cultural policy in egypt; studies and documents on cultural policies

Cultural policy

in Egyptby Magdi Wahba

Unesco Paris 1972

Studies and documents on cultural policies

In this series Cultural policy: a preliminary studyCultural policy in the United States

by Charles C. MarkCultural rights as human rightsCultural policy in Japan

by Nobuya ShikaumiSome aspects of French cultural policy

by the Studies and Research Department of theFrench Ministry of Culture

Cultural policy in Tunisiaby Rafik Said

Cultural policy in Great Britainby Michael Green and Michael Wilding,in consultation with Richard Hoggart

Cultural policy in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republicsby A. A. Zvorykin with the assistance ofN. I. Golubtsova and E. I. Rabinovich

Cultural policy in Czechoslovakiaby Miroslav Marek, Milan Hromadkaand Josef Chroust

Cultural policy in ItalyA. survey prepared under the auspicesof the Italian National Commission forUnesco

Cultural policy in Yugoslaviaby Stevan Majstorovic

Cultural policy in Bulgariaby Kostadine Popov

Some aspects of cultural policies in Indiaby Kapila Malifc Vatsyayan

Cultural policy in Cubaby Lisandro Otero with the assistance ofFrancisco Martinez Hinojosa

Cultural policy in Egyptby Magdi Wahba

To be publishedCultural policy in Finland

The serial numbering of titles in this series,the presentation of which has been modified,was discontinued with the volumeCultural policy in Italy

OOf. oo/. / (61)

1972 InternationalBook Year

Published by the United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural OrganizationPlace de Fontenoy, 75 Paris-7e

Printed byPresses Universitaires de France, Vendome

LC No. 72-80864

© Unesco 1972Printed in FranceSHC.71/XIX.14/A

Preface

The purpose of this series is to show how cultural policies are planned andimplemented in various Member States.

As cultures differ, so does the approach to them; it is for each MemberState to determine its cultural policy and methods according to its ownconception of culture, its socio-economic system, political ideology andtechnological development. However, the methods of cultural policy (likethose of general development policy) have certain common problems; theseare largely institutional, administrative and financial in nature, and theneed has increasingly been stressed for exchanging experiences and infor-mation about them. This series, each issue of which follows as far as possiblea similar pattern so as to make comparison easier, is mainly concerned withthese technical aspects of cultural policy.

In general, the studies deal with the principles and methods of culturalpolicy, the evaluation of cultural needs, administrative structures and man-agement, planning and financing, the organization of resources, legislation,budgeting, public and private institutions, the training of personnel, insti-tutional infrastructures for meeting specific cultural needs, the safeguardingof the cultural heritage, institutions for the dissemination of the arts, inter-national cultural co-operation and other related subjects.

The studies, which cover countries belonging to differing social andeconomic systems, geographical areas and levels of development present,therefore, a wide variety of approaches and methods in cultural policy.Taken as a whole, they can provide guide-lines to countries which have yetto establish cultural policies, while all countries, especially those seekingnew formulations of such policies, can profit by the experience alreadygained.

This study was prepared for Unesco by Magdi Wahba, Under-Secretaryin the Ministry of Culture, Associate Professor of English, Cairo.University.

The opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflectthe views of Unesco.

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in thispublication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on thepart of the Unesco Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country orterritory, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitations of the fron-tiers of any country or territory.

Contents

9 The assessment of cultural needs

16 Administrative and financial structures

29 The Ministry of Culture

38 The conservation of the cultural heritage

53 The diffusion of culture76 State patronage and the training of cultural agents

84 Conclusion87 Appendix: Organizational charts

The assessmentof cultural needs

After the semi-colonial dispensation of the first half of the twentieth centurythe Revolution of 1952 was faced with the task of giving substance anddirection to the aspirations of the majority. Once political independence wasachieved, it became imperative to lay the foundations of a community witha new-found awareness of its social and economic needs. The laying of thefoundations of a political awareness which could initiate political actionsand democratic control of government was the first sign of cultural action.In a situation of revolutionary change, politics is the first expression of theincreased self-awareness and exploration of the possibilities of the nationalidentity that are the beginning of culture.

