Tuesday, May 16, 2006
I was thrilled to learn today that the Cabinet has decided to ratify the UNESCO advocated Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions that was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO in October 2005.
This is a fantastic convention that aims to to recognize the right of States to formulate cultural policies; to adopt measures in favour of the diversity of cultural expressions; to recognize the distinctive nature of cultural goods and services insofar as they convey identity; and to recognize the link between culture and development and the importance of international cooperation.
TheConvention has been severly criticised by the USA which fears that the "tools" provided by the Convention to the individual state to promote cultural diversity and recognize soverignty will be harmful to the US cultural industry especially movies and other cultural products. The Americans want a world wide sweep of all native cultures and they want their own USA "culture" to dominate. The USA has refused to sign the agreement and I hope it will not pressure Jordan to revoke the ratification by threatening Jordan with reduction of US foreign aid.
The text of the convention (English, Arabic) contain some remarkable cultural principles and guidelines for protecting and respecting cultural dicersity which the Arab world is in a big need for. I hope the Convention will also be ratified by the Parliament and printed in the official gazette to be a binding convention. Unfortunately most of the human-rights and environmental agreements ratified by Jordan have not been legally effective by being endorsed by the Parliament.
However I think this is another good indicator of the reform path of Jordan, slow as it may be but at least some milestones are being acheived.
That's funny. Just after posting this entry I read the controversial debate over the "censorship" of the Jordanian magazine VIVA which ran a bold article this month about homosexuality in Jordan. Can homosexuality be considered as a kind of "cultural diversity"? Personally i do not think so but many people willl disagree. For more information and views check posts by Naseem Tarawnah, Khalidah, Natasha and Rambling Hal.
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Well .. the debates got really hot and heavy on my blog and I guess on Naseem's as well ..
Roba also wrote something about this and here is the link:
http://andfaraway.blogspot.com/2006/05/issue-explosion.html
So Batir, the point is behind me discussing this topic on my blog is that I am aganist censorship and that people should be given the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they want to accept or reject .. we should not take away this right from them .. and no one should take this right from us
To me; it was not about LGBT or Vagians, it was and still is about access to information and people's right to know and decide for themselves .. custody should stop once and for all ..
As for the article .. although homosexuality is not all that strange of a concept to our countries and communities. I really did nnot like the article or the smugs on the guys' faces .. however; people has the right to know .. maybe this will make us face our issues and run away from them .. wearing a blind on your eyes will not make you invisible ..