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Dr. Tharwat Okasha, Former Minister of Culture in Egypt – Photo Archive
The 27th anniversary of the departure of Mr. Tharwat Okasha, one of the most prominent ministers of Arab culture, still referred to as "grand construction", marks the seventh anniversary of his prominent role in Egyptian culture during the 1960s .
The merit of this title was not due to the ministerial seat, but rather to the result of an important ideological effort, which gave rise to many encyclopedias that represent "a gift for all Arab intellectuals" with regard to the arts and literature.
The return to Sir Okasha, who left on February 27, 2012, about 91 years ago, is a different sign this year. His portrait was presented about a month ago, the poster of the last edition of the Cairo International Book Fair in late January, as the minister who sponsored the idea for the first time in 1969 .
This same occasion renewed the anniversary of Okasha, prompting many commentators to assume his eminent role of one of the best known culture ministers of the Arab world and to extend their influence to neighboring Arab countries .
Researcher Mohammed Sayed Rayan took the opportunity to publish a book on the deceased that will be honored during the Cairo Book Fair and will include many images and documents.
Okasha was one of the most prominent figures of the Nasirite experience in Egypt since joining the Free Officers Organization and his arrival at Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1949, when he was a junior officer in the cavalry and he had played a decisive role in the resolution of the officers' movement on the night of July 23, 1952.
Akasha 's relations with Nasser were strengthened when he was attached to Egypt in Switzerland and Paris during the period of strained relations with the West during the 1956 war and when he was in power. he immediately took office as ambassador of Egypt to Rome, where he learned that he had been appointed Minister of Culture, replacing the late national intellectual Fathi Radwan. The 1958 government was named "Ministry of National Guidance".
Thanks to his liberal tendencies, which he never denied, when he described himself in his memoirs as "selective, dictated by his liberal tendencies", Okasha managed to operate along two axes: first, to set up a comprehensive institutional cultural structure of educational and educational nature seeking to disseminate culture, and the second track was aimed at making the cultural identity of Egypt pluralistic and open to Western culture and its international and regional institutions.
During his reign, the Ministry of Culture was established as a true institution serving as an example to the rest of the Arab countries inspired by the Egyptian experience after national independence: the Supreme Council of culture (Supreme Council for the Protection of Arts and Literature at the time), the General Authority of the Book, the Academy of Arts, The Library and the National Archives, the l '; Opera, the National Circus, the puppet theater and the service of mass culture.
He also invited international experts to bring together Egyptian heritage, in addition to his role in launching a worldwide call for the safeguarding of Nubian monuments after the creation of the dam and the reconstruction of Abu Simbel temple in Aswan and the project "Aleph Kuttab".
Okasha helped complete his achievements by taking the Ministry of Culture three times, the first from 1958 to 1962, the second from 1962 to 1966 and the third from 1966 to 1970.
In his memoirs, published in several editions of the mid-1980s and titled "My Memoirs in Politics and Culture," he published the number of political and cultural roles he played, revealing the mechanisms with which he worked and the names with which he cooperated to rehabilitate cultural institutions in Egypt. Yahya Hakki, Ahmed Abu Zeid, Fuad Zakaria and the late Saad Kamel, all three of great stature, reveal a great awareness acquired by the regretted and paid to invest these spirits.
In these memoirs, perhaps for the first time, the term "cultural policies" appears in the literature of international organizations, in particular UNESCO.
His papers say that no politics of random ideas or whims can arise, and gives Okasha an earlier definition of the definitions of UNESCO, a member of its board of directors and related to global development plan, noting that "the state does not attempt to create a government culture, the flourishing of cultural values and aspirations of all kinds until the state empties its activities in other areas. "
He recognizes that traditional politics or the general framework of cultural action is the traditional issue of culture. The ministry's mission is to "manage the creative and creative modes, not the monopoly, while establishing big projects that individuals can not accomplish."
During many important experiments, Akasha's experience was interrupted as a result of changes in the structure of the Nasserist regime, which led to a power struggle that contributed to the shock that followed the setback of June 1967. A quantitative cultural policy was replaced by the manner in which the man described by the late writer Raja "He has a voice and a light … a voice we hear in the conservatory that he has founded in Cairo and the light we see with the effects of Egypt, which saved her from the loss with the construction of the Great Dam. "
The biography of Tharwat Okasha is known for his outstanding works, which have exceeded 80 books, most of which were dedicated to the history of art. The most famous of them are "The Eye Heard and the Ear Sees". Wagner, Bernard Shaw and others, who associate literature and the arts in their day, constitute an encyclopedia of art integrated with art and life.
He won many local and international awards and awards, including the French Medal of Arts and Letters in 1965, the Legion of Honor Medal and the Order of the French Legion of Honor in Major class in 1968, the UNESCO Silver Medal for the Safeguarding of the Temples of Abuseembel and the effects of the Nubia, Save the temples of Philae and the effects of Nubia in 1970.
The National Arts Prize awarded by the Supreme Council of Culture in 1987 and the Mubarak Prize for the Arts awarded by the Supreme Council of Culture in 2002, which is the highest Egyptian distinction having changed its name to become the Nile Prize to from 2011.
After years of departure, his experience of cultural management remains a subject of reflection and debate among intellectuals: some describe him as "the best minister of culture in our history", others adopt a counter-vision according to which the man is the founding father of the idea of "culture". Made
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