Prioritising investment in the art and history market will pay off

As Kenya turns to 2018, the development horizons will be President Uhuru Kenyatta’s “The Big Four”: Food security, housing, manufacturing and healthcare.

However, a quick glimpse into Egypt’s Nile Corridor unveils adroit commercialisation of art and history as a motor of development of other sectors and a sustainable source of vital investment capital.

Egypt has been rightly called the gift of the Nile. Here, the majestic Nile River nourished one of the world’s greatest civilisations over five thousand years ago and continues to sustain Egypt as a fertile, populous country.

This oasis — which averages two miles in width and 930 mile-long (1,497 kilometres) and constitutes nearly three per cent of Egypt’s land and is home to 96 per cent of its over 100 million people — gave rise to the deep spirituality that underpinned the ancient Egyptian civilisation whose rich legacy of art and history is the artery of Egypt’s modern economy.

NILE

Life and civilisation thrived in the bountiful Nile Valley and its delta as the benign gods intended in contrast to the arid wastes where Seth, the bringer of storms and catastrophes, reigned.

Africa fed the Nile with its waters. And, as Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop (1923 –1986) correctly reminded us in his book: The African Origin of Civilisation: Myth or Reality, the Egyptian civilisation is black Africa’s contribution to human civilisation.

Like the rest of Africa, Egypt’s fabulous wealth attracted waves of conquerors and colonialists. In his famous three volumes entitled Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilisation, Martin Bernal traces the cradle of Western civilisation to ancient Greece, which drew from Africa (Egypt) and Asia.

At different stages in human history, ancient Egypt gave refuge to the founders of the great monotheistic faiths, including Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

We owe the concept of justice and fair-play as the cornerstone of civilised leadership to ancient Egypt where the great pyramids and tombs were designed as resting places of the pharaohs and nobles after death as they awaited the final judgment for their deeds as rulers.

PHARAOH

This has given rise to the famous scale of justice (Mezan el adalaa), widely used in our courts today.

Among the most celebrated pieces of art in the tombs is the final judgment depicting the pharaoh appearing before 14 justices and his heart weighed on scale of justice against a feather.

If the heart is heavier (as a result of injustices and atrocities against citizens), the soul of the unjust pharaoh is consumed by a beast, ending the badly coveted immortality.

The ancient Egyptian religion inspired the concept of trinity (three Gods in one) and the resurrection at the core of Christianity.

From these interactions and conquests, Egypt has emerged as part of what the Kenyan scholar, Ali Mazrui, described as Africa’s triple heritage: African tradition, Islam and Western.
Foremost source

With the age, Egypt’s history and art have become commercialised as a crucial part of modern capitalist economy, turning the millennia-old monuments in the Nile Valley into major tourist destinations.

TOURISM

Tapping into this rich repertoire of art and history — in the Pyramids and the Great Sphinx at Giza, the Abu Simbel temples South of Aswan, the Karnak Temple Complex and Valley of the Kings near Luxor, the Cairo Museum and Mosques of Mohammad Ali Pasha in Cairo — Egypt has attracted some 14.7 million visitors, providing revenues of nearly $12.5 billion and employing about 12 pc of the country’s workforce by 2010 when its tourism was at its peak.

This has made Egypt the most successful African state in turning its history and art into a foremost source of income and artery of its economy.

Egypt is exploiting the rise of new economic powers, including China, now becoming a major source of visitors and holiday makers.

The 1,497 kilometre Nile Corridor between Aswan in the border with Sudan and Cairo has sustained over 400 affordable but luxurious Nile cruises delivering visitors to historic temples, tombs, pyramids and cultural sites along the valley.

This has provided a robust market to local entrepreneurs specialising on cottage industries producing paper from papyrus reeds using ancient technology, stone carvings and galleries selling paintings and depictions of ancient Egyptian arts and history.

CRUISE SHIPS

This market has employed thousands of Egyptian youths as guides and “Egyptologists” explaining this history to visitors from across the world.

Ordinary Egyptians are also tapping into this lifeline. In the Aswan-Luxor corridor, the “water hawkers of Ezna” edge their small boats close to the cruise ships to hawk their merchandise (table clothes, towels and shawls).

But the legacy of colonialism still lingers in the form of illicit trade in art and historical artifacts often involving museums in the major European markets in German, France and the United Kingdom.

The ubiquitous story is told of one Abd el Rasol who discovered a preserved body of an ancient Egyptian king (mummy) in a cave and sold the findings to the Germans at a throw-away price of nine pounds. Later, the government of Egypt was forced to buy back this mummy at a whooping cost of 28 million Euros!

Egypt has greatly suffered from bouts of political instability. The 2011 Egyptian revolution that witnessed attacks on foreigners along with the series of 2012-2013 Egyptian protests have negatively affected Egypt’s delicate tourist sector.

REGIME

Islamism-inspired terrorism has been behind a long series of terrorist attacks and threats targeting foreign tourists at Egyptian historic monuments and beach resorts, which have scared away tourists and eroded incomes.

Ordinary Egyptians speak fondly of President Fatah Al- Sisi whose new regime has worked hard to restore stability and raise the number of tourists.

Sisi is also looking south to Africa, projecting Egypt as a partner to the riparian states in the Nile basin. Kenya and its neighbours in East and Horn of Africa have a rich history and culture harkening to thousands of years.

There is no reason why the coast from Djibouti to River Ruvuma and the whole length of the Lake Victoria basin should not be the bedrock of a robust economy.

Prof Kagwanja is a former Government Adviser and Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute. This article is based on notes and interviews from the Egypt’s Nile Corridor