• The Missing Culture

The Missing Culture

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.

The meeting was held under the auspices of the Arab League and its cultural arm (ALESCO) and Arab Thought Foundation, the meeting convenor. The meeting put forward a number of recommendations to the forthcoming Arab Cultural Summit, which led many writers to discuss the recommendations concerning saving Arabic, education development, media promotion, heritage preservation, intellectual property protection, child and youth culture development, promotion of dialogue among cultures, setting up an Arab cultural market and supporting the translation movement.

Two recommendations are concerned with dialogues with others: opening an Arab Institute for dialogue among civilizations, and establishing an Arab translation and publication body affiliated to ALESCO representing all Arab countries, major translation centres, academic institutions and publishers as well as a select group of experts.

It is worth mentioning here that the Arabs have generously contributed to the founding of two major centres for the spread of Arab and Islamic culture in Europe: L Institut du Monde Arab in Paris, and the Institute of the History of Arab and Islamic Sciences in Frankfurt, which are still financed and run through Arab financial and human resources. Let me ask: Shouldn t we pause to evaluate these two experiments and build on their strength and eliminate our weaknesses and use them as key centres for dialogue with others?

History seems to repeat itself

Let me go back to the year 1986 when ALESCO published its report entitled The Comprehensive Arab Culture Plan, in whose research and discussions over 600 Arab intellectuals took part, acting on the recommendations of the second conference of Arab ministers concerned with culture held in the Libyan capital Tripoli in 1979 under the slogan Towards a Strategy for Arab Culture.

The committee selected by the ministers consisted of Drs Ahmad Kamal Aboul Magd, Shaker Mustafa and Abdul Aziz Almuqalih, the Moroccan thinker Abdul Karim Ghalab and the Sudanese novelist Altayib Salih, representing the Regional Consultant on Communication in the Arab World and UNESCO. The committee took eight years to complete its final report, which was approved by the ministers on 26 November 1985 as a basic, preliminary and comprehensive study to be used as guidelines at pan-Arab and national levels in the short, medium and long term. ALESCO s Director-General was requested to take the necessary action to publicize the plan as widely as possible at all levels and call on the member states to incorporate it into their cultural development plans. He was also requested to continue putting forward such recommendations and measures that help implement the plan. The plan and related programmes were considered part of the Arab states and ALESCO s contribution to the World Cultural Development Decade scheduled to start in 1988, with an Arab capital to be designated as the Capital of Arab Culture at the beginning of every calendar year.

Suffice it to refer here to the ministerial reports on the above plan to show that after a quarter of a century we are still in the hope of change.

As far as heritage and antiquities are concerned, there were calls to continue supporting the bodies in charge of the preservation of heritage and ongoing excavation projects.

In the area of arts there were studies in the Arab states for publishing special series and holding symposia on Arab child culture. The reports called for placing more importance on Arab child books and awarding prizes in this respect and publishing the winning books across the Arab world. They also called for carrying out a study on child museums in the Arab world and exchange views in this connection.

Concerning the development of Arab-Islamic culture abroad (That was before the 9/11 attacks and their implications) the reports called for giving more support to the spread of Arabic and Arab culture abroad and coordination between the Arab states and ELESCO in giving support to foreign countries and institutions, urging Arabs and Muslims to volunteer to spread language and culture and planning to celebrate the Development of Arab-Islamic Culture Abroad Day. More importantly, the reports called for completing the Arab Encyclopaedia and giving scientific and technical support to this project as part of the production of national media programmes to avert the dangers of foreign programmes and seriously contribute is the programmes of the above-mentioned World Cultural Development Decade.

Signs of pptimism

These signs included a call for establishing an Arab culture museum, maintenance of historic Arab-Islamic cities through laws which help register historic cities and landmarks, developing maintenance and restoration methods, setting up related associations and engineering firms. There have also been calls for the protection of Arab and Islamic heritage in the areas of armed conflict and honouring relevant Arab and international conventions in association with UNESCO. There has also been a model draft law for the protection of Arabic manuscripts and a draft Arab agreement to facilitate the movement of cultural production. In addition, the reports set out ways for rewarding creative writers and artists financially and morally and giving them freedom of expression and securing their rights, as well as giving them full or partial release from duty. Furthermore, the Arab agreement addressed the protection of writers rights.

