UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1946-01-18_Page-010

120 REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY AT CAIRO To The Board of Trustees For the year 1944=45 This, my last Report as President, is being written under considerable limi-tations. At the moment I am on board the SS Fernplant on my way to U.S.A., but taking Cargo at Mersin, Turkey. Consequently I have no means of consulting my associates nor office records. Furthermore the only departmental reports that were given me before my departure were those of the School of Oriental Studies, of the Division of Extension and of the Faculty of Education. Other material will be inserted when it comes to hand. Introductory The year 1944-45 has been marked by many important events, most of them having a direct or indirect bearing on the work of the American University at Cairo. The fall of the Moustapha Nahas Ministry was the culmination of widespread discontent with its administration, based on popular charges of extnsive graft and nepo-tism and a growing friction between the Palace and Nahas Pasha himself. This is not the plan to discuss the merits of these accusations. Suffice to say that a new Ministry was formed of a coalition character, headed by H.E. Ahmad Pasha, a man of great energy and ability, a progessive, friendly to foreigners and to the Allied policy. Great hopes were entertained for his administration. His tragic murder in the Paliament building itself by a fanatic who had sworn to kill any Prime Minister who would life Egypt out of its status of neutrality and bring it into the war (although the war was practic-ally over) brought to an end many important propositions and hopes. It also so dis-turbed the balance between the coalition forces that the whole strength and influence of the Cabinet was impaired so that while it has carried on with Mahmoud Fahmi el Nokrashi Pasha as Prime Minister, it has lacked the force and initiative it possessed when first constituted. For the interests of foreign schools in Egypt, the appointment of Abdel Razik el Sanhoury as Minister of Education was viewed with real dismay as his record is that of a reactionary Moslem, committed to extreme nationalism in purely Moslem terms, even advocating a revival of the Sharia law for modern Arab states. However the weak-ness of the entire Ministry, the war situation and the balance wheel of British influ-ence have so far averted any definite anti-foreign or anti-Christian measures, although there have been threats. The coming of peace in Europe has raised many anxieties concerning unemploy-ment in Egypt, as the war activities subside and the foreign troops begin to with-draw. With the coming of peace, the many international conferences and commissions on agriculature and food supplies, the Monetary Conferences, the Conference on the International Court and especially the San Francisco Conference - have aroused wide-spread interest in Egypt since its delgates were invited to share in them. These foreign gatherings, participated in by Egypt, have undoubtedly served to broaden the Egyptian horizon and serve as educative influences for the public mind. However the event of deepest interest to the nation as a whole has been the formation of the Arab League and the position of leadership in it that has fallen to Egypt, Abd el Rahman Azzam Pasha, a distinguished personality in Egyptian public life, being its first Executive Secretary and official spokesman. As I explained in one of my Printed Letters, it remains to be seen what the formation of this League portends. For the present, it marks a cultural unity, first of all, in the Arab world; therefore, a racial and linguistic unity; next, an economic unity; last, a political unity. Two essential questions arise, Will it be cohesive enough to b