Culture, Religion, and Cultural Institutions in the Second Day of the Arab Culture Conference
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The second day of the “Arab Culture Conference: Fundamentals of an Uncertain Future” was held at the BA on Tuesday, 17 November 2015. The conference was attended by more than 300 Egyptian and Arab intellectuals.
The first session of the day was titled “The Issue of Culture and Religion…The New Old Question” and it revolved around the relationship between religion and politics: are they mutually exclusive? Or can they complement each other? The discussion also touched upon culture—which reflects aspects of society, including its political system—and discussed how religion is a part of the beliefs that, in turn, create a culture. Democracy and pluralism, which are considered the requirements of development, were also discussed during the session.
It was emphasized that the current severe lack of knowledge is due to the unfounded belief that religion and culture are not connected. The discussion also involved the three main challenges facing Arab culture: fragmentation, the issue of micro-states, and strife manifested in the issue of minorities.
The second session, titled “Cultural Institutions in the Arab world”, aimed to shed light on the institutions playing a huge role in the dissemination of science and knowledge in the Arab world, such as the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences and the King Abdul Aziz Public Library. In addition, several recommendations were put forth for the development of information libraries, and the challenges facing cultural institutions were discussed.