Let s review in detail the recommendations of the eight committees set up by the preparatory meeting which all met on a single long day. Arabic received due care and attention in the recommendations. Committee members expressed the need for: a supreme council for Arabic to be directly affiliated to the Summit with branches in every Arab country; developing the Arabic content on the Internet; all shop signs to be in Arabic only except international trademarks; print, audio and visual media to foster the relationship between language and identity, promote the use of classical Arabic on the largest scale, produce materials and programmes in classical Arabic and encourage the production of joint Arab programmes.

The recommendations also included the need for setting up an Arab centre for the protection and recording of material and non-material heritage in all Arab countries.

In addition, the meeting expressed the need for updating the national laws which support the spread of culture and protect the financial, thinking and moral rights of creative writers and artists to be in line with international conventions which secure intellectual property and fight plagiarism. A legal committee should be set up to draw up certain rules which protect creators and thinkers and introduce intellectual property rights into all Arab countries.

As far as the marketing of culture is concerned, the meeting called for creating a market for Arab arts and annual festivals to be financed by a special fund as well as an Arab cultural centre with branches abroad. It was strongly recommended that film and other artistic production be supported, investment encouraged and facilities provided.

In the areas of child and youth culture, it was recommended that a higher body for the development of child culture be set up; research centres for child cognitive and artistic works across the Arab world be created; print and electronic simplified, enjoyable encyclopaedias covering all areas of science and arts for children be written; appropriate international books be translated. It was also recommended that a fund for young writers, researchers and thinkers be creased and national endowments for civil society organizations and research centres in all countries be set up.

As the above review shows, a quarter of a century after the Arab Comprehensive Culture Plan was announced we meet again and put forward the same or most recommendations, if as we admitted that we failed to achieve our ends. I wish there had been a review of this experiment s successes and failures in order to bring about real cultural change. Interestingly, all recommendations are worthwhile, and these have been repeatedly highlighted in this forum, Al-Arabi, calling for regular revision and development of the plan to reflect the spirit of the age and the realities of the Arab world particularly in terms of appropriate and feasible rules and principles.

The missing culture

However, what is striking in the above recommendations is the role of Arab intellectuals who are looked at as if they were only after special funds to reward their literary, artistic and intellectual works.

As a matter of fact, the role which intellectuals look forward to is much greater than that. The views of some two hundred intellectuals do not reflect those of a whole nation’s intellectuals. Therefore, I believe that there should be a recommendation for setting up a permanent council at the Arab League to receive the suggestions of, and communicate directly with, more intellectuals and follow up the views published here and there to develop and activate them. What has been and will be issued should not be just fixed documents, but it should be a lively, ongoing process, so that intellectuals may look forward to further meetings in various Arab countries to put forward more views before submitting them to the Arab leaders for discussion and consideration.

What really matters to Arab intellectuals who are concerned with their nation’s realities, issues and future is not awards though these are necessary to secure their livelihood but rather to secure their freedom of expression and creativity in the first place, protect them from expulsion, confiscation and persecution and allow them to think freely and criticize any awful conditions in their society. Intellectuals, with their watchful eyes and on behalf of the public, detect wrongs and corruption in society and the country at large, and, therefore, should be afforded adequate protection to help them perform their role in society and save it from corruption and failure.

This role needs to be provided for under laws and regulations to protect it and create a favourable environment for thinkers.

The recommendations did not address a key issue: the concept of scientific culture. Some thinkers presented their informed views about the features of this age, as the prominent thinker Elsayyid Yassin did when he talked about the challenges of the information age, raising the awareness of the Arab political elite about cyberspace, the main sign of the great communications revolution in which a lot of economic, financial, commercial, political, social and cultural interaction takes place. However, that the recommendations refer to the translation of the digital content into Arabic is not enough, but, in the first place, we should have our own content which proves itself, using all tools for development and popularity.

What I want to stress here is that having scientific culture does not mean using up its tools or publishing its translations but rather a change in the current education, publication and information plans. This can be brought about by increasing the number of science programmes on the plethora of Arab TV channels, as well as he number of regular publications to be available in terms of quantity and quality to all Arabs everywhere. In addition, the system of school textbooks should also be developed to keep up with recent advances and shape a creative, critical thinking mind and absorb scientific thinking before the achievements of science.

Scientific thinking comes before material production, and it is our duty to teach our children the ways and tools of thinking before teaching them how to use material products. This is the starting point for building our Arab societies if we are keen on keeping up with the civilized world.

Sulaiman Al-Askary

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