Speaking in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, Dr Henri Awit, director general of the Arab Thought Foundation, spoke of the Gulf’s “cultural renaissance”, emphasising how the rise of “cinema, poetry, novels, theatre and visual arts” are all experiencing a burst of creativity in the Gulf states.
No one who has spent time in some of the region’s most dynamic cities could disagree. Certainly, the UAE, in our own modest way, would claim to host two or more such hubs – that very cultural renaissance was on display over the weekend at Dubai Design District, where thousands gathered to celebrate innovation and creativity.
But the conference at which Dr Awit made his remarks was focused not only on cultural production in the present, but how it is linked to culture in the past and the preservation of that culture. One of the reasons that the UAE and other Gulf states have been able to embrace the age of globalisation has been because of their deep cultural roots and the nurturing and remembering of those roots into the present.
The two aspects are linked. And recognising the cultural heritage of the past goes beyond just one country. The entire Gulf region shares a common heritage and by building on those cultural ties, the entire region can learn from their shared experiences – and build the kind of culture that is relevant for the Gulf in the 21st century.
This need for recognising the cultural ties within and between societies is needed now more than ever. Look at the recent bombing of a Coptic Christian church in Cairo. There is a strain of violent extremism that sees culture in narrow ways. In Cairo, it sees Christianity as separate from Egypt – when in fact, it is one of Egypt’s incredible strengths that it has gained from a long history of traditions that go beyond Islam and Christianity. Copts in Egypt are part of the essential fabric of that country and it is from the Christian tradition of Egypt that some of the most astonishing creative works have come.
The same applies, of course, to Palmyra, which ISIL has now recaptured. Across the region, indeed across the world, there is a strain of thinking that places culture in narrow bounds. We must hold on and enhance the thinking that recognises it for what it is: inspired by many sources and at its best when it is shared.
