Faisal Ali Addabi

Summary of the Problem: in France and at one of the entrances of the Sorbonne University in Paris City, a statue of Champollion has been recently placed.

Frédéric Auguste carved the marble statue depicting Champollion standing with his left foot on a pharaonic head in 1875. It is known that Champollion (1790 -1832), was a French archeologist and philologist , known primarily as the first decipherer of the old Egyptian hieroglyphs. 

The French statue triggered waves of extreme anger among the Egyptians in France and Egypt as it has been considered a huge insult to the Egyptian civilization and all Egyptians.

Egyptian angry waves are still flaring up on social media and some Egyptian organizations and Egyptian youth movements in France and Egypt threated to organize global demonstrations and protests against the statue and demanded immediate removal of the statue and an official apology from the French authorities for allowing the placement of this provocative statue.

Summary of the Solution: This global Egyptian fuss will just be much ado about nothing, or a mere whirlwind in a cup which will bring great international fame to the French statue!! France will not remove the statue and will not apologize on the ground that the display of the statue is an embodiment of the freedom of expression in which France takes pride, and one of the westerners may say to the angry Egyptians: yes, you are the owners of the Egyptian civilization but the French discovered it for you!! Or he may say: placing the foot on the head means reaching the target in the Western culture, it does not mean insult under any circumstances, and these different viewpoints are merely cultural differences between the East and the West!!   A prominent Egyptian figure from the Egyptian Tourism Ministry has already submitted a written objection against the statue but received no reply from the French authorities. The only practical solution to this problem is reciprocity, why don’t the Egyptians allow an Egyptian sculptor to carve an Egyptian statue depicting the Egyptian pharaoh standing with his right foot on Champollion’s head and that such statue shall be placed at one of the entrances of Cairo University and thus put an end to this new whirlwind which will definitely go with the wind as the world has enough unreasonable whirlwinds in cups?!!

Advocate\Faisal Ali Addabi