Interview by Dr. Hossam Badrawi in Al-Wafd newspaper today, Thursday, June 27, 2024. We wish you an enjoyable reading:
The great political thinker Dr. Hossam Badrawy in an interview with “Al-Wafd”:
June 30 prevented Egypt from becoming a religious state
International Zionism controls the political will of America
Displacing the people of Gaza to Sinai kills the Palestinian cause
Religiosity of the Arab-Israeli conflict favors extremist religious rule
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The great political thinker, Dr. Hossam Badrawy, is one of the prominent figures on the political, cultural and social scene. He is an important national symbol. He was born in the city of Mansoura in 1951 AD and moved with his family to Cairo in 1960 AD. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine and was appointed as a teaching assistant there in 1974, until he assumed the presidency of the Gynecology Department. and obstetrics at the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University. He received his postgraduate studies from 1979 to 1981 in the United States of America from Wayne Stein University in Michigan and then Northwestern University in Chicago. He was elected as a member of the Egyptian Parliament and Chairman of the Education and Scientific Research Committee in Parliament from 2000-2005…
Badrawy received an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Sunderland in Britain in 2007, and in the same year he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the Library of Alexandria.
The great political thinker was known for his independent positions. He was one of the few who agreed on his integrity from all political movements. During the era of former President Mubarak, he was called “the wise one” within the ranks of the National Party, as his calls and requests were in great agreement with the calls for For political and democratic openness in Egypt, he was against extending the state of emergency and objected to the National Party being alone in making constitutional amendments.
During the revolution of January 25, 2011, Dr. Hossam Badrawi played an important political role, as he expressed from the first moment the demonstrators’ right to their demands, and called on the government to listen and respond to them, which made Mubarak, with the escalation of events – due to his popularity – respond to them. He appoints him as Secretary-General of the party to succeed the members of the bureau, and during that period he expressed his political opinion to Mubarak about the necessity of stepping down, which prompted him to resign from the party five days after his appointment on February 10. Then he announced his difference of opinion with the political leadership, and in The way he dealt with the demonstrators and their demands during the rule of the Brotherhood, his positions remained clear from the first moment, with his rejection of the religious state, which he considered to want to color the people in one color, and he considered the decision of the deposed President “Morsi” to return the People’s Assembly an entrenchment of the dictatorship supported by the United States, and it was He was among the first to denounce the incursion of Morsi’s authority into the judiciary, denouncing the siege of the Supreme Constitutional Court by the Brotherhood’s militias.
Badrawi supported the Tamarod movement at its beginning, and declared that overthrowing the Brotherhood’s rule had become a necessity and an inevitable risk, months before the June 30 revolution, stressing that the army would stand by legitimacy.
Badrawi has many books, the most important of which are “Education is the Opportunity for Rescue,” “Me and Memes,” “An Invitation to Think,” “Dialogues with the Youth of the New Republic,” “Dare to Think,” “The Egypt on My Mind,” and “The Chimera.” “Forgotten Romances” and other works. Al-Wafd met with the great political thinker Dr. Hossam Badrawi, and this is the text of the dialogue:
• Within the framework of the new theory of international relations.. Do you expect the world to shift from the stage of a unipolar world to the stage of a multipolar world?
– Certainly, there will be a multipolar world, but the issue is that the balance that existed when there were two poles has been disturbed, and the emergence of a new balance with multiple poles between China and the United States will not be as it was before, nor in the way we think about it. I believe that there is chaos in international relations that will appear more in the next stage
• How do you see the current situation in the region in light of the current tensions?
– I see that Israel has achieved everything Zionism has wished for since the beginning of its inception, starting from the 1948 war to the 1956 war to the 1967 war and the shameful defeat to the 1973 war in which we took parts and gave up some things until what is happening today. When we look at the matter in In the end, we will find that global Zionism has absolute control over the political will of the largest country in the world, the United States, and it controls the foreign policy of other countries in Europe (Germany, the United Kingdom, and France), and I believe that it controls the sources of money in the Middle East in one way or another. There is nothing that happened to international Zionism during this period that is better for them than that. It is the most despicable thing in human history, but it is the best for international Zionism. Firstly: We now hope to stop the fighting in Gaza, but we do not hope for anything else. This is first, and secondly. : There is a very big dilemma – in my opinion – that Egypt will live and survive, and it is a dilemma that we aspire to a two-state solution, if there is a Palestinian state on the Egyptian border, and I imagine what it will look like. Will it be a cooperative state or an enemy state, and I believe that it is in this form that It consists of Hamas and its henchmen. Egypt will face a problem, whether it is a Palestinian state or an Israeli state. Our intervention and presence must be more effective so that the solution does not turn into a new problem. The Palestinian people have the right to have their own state, and they are part of the formation that took place. There is nothing in the world called a religious state other than Israel and Iran, and the religious state is against the logic of liberalism and pluralism, so the issue needs to be looked at differently.
