the street is not restricted
by a system like that present in Egypt. Watching this movement and
speed I remembered those constables who move on motorcycles through
the streets of Cairo and collect the numbers of cars speeding, even a
little, and bring their drivers to trial and the payment of fines…
It is astonishing, in such crowdedness and speed, to not hear horns.
Everyone knows their duty and what they must do. Everyone upholds
order and the law, and it is impossible to find someone crossing the
street other than in the place allocated to do so. And thus,
accidents rarely take place and rarely are there victims of cars in
this capital crowded with millions, in contrary to our own
situation.” And this situation has remained in place!
Then the reporter spent some time on the Seine, noting that it was no
comparison to the Nile in terms of size, width or beauty. “And yet
the French have benefited from it in a manner that some may need to
see to believe. They benefit through shipping, electricity
generation, transport, recreation, the construction of cafes and
everything that science, rationale, and creativity might suggest. As
for Egypt, the masses just wish to find a spot to sit in so as to
enjoy the beauty and grandeur of the Nile that foreigners envy.” It
is fortunate that the man did not live to see Egyptians crowding both
sides of bridges crossing the Nile in search of a breeze during
Cairo’s hot summer nights.
Al-Ahram ‘s reporter accompanying the trip allocated another long
article to Paris’ markets and places of entertainment. It is the
habit of Egyptians on such group outings, once completing the
shopping they are passionate about, to attempt to persuade one
another that they got a better price and diminish the worth of what
their counterparts purchased.
As for places of entertainment, it was a free for all. The reporter
wrote of the Latin Quarter, where there were underground bunker-like
bars with rectangular wooden tables and champagne glasses lined up.
He also wrote of a dance hall whose last dancers were youth who slept
all day and stayed up all night “although their dancing is no
different from any other in terms of modesty and decorum.” After
that, they visited one of the most famous places of entertainment in
Paris — Moulin Rouge. After viewing what they pleased, the reporter
wrote that “the theatres and entertainment halls in France are not
subject to government monitoring and therefore you find the door to
innovation consistently open and unrestricted before the public.”
The trip also included a visit to the Paris mosque, and rather than
performing prayers, the participants sat in its garden drinking
Arabic coffee. “There were some Moroccan crooners singing Arabic
songs to the tune of the oud and qanun and the beat of a drum, but it
was nothing compared to the singing and musical artistry of those we
are accustomed to in Egypt. At any rate, however, it brought great
joy to our hearts after having spent days in a purely Frankish
environment.”
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