Visions of a General Framework for Egypt’s Cultural Policy November 2015 1 2 Table of Content Dr. Ismail Serageldin’s Introduction 5 Introduction: Support to Cultural Diversity and 7 Creativity in Egypt 1- Preliminary Overview 29 Egypt in five cultural circles 31 Our Arab Culture and the Culture of Knowledge 33 About the Egyptian Identity 37 Countering the Current Conditions 38 2- The Current Cultural State of Affairs 41 The Egyptian Cultural Society 44 Key cultural issues pertaining to the book, 46 the song, the cinema, and the theater 3- Cultural Reform in Egypt 57 Vision and Objective 57 Specific Objectives 57 About Education and Media 61 The Creative Industries 64 4- Institutions and Mechanisms 67 - Museums 68 - Libraries and the Family Libraries 69 - Ministry of Antiquities 71 - General Authority for Cultural Palaces 72 - General Egyptian Book Authority 74 - The High Council of Culture 75 - Arts Academy 75 - Visual Arts Sector 77 - Theater Section 79 - Folklor and Performance Arts Sector 80 3 - The Opera 80 - Film Industry 81 - The National Center for Traditional Crafts 84 - Scientific Societies 85 - Oral Heritage 86 - Cultural Fields and reforming their positions 86 - Dar al Kuttub and National Archives 87 - The National Translation Center 87 5- Funding 89 The Cultural Development Fund 90 Antiquities Fund 90 The Private and Public Sectors 91 Using Government Guarantee 91 6- The Digital Revolution and How to Deal with It The New Knowledge Revolution (The Seven Pillars) 93 First: Parsing, Life, and Organization 93 Second: Image and Text 94 Third: Humans and Machines 95 Fourth: Complexity and Chaos 95 Fifth: Computation and Research 95 Sixth: Convergence and Transformation 96 Seventh: Pluridisciplinarity and Policy 96 - A National Committee for Digitally 97 Documenting Heritage - A National Digital Repository 97 - A Fund for Digital Works 98 - The Importance of Digital Publishing 99 - On Intellectual Property in the Digital World 100 7- On Implementation and Follow-Up 103 4 Support to Cultural Diversity and Creativity in Egypt Two years of tireless work throughout Egypt, from Alexandria to Aswan, were required to implement the Support to Cultural Diversity and Creativity in Egypt project—a project supported by the European Union. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina youth have journeyed throughout Egypt to rediscover the country with a new approach by exploring Egypt’s villages, towns, and cities. As a result of the collaborative efforts of numerous ministries to support the BA, such as the Ministries of International Cooperation, Culture, Higher Education, Antiquities, Education, and Foreign Affairs, in addition to the participation of over a thousand official and civil society organizations and creative individuals, the report in hand has been created following discussions, workshops, and activities to formulate a cultural vision for Egypt; a vision that bolsters nationalism, motivates cultural work, and provides creators with the freedom to innovate for the future. This report has posed questions concerning the current state of affairs, the methods of addressing shortcomings, and future ambitions. These questions will certainly create a widespread debate to preserve the aspired vision, framed by those who contributed to the report, so that the Egyptian national culture can become the promising prospect that we all anticipate. The culture of work, tolerance, and limitless creativity leads to social peace and a comprehension of the youth’s energy. So, let us dream of the future. Here, at the BA, we will try our best to accomplish as many of the aspired goals as we can, and we will strive to present this report to the designated authorities, legislative councils, and decision makers. This is what we can promise. However, we can only grow if we all work together; without partnerships, we will not be able to move forward on the path toward the future. This is the form of collaboration we sought through this project. Dr. Ismail Serageldin Director of the BA 5 6 Introduction Support to Cultural Diversity and Creativity in Egypt “Support to Cultural Diversity and Creativity in Egypt” is a 24- months project, co-funded by the EU, that has been implemented by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) in different governorates in Egypt following the UNESCO 2005 Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions. The global objective of this action is to provide increased access to culture, to contribute to social cohesion, to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions and to improve the environment for creative and cultural production in order to have an impact on sustainable socio- economic development. The Action started on 25 November 2013 through a set of diverse activities grouped