WATANI International
4 October 2009
In spite of all that has been written about him, the former president of Egypt Anwar al-Sadat has still left a large question mark in his wake. How did his story come to have so many facets, some of them directly opposing one another? He fought a war, he fought and won a mighty struggle for peace, he took some courageous decisions and he achieved important positions. As a hero both of war and peace, Mr Sadat was unique by any account. And yet this unique man has aroused controversy aplenty; many insist most of the woes of Egypt have their roots in his policies.
Earlier this year, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) celebrated the opening of a comprehensive project documenting the life of the Sadat 27 years after his death. The BA legacy is two-fold: a website provides information about every aspect of the president and his life and times, while the museum shows some of his personal belongings. A digital archive documenting the life of Mr Sadat was also opened.
Access by theme
With the aim of making the project as near perfect as possible, the BA has cooperated with several other partners such as the Sadat family, the Egypt State Information Service, the Cairo daily Akhbar al-Youm and Dar al-Hilal publishing house.
Head of the BA Ismail Serageddin said the Sadat Museum was the first of its kind in Alexandria. Its establishment comes as part of the BA’s plan to document the whole of Egypt’s modern and contemporary history. A 200-square-metre space next to the Planetarium Science Centre has been allocated to the Sadat Museum. The display is being handled by Dr Hussein al-Shabouri, a professor of fine arts at Cairo University.
Khaled Azab, press officer at the BA and the project’s supervisor, said Mr Sadat fully understood the vital importance of the media and the value of photographs. For Mr Sadat, the photograph was not just a registration of a special moment or a critical event, but was a political card that he instinctively and skilfully knew how to use.
The material on the digital archive can be accessed by browsing through a number of theme topics: speeches; photographs; documentary films; documents and publications; in addition to newspaper archive. The home page provides access to a complete life history of Mr Sadat.
Rare collection
Before entering the museum visitors will have the opportunity to watch a Culturama show on nine interactive screens, each displaying a specific period in the life of Sadat. The show lasts for 20 minutes and was prepared by the Centre for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT), directed by Fathi Saleh. The national television library has also presented a collection of video tapes which include a number of letters, reports by foreign news reporters and a film, Action Biography, in addition to all documents related to the October 1973 War and the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. A rare collection of tapes, which has never been broadcast either in Egypt or abroad, is available on the Sadat site.
Speech to Knesset
The project team documented the texts of 1,116 speeches by President Sadat and 35 visually recorded speeches, including his famous speech delivered in the Knesset in 1977. More than 14,000 photographs of Sadat have been posted on the Internet, covering official events, visits and meetings between 1952 and 1981. The digital archive also comprises more than 200 documentary films, as well as more than 940 Egyptian and American documents. The BA was also very keen to provide various pieces of historical material, and hence the artistic publication section was added. This section has a collection of rare material and is divided into four sub-sections: stamps, caricatures, paintings and cards.
Amr Shalabi, supervisor of the theoretical material in the new museum, says the museum features honorary medals, decorations, badges and awards offered to Mr Sadat throughout his public life in Egypt, Yugoslavia, Nepal, Lebanon, Tunisia and France.
Personal effects
In addition to a collection of Mr Sadat’s personal belongings, including the bloodstained uniform he wore on the day of his assassination on 6 October 1981.
The visitor to the museum will see Mr Sadat’s own radio, desk and personal library comprising his favourite books together with a number of rare items; several oil portraits; and a collection of Arab swords given to him in the Gulf States.
Items donated by Mrs Jehan al-Sadat include his walking cane; his famous pipe the galabiya and abaya (traditional rural costume and cloak) he customarily wore whenever he was in Mit Abul-Koum, the village of his birth in Egypt’s Delta; a collection of photographs exhibited at the BA for the first time ever; a bust of her husband and three Islamic, Christian and Jewish lanterns which were a gift from the Mayor of Jerusalem during his historic visit to the city in 1977.
The exhibition also includes a recording of the Holy Qur’an in the voice of President Sadat, a short story partly written in his own hand and partly dictated to Mrs Sadat, and a number of video recordings.