Alexandria.. also Hossam Badrawi

Alexandria.. violin and violin
Hossam Badrawi

During my visit to Alexandria to attend the celebration of the Library of Alexandria’s twentieth anniversary, I went through six experiences in one day..

Alexandria is still in my imagination the city of beauty and nobility, it is a close history as a multicultural cosmopolitan city, and a distant history that carries a special fragrant and flavor that we were waiting to taste every summer from San Stefano to Sidi Bishr, and from Raml Square to Mamoura and Montazah .. between the yellow taxi and the tramway And between summer and winter cinemas.. Alexandria is the most beautiful people.

During the past thirty years, my visits to Alexandria were limited to places, I go to attend a conference or give a lecture, or I attend the Board of Trustees of the Library of Alexandria .. I mostly stay in the Palestine Hotel or the Four Seasons, and I stay between one and two nights.

This time, I decided to taste Alexandria in a different way.

The first experience was in the great and wonderful Library of Alexandria, whose workers protected it from falls that could have destroyed it, when they stood with the people of Alexandria in a close line, hand in hand, to protect the library from destruction and fire that was practiced by fanatics during the January 25 revolution. They burned the ancient Alexandria governorate building and demolished it. Buildings that have a history, but even by pushing the herd, they could not do the same thing with the library. Rather, it was the behavior of its workers and those who joined them from the citizens of Alexandria and even some of the demonstrators who protected it from destruction.

The great library and its board of trustees of kings, former presidents and international dignitaries, with Egyptians of stature such as Farouk El-Baz, Amr Moussa, Farouk El-Oqda, Ahmed Kamal Abu El-Magd, Abdel-Aziz Hegazy and myself, joined forces to protect the library, its director who was almost harmed by the flood of injustice and chaos after January 25th, and he and his honorable history, and he Without him, the library would not have this international status and this unprecedented international cultural presence.

I mention here that I am Dr. Abdel Aziz Hegazy and Dr. Ahmed Kamal Abu Al-Majd were summoned to the prosecution for investigation in April 2011 while we were in the midst of a meeting of the Board of Trustees, with the aim of trapping Ismail Serageldin, the director of the library, and tarnishing his history with the aim of accusing him of neglecting the library’s funds, which did not happen, and the claim was proven false, as all the library’s funds were in Preservation and preservation in the Central Bank did not decrease a single penny.

My first experience today was in the edifice that did not fall, but is still growing, interacting and rising.

Serageldin gave an interesting lecture, in his capacity as the founder and first director of the library, and he took us through the history of twenty years of events, and I remembered while watching the pictures this quantity and quality of the achievements that were formulated in this unprecedented edifice.

In a procedure of much credit, the new director of the library, Dr. Ahmed Zayed, the workers who spent twenty years preserving it name by name, and the library director who preserved its existence after Dr. Serageldin, Dr. Mostafa El-Feki, until he handed over its leadership to Dr. Ahmed Zayed.. they are supported one after the other by Dr. Huda Al-Mikati, the respected professional memorizer of the library’s history.

The experience here is what I witnessed from the wonderful library orchestra and the library choir of adults and children, and the pride of the workers in each department of it, and their pride in belonging to it.

Everyone plays a symphony in harmony between the present and the past, with the music of the beautiful artist Rajeh Dawood, and Dr. Ismail for future prospects in science at the same time.

The library is Egypt’s civilizational, cultural and scientific treasure.

The second experience was my visit to the ancient University of Alexandria and its successful, proactive president who understood the role of the university in creating civilization, not just providing an educational service. Perhaps his experience as a former governor of Alexandria and his international communication made him an exceptional president of an exceptional university.

Alexandria University, with its various programs, its agreements with international universities, its branches outside the country, and its reception of students from outside Egypt, represents a model for Egypt’s 2030 vision in higher education in its administrative independence and academic freedom. We are proud of it and happy to have it.

The third experience was my walking tour in the evening alone in Raml Square and Safia Zaghloul Street, and my observation of the citizens, male and female, and the quality of the shops on both sides..

People, like most Egyptians, are very nice, and citizens sitting in front of the shops stopped me to welcome me with a friendliness I did not expect and a beautiful, endearing smile.

The number of shoe stores, which overwhelm all other types of stores, caught my eye, and I do not know the secret.

And my surprise was in the ways of displaying the goods heavily in the windows, which indicates an interest in quantity and not the use of modern display methods, and at the same time the lack of cleanliness in the street despite the presence of a good number of cleaners.

My pain was on the famous “Elite Café” without customers, and the darkness of its lighting.

Most of the girls cover their heads with a headscarf in different proportions, from a full cover including the neck, to a cover without covering the neck, to a partial cover with the back of part of the hair, to half of the hair, and the girls are mostly dressed despite the veil.

Men’s and youth’s clothes are mostly T-shirts and cut-off jeans, as in Western fashion, but the “conversational tone” needs social research about what happened to the Egyptian slang in the last 30 years.

I believe that what makes the street feel random in Raml Square are mass transit microbuses and mature people calling out to customers and announcing where vehicles are moving with a loud voice that overlaps with the sounds of motors, motorcycles, and Egyptian music similar to high-pitched rap music that corresponds to the new vernacular.

I believe that if respectable and organized means of transportation were available, the street might return to what befits the ancient city.

The violently lit advertising columns on both sides of the street caught my eye with a mixture that I only see in my country, from advertisements for goods, to advertisements for doctors and writing their specialties, as if the great profession is on an equal footing with advertisements for shoes .. For your information, this is prohibited by custom, law and professional ethics.