Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
Biography of Dr. Hossam Badrawi What are memes? It is a new science that means ideas and they are similar to genes. This is how I learned for the first time the meaning of the word. One of Dr. Hossam Badrawi’s latest books is memes, and in many of them it represents a part of his biography that I hope he will complete. The most amazing thing is that I met him by chance yesterday with the date of the publication of the article
Is it fate?!
My article in the photographer
The article
Memes.
Iman Raslan.
Memes may be names of people or places. Sure, this is how the guesses came to my mind from the title, but it remains a mysterious, eye-catching title and perhaps confusing even to deduce the meaning of memes? So I contacted him and he sent me his book (Me and Memes) so that I could find out, and I learned for the first time that memes are a term given to ideas that are like genes and the latter in genetics, and the term memes corresponds to it in thought. As I discovered, it is a very wise and eloquent term, in addition to being new as well, as it is only a few years old.
So what are the memes of Dr. Hossam Badrawi in his new book, with a side title From Formation to Dream, the book contains part of his autobiography and another part that represents ideas that are circulated among young people or dreamers of tomorrow, ideas between science, religion and philosophy, i.e. they are also memes.
End of introduction
I first learned the name of Dr. Hossam Badrawi in the mid-nineties in the Al-Ahly elections and most of all when he ran for the People’s Assembly in the district to which I belong, which is the Qasr al-Nil district in Cairo, and as usual I always go to vote and I do not boycott elections, i.e. I am necessarily addicted to elections, but also as a habit associated with elections, who do I nominate win?! And at the time I was voting for the writer Fathia al-Assal, or the leftist list, the important thing is that everyone failed, whether independent or partisan, and I was amazed!
…
After that, Dr. Hossam repeated his candidacy in 2000, and this time he won and became the head of the Education Committee in the People’s Assembly. By virtue of his specialization, I followed his performance and the ideas and programs he proposed. At that time, he had joined the National Party, and I requested an appointment to hold a conversation, which was actually held in the hospital that the family owned on the Maadi Nile. The hospital was suggested by his father, the engineer, for his sons and daughters, doctors. Since then, we have been friends and always talk, even if our opinions differ. Dr. Hossam belongs, with a penetrating and optimistic outlook, to the school of colleges or the general, comprehensive outlook, and I belong to the school of very small and very exhausting details, perhaps to the point of complaint and pessimism, as he told me.
This is another introduction to the intersection of shared worlds from elections to education, until we enter his book (Me and the Memes) published by Dar Al-Mahrousa.
Memes may be misunderstood at first glance because I have not heard of them despite reading a lot?! But surprisingly, I found that the word and term memes is a term invented by the British scientist (Clinton Dickens), a professor of animal behavior at Oxford University, and that he found that the work of ideas is similar to the work of genes, as genes carry genetic information inside them and are transmitted and reproduced, and likewise ideas carry information and knowledge that are transmitted and reproduced but by different means, and the truth is this is indeed true, and even a typical connection from the British scientist and a correct comparison as well, perhaps if I were on the international awards committees I would have given him an award for inventing the term and I would greatly appreciate transferring the term to Arabic and the intellectual community, or as Dr. Hossam says in his introduction that genes do not die and the idea continues to live and does not expire, despite the death of its speaker or discoverer, but it remains alive. From this idea and syndrome came the comparison between biological science and the humanities with ideas or memes that can expand to tunes, music, fashion and others. Dr. Hossam Badrawi wove his own memes with pictures of his personal drawings, as he is also a visual artist, at the beginning of each chapter throughout the book, which I see as combining autobiography, i.e. situations and stories, and the people he was influenced by, who are mostly male thinkers?! Therefore, the chapter came before the first and after multiple introductions to the book from three prominent intellectual figures, Dr. Ahmed Okasha, Dr. Mustafa El-Fiqi, and Dr. Murad Wahba, in order, as stated in the book. The chapter before the first carries frankness, revelation and narration in the autobiography, and it is the largest chapter in the book, which I liked very much for the information and indication it contains of eras, which include eras, personalities, and policies, because man is the son of these interactions of memes, i.e. ideas.
