I've just rushed back from the inappropriately-named "Oriental Hall" on our palace campus (an old palace that is now home to the American University) where Kofi Annan was the speaker at the first annual Nadia Younes memorial lecture. Nadia Younes was one of the 22 UN employees (along with a dear friend of Pookie) killed in the 19 August 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq, and her family (of obvious influence) endowed this lecture and an annual prize in humanitarian service to commemorate her.
I only have a few minutes before dashing off to class, but a few thoughts.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell.
Ok that's not a thought, and it's not even sensically-constructed, but it is the quote (in tacky block wood letters stylized to resemble Arabic Kufic script) that adorns the arch of the lecture hall. I feel like it nicely embodies AUC.
Back to Kofi...
Shorter than I expected, gorgeous suit as usual, and really warm with the AUC Model UN girl who introduced him (who gave an introduction that, if a bit sycophantic about the UN, was stunning in its articulation and delivery...probably the most impressed I've been with anything anyone has said since I moved to Egypt -- not bad for an AUC undergrad...maybe being the grand-daughter of a king helps with the upbringing?).
Anyway, onto substance: well, there wasn't much, because it was a simple memorial lecture, but some interesting implications.
- Odd reference to Nadia Younes as the "prototype of the modern Egyptian woman," who he defined as balancing multiple global identities with no sense of conflict. --> don't we think that there should always be conflict to the identities that we balance? Isn't that part of a healthy interrogation of our values? Ok I'll lay off...
- Strange pan-arabist references -- to the classic "arab intellectual" or arab sense of humour. I think that when he said it was appropriate to also commemorate the Egyptian ambassador to Iraq who was killed, as well as two Algerian diplomats, it was calling upon Cairo as the center of the Arab world in an interesting way (esp. with the Algerian reference).
- Made clear declaration related to humanitarian law about the targeting of civilians: "the deliberate targeting of people who cannot be identified with occupying military forces" he said was "not resistance, but murder, and terrorism" which he called "senseless criminal violence."
- Slam on Bush (in my opinion, although Shakira, who is a Bush-loving neo-con...excuse me while I swallow the little bit of vomit that just came up...disagreed) when he talked about the tendency of people to produce exclusionary and divisive categories that make you a "traitor" if you don't go with the cause -- the explicit reference being to Arabs who feel pressured to support the insurgency in order to be good Arabs/maintain solidarity with the broad Arab cause, but the implicit reference (made more explicit when he said that this tendency is not just in this part of the world, but it witnessed across the globe) to Bush's for us or against us/patriotism means hawkish messages. He said that we cannot reply to extremism with extremism, to violence with violence, and I have to think that part of that is directed at the US as much as it is at Iraqi insurgency (after all -- which group was sitting in the auditorium?).
- Expectedly spoke out in support of a "viable, contiguous Palestinian state" and referenced the "many UN resolutions" in support of that aim.
- Spoke out against collective punishment, religious persecution ("the problem is not the faith but the faithful"), destruction of the environment, proliferation, and in favour of international human rights law.
- Made interesting (and quite correct) argument that there is no such thing as national v. global interest in a globalized and integrated world, and that the collective interest of all humanity is in the national interest of individual states. There is no longer any such thing as a zero sum game, according to Kofi, as far as global politics are concerned.
- Final interesting thought: "There can be no development without security, and no security without development, and there cannot be either without respect for human rights."
Loved it that students were not allowed in the main auditorium, but had to sit upstairs and watch from below, were made to wait OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSITY on the street in a mob to get it, and, when the President of the university did his "distinguished guests" thankyou in his intro, did not even mention the fact that there were STUDENTS in attendance.
Gotta run!
VC