Dr. Serageldin Visits European Institutions, Forges BA Collaborations
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During the month of June, Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, visited several European cultural and educational institutions in Paris, Toulouse and the Hague.
On 7 June in Toulouse, France, the Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse III, held a special ceremony honoring Dr. Serageldin with a special Doctorate Honoris Causa, and conferred upon him a special medal of the university. The university is one of the oldest in the world, dating back to 1229, and offers a strong curriculum in the sciences and engineering. Dr. Serageldin shored up a collaboration between the BA and the university, which will include a major conference in the fall on using DNA analysis to trace ancient population movements in the Mediterranean.
Dr. Serageldin also received a special medal of the Midi-Pyrenees region from President Martin Malvy at a luncheon held in his honor at the seat of the regional government in Toulouse. The short ceremony was followed by a tour of historic Toulouse and its new Médiathèque.
In Paris on 10 June 2004, the newly established Foundation for Political Innovation welcomed Dr. Serageldin who delivered a lecture entitled “Mirrors and Windows: Contemporary Views of the Self and the Other for the Dialogue of Cultures.” The presentation was followed by a lively debate, and many participants promised to follow up by E-mail and by other means on the many intriguing questions raised by the Dr. Serageldin’s presentation.
The next day, at the French Ministry of Culture, a small group gathered as the Minister of Culture, Donnedieu de Vabre, bestowed upon Dr. Serageldin the order of Officer of Arts and Letters. The ceremony was attended by a few eminent persons from the French cultural scene and Egypt’s ambassador to France, Hatem Seif-el-Nasr.
Next, Dr. Serageldin visited the Historic Institut de France, where he and Prof. Emile-Etienne Beaulieu, President of the French Academy of Sciences, signed the first ever cooperation agreement between the prestigious academy and an Arab Institution. The agreement covers the collaboration of the two institutions in the international program, “la Main a la Pate,” a hands-on approach to teaching science to children.
On his visit to the Hague on 18 June 2004, Dr. Serageldin gave a keynote address to a developmentally minded gathering at the Dutch Parliament. In Berlin on 21 June 2004, Dr. Ismail Serageldin addressed the International Publishers Association on the topic of free expression, censorship and the Muslim world. His remarks sparked a lively debate in the panel.