Press release

6 Mar 2014

Beirut

New ESCWA Report Advocates Integration through Culture and the Arts
Art, literature, music and film hold the key to Arab unity and renaissance

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On 25 February 2014, UN Undersecretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf launched from Tunis a remarkable report entitled “Arab Integration: A 21st Century Development Imperative” with the participation of Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and a crowd of political, economic, intellectual and public figures. Media representatives who took part in the ceremony received a press kit, which we will re-publish over five parts, in view of the importance of the issues the Report addresses. Culture is the tie that binds a community and the spark that ignites the spirit. Peoples from all Arab countries have been united by works of art and creativity that expressed their dreams and ambitions, their tragedies and defeats. Arab cultural integration should therefore be used to unite the Arab region for the sake of development, social justice and freedom. This vision inspires the call for Arab integration made by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in a new report entitled Arab Integration: A 21st Century Development Imperative, launched today by Dr. Rima Khalaf, Executive Secretary of the Commission. It is the result of a collaborative ESCWA initiative that involved a group of distinguished Arab thinkers from various disciplines, occupations, and backgrounds, reflecting the diversity of the Arab region — a diversity which, the report argues, should form the basis of Arab integration. While integration has often been viewed as an exclusively political and economic issue, the report argues that cultural integration is fundamental to the success of its proposal. It explores Arab identity and common Arab causes as they have been expressed in great works of art, literature, music and cinema from across the region. The report contends that state cultural and educational policies have smothered freedom of thought and contributed to the division of the Arab region. Attempts to legitimize post independence nation-States have almost wiped out the Arab memory, with each country focused on its own recent past to the exclusion of the common history that preceded the delineation of its borders. Despite this fact, Arab communities have maintained cultural links and resisted the isolation imposed by state policies. The report indicates that the Arabic language and the cultural and historical unity of the Arab world have withstood official policies that sought to undermine them. The report also criticizes state censorship of information and culture, which have principally targeted intellectuals and artists, leaving ideologues to fill the vacuum. The danger posed by these ideologues has only increased as they have presented themselves to the masses as the sole custodians of Arab heritage. Nevertheless, the new ESCWA report gives numerous examples of the ways in which creative expression has withstood these attacks. It recounts how literature, music, art and films have revived the Arab dream of liberation from suffering, oppression and authoritarianism, acting as the voice of the people with regards to various issues of politics, society, identity and destiny. It notes how Arab writers and intellectuals have returned time and again to the sources of their Arab identity, searching for answers to questions raised by the harsh realities of the day, and for glimpses of light in the darkness. These works were read, seen, shared and appreciated by people throughout the Arab region. Films about Arab identity and other social issues have also played a role in courageously depicting social injustice and suffering, grievances which ultimately incited the civil uprisings which shook the Arab world in 2011. The spread of satellite television channels have boosted social interaction, providing the Arab people with a shared cultural space. Another key achievement of satellite television has been to bring customs and traditions, as well as dialects, closer together. The literary Arabic language has similarly been strengthened by thoughtful religious and historical programmes. The report also honours the primordial role of music in Arab popular culture and artistic expression. Over centuries, music has demonstrated its ability to transcend time and space, censorship and classification. Through music, notes the report, Jerusalem, Beirut, Baghdad and Damascus have come to exist in the hearts of all Arabs, a bond that has resisted decades of political divisions and strife. The report concludes that every form of cultural and creative expression conveys a powerful message that resonates across political and geographic boundaries. Art and culture are the record of the Arabs’ past, the mirror of their present, and the lamp that can illuminate their future. Together with the Arabic language, art, literature, music and film hold the key to integration and a twenty-first century Arab renaissance.
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