SEKEM – Born of the Sun
Ibrahim Abouleish
The Visionary
(short version 27:45 minutes)
text list
| 10:00:38 | Dr. Abouleish That is what I love so much about the desert, this endless horizon and that you really notice this circle, where the earth kisses the heavens or vice versa, where the two meet. That gives you the possibility to have ideas. That you don't just have finished shapes, but create a new way so that also new things emerge. |
| 10:01:20 | 1st commentary To make the desert come alive – that is an ancient metaphor, the stuff of dreams for even the Biblical forefathers in the Old Testament. The Egyptian pharmacologist Ibrahim Abouleish also had this vision. He knows that the desert is not dead. |
| 10:01:35 | Dr. Abouleish When you see the desert now, it consists if pebbles and sand. How can you make something arable out of these things here? When you take an even closer look with the microscope, there are living things here. Also, I have learned that it is possible to activate these micro-organisms in the earth. |
| 10:02:04 | 2nd commentary In 30 years, Ibrahim Abouleish has made an ecological paradise of the lifeless desert floor 60 km northeast of Cairo – the "Sekem Farm’. Here, though, the earth which had been made arable brought forth not merely plants, but also ideas. Thousands of jobs have been created, a community has formed, schools and hospitals have been built. The vision has become reality and simply keeps growing – along with the reality itself. |
| 10:02:30 | 3rd commentary Industrial agriculture is based on carelessly wrenching from the earth – with the aid of chemicals - so many products as possible. Biological-dynamic farming culture, agriculture in the true sense of the word – as it is understood here – serves a different purpose. Here, the earth should be left to the coming generations in a better quality than they first found it. |
| 10:02:58 | Dr. Abouleish The biological-organic principle is based on the existing symbiosis between all living things. That means on the earth, above the earth, also as plants and as insects and as birds and all the way up to the stellar constellations, so that when a patch of earth is being worked, and its soil contains micro-organisms, then, in the biological-dynamic sense, you see how you can nourish and multiply these micro-organisms. There, you produce this basis by using compost. |
| 10:03:41 | 4th commentary That does not work with small compost piles which are turned over once a year. On the Egyptian Sekem Farm, composting has become a science. In the course of three decades, humans have learned and researched the ecological cycles here, learned to ensure that in this sensitive balance, nothing is lost. After all, the compost is the miracle material that makes the desert come alive. Anything that was once alive is used in this manner, so that it promotes continued growth. |
| 10:04:05 | 5th commentary In this context, though, the cows and their manure are the actual "secret formula" for Sekem's success. |
| 10:04:17 | 6th commentary In this context, milk was a mere by-product for a long time in the desert. After all, the pioneers on the Sekem Farm were not concerned about making a quick profit. The aim was much higher. It was about nothing less than creating a sustainable development model for the entire world. About showing people that in a developing country like Egypt, it was possible to not merely gain a foothold, so to speak, with ecological agriculture, but also be successful at it. A model for a co-operation between Orient and Occident, where there's no such thing as the one-upmanship of know-it-alls, but merely learning from each other. |
| 10:04:37 | 7th commentary Throughout the Sekem Farm, German-speaking Europeans work with Egyptians, but nowhere is there a director from abroad, from Germany, Austria or Switzerland. In every aspect, the principle they live and work by is called "co-operation". Everyone does whatever he or she can to serve the greater purpose, the entire purpose, to make it flourish and reap a harvest which is growing by the year. That also includes another approach to interaction with nature. Everything is considered useful, such as the many thousands of ladybugs in the large greenhouses operated by the Sekem Farm, which protect the bell-pepper plants by eating the aphids. It is a way of thinking based on cycles. Even from the very beginning, as Ibrahim Abouleish built the first all-round house for his family in the desert sand. |
| 10:05:36 | Dr. Abouleish Also, there is the first round house. In late 1977 / early 1978, construction on this house began. When you imagine that that land was all desert! Yet on the inside, you wanted to indeed have something beautiful, and that's how the indoor garden was created. |
| 10:06:10 | Helmy As we started out here, you couldn't see a single tree far and wide when you looked outside from the house. The tallest tree was 15 cm tall which had just been planted. The fast-growing ones were the eucalyptus trees, which in the meantime are indeed 30-40 metres high, as I said before, 30 years ago, the tallest was 20 cm tall with a diameters of 0,5 cm. You just have to imagine that. Good. Then, this round house was initially a residential house. Yet it was also a contact point. It was simultaneously an office. In the large room where we now eat, that's where the grand piano used to stand. It was our concert hall, the "Royal Sekem Opera House" - and in this room here on the left, there was the first factory, the first laboratory where we produced Amoidine. |
