Career
In 1977, Bashir was appointed Egypt"s ambassador to the Arab League, and later he served as ambassador to Canada until 1985. Regarding his belief in the centrality of Egypt within the Middle East he opined, "Egypt is the only nation-state in the Arab world. The rest are just tribes with flags".
Bashir wrote a critique of Mubarak’s under-performing economic policies titled "I Support You but I Do Not Endorse You" in a September 1992 issue of First Rate (at Lloyd's) Wafd newspaper.
Two book titles by Charles Glass have used Bashir"s Tribes With Flags quote: Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through the Chaos of the Middle East (April 1990) and Tribes With Flags: A Journey Curtailed (1992). Another version of Bashir’s ‘flag’ quip is: “ "When the chips are down, there is only one real place in the entire area – Egypt," a Cairo diplomat once declared.
"All the rest – forgive me – are tribes with flags."".