In February 1962, ten years after the Revolution, the late PresidentGamal Abdel Nasser submitted a National Charter to 2,000 elected rep-resentatives of the people. It incorporated ten chapters which provided abasis for political action for the following ten years. After reviewing the his-tory and the recent events of Egyptian national life the Charter proposed'a system of democratic socialism at home, of the realistic pursuit of Arabunity at the regional level and a foreign policy based on peace, the exposureof imperialism and international co-operation for the sake of prosperity'.The National Charter was widely discussed and hammered out article byarticle until it became the instrument for the formation of a political organ-ization, the Arab Socialist Union. This organization, with its broad base ofpopular support, became an integrated structure for the expression of pol-itical opinion.

On 25 March 1964 a provisional Constitution was put into effect defin-ing the United Arab Republic as a 'Socialist Democratic State'. Then on30 March 1968, in response to a truly inspiring movement of solidarityamong the people, the late President issued a statement of policy whichconstituted a document of self-reappraisal and an expression of the deter-mination to pursue the path of democratic socialism with an increasing faithin the creative power of the people. These three documents are the basic

The assessment of cultural needs

texts in which the shape and direction of the present national life have beenrecorded.

What of the cultural needs of the people in this context? Let us first attemptan unadorned picture of Egyptian realities. The population in 1952 was justunder 21.5 million. In 1970 it rose to just over 32.5 million. The rate ofincrease between 1952 and 1960 was 2.38 per cent. Between 1960 and 1970the rate rose to 2.54 per cent. The total area of the country is approxi-mately 386,000 square miles of which only about 5 per cent is normally habi-table or cultivable, the rest being desert. Within this small area, more than18 million live on the land and more than 14 million in cities. The govern-ment is actively aware of the dimensions of the population problem. Everylarge project since 1952 has been undertaken with a pronounced awarenessof this demographic explosion—the High Dam, industrialization, familyplanning, Liberation Province are all, in effect, attempts to sustain thisdaily struggle against the ruthless stranglehold of backwardness and pov-erty. The two five-year plans were implemented against terrible odds. Openhostilities, constant harassment and economic pressure are some of theobstacles which had to be contended with between 1960 and 1970. It issurely a measure of the heroism and determination of the Egyptian peopleand of the socialist pattern of development that so much has been achievedin such difficult circumstances.

The first slogan that was daubed on the walls of Cairo in 1952 was 'Raiseyour head, my brother, the age of slavery and imperialism has passed . . .'.Perhaps these simple words will provide a key to the plan of action whichwas to embrace every aspect of Egyptian national life. The twin calls ofnational and socialist liberation could only be heeded by a people with asense of pride and confidence in its human dignity. This need, then, to riseto the occasion was the basis on which everything else could be built. Theability to accept change and to understand the dimensions of the problemis certainly stimulated by the raising of cultural standards. But, whereshould we begin? What are the true latent cultural needs of a society whichmay express a demand for the acquisition of culture simply as a weapon inthe struggle against imperialism and backwardness ? The reality of the situ-ation of a people emerging from long years of oppression and foreign ruledemands that there be absolute frankness and an absence of false pride inthe assessment of their cultural level.

Cultural needs and the cultural level

Periodically, since 1925, illiteracy had been regarded in Egypt with a mix-ture of despair and frantic activity. Still the problem remained. It hadimperilled all schemes of educational reform. The Ministry of Educationsucceeded in lowering the illiteracy rate although the actual number of

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TABLE 1 Illiteracy

Vearl

190719171927193719471960

Totalpersons aged 10

and over

7 848 0249 161 944

10 268 40411 603 48813 489 94617 914 323

Illiteratesaged 10

and over

7 277 3038 357 4618 816 6019 885 300

10 407 97212 587 686

Male

87.084.876.176.666.156.6

Illiteracy rate

Female

98.697.795.693.988.283.8

Total

92.791.285.985.277.270.3

1. Figures for the years 1907-37 were taken from Progress of Literacy in Various Countries, Paris,TJnesco, 1953 (Monographs on Fundamental Education, No. VI).

people who cannot read and write has continued to increase steadily withthe increase of the population (see Table 1).

