Cairo: When millions of Egyptians took to the streets in nationwide mass rallies in 2011 to demand the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak's regime, their only weapon was chanting "selmia, selmia" (an Arabic word means peaceful).
"At that time, I heard Gandhi," said India's Ambassador to Egypt Navdeep Suri, during the launch of the Arabic version of former ambassador P A Nazareth's book Gandhi's Outstanding Leadership yesterday.
Although there are hundreds of books written about Gandhi, Nazareth chose to focus on the impact of Gandhi on the countries of the world including Egypt, Palestine and South Africa.
"In my book I wanted to show the impact of Gandhi on the world because in many regions you can see this impact even in Chile, Bolivia, Egypt and other countries," Nazareth, a former Indian Ambassador to Egypt, said.
"I wanted to compare Gandhi's qualities and leadership to all modern leaders since the French Revolution," he added.
The book, an examination of the leadership qualities of Mahatma Gandhi, was released by the Indian Embassy here.
The ceremony was attended by the Egyptian Minister of Culture Gaber Asfour, former President of the Egyptian Constitutional Committee, and the former Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa and the Indian Ambassador Navdeep Suri as well as prominent Egyptian figures, Indians and Egyptian scholars and media people.
The book has already been translated into 18 languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia as well as ten Indian languages.
Arabic is the eighteenth language for the book.
"Egypt was chosen to host the release of the Arabic version because Egypt is the most important country in the Arab region and also because I served for three years as an ambassador here," said Nazareth.
