This month coincides with the first anniversary of a culture related event, the significance of which is all but represented by a word which is the dividing line between culture and politics and affirms in strong terms that what is acceptable in world politics is unacceptable in culture.
In this month, Ramadan, the month of fasting and spiritual experience, our hearts, driven by our tolerant religion and the memories of origins, development and echoes of history, automatically turn to the honourable Qibla in Makkah, as well as to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first of the qiblas. In this way, we are emotionally involved in Jerusalem, or rather the other way round.
Recently, observers of conditions in our Arab world have not confined their attention to the marked political upheavals in the structure of the so-called Arab order throughout the geographical and demographic area extending from the Pacific to the Gulf, and from northern Far East to the South adjacent to the equator.
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As the year is approaching its end this month, Al-Arabi is launching its ambitious project calling for attaching further importance to scientific culture, a call we started six months ago by publishing the Scientific Arabi Supplement as a tool stressing the need for living the age of science and technology. In addition, this month's annual symposium entitled "Scientific Culture and Looking to the Future" is another tool which supports this call, as this component of human culture is really worthwhile.
Arab satellite channels have undoubtedly become an essential component of the culture of Arab societies, interacting with and affecting the emotions and values, taking a considerable amount of the time and attention of the general public, particularly the young, through the programmes they present round the clock. A relevant question here is: What does the majority of these channels present? What is the essential substance of the items they broadcast?
Anyone who monitors the current pattern of development in the Arab world in general, and the Arabian Gulf in particular, is struck by a strange phenomenon: The large number of signs of nominal modernity seen in the styles of foreign architecture, modern road networks, high-rise towers and huge buildings on vast areas of land with American-style shopping malls which have become a sign of avid consumerism.
This year, the world celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Last month the UN celebrated World Women Day, concurrently with a huge campaign for consideration of mechanisms for the prevention of violence against women worldwide, in addition to many activities which considered the position of women and how to improve their conditions.
The recent wave of elections in the Arab East and its neighbour Islamic Iran has directed the attention of observers and researchers to this political mobility and media activity in the countries where different kinds of elections were held: Municipal elections in Iraq; parliamentary in Kuwait and Lebanon; presidential in Iran.
The past three months witnessed a number of incidents worldwide marked by anti-Muslim violence as well as violence between Muslims and citizens of other cultures. One of these incidents involved the murder of an Egyptian woman by a German extremist in a German courtroom.
For the first time in its contemporary post-independence history, our Arab region is witnessing a new, unfortunate development: Arab states resorting to non-Arab powers to mediate in their disputes instead of, as expected, asking any Arab organization or state.
Our Arab world today is witnessing a remarkable, inexplicable phenomenon: a steady drift towards all forms of fragmentation and sectarian, tribal and ethnic divisions, at a time when the world is attempting to form larger blocks consisting of diverse nationalities and multi-cultural communities in peaceful coexistence.
One common cultural phenomenon in our Arab societies today is the large number of fatwa programmes on satellite channels, and advertisements for giving fatwas or oneiromancy over the phone for a certain fee. This is just one of many other phenomena which represent a sort of profiteering from religion and using it as a tool for popularity and not for noble religious ends as formally said.
Despite the widespread everyday use of the modern media by a large number of individuals across the Arab world, including computers, the Internet with its thousands of websites in all fields of human endeavour, as well as the increasing number of satellite channels and electronic newspapers, it is noted that this mounting phenomenon does not reflect a parallel cultural or educational development, but is overshadowed by a high percentage of illiteracy and cultural retardation.
Nowadays sport is increasingly taking up an enormous portion of the interest and time of people of various tastes, cultures and age groups in many parts of the world. International, regional and local sporting competitions, including football, basketball, track and field, horsemanship, fencing, etc., are regularly held.
The transfer and translation of the knowledge and disciplines of foreign civilizations into Arabic, through the creation of public and private translation institutions and the publication of a number of translated books in the areas of thought, politics, modern sciences, literature, etc., is a positive sign worth commending and support, which reflects some sort of awareness of the need to catch up with the world’s ideas, innovation and knowledge.
General and presidential elections have recently taken place in a number of countries and communities in our so-called Middle East (rather than "Arab" or "Muslim") region in which the media with its powerful tools and inventions were widely used, urging the peoples to vote and exercise their rights to choose their representatives and rulers who will manage their public affairs and save them from the deep-rooted ignorance, poverty and disease triad.
By the mid-18th century AD the Islamic state had expanded dramatically, and it remained firm for three successive centuries and only the Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Crete were later added. Thus there was an Islamic empire almost similar in terms of size and population to the Roman Empire. Only the Tang dynasty in China matched these two empires.
Thousands of Arab intellectuals and thinkers eagerly awaited the outcome of the Arab Cultural Summit’s first preparatory meeting which was attended by representatives from official cultural organizations and private cultural associations as well as Arab Writers Union, Arab Publishers Union, members of the Arabic Language Academies, the Arab Theatre Organization, translation institutes, Arab research and studies centres, media organizations, and thinkers, writers, poets and dramatists from 18 Arab countries.
There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling waves and watching his line, all of a sudden his float was dragged away deep into the water.
As history reveals, ancient nations and current civilizations undergo tests which may continue for decades or centuries and experience cycles of decline in which nations and civilizations lose their sense of direction and identity before they appeal to their people to get them back on the right track, so they either recover or perish.
When I look into the conversations taking place in private and public gatherings, read newspaper or periodical commentaries or listen to the news on the radio and TV, I feel as if we were in a vicious circle, with a single source of information and news.
The year 2010 witnessed the passing away of a number of Arab icons of enlightenment and creativity; hard times, during which pages were filled with obituaries and eulogies, as is usual upon the death of persons, especially those altruists who carry out a mission for their nation and act as a model for future generations. A relevant question here is : When should we stop mourning and continue the mission of the deceased?
Analysts have for decades been describing the Arab younger generation as unreliable and even responsible for the ills of the present and the failures of the future. But the Egyptian youth days which started on 25 January this year dismissed these allegations and have not been just a change of the political power in Egypt, nor have they been a revolution of these young men and women alone, but, overall, have become a revolution of an age, which we have to think about and consider its philosophy, tools and worldwide implications.
We take for granted persistently recurrent phrases in the Western media and keep repeating them blindly in our Arab print, broadcast and visual media. The most serious of these allegations is that the Israeli state of occupation is the only democracy in the Middle East, a fallacy promoted by the West, which created Israel in our Arab region sixty-three years ago.
It is interesting to note that there are clear indications which show that the West is not fully aware of the realities of our life as Arabs and Muslims. This is seen in the appearance of such terms as conflict of civilizations and clash of civilizations over a number of decades. It is also seen in the West s relation with Asia which manifests itself, e.g. in military action and continued conflict in Afghanistan or tense relations with Pakistan and other Asian countries.
As explorer, colonialist, researcher and settler, the West has influenced the creation of a negative image of the communities in the East it believed to be less civilized and developed. Citizens have equally been influenced by such an image, and they see themselves through Western eyes.
Among the many unmistakable signs amid the current popular uprisings is that those million-strong protests are in essence a public rejection of the region s history of division and isolation as well as regional cultures and sectarian, tribal and class/group interests at the expense of national culture based on common ground and destiny.
Democracy has become today one of the key, and possibly the most widely used, words in the Arab media since the recent developments in the Arab region, which have revealed a number of changes in the political arena, including the rise of new groups of liberal political parties and the transformation of organizations and political forces, mostly Ishamist, which were not allowed to form legitimate political entities, to political parties as customarily recognized in civil communities.
