São Paulo – On Monday (26) evening, the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce honoured the mayor of São Paulo, Gilberto Kassab, and professor Helmi Nasr, International Relations vice president at the organisation and founder of the language and culture department of the University of São Paulo (USP).
The organisation granted each of them the 2012 Arab Chamber Personality award, at a dinner at the Syrian Sports Club, in the city of São Paulo, in celebration of the 25th of March, the National Day of the Arab Community.
“We are honouring an Arab and a Brazilian,” said the organisation’s president, Salim Taufic Schahin. Nasr is Egyptian and naturalized Brazilian and Kassab is Brazilian of Lebanese descent. “They are two examples for our people,” added Schahin.
In May, Nasr will celebrate his 50th year in Brazil. He came to São Paulo in 1962 with the mission, granted to him by then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, of starting an Arabic course at USP. “I came to spend a year and this year I am celebrating my 50th in this very dear country,” said the professor.
At 90 years of age, Nasr has vast academic work, with the highlight in the Arabic-Portuguese dictionary, the translation of New World in the Tropics, by Gylberto Freire, into Arabic and the translation of the Koran, the holy book of the Muslims, into Portuguese.
The Koran was printed at King Fahd Complex, in Medina, Saudi Arabia, approved by the World Muslim League, a religious institution headquartered in Mecca, also in Saudi Arabia, distributed in Brazil by the Arab Brazilian Chamber. “We distributed over 20,000 copies in Brazil,” said Schahin.
What the professor recalls with greatest affection, however, is the mission that brought him to Brazil. “Before, there was no Arabic course here,” he pointed. He had concluded his graduate studies at Sorbonne, in Paris, and was teaching in Cairo when he received the invitation. “There were professors who spoke all languages but Portuguese. So the department director called me and said: ‘You are going. You speak French, which is a Latin language, like Portuguese, so you are going to solve the problem,” he explained.
Schahin said that the professor started his career at USP with just one student, but, in the 1960s, he managed to establish a department with seven professors. He added that Nasr made a “Herculean” effort in the translation of the Koran. “We are facing a true wise man,” pointed out the president at the Arab Brazilian Chamber.
Nasr is retired from the university, but his activities are not solely in the academic area. Schahin pointed out that the professor has been a director at the Arab Brazilian Chamber for 35 years and played a fundamental part in the organisation’s recognition by the General Union of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture for Arab Countries and by the League of Arab States. It is the only Brazilian organisation of the kind that has such approval.
Articulator
Regarding the mayor, the president at the Arab Brazilian Chamber pointed out that Kassab, currently in his last year in office, had a term that “honours us very much” and is “one of the most successful politicians of the new generation”. He pointed out the Clean City Law, which banned open air advertising in the city of São Paulo and “ended visual pollution” in the city.
Schahin praised the politicians articulation capacity, adding that “in less than six months” he organized “one of the largest parties in Brazil”, the PSD. “It may be a miracle,” he joked, recalling that an ancient Maronite relative of the mayor’s was canonized by the Pope.
Kassab said that the honour is “gratifying and different”, due to his origins. “Receiving this honour connects me more to my community,” he said, adding that he is almost “three quarters Arab”, as three of his grandparents were Lebanese. “Genetically [this honour] speaks closely about my personal life,” he added.
The dinner had the participation of over 500 guests, including leaders of the community, religious heads, politicians and diplomats. The deputy governor of the state of São Paulo, Guilherme Afif Domingos, said that the state and the city of São Paulo are what they are due to immigrants of different origins who moved here. The dean of the Council of Arab Ambassadors in Brazil, Ramez Goussous, from Jordan, stated that the Arab Brazilian Chamber transmits “an honourable image to Arab citizens” in Brazil.
To mark the ceremony, Nasr received the Arab Brazilian Chamber Golden Key from the chairman of the organisation’s board, Walid Yazigi, and Kassab, the Order of Merit of the Arab Chamber, commander degree, from Schahin.
*Translated by Mark Ament
