Reading for All goes regional

MRS SUZANNE Mubarak announced on Friday the launch of the Arab Reading for All Project at a major event held at the Arab World Institute in Paris (AWI). Announcing that she has accepted the position of honourary president on the project's board of trustees, Mrs Mubarak said the project is an acknowledgment of the success of the historical initiative Egypt launched 12 years ago with its Reading for All Festival.

This new regional initiative, she said, the brainchild of the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (ALECSO), is the beginning of an Arab cultural unity that Arabs have been awaiting, and that is very much needed in today's world of new technologies and ideas.

A day before, Mrs Mubarak had called for the launch of an Arab-Western dialogue that would bring both worlds closer together. At the opening of the Seventh Arab-European Book Fair organised by the AWI in Paris, Mrs Mubarak said "pens have always had the ability of building bridges between states and peoples."

The book fair, in which publishers from both sides of the Mediterranean who are interested in Arab literature participated, was sponsored by the AWI, the Council of Arab Ambassadors in Paris and the Arab Publishers Union.

"The fair couldn't have come at a better time," Mrs Mubarak said. "It is the best way for Arabs to respond to allegations made against them of being closed-minded and of refusing dialogue."

Mrs Mubarak said she was keen on taking part in the event due to her deep personal conviction that culture is the best medium for different peoples to connect with each other. "It is the only way to mend the cracks when interests collide and relationships between countries are severed," she said.

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 19 - 25 June 2003 (Issue No. 643)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/643/eg4.htm