• Did the June 30 Revolution bring about a cultural change in the Egyptian mind, and what did the revolution add to the modern history of Egypt?- There is something important that the June 30 Revolution added to the modern history of Egypt, which is that the middle class in Egypt became able to change the political situation, but is this sustainable? Of course not, and did this have an impact on what came after it? I see that its impact It was negative: freedoms became less, freedom of expression less, and the application of separation of powers in Egypt was less. The Egyptian people, with their sects and their great middle class, with the genes of civilization within them, stood against the transformation of the state into a religious state, but they could prevent the transformation into a dictatorial state by insisting on Transfer of power and accountability…
• Do you think that after October 7 (the Al-Aqsa flood) the world began to pay more attention to the Palestinian issue? How do you see the future of the issue amid these tensions that exist now?
– Yes, there has been a change in the world, but this change is not what we think. The United States is still as it was, and England, Germany and France are as they are, and there is still expression of discontent from young people in the world. If this is not exploited and we do not take the initiative to use it. Used well, this enthusiasm will end and the status quo will remain as it is
• What is your assessment of Egypt’s position towards resolving the Gaza crisis and announcing its accession to South Africa’s lawsuit before the International Court of Justice?
– I do not know the political circumstances in this regard, especially since we are living through a massive financial crisis, and I cannot imagine judging that, because I do not know the details, but certainly the current situation is the ideal situation that affects events, as evidenced by the fact that everything happens. In most cases, Egypt will not be a party to it, although Egypt is the tip of the scale and will remain if we improve our internal situation. A strong internal Egypt is an influential external Egypt. As long as we are weaker internally, we will remain less influential externally.
• What is your assessment of the recent confrontation between Iran and Israel… and is this in the interest of the Palestinian cause?
– I think about Iran as I think about Hamas. They serve a different cause than the one we see. Iran’s missile attacks on Israel are a ridiculous and low charade, just as Hamas did with Israel. We know that they do not bear responsibility. The only ones who bear responsibility are the Palestinian people. And Egypt. Egypt is the one that bears everything on its own. I have no confidence in the Iranian, Hamas, or Turkish pragmatism, which is a pragmatism that works only for its own benefit. They cannot be relied upon to create a future balance.
• How do you see the religiosity of the Israeli-Arab conflict and its impact on the Palestinian issue?
– A tragedy… Religiosity of the Arab-Israeli conflict favors extremist religious rule and pushes people to either be for or against it. Religiosity of the conflict is extremely dangerous for Egypt, so we must look at the issue as an issue of right and homeland and deal from this standpoint, but if We made it a religious issue, so everyone loses
• In your opinion…the decision issued by the United Nations General Assembly to grant membership to Palestine…how does this contribute to resolving the current crisis…and what is the return from that?
– I do not see that it will solve the crisis, as these are formal decisions. If we look at the United Nations resolution after the 1967 war, it said the return of the occupying armies to the 1967 borders, which no one is talking about now, and no one is talking about the Golan, so we are now talking about Gaza and the West Bank only. The issue is a formality in the United Nations, because America and the European West have absolute control over the final result. These are all formal decisions, but they are not the heart of the events.
• There is a supportive international position towards the two-state solution, even from America itself, but there is no real will to take any serious steps towards that. What do you think?
– There is America’s procrastination, and in every procrastination ten years pass and then we start from a point different from what came before it, and different from what came before 67. We lose in every confrontation that occurs and then we start from a new point. As for the two-state solution, I fear that we will be at a standstill. The end is before a religious state, and the conflict between the enthusiastic religious state or the Jewish religious state leads to a conflict with Egypt
• Liquidating the Palestinian cause and the plan to displace the people of Gaza to Sinai.. How do you see that?
– This is part of a clear-cut scenario. Sinai remained a major target throughout, and when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, there was agreement with the West on that. We must take into account the West’s view of us, that Egypt has 10 million Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis, and Sudanese. So why are there not more than two million Palestinians, and all of them come to Egypt, because Egypt accommodates everyone, but they belong to their country, so Egypt will not be able to stop the presence of the Palestinians there from a humanitarian standpoint, but this completely kills the Palestinian cause, because there is no state for them to return to. It has, but there is only Israel, the extremist religious Zionist state that basically does not recognize the countries surrounding it.
