1 - 7 February 2001
Issue No.519
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 February 2001 Issue No.519 |
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Plain Talk
It is always nice to be able to rub shoulders with the famous. It is even nicer to sit with them and discuss common issues. This is what happened to me last week when I found myself among such stars as Youssef Shaaban, Maasir El-Hakim, Salah El-Saadani, Hani Mehanna as well as writers and scenarists.
The occasion was the formation of The Egyptian Society of Culture, Art and Creation, thanks to the initiative taken by Hani Mehanna. What is new about this society is its comprehensive attitude to the arts. True many of the members are in the acting profession, but I was happy to see among those present Dr Ahmed Nawwar and other practitioners and critics of the plastic art.
Another novelty of the society is the inclusion of a number of leading businessmen, obviously the idea being that financing such a comprehensive project is of paramount importance. In fact during the discussions one of the participants brought up the issue of business backing of the arts in the United States. Of course the difference, as I made clear, is that here in Egypt we have a Ministry of Culture and a Supreme Council of Culture.
The aims of the society, as expressed in its first bulletin, are rather ambitious. The first is to discover talented artists (painters, actors, singers, poets, etc) in Egypt's small towns and villages. To discover new talents, the help of the Ministry of Youth (with its hundreds of youth centres in the different provinces of Egypt) and that of the Ministry of Culture (with its palaces of culture all over the country) will be enlisted.
Having thus discovered hidden talents, the second aim of the society is to adopt, protect and nurture such talents, helping them -- in a system of apprenticeship of which leading established artists would be a pillar -- to develop until they reach the level giving them the right to perform in public.
"The making of stars," in the words of the society's first bulletin, "should be followed up, in order to protect their rights." What this means is contracts signed by hidden-talents-become-stars with producers should be examined by the society in order to safeguard their rights. Contracts, moreover, should insist on a high quality of production, ensuring a minimum of intellectual and artistic integrity before all else.
One of the most important aims of the newly-formed Egyptian Society of Culture, Art and Creation, in my opinion at least, is the coordination with the Ministry of Education to make available teachers of music and art, especially during the initial phases of education. In this way the feeling for the arts could be ingrained in the young from the very beginning.
Then comes the aim of "saving public taste from the monopoly of producers of films and cassettes and cooperating with the Department of Censorship to advise it on the standard of production in these fields."
This aim is slightly problematic, if not slightly self-contradictory since it runs counter to one of the main preoccupations of Egyptian intellectuals and artists these days, namely, the assertion and protection of "freedom of expression", which, in turn, implies a move towards the removal of all kinds of censorship.
With the current open door policy of Egypt and its move towards a genuine democracy it is not surprising that artists should be interested in protection and safeguarding "creation" in their country. In this quest they should be assisted by the media in all its forms, since nobody can deny that the vast majority of people are still not as aware of the issue of intellectual rights as they might be; and the media is the best way to begin to address this problem. This is a noble task that should receive the support of everyone.
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