Cairo's relations with Paris based on mutual respect – Ali

Renowned writer, Abdelrahim Ali, who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Editors of al-Bawaba News and the Centre for Middle East Studies in Paris (CEMO), said Friday if the world considers Egypt to be the 'dawn of conscience' as famous Egyptologist James Henry Breasted called it, Egyptians consider France to be the 'age of conscience'.

He added that this is especially true given the great value of the French Revolution in human history and the values it established in human conscience.

"Let me tell you why we believe that France in particular is the age of conscience," Ali said during the seminar 'Egypt … Dawn of Conscience' which is organized by CEMO.

He recalled a saying by famous French scholar, Jacques Augustin Berque, about the first motives that kept him interested in Arabs.

Ali said Berque had mentioned these motives in his book 'Mémoires des deux rives' in 1989.

Held at the ancient French Le Creon hotel, which overlooks an ancient Egyptian obelisk, the seminar is organized on the margins of the opening of the Ramses II Exhibition at the Grand Halle de la Villette. The exhibition will last for five months.

Attending the event is a host of dignitaries, including Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Ahmed Essa, leading Egyptologist, Zahi Hawass, and Egypt's Ambassador to France, Alaa Youssef.

A host of chief editors of French newspapers attend the seminar, along with several French MPs, senior politicians and Egyptologists.

Ali said in the early 1950s, orientalism was dominated by an ethnology rooted in the school belonging to James Frazer, a science that views easterners through the magical rituals that immerse their lives.

"This view was only a means of expressing the superiority of the West over the East," Ali said.

He added that Berque's view of the east contributed to the presence of strong relations between Easterners and the French.

"This is a relationship based on mutual respect and a mutual understanding of the civilization and values of each of us," Ali said.