Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
A letter from Dr. Hossam Badrawi contains a cultural shift in thinking about the successor of Dr. Ismail Serageldin in leading Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA). The idea is worth thinking and investigating the matter among competitors. We do not lack titles or statures; Egypt is rich in efficiencies. We have intellectual statures that went beyond locality with internationally noticeable brilliance. Each fits for this great intellectual post.
I know all the candidates, distinguished statures on the Egyptian, Arab and international level. It is well known that the focus on stature and intellectual value does not obscure the need for a conscious and informed administrative mind. After the library has taken its proper place among the world’s largest libraries, it deserves conscious management to maximize the cultural role based on an enlightening base. The library bears the name of Alexandria as a place, and the name of Egypt as a country with its share in human civilization.
In conclusion, the leadership of the BA is not a reward, a gift, a job, a satisfaction or an empty seat, but it is an Egyptian and international position. For this let those aspire, who have aspirations with developmental and future projects that will promote for the library. Hereunder is what Dr. Badrawi’s said, while he was in the BA.
Dr. Badrawi says:
The idea is that I am a member in the advisory council of BA. I was a member of BA Board of Trustees (BoT) for two consecutive terms, it is the body entrusted with choosing the BA director succeeding Dr. Ismail Serageldin. Serageldin did a great job in making BA a place where world cultures meet. Dr. Ismail Serageldin convinced many presidents, prime ministers, Nobel laureates from all over the world to be members and advisors in its BoT.
From my political experience, the one that will actually choose the BA director is the president based on the proposal of the state bodies and ministers to him (the president is also the chairperson of BoT). Since I was discussed by many intellectuals, senior library officials and different individuals and bodies about that name or nomination thinking, mistakenly, that I had a role in selection, this made me wondering about the method of selecting the BA director.
My sincere advice is that the BoT pronounces this post internationally and locally, and that the state and the BoT compose a committee of no more than five to seven individuals to receive applications for this significant job and move away from the “semi-secret” selection which usually ends up with selections that may be the best only by chance!
Collapse of the library or even low efficiency of its performance is a luxury that we do not have. The one who thinks he is competent to carry out this task should apply and present his perceptions within the stated job criteria. Let us choose the best for BA and Egypt.
BA is a great and giant Egyptian cultural educational institution, worthy of the best and most efficient, taking into account his international relations, administrative abilities, linguistic potentialities and cultural depth, regardless his nationality, while preferring an Egyptian. However, I remind you that the Governor of The Bank of England, despite the greatness and history of Britain, is Mark Carney, Canadian, 49 years. There is no problem in selecting the best regardless nationality. I still prefer the parallel competent Egyptian. Egypt does not lack significant competencies.
