2000

On the second week of April, Egypt lost the last of the greatest figures of the liberal age and the international judge of the WTO, the prominent, Said El-Naggar at an age of 84 years old. Said El-Naggar was a comprehensive liberalist, economically, politically, socially and culturally. In this respect, he was a faithful son for the first Arab liberal age which began its embryonic seed by the end of the nineteenth century with the modern Arab renaissance symbolized by Tahtawy, Ali Mubarak, Al Afghany, Mohamed Abdu, Abdel Rahman El Kawakby, Kassem Amin, Ahmed Lotfy El Sayed, Taha Hussein and Abbas El Akkad.

These embryonic seeds had grown after the First World War, starting with the rise of the 1919 revolution in Egypt, and the formulation of the 1923 constitution. This was when Said El-Naggar was born (1920), in a family of the rural elite at the Beheira governorate. However, his father passed away when he was seven, Said was the youngest of his brothers, who had all reached considerable levels in their education. Nevertheless, the loss of the father concurrent with the great depression during the late twenties and early thirties of last century, has led to the loss of most of the family's assets. Consequently, Said El-Naggar was not able to follow his brothers who had already finished their intermediary education. However, the widowed mother insisted that he should complete his education; thus, she sold her land and her family heritage in order to be able to keep him at Damanhour Primary school, then Secondary school until he reached the University of "Fouad the First", where he joined the faculty of law, and studied under the guidance of Abdel Razek El Sanhoury Pasha, the most prominent expert in the jurisprudence of law. His obvious brilliance was one of the reasons that made his mother insist he completes his education. He was the first of his class in all grades as he was the first of his promotion when he graduated from the faculty of law on 1940. At that time, distinguished graduates of this particular high-ranking faculty were appointed as DA to be promoted to Counselors or Ministers. Dr. Said El-Naggar was appointed in Alexandria but Prof. Abdel Razek El Sanhoury persuaded him to join the faculty staff and pursue an academic career, which was highly regarded at that time.

After the end of the World War II, and the resumption of international scholarships, Said El-Naggar was awarded a scholarship to study economics and political science at London University, where he studied under the guidance of another generation of scholars, philosophers and sociologists like Harold Lasky, Bernard Russell, and Karl Popper whose lecture on open society had a strong, lasting impact on Said El-Naggar.

When El-Naggar returned to Egypt on 1950 to work as a professor at the Faculty of Law, from which he has graduated ten years ago, El Sanhoury Pasha took him once again under his wing, supported him and invited him several times to his own house and introduced him to his family members among which is El Sanhoury's only daughter who fell in love with El-Naggar. Their relationship grew and resulted in a marriage that lasted ten years and prodcued two sons.

The liberalism of both Said El-Naggar and his professor El Sanhoury clashed early on with the revolution of 1952. A clashed that reached its peak on February 1954 when El Sanhoury was the head of National Council which is equivalent to the supreme constitutional court which was inclined to support democracy; this meant the support of General Mohamed Naguib in his conflict with Abdel Nasser, whether the army should return to its original role and leave the country to a civil rule, elected democratically as was desired by Mohamed Naguib, Khaled Mohie Eddin and few of the free officers, or should it rule country for several other years, until the revolution achieves its intended objectives, as desired by Abdel Nasser and the majority of the free officers. Thinking of preventing El Sanhoury Pasha and the National Council from issuing an opinion supporting Mohamed Naguib's standpoint, the latter group instigated a number of transportation labor workers to demonstrate against democracy in Greater Cairo. The demonstrators walked to the National Council, attacked the building and assaulted El Sanhoury Pasha?who was at the age of sixty?and were about to kill him, but were prevented by the employees of the Council who transferred El Sanhoury Bash to the nearest hospital. This accident has left a deep impact on El Sanhoury Pasha and his in-law the young Said El-Naggar. As a consequence, they both left Egypt in the nearest opportunity, where El Sanhoury Pasha worked as a professor of Law at Baghdad University, by the end of the 1950’s and as a legal consultant for the government of Kuwait at the end of the sixties, while Said El-Naggar joined the International Organizations as an economic consultant.

El Sanhoury Pasha has remained faithful to his beliefs his entire life until he passed away in the early seventies, just like his in-law Said El-Naggar who remained faithful to his liberal principles until he died in the second week of April, thirty years after the death of his professor.

The last post that Said El-Naggar held before his final return to Egypt in the early nineties was the Executive Director on the Board of the World Bank, representing some 14 countries. The return of El-Naggar was concurrent with Egypt's adoption of an open economic policy and market mechanism. He is considered one of the strongest advocates of these strategies. However, the trajectory of this open policy was problematic. In this respect, some advisors recommended that President Mubarak would consult Dr. Said El-Naggar to correct and push forward this policy. In fact, the president met with Dr. Said El-Naggar and proposed that the latter would be the deputy prime minister for economic affairs and take the lead of the economic group. Thus, Dr. El-Naggar proposed his vision for economic reform, which cannot function without parallel political reform. This implies a real democratic change since economic liberalism is part and parcel of the comprehensive reform, politically, socially, and culturally. This perspective was totally new to the President who thought that Dr. El-Naggar's proposal is difficult to implement at that time. Accordingly, Dr. El-Naggar declined this distinguished post, desired by so many hungry-for-power individuals.

In this manner, El-Naggar made a free choice to become an advocate of liberalism, through the civil society organizations, and non-governmental organizations. Hence, he founded the New Civic Forum and joined the board of trustees of Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. In addition, he became an advocate for equality between men and women, between Muslims and Copts, and has supported several crucial issues in Egypt, the Arab World as well as the international community. He has been always clear, lucid and honest in his views and actions in public life, as he was characterized by rare integrity and great courage. This was highly demonstrated when he was the head of Independent Egyptian Committee for Monitoring Elections on 1995 and on the year 2000 when he became the head of the Committee for National Unity. He had always known that his strong standpoints in such issues would antagonize official authorities in the Egyptian government; nevertheless, the man was not concerned with anything but being true to his conscience, which was far more important to him than officials’ satisfaction.

Dr. El-Naggar never seeked fortune or power. His extreme resolve to abide only by his conscience, taking no notice of the authorities’ displeasure, was clearly manifested at the outburst of Ibn Khaldun's case in June 2000, which lasted for three years. He was the primary figure responsible of the mobilization of Egyptian and Arab Intellectuals as well as International Human Rights organizations to support those accused in this case. His testimony in the three trials is a great example of political conduct. In one of his famous quotes in one of the trails he said that he had spent sixty years studying the reasons behind the progression and regression of nations and now he realized one of the most important reasons for regression in Egypt: what happens to its finest citizens, like Ahmed Zeweil the Nobel prize winner who was forced to immigrate, or others who end up like that?pointing to those accused in the case standing behind the bars.

Dr. Said El-Naggar was a great person, a symbol of democracy and a fighter for the sake of freedom and human rights. May God have mercy on his soul.