I recently spoke at a conference in Russia. As I prepared for this trip there was a piece of music I could not stop thinking about: the Seventh Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich. This symphony was composed during the siege of Leningrad and performed, in August of 1942, inside the besieged city itself, by an orchestra of starving musicians, broadcast over loudspeakers towards the German lines. Beyond the tragedy of such dark times, this is also the story of a society that, under the most extreme pressure imaginable, understood that the continuity of its cultural life was itself a form of survival.
It is in moments of challenge and uncertainty that the character of a nation is revealed. The United Arab Emirates has been revealing how strong and resilient it is – as a nation, as a society, as a vision. As I talk about such strength in times of challenge, I first must express my gratitude to our armed forces, to the heroes who have fallen and to whom we owe an eternal debt, and to those protecting us every minute of every day. With the same gratitude, we recognise the resolve of our leadership, a strength that all of us could rely on: when our President, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, vowed to protect every life and said that “in the Emirates, everyone is Emirati”, he reminded that the ethos upon which this country was built, a place of tolerance and peaceful coexistence between a multitude of cultures, is itself a shield that protects our shared destiny.
This gives a profound new meaning to the UAE’s Year of the Family. What was a beautiful theme inviting us to celebrate the bonds of family has become a reality lived at a national scale. Today, the more than 200 nationalities that call the UAE home stand together as one extended family.
As we look to the future, it is our duty to revisit everything that we hold for granted and interrogate whether it contributes to defending our Emirati family, giving it strength and holding it together. Culture must undergo such scrutiny, and we must wonder how much of a priority culture is at a time when much of our energy and resources must necessarily go towards our defence.
The answer that the great civilisations have always given is the same. When defence concerns rise, culture has always leaned in, not stepped back.
There is a remarkable decree dating from the apogee of the Ancient Greek civilisation, by which artists were to be allowed safe passage even through enemy territory, exempt from conscription and from seizure, because the work they did served the polis in a different way. Even more surprising, is the fact that all city-states signed this decree, at a time when they were almost continuously at war. Even Sparta, the epitome for martial discipline, that gave everything to its defence still understood that what it was defending was not only its borders. It was a way of life that included the songs, the plays, the words by which a people knows itself.
Our own civilisation offers the deepest version of this conviction. The House of Wisdom of Baghdad – Bayt Al Hikma – was built and sustained through terribly turbulent times to preserve and advance the classical heritage of humanity because a civilisation is judged, in the long view, not only by the battles it wins, but by the stories it tells and the libraries it builds to keep them.
This is the spirit in which the UAE has, from its foundation, understood the role of culture. To continue fostering creativity, supporting the arts and bringing our story to the world is not a distraction from the reality we face. It is a direct response to it. It is an act of steadfastness.
Our leadership has set an ambition for this nation that is civilisational. This means that we seek more than success. We seek meaning, knowledge. This is precisely why Abu Dhabi has chosen, with great deliberation, the path of a cultural capital rather than that of a cultural destination. The distinction matters. A destination is where one goes to, and leaves; a capital is a cardinal point. A destination competes for attention. A capital commands attention. It carries influence, offering the world ideas and perspectives no one else can. Culture is at the heart of what a capital is. And the returns of a capital are real and consequential. They are simply measured on the time horizon of civilisations.
This is why, in challenging times, culture stands tall – as Sparta, Bayt Al Hikma and Shostakovich remind us. The act of creation is more powerful than any act of destruction. Weapons can break walls but not ideas. Our ideas live in culture, strengthening national identity, making our capital indispensable, building our diplomatic capital. Our imaginations hold more strength than the turbulence around us. Our creative pulse beats to the rhythm of this nation. Our roots are deep. Our future is unshakeable.