Dr. Hossam was born in 1951 to a father who worked as a skilled engineer, so the family lived with Dr. Hossam’s birth in Mansoura before moving to Zamalek in Cairo while he was in primary school and then preparatory school. During this stage, he reviews the readings during that period, from the book My Life by Gandhi to Bertrand Russell and Nietzsche in philosophy, passing through Taha Hussein, and Ihsan Abdel Quddous and Al-Aqqad, who are the most prominent figures who influenced him, and he devoted an entire chapter to them, along with others. His influence by Abdel Quddous is clear in the title of his articles and his book On the Café of Dreamers of Tomorrow. Abdel Quddous had written on the Café of Politics, from reading to the love and passion for football and practicing it first at school, where Mahmoud Al-Gohary watched him in the school league, and Al-Gohary made efforts to convince his father to play with the Al-Ahly Cubs, which is what happened. He mentions that he often called his father and asked him, “Have we entered Tel Aviv yet?” Therefore, the defeat of 1967 was a feeling of humiliation after a long rally for victory, and he uses the verses and the powerful poem of Nizar Qabbani after the defeat. Nizar sarcastically mourns the conditions of the Arabs, and this poem has spread widely among the new generations and university youth. His father chose for him and his brothers to direct them to enter the Faculty of Medicine specifically because it is one of the few professions that allows the private sector and not a cog in the machine of state ownership. He also says that his emotional makeup also helped in his attachment to the medical profession. Then he jumps to the years of the student movement at Cairo University, but he does not talk in many details about this movement despite its importance. He talks with love and respect about the role of Dr. Hassan Hamdy, the pioneer of the family of Dr. Ali Ibrahim, and how his relationship was with the students and with him specifically. He even promised him that if he joined the college team, he would provide him with a train ticket so that he could attend the college matches and return to Al-Ahly training, which was close to the championship at the time. He promised him that if he won the final in Al-Azhar Medicine, he would have 10 additional points in the oral exam. He said that he did not need them because he had already obtained the final score in the exam and that it was for motivation. He talked about the team’s trips, then talked about his specialization in obstetrics and gynecology, which was not his first desire at the time, then his travel to the United States to obtain a doctorate degree after he had married Munira, the daughter of the former Minister of Interior Hassan Abu Pasha, who would be a second father to him and not just a (father-in-law). He was blessed with a son and a daughter, and how his father-in-law played a role in warning him of the danger of political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood on the work of politicians, as Dr. Hossam’s political tendencies and steps began to take their way to implementation. He mentions here the incident of his rejection of the request of Dr. Mohamed Morsi, the leader of the Brotherhood bloc in Parliament at the time (later the President of the Republic), and the request of the Brotherhood from him, and their number was 17 members of the Education Committee in the House of Representatives, which was headed by Dr. Hossam, so they asked to prepare an interview for them with Gamal Mubarak to support him in becoming President of the Republic and leaving the street to them in exchange for leaving power to Gamal Mubarak?! But he absolutely refuses that, but before Dr. Hossam took over the Education Committee after he succeeded in the elections for the first time after his defeat in the re-election in 1995, he talks in detail about these elections and his absolute refusal to attempt not to enter in 1995 because there was a prior government agreement to make the opposition candidate successful, but he insisted on entering and achieved the surprise with his origins to re-elect the Wafd Party represented by Yassin Serag El-Din and refused to withdraw in the re-election, and the result was in favor of the Wafd Party candidate, and here he clearly hints at what happened against him even for the votes he received?! Then he quickly goes over his experience as a member of the National Council for Humanity and the ten years of party work as a reformer from within the National Party until he resigned from it before President Mubarak stepped down after the great revolution on January 25. The second chapter came about memes. Then the personalities or great people who made the conscience, and the third and fourth chapters about memes of humanity and happiness, and the last chapter was about human evolution, and how genes are carried and transmitted only by women, as they are the origin of life as proven by science. The chapter before the first remains one of the most important and enjoyable chapters of the book and could have been extended to become the entire book to become memes of life and a comprehensive autobiography of a broad life between medicine, sports and politics and their secrets and stories, especially since he was in the kitchen of each of them, whether as a university professor or as a player at Al-Ahly and a member of its board of directors and the Football Association as well, or as a politician who approached and did not burn out from decision-making centers and the presidency in Egypt. I expect that Dr. Hossam will complete his hot and honest biography, because Dr. Hossam Badrawi is characterized by perseverance and acceptance of others, and honesty in narrating facts and events. There is no future without a past for those who dream of tomorrow or are optimistic about tomorrow. The most beautiful days are those we have not yet lived, as the great poet Nazim Hikmet said.
