The political thinker, Dr. Hossam Badrawi believes that there is no future for the people and the country without real reform of education. He even collected his views on education reform in a book entitled “Education… The Opportunity to Rescue”, a book that serves as a documentation of the value of education in our lives as it is the most important and largest file in the fate of our country towards development and progress.
Dr. Badrawi is a distinguished physician who graduated from the Kasr Al-Ainy Faculty of Medicine, and obtained his doctorate from Cairo University, then Wayne State and Northwestern Universities in the United States, and also received an honorary doctorate in science from Cardiff Metropolitan University in Britain in 2014 for his efforts. In setting education policies, he was chosen as a political lecturer at the University of Rome, and he published more than 120 academic papers, and has many specialized books in obstetrics and gynecology, health and education. Rather, he made strenuous efforts in his first field of health, childhood and motherhood, being a professor of obstetrics and gynecology.
Dr. Badrawi is also a veteran parliamentarian and pioneer in field work and has a distinguished footprint in it. He has served as a member of many councils, including the National Council for Human Rights and the Egyptian National Council for Competitiveness. He was appointed as Secretary of the National Party during the January revolution, but he resigned after 5 days for not responding to the demands of the youth. .
“Al-Wafd” interviewed the great thinker and intellectual, Dr. Hossam Badrawi, and this is the text of the dialogue.
< After many years, how do you evaluate the events of the Arab Spring? What do you think of the proposition that confirms that the Arab revolutions were the ones that produced the political rule of Islam, and was that intentional?
<<Of course.. after a time, the judgment will be better, because there are many things and new information that says that there was certainly intelligence intervention at a high level with the aim of what happened in the Arab region of chaos and division and the handing over of powers to either political Islam represented in the Brotherhood or Islam Extremist is like ISIS and extremist organizations, but in the end there is a single winning party in this, which is the State of Israel. All parties lost except for Israel, as it managed to do everything, and it is the biggest beneficiary of what happened in the region.
< In your opinion, why did the Americans support the Brotherhood and abandoned Mubarak during the January 2011 revolution?
<<My opinion is that this was a decision that was taken at an earlier stage and was not the product of the moment or the revolution. The feelings of the respectable youth, who were calling for pride, dignity and freedom in the first three days, were exploited, but there was – of course – a measure to hand over power to political Islam, And I imagine – as I heard from the Speaker of the British Parliament, who is a friend of mine – that this was planned six or seven years before that with the aim of fighting each other internally and leaving the West as it is, but this also indicates a miscalculation because in any case it was always the devices The security view is that the mere fact that the women are veiled means that political Islam has penetrated the hearts of the people, and these same women are the ones who demonstrated against the Brotherhood on 30/6.
< Do you think that the new Middle East project still exists after the changes that occurred in the Arab world following the revolutions of the Arab Spring?
<<In my opinion, the long-term political projects do not stop. They win rounds and lose rounds, but they repeat themselves in the same context. The one who established the Muslim Brotherhood was the British Intelligence. At the beginning of the 1952 revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood was a major party in the political arena, and in the days of President Anwar Sadat. -may God have mercy on him- they were a major party as well. It was he who got them out of prisons to stand up to the communists, and in the time of President Mubarak, they brought him down. So, political positions differ, but it is a flowing stream because it is supported, funded and organized. Even the Hamas organization are one of the parties and President Donald Trump himself said that “ISIS” was created by President Obama and British intelligence, and this is the president of America who says that. All matters were aimed at shaking the countries of the Middle East, and I think they did not succeed in Egypt as they succeeded in the countries around it.
< How do you see the political scene and its relationship with abroad in light of the changes in the American-Egyptian relations? Is the relationship with the US states an equal or strategic relationship?
<< A difficult question, because no one likes the place of political authority in Egypt today in its relationship with the United States of America, because the United States has the leads for everything. Beside you and at the same time they stand against you, the situation is very difficult, but I think it is managed wisely at the present time in order to maintain balance, and maintaining balance requires concessions, as we cannot do anything else, and there is no need to engage in criticism, because we criticize outside a chair Authority, far from the place of decision-making for the country, we rely heavily on aid, support, financing and borrowing, and at the same time, military and political support regarding the Renaissance Dam, the situation is complicated, but I personally am one of the people who no longer trust any American administration, and I openly declared I was deceived in the American dream and in the democratic values that the United States at one time thought it propagated.
< How do you evaluate the Egyptian diplomatic moves related to the Renaissance Dam, and do you see that there are foreign interventions?
<< I think that there are foreign interventions, as I am not aware of the secrets, but Ethiopia’s recent intransigent position and its failure to attend the meeting in Washington is a position for me that indicates that there is a supportive intervention for them that makes them stand in front of the desire of the United States and the World Bank, but who is financing or making that ? I do not know, but it is a ridiculous position, and I think that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry is doing a respectable job in confronting this, whether in public or in secret, and that there is a wise management of this crisis. Once again, I come back and say who benefits? We must always search for the beneficiary and Israel’s dream of the Nile to the Euphrates, Egypt is indeed the gift of the Nile, and water is the basis of everything. Arbitration in the Renaissance Dam or the Nile’s water in it is part of the political pressure and it may be military on Egypt. At the same time, Israel’s request to deliver the Nile water to them cannot be separated from the events taking place now.
<Is it possible for China to intervene to help Egypt, especially since it is one of the largest countries that contributed to the Renaissance Dam, with investments of $100 billion in Africa?
<< I do not know whether it is possible for China to intervene politically in this issue and why. China is looking for its economic interests clearly, and I do not see a political position for them with an ideological issue or with a humanitarian idea. This language, I do not know whether it is possible for them to support us unless we create interests with them that outweigh the interests of the rest of the African countries.
