When I first met Dr. Mustafa El-Feki at the home of Ahmed Bahaa El-Din, he had just begun his duties as president of the British University in Egypt. The next time I met him, he had become secretary-general of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, without giving up his position at the university.
Alongside his two academic posts, you could find Dr. El-Feki writing in the newspapers, speaking on television almost every day, lecturing, or serving as a go-to authority at political and media conferences. Everywhere. On every subject. And always at the highest levels.
No one knew better than he did how to combine academic work with political life. He turned the eight years he spent as President Hosni Mubarak's information secretary into a rich source of news, analysis, and firsthand testimony. And with remarkable frankness, he would say in his newspaper and television interviews that President Mubarak was competent and capable, but not brilliant, and that he, Mustafa El-Feki, was filled with almost boundless admiration for Gamal Abdel Nasser's personality and Anwar El-Sadat's intelligence.
On every occasion, and with complete simplicity, he would reveal that the only position he had ever wanted for himself was secretary-general of the Arab League, but that he had been opposed and blocked from obtaining it. The "presidential information secretary" turned his work in government into a vast reservoir of knowledge, making himself an encyclopedic authority on the events and the era he had witnessed at close range.
He lost the Arab League secretary-generalship, but gained the presidencies of universities.
