Jordan Watch : The Principles of Arab Reform: Cultural Reform

A continuation of the Alexandria declaration. I think cultural reform is the most crucial, yet the most difficult aspect of anticipated reform in the Arab World

Fourth: Cultural Reform

34- Participants in the conference took into consideration all local and regional cultural problems and challenges, addressing them from a perspective that asserts a set of indispensable cultural priorities

a) Inculcating rational and scientific thinking through encouraging and funding scientific research institutions and allowing civil societies the freedom to develop such institutions. Simultaneously, any form of religious extremism that may exist in educational curricula, sermons in mosques and the official or private media must be completely eradicated.

b) Encouraging the continuous revision and renewal of religious discourse to reveal the civilized, enlightened aspects of religion such as promoting intellectual freedom, allowing interpretation of religious matters to benefit the individual and society and facing all forms of rigidity, extremism and literalism in comprehending religious texts. The reform of religious discourse should be consistent with the spirit of science, rationality and the requisites of contemporary life. This will eliminate pernicious contradictions between the freedom of thought and creativity on the one hand, and the tutelage, imposed in the name of religion, on the other. Religion calls for persuasion through debate and does not impose intellectual terrorism on those who may disagree

c) Freeing and developing female culture to achieve equality between the sexes in education and employment in order to ensure full social participation.

d) Providing a cultural atmosphere to promote democratic development and peaceful transfer of power. This can only be achieved by confronting atrophied customs, and the rudiments of decadent political systems that can prevent any effective political participation or reform. Consequently, this will change the political and social view of women and augment their cultural and scientific participation. Because cultural development is the foundation for any development, the first step that must be taken towards any radical reform cannot succeed without spreading the culture of democracy through educational curricula and the media

e) Renewing cultural discourse and freeing it from the elements that prevent dialogue with the others, and accepting differences and, renewing all related discourses such as political, social groups and media discourses.

f) Reforming and activating Arab cultural institutions through financial and moral support to widen the range of their plans and coordinate between them and other cultural organizations

g) Canceling any form of censorship over intellectual and cultural activities to support freedom of thought, augment creativity and free it from any religious, traditional, private or political authority under the pretext of public interest. The advance of nations depends on guaranteeing freedom to all intellectual and creative thinkers

h) Promoting cultural efforts on the national level and strengthening the concept of interdependence in cultural economics.

i) Preserving the Arabic language and developing it for digital information technology

j) Encouraging cultural interaction with the entire world to ensure the diversity of the creative human culture and promote effective contribution to international organizations without going against our cultural identity or cultural heritage.

k) Confirming that science is a main component of culture and a major path for future vision, which establishes a general cultural consciousness in the knowledge-based society, and is the best way to advance in every field

l) Documenting Arab culture annually to monitor the mechanisms of production and the forms of follow up and coordinating the efforts to organize the activities of professional Arab cultural syndicates and publishing the results.

35- Encouraging national cultural exchange through the following measures

a) Exempting Arab cultural production from any kind of censorship or customs regulations in all Arab countries, while, simultaneously, raising the level of competitive programs against programs that represent foreign cultures

b) Developing mutual digital publication projects for newspapers, magazines and books, so that we can overcome distribution problems and the obstacles hindering the flow of Arabic publications

c) Activating governmental and civil translation institutions and coordinating their selections along two parallel-synchronized lines: Translating from Arabic into all languages and translating from all living languages into Arabic.

d) Encouraging creativity and intellectual creative achievements on both the national and regional levels. This will provide more motivation for cultural production, and could be achieved through offering valuable prizes and various forms of national and regional celebrations.