| 10:07:00 | 8th commentary Amoidine is the substrate of a wild plant which grows as a weed, especially on dry ground, and which was urgently needed by an American company as a remedy to counteract skin-pigmentation disorders. The research into and processing of further medicinal plants was then professionalised further and further. In the process, Ibrahim Abouleish's aim was not to establish a group of pharmaceutical companies in the middle of the desert. Rather, he sought to link traditional wisdom to modern expertise in such a way so as to enable one of Egypt's cultural treasures – the ancient medicinal expertise - to be rediscovered and made useful. Yet initially, the approach was to further and further cultivate the desert floor. The trees planted early – and the wind-deflector basins ensured that on the fields, a much milder climate prevailed than in the surrounding desert. However, to be able to utilise it, the water supply had to be guaranteed. Not a simple task at this distance from the arable Nile basin. At a depth ranging from 70 to100 metres, iron pipes were driven by hand into the desert floor until finally, the so desired water started gushing out. |
| 10:08:11 | Helmy The first well, the first two wells. One of them, of course, was down there at the stall, since we had to get water for the animals – the first fields are directly adjacent to the pigeonry, up to the stall area – and the second well was up here, where the operation to produce medicinal agents is now located. That is to say, it grew that way from the well – you have to imagine, that was desert – and that's how it went on, field for field. After all, you can see the distribution. To create fields for the first time, these trees were planted around fields which were 2 to 3 hectares in area. Then, you cultivated the following plants, each in these fields: clover, corn, wheat, but also medicinal herbs and vegetables, etc. As you see, growth is constant here. Directly before us, this operation is "Conitex", which has only been running since 1990, when we, as we successfully cultivated biological-dynamic cotton and then tried to do something meaningful with it, to make a product (then, shirts are shown). Currently, the operation is doubling its annual capacity. You can imagine what that means – from 200 to 400 per year. That is to say, you don't just have to create buildings, but also organise the process to enable the 400 people to work together – which, as you know, is a miracle. |
| 10:09:40 | 9th commentary Yet miracles lose their exceptional character, when all aspects are linked to each other. Sekem's textile production is a fine example of this. In the meantime, the Sekem company Naturetex produces two lines of ecological children's clothing - for the national as well as international market - per year. Only sometimes does Constanze Abouleish, the Sekem founder's daughter-in-law, shake her head placidly in the wake of fashion-related requests from America, Germany and Japan.
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| 10:10:05 | Constanze Abouleish On our farm, due to the fact that we only work with cotton, we are restricted to a certain extent – that is to say, when the main focus of an enquiry is a "space suit", then with our cotton, we do not directly follow the trend. Yet the motifs which are specified to us are always important. You indeed have to abide by that. |
| 10:10:33 | 10th commentary To a certain extent, you're a captive of your own success. In fact, its enormous growth is now the greatest challenge for this astonishing initiative. Where do the roots of this success lie? |
| 10:10:45 | Dr. Abouleish Well, my father was an industrialist and a very energetic man. He never stopped creating things and making people enthusiastic. And my mother is the very embodiment of love. She was always calm and smiling, and had a sense of understanding for everything, even though she already had a great deal of cares with so many children, because we were six not very simple and easygoing children. That is an old family photo and those are my siblings: the three girls, my brother, then there I am and I think I was 10 or 11 years old at the time. |
| 10:11:40 | 11th commentary Yet also Ibrahim Abouleish experienced a time in his life when he had to run away because an inner voice called him to leave his intact familial world. His move from Egypt at dawn on a winter morning in 1956 equalled a clandestine escape. By train, he travelled from Cairo to Alexandria and purchased for thirty pounds a passage on a Turkish ship to Naples. Then, One he had arrived in Italy, he travelled further by train, via Rome and the Alps to Graz. |
| 10:12:08 | 12th commentary Ibrahim Abouleish spends 20 years in Austria, then earns a doctoral degree and becomes a successful entrepreneur, before he decided to trade Austria once again for the hot Egyptian desert; the experience and in-depth knowledge held by the then 40-year-old pharmacist and his wife is integrated into the SEKEM Project. |
| 10:12:26 | Helmy That, by the way, is my mother's office; she manages the entire area here – and from here, she has a great view of the various packlines. Also, here, currently, you see mainly packaging for the local market. On Friday, we don't pack for Europe, because then, of course, the weekend comes. After all, we want to send our goods fresh. Yet for the local market, to which we will make deliveries today and tomorrow, right now, today, as you see, the tomatoes for example are being packed. Tomatoes are the absolutely most important product on the local market … |
| 10:13:11 | 13th commentary Even if – in all nine Sekem companies, Ibrahim Abouleish is only respectfully called "the Doctor" and his wife "Madame", the company as a whole is certainly not a family company which merely serves the purpose of amassing personal wealth. Rather, Sekem is likewise a social as well as a business experiment in the age of globalisation.