• What is your assessment of the Western media’s response to covering the Israeli war in Gaza… and is there a comparison between it and the Arab media?
– I do not see Arab media at all. I follow the student demonstrations in American universities, and there is not a single Arab university from which a young man graduated, because they are shackled by their governments. The Arab media is a media for the Arab governments and not a free media. We produce papers and data, but we They are not effective. Unfortunately, we are in a state of complete decline, and I do not want to blame the Islamic world but the Arab world. I have nothing to do with religions, but with nations and civil liberties. It is not reasonable what we see from young people in America and Europe that we do not see in our Arab countries. Although the Arab youth have a desire to go out and denounce this
• The media in times of war and conflict, especially in the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Israeli war on Gaza. Is it unjust or oppressed?
– Certainly, the Western media is guilty of presenting the Israeli war on Gaza, and the Russian media is guilty. As for the media in the Middle East, it is a lost media, but the Ukrainian-Russian war is a war between the United States, the West, and Russia, but when will it end and in what form it will end? I know…
• How do you see Egypt’s 2030 vision in education?Egypt’s Vision 2030 in education is a very respectable vision, and is divided into five axes. The first is availability, quality, and non-discrimination. I do not see future availability for which plans have been drawn up, nor quality. There is non-discrimination. The second axis is how to manage the educational process. And the governance of education administration and the transition to decentralization, where the school becomes the focus of development, and I see that this does not happen. The third axis: digitization and artificial intelligence in education, making it available and making it integrated into the conscience of the student, the professor, and the administration. It is not a tablet given to students only, but it is A philosophical basis for the idea of ​​digitization and artificial intelligence. I see that investing in Internet infrastructure is part of developing education. Education must be above the level of its teachers. If we do not work on that, none of this will be achieved. As for the fourth axis, it is a constructive axis. A healthy personality who is proud of her identity and her country, which respects its history and has hope for the future. Schools must have art, theatre, sports and music, and there must be communication between the school and the community surrounding it. Our issue is formal and not essential. The last axis is competitiveness. We have lost Our competitive advantage is in the Arab world, and our place has been occupied by the Indians and Pakistanis. Our competitive advantage is a very important part in creating the personality capable of taking society forward. The state must take each of these five axes and develop strategies, and each strategy has a time, budget, and means. Measurement, and this has not happened yet. If the state does not continue implementing this strategy, the vision will become useless
• How can we confront the fourth and fifth generation wars that are based on destroying the state from within, and what is their relationship to the field of artificial intelligence and information technology?
There is false news that is repeated and spread and becomes in people’s minds a reference and an analogy for other things that help to destroy the state. There is no doubt that there are beautiful things happening in Egypt, and there is no doubt that the Egyptian infrastructure has undergone a very large boom, and this has nothing to do with the fact that there is no accountability. It has nothing to do with the presence of corruption or not, but it is a sound procedure. When we spread bad news and rumors, we make the youth in a state of frustration, and the state that is in a state of frustration does not succeed, as the youth then seek to travel, far from their homeland in search of livelihood, and of course, generation wars. The fourth and fifth, which penetrate the minds and conscience of society and make it extremely negative and dangerous
• What do you mean by the term cultural diplomacy? ‏
Cultural diplomacy is based on the exchange of ideas, values, traditions and other aspects of culture between nations and peoples to enhance mutual understanding and respect. It is an ancient practice and a vital modern foreign political tool that plays an increasingly important role in world affairs. In the modern era, cultural diplomacy has become part of It is integral to international relations, as major countries such as the United States of America and the Soviet Union used culture as a tool for political influence during the Cold War, and countries that have a great capacity for soft power often use their cultural resources such as films, music, and literature, in addition to… Promoting values ​​such as democracy and human rights to enhance its image in the world and to influence global public opinion. This type of influence can make countries more able to achieve their external goals in ways that are less costly and less dangerous than using military or economic force, and the idea behind force The soft side is that cultural attractiveness and state values ​​can be important resources that are equivalent to, and in some cases superior to, military forces. As for Egypt, we should not forget that the Egyptian film is called “Arab Film” in the Middle East, and that money in most Arab countries is called “Masari.” In confirmation of its leadership, Egyptian culture also absorbed everyone who came to it as a friend or even an occupier. It is known that the fame of any artist begins in Egypt, and that Egypt alone absorbs 9 million Arabs now without calling them refugees. Egypt used to send teachers to all the schools of the Arab world after the departure of their occupiers, and in many cases their salaries were paid by the Egyptian government, and Al-Azhar Al-Sharif receives students until now, a role that was also played by Egyptian universities. Likewise, there are leaders, kings and ministers in the Arab countries who studied in Egypt, and Egypt’s leadership in education and culture must have had the greatest impact on many of the countries surrounding it. Egypt’s African role went beyond the commercial and military aspects to containing and supporting the African peoples, and in the era of globalization, where information and cultures are exchanged very quickly. Soft power has become more important than ever. It plays a decisive role in shaping the international image of countries and their influence on the global stage.