under the 3 following pillars: Pillar 1: A dialogue process for a National Cultural Strategy/Policy in Egypt Pillar 2: Interventions to support Egyptian cultural industries and already existing Egyptian talents and cultural operators Pillar 3: Actions to support youth and new talents and increase access to culture. The activities implemented under this action targeted Egyptian Population counting Egyptian artists, cultural operators, cultural industries, cultural institutions and officials and NGOs with a special attention to youth, children, women and disabled. The activities contributed to creating a future policy for Egyptian culture, identifying and profiling cultural actors in the country, nurturing existing talents and artists as well as emerging artists, boosting the activities of cultural centers and institutions. The activities also supported capacity building and the restructuring of the cultural and creative sectors. 7 The Action built upon the experience and knowledge of the BA and reinforced its role as an independent institution supporting national efforts in the field of culture. Basing its vision upon three main pillars and through a variety of activities prepared for the Action, the BA seeks to use the rich cultural heritage of Egypt and human capital to benefit from arts and culture as a strong support element to the development of the country, and to promote artistic and cultural education. In line with the overall and specific objectives of the action, its main outputs and results, specific activities were designed to impact a considerable number of Egyptians working in the field of culture and on normal Egyptians who did not have the chance to be exposed to cultural manifestations in their life or need to be encouraged and engaged further. The activities were designed in a way to be self-sustained, to have a continuous effect on the Egyptian cultural sector, and pave the way to encourage creativity and promote diversity. Based on the BA's experience in implementing a variety of activities, programs and research, the activities were regrouped in the following 3 main pillars. Pillar “1”: A Dialogue Process for a Cultural Policy in Egypt-The Organization of Conferences, Seminars and Workshops. This pillar mainly focused on initiating a national dialogue in the country to lead to the formulation of a cultural strategy for Egypt. This national dialogue was coordinated by the BA involving public and private cultural institutions and individual experts. The BA acted as hub providing its facilities, organizational capacities, expertise and access to cultural stakeholders and coordinated between them to issue cultural policy papers and recommendations to be launched in the final conference. The activities of this pillar are as follows: 8 1.1. Cultural Debates: Vision for an Egyptian Cultural Policy The BA created think-tanks of young and senior intellectuals, cultural operators, artists, ministries and public authorities amongst others, to assess the current cultural situation and the main actors in the country and the challenges to be addressed. The members of the think-tanks engaged in a structured dialogue to draft a National Cultural Policy to be presented to the concerned Egyptian authorities for discussion and adoption. In addition, some eminent experts produced researches defining the elements, constraints, challenges of the cultural reality in Egypt. For achieving the desired outputs the following took place: Forming and engaging members of the think-tanks through twelve periodical working meetings to discuss and draft the cultural policy. Setting up a small secretariat office at the BA to coordinate and support the work of the think-tanks. Organizing four workshops where experts, policy makers were invited for debates and brainstorming. Compiling the research and statistics conducted by members of the think-tanks and merging the findings of pillar 2 (Mapping Exercise) and Pillar 3 (Arts in the Classroom) to produce a draft National Cultural Policy. Organizing a final workshop for final review and discussion of the produced draft cultural policy. Printing of the final document that will be presented to policy makers and distributing it during the final conference. The meetings were attended by representatives from different Ministries, such as the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of International Cooperation, Ministry of Antiquities, Ministry of Foreign affairs, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education. Different Universities were also represented such as the Univeristies of Ain Shams, Cairo, Assiut, Mansoura, New Valley, Alexandria, Portsaid, Ismailia, Beni Suef, Sohag and Aswan amongst others . 9 Also, eminent experts, senior and junior intellectuals, artists, novelists