MIDEAST: Political Clouds Hang Over UNESCO Selection

  • by Alecia D. McKenzie (paris)
  • Inter Press Service

With only a few days left before the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) nominates final candidates for the post of director-general, controversy continues to swirl around the leading contender, Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni.

Hosni, 71, has the support of the Arab League, the African Union and several European countries, including France, to succeed the current UNESCO chief, Koïchiro Matsuura of Japan. But a number of Western officials and well- known intellectuals have criticised his candidature because of comments he has made on Israel.

A year ago, in response to a question in the Egyptian Parliament about cultural relations with Israel, Hosni reportedly said: 'I'd burn Israeli books myself if I found any in libraries in Egypt.'

The comment drew official protest from Israel, which opposed Hosni's election until two weeks ago when a secret agreement was reached between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, according to Israeli media reports.

But the dropping of Israeli opposition has not silenced other critics. On Monday, Olaf Zimmermann, managing director of the Deutsche Kulturrat, the German Cultural Council, issued a statement saying that Hosni's election would be a 'grave mistake'.

The Council, which represents 200 cultural organisations in Germany, said: 'A person who is under the justified suspicion of failing to respect the diversity of the world's cultures cannot be allowed to take up the most important office in global cultural and education policy.'

Zimmermann told IPS by phone from Berlin that the Cultural Council only wants to safeguard and implement UNESCO's Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, approved by governments in 2005.

'For the respect of this convention, we need a very good person in the leadership,' he said.

Zimmermann's deputy Gabriele Schultz said that because of 'Germany's past', the anti-Semitism issue was of special importance there.

The Cultural Council's declaration followed an open letter published last week by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levi, activist and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, titled: 'UNESCO: The Shame of a Disaster Foretold'.

'We call on the international community to spare itself the shame that would be the designation, already all but claimed by the candidate himself, of Mr. Farouk Hosny to the post of Director-General of UNESCO,' said the letter, a translated copy of which was published on the news website The Huffington Post.

The signatories said Hosni was 'the opposite of a man of peace, dialogue, and culture.'

Despite such criticism, Hosni, who declared his candidature in 2007, has shown no sign of withdrawing from the race. Nominations will be finalised May 31, with countries to vote in October.

UNESCO's press relations chief, Sue Williams, told IPS that the Paris-based organisation cannot comment on candidates.

'The candidates are proposed by the member states, and this is the secretariat,' she said. 'It is beyond our remit to comment on what's said about the candidates in the media.'

Other last-minute nominees may still join the race to succeed Matsuura, who has run the organisation for ten years.

The current list of contenders includes UNESCO's deputy director-general Marcio Barbosa, a Brazilian whose country is backing Hosni; three women candidates - Ina Marc Iulionyté, Lithuania's ambassador to UNESCO, Irina Bokova, Bulgaria's ambassador to France, and Ivonne A-Baki, an artist and diplomat from Ecuador; and two Algerian candidates, Mohammed Al-Bejawi, an 81-year-old former foreign minister, and Mounir Bouchenaki, 66, an archaeologist and former UNESCO assistant director-general for culture.

Hosni still seems to have the most support. His backers point to his record as a liberal voice in the Middle East on various issues. Culture minister since 1987, he has publicly criticised the wearing of the hijab, the Muslim veil for women, saying that it was a step backward for Egyptian citizens.

An artist himself, Hosni has established several cultural institutions in Egypt, including the Horizon One Gallery, a public space in the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum which has shown the works of European as well as Egyptian artists.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service