< Do you see that there is a radical shift that occurred in Egypt’s foreign policy after President El-Sisi assumed power?
<< I think that there is no political transformation, for the regime of the late President Mubarak was maintaining balance without confrontations and without taking Egypt to slopes from which he could not get out, and I think that the current regime does the same thing. Because Egypt had a regional value, and I think that our regional value has greatly decreased, and the talks in Syria and the Gulf have taken place without our presence, and the positions differed, and this is the negative impact that the January 2011 revolution had on Egypt, that it reduced Egypt’s regional value and influence. It has the side of confrontation and the creation of a role for Egypt that always depends on three things: military power and cultural influence, which is what we call “national power.”
aunt” and the economic impact, which is of two types: either a positive economic impact, if your wealth increases, so the Egyptian market becomes the most important market, but without an economic force, it will not achieve this, or with Egyptian labor in Arab countries, and I see that Egyptian employment in Arab countries decreased, although Egyptian remittances increased, whether From Europe or the rest of the world, and I see that our soft power – almost – is disappearing, our cultural influence has decreased and the military force is linked to the wisdom of not slipping into war confrontations. The situation is very difficult externally, and my heart is with the political system that deals with a situation created by the January revolution against Egypt against its will.
< What about your reading of the deal of the century, and do you see that there are actually American measures to implement it, or have they not been announced yet?
<<The deal is taking place between parties, but what we saw is a one-sided deal, they decided without the presence of the other side, which is Palestine, and the other side, which is the militarily and regionally influential side, which is we “Egypt” do not exist, and the rest of the regional side “Syria and Iraq” is weak; The Gulf side cannot take a position, as it is not a deal, but rather the imposition of an opinion from one side, but the imposition of the opinion without another party that is willing and able to do so will not happen, and I am concerned here by what President Trump said in one of his speeches when everyone asked me not to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel. And I announced that, I did not see anger or a change in the position of countries, and I waited next to the phone for two weeks until someone spoke, but it did not happen, so what could have happened 20 years ago, a shock and a tidal wave of popular action, it could be done today very simply, and this is the result of the Arab fall Which eliminated the ability of Arab countries to confront.
< What is the main entrance to the development of education in your opinion, and do you see that the state has already taken serious steps towards development?
<< This is a very important question.. I was a party to making Egypt’s Vision 2030 in education, as the Ministry of Planning summoned me to be at the head of a group of experts to set Egypt’s Vision 2030 in 2014. I wondered at the time why the previous programs were not implemented, so we decided to put the vision and get out of it With an implementation strategy, main objectives, sub-goals, measurement indicators, time period, cost and responsibility, in order to transfer the vision into an achievable reality, and this vision has five simple pillars, but each pillar comes out of dozens of objectives. The first pillar is availability, quality and non-discrimination, and it is very easy to calculate, because availability is linked to The number of students and population growth, boys and girls, villages, centers and quality have become standards and these standards are international, and non-discrimination is clear meanings, everyone is equal. The second pillar is the governance of the education administration, and it includes first the Ministry of Education, which is the largest employee in Egypt, and it cannot run a ministry of this size without being You have the foundations of scientific management, for education is not only curricula, management is very important, the third pillar is integrating digital into the consciousness of workers in the educational field and students, and integrating digital does not mean distributing a computer or tablet, for slavery Miya means that everyone thinks digitally, searches digitally, obtains information digitally, and documents digitally, and this needs time and a plan. The fourth pillar is building the personality, and this is done through coexistence, and the main factor in it is the teacher, and this will not happen without the presence of art, music, drawing, sports and theater, to create conscience The student, the fifth pillar, which is competitiveness, and the ability to compete locally, regionally and globally, and these pillars have not been achieved until now, and the development of education cannot be applied in the current centralized form, so each governorate must be a development unit in itself, and I believe that money is no longer the obstacle I was the head of the Parliament’s Education Committee from 2000 to 2005 and the education budget was 18 billion pounds, now the education budget has become more than 100 billion, 85% of which are salaries given to people who have nothing to do with education, and the wisdom says that there is no educational system that exceeds the level of its teachers.
< How do you see the obstacles to scientific research in Egypt?
<< Obstacles to scientific research in Egypt, in my opinion, are divided into three. The first obstacle is that the state does not announce its research objectives that are compatible with development, and the scientific research budget must not be spent on salaries, but rather it should be put up in tenders for research centers and universities to enter it until it obtains the necessary budget for research. The idea of establishing research centers in all ministries without offering anything new and spending their budgets on salaries is an idea that does not serve scientific research. Secondly, scientific research is measured by three things: either research published in international research journals and has a recognized effect, or patents, and research that has a local application, so no one It uses these three criteria for scientific research. Third, it is possible to measure scientific research by a competitive procedure, and among the countries that compete with Egypt in
The region, and I claim that it is Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and Turkey, which does not make it influential in the life of society or to be seen externally. There are very good efforts, and there are some universities that have begun to develop themselves, but this is not a critical size that moves the country from one point to another.
< Previously, the January Revolution was described as the greatest event in the history of Egypt and that it was not a hungry revolution or a leftist or religious socialist revolution, but after that you changed your mind, so what is the reason?
<< The revolution, in my opinion, was from January 25 to 28, i.e. only three days, during which people gathered, and their hopes rose and demanded freedom and justice, but after its course turned into a gradual rise in the ceiling of demands, it became vengeful for a very severe situation; I see that it is not possible for a million people to stay in one place for 19 days without the presence of organization, supplies, housing and food. The directions you want”, to the extent that a person loses his identity, and he may be violent or together, and in my opinion, the Brotherhood after January 28th had an influential intervention in taking this revolution with foreign intelligence, specifically British and American, led this trend to the exclusion of the