Qatar- ACI 'can help counter false portrayal of Arabs'

DOHA: The Arab Cultural Institute (ACI) in Washington, DC would become a representation of Arab culture and civilisation in North and South America and could play a major role in countering false imagery and portrayals of Arabs, says Dr John Duke Anthony, Founding President and CEO, National Council on US-Arab Relations.

Dr Anthony currently serves on the US Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the committee’s subcommittee on sanctions.

The council envisions ACI as a venue in which cross-cultural understanding, dialogue, and collaboration may be achieved through museum-style exhibitions, cultural events, and educational programmes.

“The institute would also serve as a conduit for gathering and sharing knowledge about and understanding of the Arab world. One service would be to correct incorrect information. It would counter flawed analyses and misrepresentations of Arabs,” said Dr Anthony.

“No one can one deny how false information and flawed analyses and assessments regarding Arab culture, history, society, and systems of governance have been used to take Americans to war against Arabs. We have also seen the catastrophic consequences that can result from the combination of such ill-informed and often outright wrong intelligence, combined with the absence of leaders with the requisite knowledge and basic understanding of Arab and Islamic culture.”

Qatar in focus

The council is in the process of seeking funding for this project.

Thus far the greatest degree of interest in providing resources for the institute has come from prominent individuals in Qatar.

“An obvious reason is of course the opportunity that such an institute offers to improve and expand the extent to which Qatar is appropriately viewed as an important country and friend to the American people. Closely related to this benefit would be greater American awareness of the Arab core of Qatar’s culture. Linked to this reward would be enhanced appreciation of the increasingly active, important, and consequential position and role of Qatar in the affairs of the Arab world and beyond,” said Dr Anthony.

The institute would showcase whatever image the country’s leaders and its people would most want visitors and others — those who would utilize the facilities of the institute — to know about Qatar. Indeed, Qatar’s leaders, and not others, would be the ones to determine and decide what kind of lasting impressions and impacts they would like to convey. One message, for example, albeit one that could entail contradicting a basic precept in Islamic charity – namely that the source of a gift by a person of means to one without means should ideally be anonymous, for the sake of the unfortunate recipient’s dignity -- could be Qatar’s extraordinary humanitarian contributions to the victims of the American hurricane disaster known as Katrina.

Its contributions to disaster victims in Beirut and Darfur, Sudan, are additional examples. They illustrate dramatically Qatar’s method of ensuring that those most in need have their needs addressed to the fullest extent.

Qatar set an example for others of what could and can be done if the leaders involved are individuals devoted to public service.

Another message could focus on FIFA 2022. Here one could demonstrate how major international sports events can increase the level of foreign investment into one’s economy while at the same time being a source of job creation. Yet another could be Qatar’s path-breaking approach to forging higher education partnerships with world-class universities and research institutions from other countries.

There is something that is universally unique to Qatar -- its leaders having led the way in demonstrating how not only to think out of the box but also to act out of the box. One of the most dramatic examples that would illustrate this point is Qatar’s joining forces with international centres of excellence.

Of particular significance is what Qatar has done with institutions renowned for their specialization in education, training, and overall human resources development. A quite different approach could be to highlight Qatar’s pioneering role in various energy and LNG sectors.

Emphasizing the work of the Qatar Foundation and Qatar Foundation International could be another valuable message.

Another possibility would be to exhibit the steady march of Al-Jazeera Television’s impressive entry into international media markets. Here, the emphasis would be on the role Qatar has pioneered in emphasizing a non-partisan approach to news coverage, reporting, and analysis. Yet another possibility could be to portray the successes of the country’s diverse series of conferences, hosting of inter-faith dialogues, and convening of forums that address the dynamics and demands of democracy and free trade – all of which have engaged the participation of leaders from virtually every corner of the world. Still another possibility could conceivably centre on the position and role of women in Qatari society.

One or more exhibits exclusively focused on Qatari women and the scope of their involvement and achievements in the country’s public and private sector would almost certainly be visited and studied by virtually every visitor to the ACI.

A quite different message could be all the awards that Qatar’s airline receives annually. So many awards for excellence in more than a dozen areas of service have been won by the airline, raising the question of what if any remaining award is there for the airline to win.

Exhibits

The institute would feature a variety of exhibits that would introduce to visitors the essence of the richness of Arab culture and history as well as its diversity. There would be permanent exhibits and rotating ones. The Arab countries that contribute the most to the establishment of the ACI would be rewarded. Such countries would be granted space in the institute for a permanent exhibit.

By their very nature, permanent exhibits would enable all visitors to gain greater knowledge and understanding of that country’s culture, history, and its modernization and development. A permanent exhibit would also allow that country to tell the story of its positions and roles in regional and global affairs. What a permanent exhibit would highlight with regard to Qatar would naturally be determined and decided by Qatar’s leaders.

Formal educational programmes such as courses in Arabic and Islamic studies could be taught at the institute. Such programmes and activities would have a positive effect on the many Americans who are eager to know more about Arab culture and the Arab peoples.

In time, the institute would also serve as a place for scholarly research with an emphasis on Arab and Islamic culture.

For American and Arab students, faculty, and other interested individuals, the institute would administer year-round a rich Arabic language and Islamic studies programme, which in itself would help to further strengthen cross-cultural American-Arab understanding and Arab-US relations.

On ACI’s role in fostering ties between the GCC and the US, he said such an institute would help a great deal to improve the image of GCC Arabs among key constituencies in the US. The results should benefit GCC Arabs considerably given that in numerous ways and for numerous reasons they remain the least well known. The institute, for reasons related to funding, would almost certainly have permanent exhibits on GCC countries.

“As envisioned, ACI cannot and must not be expected to run on automatic pilot. Too much is at stake in the overall Arab-US relationship to proceed in any other way. Too much for not just this vital region but the rest of the Arab countries and the world as a whole turns on the degree to which the GCC region can remain secure and stable. Linked unofficially to the GCC-US Strategic Dialogue, such an Arab Cultural Institute, with prominent exhibits being those of the GCC countries, would have the merit of strengthening and expanding the strategic dialogue,” said Dr Anthony.

The institute would demonstrate GCC countries’ belief in and commitment to addressing the vital need to increase and improve American-Arab people-to-people ties not only on the part of their governments and their people but also on the part of other key Arab governments and their people.

The institute’s exhibits, conferences, seminars, and publications could also illustrate the impact of Qatar’s and its fellow GCC states’ individual and combined vital contributions to world economic growth. In highlighting such results, the Institute would underscore how the GCC countries have arguably done more than any other group of six neighbouring countries to contribute to sustained regional peace, security, and stability. At the same time, with the launching of such an Institute, GCC countries, the US, and indeed the Arab world and North America as a whole would be celebrating the onset of a potentially new people-to-people chapter in the interaction of the two people’s cultures.

The Peninsula