Around 70 figures from the world of Saudi literature and academia involved in the National Meeting for Intellectual Dialogue gathered in Al-Ahsa this week to discuss “The Reality of Saudi Cultural Discourse and its Future Horizons” and offer proposals by which the King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue (KACND) can provide a “guarantee of self-expression for all currents of thought”. The meeting, held over Tuesday and Wednesday, recommended that the KACND hold continuous meetings on the subject of Saudi Cultural Discourse to look at subjects such as globalization, national identity, relations with other cultures, and Saudi cultural discourse and the relationship with Islamic sects. Further proposals included collaborations between the center and educational, cultural, media and non-governmental bodies, workshops involving representatives of different areas of expertise, intellectual leanings, sects and regions. The diversity in Saudi culture, the meeting said, is a “factor in its richness”, and the KACND “should work to make this diversity a source of strength and progress for society”. Mosque, school, family “The Center has been able to bring the culture of dialogue to society's three most important institutions, namely the mosque, the school, and the family, and hopes over the next three years to bring it to eight million Saudis,” said the dialogue center's Secretary General Faisal Bin Abdul Rahman Al-Mu'ammar. Contributors to discussions spoke of the areas which they felt needed addressing in order to push the National Dialogue forward, many focusing on educational bodies as the “most prominent institutions charged with bringing up future generations” which should “collaborate with the family and cultural institutions”. For many, language and culture were key. “We need to preserve the Arabic language and classical Arabic literature,” said writer Abdullah Mohammed Al-Nasser, describing the Arabic language as having being “appropriated” by “popular literature”, in reference to works composed from non-classical dialects. Al-Nasser also lamented the “signs on shops and hotels written in English, and where the staff speak in English”. “The heritage of the Arabian Peninsula has to have a role in the cultural discourse,” Al-Nasser continued, before referring to the legacy of the region's historical and literary figures. “Under every inch of this land there is a cultural conversation waiting, a story to be told, as the peninsula is the source of the culture of ‘Umru Al-Qays and ‘Antara… and this the angle from which Arab readers view Saudi Arabia.” While some looked to the past, others sought greater focus on the future. “Will we be faced with certain standards in the future?” wondered Yousef Al-Jabbar. “We will have before us a new generation rapidly handling technology”, Al-Jabbar said, before adding that there was a need to “promote reading in the next generations”. Stalemate Others gave forthright opinions on the responsibilities that lay with individual representatives of various groups. “The stalemate between intellectual and cultural currents of thought has to stop if we are to keep up a continuous, permanent dialogue,” said Ashjan Hindi Several participants laid emphasis on the increasing role women have to play in the dialogue and society at large. Mohammed Al-Hadheef said the dialogue should be used to “highlight the status that women have achieved,” while well-known thinker and author Abdullah Al-Ghadhami said the large number of female participants “showed how women have marked their presence”. According to Al-Ghadhami, however, whatever formal efforts are made by the national dialogue, it is “press opinion writers and columnists that wield the greatest influence”. “Powerful intellectuals exist but exert no influence,” Al-Ghadhami said. “The real influence lies with the best writers in newspapers and those expressing free opinion.” ‘Iron curtain' Two issues of particular interest to the gathering were those of a “sense of citizenship” and of being of a particular tradition and identity which involve an “exclusive privacy”, the notion that certain values and ways of living are beyond criticism and should remain untouched. “This ‘exclusive privacy' has become an iron curtain between us and the world,” said Saeed Al-Sureihi. “It produces in us a distinct feeling that we are different from the rest of the world.” A range of interpretations were given to the concepts of exclusive privacy and citizenship from cultural, social and religious viewpoints, but agreement was found on the need to be rid of the culture of “negation and exclusion” to embrace the concept of citizenship and push the Saudi cultural discourse forward as far as it will go. The final session of the gathering on Wednesday, looked at “The Future Likelihood of the Discourse Progressing or Declining”.