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| 10:13:38 | 14th commentary Beans, tomatoes, oranges – all in biological-dynamic quality and tested according to the stringent criteria imposed by the professional-advocacy organisation Demeter – are packaged here. All vegetables from Sekem are either grown on its own fields or delivered from the 800 affiliated farms. |
| 10:13:53 | Helmy You also have to say that we have maintained from the very beginning that we seek to also locally sell the biological-dynamic products that we grow here. In this context, it was a constant challenge to determine how to grow and handle the Biological-dynamic Products, and also market them to be competitive in a country such as Egypt. I am very glad that this has had for already the past 20 years a market share which is disproportionately high for healing herbs, honey or in other areas. That is to say, we have developed here in Egypt one of the largest biological-dynamic markets outside Europe, the US and Japan. |
| 10:14:37 | 15th commentary The Sekem community, which provides employment for approximately 2,000 humans – and with which another 30,000 humans across the country co-operate – includes child-care centres, a poly-clinic, schools, adult-education centres - and soon, a university. Indeed, this is a development impulse which impacts areas far beyond the mere boundaries of the farm itself. In 2003, in Stockholm, Ibrahim Abouleish is awarded the "Right Livelihood Award" – better-known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize" - for this work. The Sekem Initiative, as this project is called in the Laudatio, would be "a corporate model for the 21st century, which combines business success with social and cultural development". |
| 10:15:46 | 16th commentary Each assembly/gathering or meeting begins with music which should prompt the opening of further levels of perception. All basic innovations and developments are discussed in detail with the employees – even if the last word is ultimately left to the visionary himself, as a gentle kind of patriarch. In this context, Ibrahim Abouleish met with the managers of the various divisions to deal with a highly controversial issue within Egypt as an Islamic society – equal rights for women on all levels. |
| 10:16:19 | Dr. Abouleish The issue of the day was women's rights. The companies have many women. We strive to employ 50% women, and then we realised that women in this group are hardly represented, particularly in legal issues. They said there were too few women who fight for women's rights, and then they said: "We cannot merely inform women of their own rights – rather, we must also inform men of women's rights." We must help them put this information into practise. |
| 10:17:19 | Hisham Along with Dr. Abouleish, we all had the increasing feeling that SEKEM belongs to us all, that we make our own decisions. He said, we do not work "for" him at his company, but rather with him. I believe that his best investment was the one he made in our humans. Humans in the SEKEM community learn that this work is for us – for our country and its land, for our money, for our lives. SEKEM belongs to us all, not to the doctor alone. |
| 10:17:52 | 17th commentary "The best investment is that in humans". Because Ibrahim Abouleish had realised this from the very beginning, the Sekem Initiative placed uncompromising emphasis on education. |
| 10:18:06 | Teacher We shake hands with the children as a sign of respect. Also, we look the children in the eye when we shake hands – and (at the same time), we sense the body temperature. If it is very high, we know that something is amiss, and also if it is very low. When we look them in the eye, this establishes contact between us and our pupils – and we are one. |
| 10:18:44 | 18th commentary In the Sekem schools, the aim is to address Egyptian tradition and modern expertise from the holistic perspective. With reformed paedagogical methods reminiscent of Rudolf Steiner's Waldorf movement, they address the respective subject areas in an age-appropriate fashion to appeal to body, mind and spirit. In this process, their intent is not to blindly copy Western paedagogy. Here, too, the combination of Oriental and Occidental approaches to synthesise the best of both worlds – the best of both cultures – to enable them to flourish together. Therefore, in their school library, next to the classic Islamic works, there is an Arabic translation of Goethe's works on the shelves. |
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| Dr. Abouleish My connection to Goethe is very strong. He was my reason for leaving Egypt. I have read his works in translation. Goethe was also the one who prompted me to return once again to Egypt, because I wanted to create something vital in Egypt. With his proverbs on the community of living things, that was practically on the way at Sekem´s foundation a motto of mine, when he says: "and no age and no power break apart impressed shapes which were developed alive"
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| 10:20:35 | A teacher Art is very important. Whoever works, for instance, as an engineer should also be an artist. Of course, one is also a scientist in this discipline, but one should also feel and sense the beauty of art. Whoever has this capacity can create wondrously beautiful things. |