• What are the most important mechanisms of cultural diplomacy and how important is it on the international scene?

– The mechanisms of cultural diplomacy are multiple, and cultural attachés play a very important role that should not be taken as a regular job. Rather, whoever holds it must be able to spread culture. International protocols and agreements regarding the preservation of culture are very important, and Egypt actively participates in this. Agreements with the aim of preserving cultural heritage, combating illicit trafficking in cultural property, and ensuring the recovery of antiquities that were illegally exported. Through these efforts, Egypt enhances international cooperation and emphasizes the extreme importance of preserving culture. There are examples of how Egypt uses its cultural dimension not only As an extension of its foreign policy, but as a strategic asset to enhance its global presence, enhance international partnerships, and promote mutual understanding and respect between nations, we have what no one else has, which is “Egyptology,” and it plays an important role in cultural diplomacy by contributing to reviving interest in Egyptian heritage and culture, which enhances The national identity of Egypt and highlights its importance on the international scene and the increase in tourism and partnership in archaeological discoveries and new knowledge provided by Egyptologists, which supports the local economy and enhances international diplomacy. Egypt, with its ancient history and rich culture, possesses enormous cultural resources that it can use effectively in diplomacy. Cultural On the international scene, cultural diplomacy depends on using culture as a means to strengthen international relations, encourage mutual understanding and promote peace between countries. Egypt can be a great country if it makes good use of its basic, historical and cultural resources
• You have a book entitled “Memes and Memes.” What do you mean by this name, and what are the most important ideas that you wanted to present in this book?
This is a comprehensive comprehensive book of ideas shared in conversations with young people “dreaming of tomorrow” and with myself and my family. I started it with a chapter I called “Where Do I Start?” in which I answered questions from young people and friends about my being and the seeds of my emotional fabric. As for the name of the book, I discuss it in the first chapter. He talks about ideas, how they spread, and linking them to the theory of evolution. I believe that the most powerful thing in life, more powerful than armies, is the “idea” when the time comes for it to come to light. The conscious mind is able to respect the idea even if it does not believe in it, so I devoted a few Pages for dialogue about awareness and its importance, and about ideas and how they are transmitted from one person to another, from generation to generation and from time to time.
“Meme” in English “mem” is a term that means an idea, behavior, or method that spreads from one person to another within a culture, often aiming to convey a specific phenomenon or meaning represented in this idea. The “meme” works as a unit to carry cultural ideas or ideas. Symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or any other imitable phenomenon linked to a general image. The idea may be simple, or it may be complex, and supporters of the concept consider the “meme” to be an analogue. Genes are cultural in that they replicate themselves, mutate, develop, and respond to transitional pressures
“Memes” I made it the title of the book, because it is a book about ideas and thinkers, and it is an invitation to society to use the best in us as human beings, and what the Creator has distinguished us with from the rest of His creation, which is the mind to spread our ideas. I devoted the next chapter to writing about the greats who created my conscience, and I found a conversation about them. And with them, my gratitude to these characters and my recognition of their beauty, beauty, and positive influence on my life is documented. In the third chapter, I focus on memes of values ​​and ideas that I discussed in my conversations with youth and family about values, and I received sharp blame from some of them about our responsibility for losing many of the meanings of these values. With the duality of the behavior of our generation and those who came before us, with the heart and philosophy of these values ​​that we sing of, and the hypocrisy of the religious society in form, which is often fanatical, in contradiction with the values ​​of religions that urge tolerance, love, affection, and forgiveness, and in the fourth chapter I return to “memes of joy and happiness” and remind the readers The difference between pleasure and happiness scientifically. In the fifth chapter, I swim and sometimes fly with a group of dialogues that seem philosophical about the existence of idiots and attempts to simplify the understanding of time, distances, and parallel universes. In them, I return to Earth in dialogues and ascend with my thoughts about the nature of consciousness and its relationship to quantum physics and the veneration of science and scientists.
• Finally…what about your ambitions on the personal and public levels?
– My personal ambition is the same as my general ambition. I see that my country has the foundations of civilization and the ability to achieve sustainability for its goals, and this satisfies me personally, as a human being, and as a patriot. All I want for my country is for it to be a place for my children and grandchildren, and their children will love to live in it.‏