7 - 13 June 2001
Issue No.537
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 June 2001 Issue No.537 |
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Culture with capital backing
Cooperation between thought and capital is what Arabs need at this critical point in history, says the Organisation for Arab Thought at its inaugural meeting in Cairo. Nadia Abou El-Magd reports
Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, posed on Sunday for pictures with some 20 founders of the Organisation for Arab Thought. Behind them blazed the motto of the organisation: "An initiative for cooperation between thought and capital for the renaissance of the Arab world and regaining its worthy place among nations."
Moussa expressed happiness to take part in this meeting, especially at a time when "the Arab world is facing a critical situation and serious and dangerous developments. We are undertaking a comprehensive re-examination of the Arab system which has existed for more than half a century," Moussa told the 1,500- strong audience at the banquet to celebrate the inauguration of the organisation.
The greatest challenge faced by the Arab world is "to be or not to be, which is a cultural challenge," Moussa said.
At a recent Arab cultural event in Beirut, Prince Khaled Al-Feisal, governor of Assir in Saudi Arabia, underlined the need to establish "an Arab (civil) organisation to nurture thought and harness it to serve the interests of the Arab nation." Al-Feisal said this organisation should be independent from Arab governments and from party and ethnic affiliations.
In his speech, Al-Feisal addressed the issues of globalisation and the Arabs' championing the glories of the past. "People are not going to achieve glory by dreaming and hoping, or by waiting for a miracle. Good intentions don't have the power of deeds," he said. "Rescuing the nation is always the responsibility of intellectuals.
"People are bored with history and geography lessons as well as rhetoric, which sings the praises of Arab unity but soon becomes ink on paper without any (real) unifying step in any direction," he said.
How will the organisation be able to achieve this goal? Al-Feisal told Al- Ahram Weekly : "The first and most important guarantee is the true intentions of the founders. Secondly, there is solid financial support for the project. We are going to invest the capital and spend the revenue."
Twenty of the 27 founders who were present on Sunday announced that they had donated an initial $24 million.
The headquarters of the organisation will be in Beirut "to keep away from Egyptian bureaucracy," as one of the founders, who insisted on anonymity, told the Weekly . The organisation's annual conferences will rotate among Arab capitals.
The founders include the former petroleum minister of the United Arab Emirates, Manie' Saeed Al-Otaiba, Saudi billionaire Sheikh Saleh Kamel, Sheikha Hessa Sabah Al-Salem Al- Sabah of Kuwait, and Egyptian businessmen Tareq Heggi, Naguib Sawiress and Mohamed Abul-Enein.
The founders met President Hosni Mubarak and made a tour of the Al-Ahram offices accompanied by board chairman and editor-in-chief Ibrahim Nafie.
Also present at Sunday's ceremony were columnist Anis Mansour, writer Kamel Zoheiri, novelist Gamal El- Ghitani, novelist Youssef El-Qaeed and Ahmed Omar Hashem, head of Al- Azhar University.
The goals of the organisation include the preservation of the "basic principles and ethics of the Arab nation" and reviving its united sentiments to better handle the challenges of globalisation. It will also act to foster all aspects of thought and spread Arab thought worldwide.
"We are talking to ourselves, not to the outside world," Sheikh Saleh Kamel, a Saudi TV satellite tycoon, said on Sunday, "and only the mad speak to themselves. It's time we addressed the outside world instead of each Arab country launching its own satellite channel to respond to other channels."
How different will this organisation be from other existing organisations? Kuwaiti poet and businessman Abdel-Aziz Al-Babtin says: "This organisation fosters everything that advances Arab thought. In other words, it supports Arabisation in all fields." He said that founders would meet shortly in Abha in Saudi Arabia to work out details before convening in Beirut in October.
"Culture, like any other domain, requires appropriate and effective management," businessman Heggi told the Weekly. "The advancement of our economic activities will make it possible for us to contribute to upgrading culture."
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