| 10:21:02 | 19th commentary To encounter life as a artist and enrich the work of art that is Creation – that was the core of Ibrahim Abouleish's vision. |
| 10:21:16 | Dr. Abouleish When I was young, I always had certain ideals. Then, I had written my father this letter, I entitled it "When I Come Back". Then, I also described something which I would do in the village where I was born, all those things I would do. There, I had written: "When I come back, Father, I will build schools and found a workshop and a hospital and a theatre" and I wrote in the letter what I had dreamt as a boy, full of imagination. Yet I had completely forgotten that. My father gave me the letter 25 years later and said: "Do you remember …" |
| 10:22:23 | 20st commentary What was once the "little hospital" has now become a poly-clinic with 20 specialists who care for no less than 40,000 patients. This poly-clinic was established with the help of the German physician Dr. Hans Werner. |
| 10:22:40 | Dr. Werner At the time, we had designed it for 50 patients per day. You see, today, far more are here, and in the meantime, we average 120 – 180 patients per day. This means that we now have to expand. |
| 10:22:55 | 21nd commentary Most of the medications in this chemist's shop are plant-based and originate from our own fields. Some of them are ancient Egyptian remedies which here, fort he first time, are being researched to determine their effects; some of them are wild plants from the desert ravines on the Sinai Peninsula, the healing effects of which are just being re-discovered here. For the company's pharmaceutical director, Dr. Gihad, this combination of research and production means the fulfilment of a dream.
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| 10:23:25 | Dr. Gihad As a pharmacist, 18 years ago, I had the opportunity to become accepted in SEKEM and work in the pharmaceuticals division. There, I was able to experience firsthand the entire range of developments in the agricultural sector and in natural medicine. I had the opportunity to explore plant-based substances on a scientific basis and make my own discoveries. We develop the kinds of products on which no one else is working today. In this context, I was also able to practise my hobby of developing medications far removed from the typical side effects which could harm the patients.
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| 10:24:04 | 22th commentary A country between the greatness of bygone days, a confounding present and an uncertain future. The visionary Abouleish places his confidence in each individual person. If every person defies his own boundaries and "spreads his wings", he believes that the country will develop.
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| 10:24:26 | 23th commentary The latest initiative tackled by Ibrahim Abouleish is the establishment of a university, in which the expertise gained over the course of the past 30 years should be handed own to future generations. |
| 10:24:38 | 24th commentary Even very soon, the first students will be working and learning here. This is a square with a venerable tradition, because already many thousands of years ago, here in Heliopolis, an ancient cultural and scientific centre emerged. The great teachers of humanity – from Plato to Pythagoras – were active here, and many cultural impulses were transmitted from here to Europe. Ibrahim Abouleish's vision also concerns the transmission of cultural impulses from here to the rest of the world.
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| 10:25:23 | Dr. Abouleish I would like to experience that people see and perceive each other. Then, every individual knows that he or she is not alone, but instead linked with all of these people –and also supported by them. The circle or the spiral is actually a very socially-oriented shape, in which people perceive each other. Yet it is also a living shape. You can imagine how people standing in "rank and file" do not really perceive each other. That is a militaristic attitude. Here, this is a social attitude.
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| 10:26:07 | Helmy Also, one has to have the audacity to say, "as an individual, I can change the world. Then, the prospects for the future are up to me." Not for any other people.
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| 10:26:23 | Dr. Abouleish You all know that the entire world suffers greatly from half of its people, three billion people living in poverty, and 380 million people are starving. Yet the new person in us, that is the person who dreams of a better future for all of humanity. Dreams which should indeed come true.
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| 10:27:23 | Director Bertram Verhaag Director of photography Waldemar Hauschild Film Editor Verena Schoenauer Sound Zoltan Ravasz Assitant to Producer Carolin Neubauer Text and Narrator Geseko von Lüpke Sound Mix Ralph Bienzeisler Colormatching Jürgen Pertack Production Denkmal-Film GmbH |
| 10:27:45 | www.denkmal-film.com |