Passing of a Friend

It is with the deepest regret that we report the death of Tahseen Basheer at 77. We also celebrate his full life, as he would have wanted us to.

Tahseen had a distinguished history of public service that included serving as official spokesman for Egyptian presidents, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat. He was Sadat.s spokesman at Camp David and later became Egyptian Ambassador to the Arab League and then to Canada.

He was one of Search for Common Ground's closest friends and most committed participants. He became part of our activities in 1991, and he was a tireless advocate for peace. Indeed, he seemed inexhaustible, playing an active role in almost everything we did, including the original Core Working Group, the Steering Committee, Security Working Group, Media Working Group, and our conflict resolution projects.

With his gravely voice and superb insights, he had an uncanny ability to elevate any discussion to a higher level. Several years ago, he was asked by an interviewer why he participated in our work, and here is his answer:

Our salvation is in transformation. The status quo is essentially negative. But if you empower it with new ideas - new concepts about man, man's relation to man, man and society, man and the world - then you can introduce a vista, a way out, an exit for people who feel that their imagination has been imprisoned, to be liberated.

Copyright 2004 Search for Common Ground