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Oral History Interview Oral History Interview - In Memory of Talaat Harb Pacha Interviewer: Farida Ahmed El Deeb Interviewee: Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab, Professor at The American University in Cairo Farida Ahmed El Deeb 0:00 In memory of Talaat Harb Pacha, The founder of Banque Misr, Egypt air and many more Egyptian companies, Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab, Professor at The American University in Cairo talks to us about myths, achievements, and struggles of Talaat Harb's on Thursday, April 16 2020. Good evening. How are you? Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 0:18 I think I'm fine. Farida Ahmed Eldeeb0:23 Okay. I want to ask you, how has your education reveal what makes life worth living for you? Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 0:30 I never thought of this question. If you ask me. What makes what makes me feel life is worth living. It might not be education. No, I can't I can't I can't find the answer. Farida Ahmed Eldeeb 0:50 Okay, I can change that question into like, how did your own education help you discover like your own talents to bring them to life, either your education … Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 1:03 Again I don't think that my education helped me to discover what I liked in life, not my education. Let me, let me, let me just take; the point is that if by education, you mean becoming literate, this started before my education. I started learning how to read and write before I even entered school. Okay, and reading and writing became a habit for me, and a hobby and a relief as well, before I went to school, in other words, it was aligned. Aligned running parallel to whatever form of education I was getting. And I think I will add to this more of my formulation, then formal education. I think for me Education alone doesn't make anything doesn't help anyone, I think, to find out anything about his inner self. So, if the question is how did I, what helped me to identify a role in life or what makes life worth living for me? Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 2:24 It was a process of reflection, engaging observations, reflections, and basically a lover, a lover of literature. Basically, It's the love of literature that makes decisions or thinking systems and so on. And I did not study literature. My education didn't have... 1 Farida Ahmed Eldeeb 2:52 Okay, you mentioned that reading is a hobby. If you would tell us what's your favorite book or literature piece, just briefly and why. Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 3:02 The one that I lived with several times in my life and I had and I lectured in it as well; when I was tutoring in the core curriculum for several years was Mawsim al-hijrah ila al-shamal. This is definitely if I have to choose a book but recently there is another book as well: Hekayat Youssef Tadros (The Tales of Youssef Tadros) of Adel Esmat. And there are others [but] these are the two most important. Farida Ahmed Eldeeb 3:40 Okay, moving on to Talaat Harb Pacha. Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 3:43 Yes! Farida Ahmed Eldeeb 3:43 Talaat Harb Pacha, mentioning the word Pacha as a start... Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 3:48 I thought that you were emphasizing Pacha, go ahead. Farida Ahmed Eldeeb 3:53 Yeah, the surname Pacha, how can someone achieve that name or where did the name come from? Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 3:59 It's a title, it is a decoration rather than the name. Why did he become a pacha? I'm not sure. Actually, What I remember vaguely is that it was, oh, you're not asking the occasion. You're asking why in the sense of Farida Ahmed Eldeeb 4:23 Yeah, the name itself Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 4:24 Specific occasion but what made him entitled. It's brought in establishing Banque Misr. And this is [it]. [But] the occasion when he learn of it was during a visit as far as I remember.By Farouk, King Farouk former king perhaps Al Mahalla Al Kobras site, one of his projects. And the story as far as I remember it is that as he was leaving he [King Farouk] greeted him saying Talaat 2 Pacha. And this was taken to be the decree, there must be a formal decree as well. This was the moment when he knew he was giving, as far as I know. Farida Ahmed El Deeb 5:18 Okay. And what are Talaat Harb Pacha's achievements? Or what do you think has impacted the Egyptian economy the most? Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 5:27 Nothing. This is the immediate response has to be I can't say nothing. What I'm trying to say actually is the following. There is a legacy about Talaat Harb more than a record. Okay, there is there is a myth about Talaat Harb more than a record. First of all, wasn't was most famous for promoting Banque Misr. But Talaat Harb's promotion of Banque Misr is part of life path which included activity in the public space as an economic writer, and thinker, economic and general. First of all, before the bank was established, the bank was established in 1920. Before the bank was established Talaat Harb wrote a treatise calling for the establishment of the bank. It's the seminal work. One of the most important works in Egyptian economic foot titled Elag Misr Al Ektisadi, [or] Mashroa Bank El Oma [or] Bank Al Masriyeen, perhaps. Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 6:48 And this was published there are two dates people report each of them [because] there's something with the edition itself, which either 1911 or 1930. Now, there he expressed the vision for the bank. But even before this book, 10 years or so before this book Talaat Harb had published works corresponding. First of all, work responding to Qasim Amin's women's liberation call against it. He published a book on Qabael Al Arab Wal Islam. He published a book. These were not economics. He published a work proposing the existing at that time proposal for extending the Suez Canal concession, and then he published the work I mentioned about the bank. He, before stablishing the banking before becoming the major figure associated with the bank in 1920, he already had a record as a writer, that's number one. Number two, the bank was not the initiative of Harb alone. Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 8:05 Actually, even the treaties he wrote was the product of a trip he was sent to take together with two other people, one of them is Youssef Kasar Katawy Pacha, a trip to Germany and Italy.Germany and Italy, particularly because they had tradition of banks closely associated with a Al Motamar Al Watany Al Mesry [or] the first Egyptian national conference, which convened in 1911. During the conference, someone by the name Youssef Nahas a Lebanese, someone of lebanese background, voiced a call for a national bank during the conference. As the result of Youssef Nahas's call partially atleast the conference decided to send a mission admission that included Harb, Youssef Kasar katawy and a third person. I can't recall who is the third person to Italy and Germany as I said. 3 Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 9:07 So, the person who sounded the call in the conference was Youssef Nahas and not Talaat. Now, there is something which we have to understand about that period of time. About 19, the first two decades of the 20th century, this was a time when an embryonic Egyptian entrepreneurial community or let me reword this embryonic entrepreneurial community was born in Egypt. I'm reowrding it by changing Egyptian into in Egypt ]because] this community included a lot of local foreign minorities who co lisk with those of indigenous roots, whether distant indigenous roots or recent indigenous roots. And together they were forming a cohort, which aimed at claiming a share in the Egyptian market for capital that resides in Egypt, even if it's owned by local foreigners, and for them the share had come from Elites. So, Talaat Harb was part of a general movement at that time in the early 1920s. Immediately after 1919, you'll find two important institutions Banque Misr in 1920 and Egyptian federation of industries in 1922, both adopting the cause of industry. Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 10:51 You also find before the formation of these two bodies, like Target or sulla the Kerner commission for commerce and in Formed in 1916 by the government to look into ways to promote industry so our heart belongs in this context when Miss started did not start as an industrial bank. The charter of banknotes is a charter for a bank, practicing general banking services general banking activities, which were mostly commercial activities. In the first 10 years or so, of bank misses, record, the past they establish established during those between 19 2017 2008 To be more precise, they established nine companies nine joint stock companies, of which only one could be described as really industry moloko authenticity hidden the others We're in fields of transportation. We're in cinema and other such fields. And we're not capitalized heavily enough to make them industry. Abdelaziz Ezz El Arab 12:15 This is why 1929 Bank must issue a report appealing to the state to found an industrial bank had it had the bank itself been on this wireless call for another, it perceived of an industrial bank owned by a state to provide banks like bank must with the funds in order to advance them to investment fair.
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