HE the Minister of Culture Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Hamad al-Thani has said that culture is a safety valve for the national security of any society, an essential part of the building blocks of the bridge of dialogue among nations, and a key driver for advancement and development in societies.
In a speech in the regional consultations for the Arab region as part of the preparations for the Unesco World Conference on Cultural Policies — Mondiacult 2022, which will be held in Mexico in September, he stressed the need to build cultural immunity for the service of humanity, noting in this regard that technical development and digital revolutions had reduced the distances between people, at a time when the world had become a global village.
"Movement between countries has become easier than before, and culture, information and material and cultural goods as well," said HE the Minster, adding, "People today exchange knowledge easily and quickly compared to what used to be in the past, which contributed to bringing about closeness among them and increased their ability to exchange experiences and cultures."
He stressed that a lot of advantages provided by technical development posed new cultural challenges, explaining that in some aspects of this accelerated progress of digitisation, some destructive ideas appeared, threatening the identity of every society and harming the creative diversity that enriches peoples' cultures. He called in this regard to protect cultural privacy.
"The world is now living at a cultural crossroads, which calls upon us to exert effort and harness all energies to benefit from the creativity of human thought, confront the deviations of ideas that knock on our doors without permission and rid the digital revolutions of the negative effects on our identity and society," he said.
During the consultations, national, regional, and international cultural policy initiatives were discussed in several sessions that focused on specific and central areas of the policies of the cultural sector in the Arab countries. The consultations were held via videoconferences, with the participation of a number of their excellencies ministers of cultures, representatives of ministries and cultural bodies in Arab countries, and representatives of regional and international organisations concerned with cultural affairs.
The World Conference, scheduled to be held from Sept 28-30, will discuss several main components, most importantly, the Covid-19 pandemic, technological transformations, climate change, and the need to meet the challenges facing cultural societies.
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