In 1966 the picture was still alarming. The number of illiterates isofficially given as 13,362,610 persons between the ages of 10 and 40, thatis a rate of 63 per cent. The rate falls steadily but the demographic explosionrelentlessly yields increasing numbers. The government, however, has notremained idle in the face of danger. A call to mobilize all resources was madein 1964 when a literacy plan was worked out by the General Departmentfor Fundamental Education and Literacy in the Ministry of Education. Theplan was to be implemented at a cost of £(E)16 million spread over fifteenyears. It was estimated that by 1971, 1.25 million illiterates would havepassed through the ministry's adult education classes. Although the Min-istry of Education is principally responsible for this campaign the govern-ment has mobilized every other ministry, the Arab Socialist Union, thetrade unions, the rural co-operative societies and all the corporations in thepublic sector to make absolutely sure that their employees and membersshould all be literate by the end of the third five-year plan.

The role of television

In 1964 a pilot scheme was set up to use television in the struggle againstilliteracy. The experiment was conducted by the Ministry of Education inco-operation with the Unesco-sponsored Community Development TrainingCentre for the Arab States at Sers-el-Layyan. It did not prove an unquali-fied success, however, and a new plan is under way to cover an experimentalarea corresponding approximately to Greater Cairo where the illiteratesanswering the specifications of the experiment total 600,000. Unesco ishelping both financially and with expert advice in the implementation ofthe initial stages of the project.

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Development in Egypt has been geared to every aspect of national life. Theeconomy, education and the social services have been fitted into a series offive-year plans which are already providing the first results of growth andincreased productivity. Cultural action is part of this development processand its results, although slower to appear, are already beginning to yieldfruit. However, the essential dual nature of cultural action in Egypt mustalways be borne in mind. For it is an action which must supply the pro-motion and create the stimulation which go with modernity, while it mustalso succeed in awakening the minds and the sensibilities of large numbersof people who have laboured for centuries under the burden of colonialismand oppression. Cultural action in the cities is different from that under-taken in the rural areas. Starting with the village we can observe moreclearly the basic cultural needs of a community.

In 1969 a team of sociologists headed by Dr. B. M. Fahmy andA. M. Abdel Rahman was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture toconduct a socio-cultural survey of an ordinary Egyptian village called ElMarazeeq in the Giza governorate.

Some results of the field survey in El Marazeeq1

According to the 1966 census, the population of El Marazeeq was 4,323(2,210 male and 2,113 female). In 1969, a sample survey showed an averageilliteracy rate of just over 60 per cent. The rate rose to 85 per cent for thosepersons over the age of 60 who had not benefited from the schooling or adulteducation classes begun after the Revolution of 1952. This village had elec-tricity, running water from an artesian well, a community centre, a dis-pensary with a resident doctor, a local branch of the Arab Socialist Union,an agricultural co-operative society with 1,396 members and a tractor (forwhich the driver had to be borrowed from the neighbouring village) andtwo primary schools, one with 456 pupils (359 boys and 97 girls), the otherwith 262 pupils (210 boys and 52 girls).

When a survey of the houses in the village was made, certain interestingresults were reached concerning what might be termed rather vaguely'instruments of culture': 38 per cent of the households possessed radio sets(mostly transistors); 7 per cent had pictures on their walls (mostly cut-outsfrom magazines and printed verses of the Koran in fine calligraphy);1.6 per cent had actual paintings; and 14.4 per cent (i.e. thirty-six families)had books, booklets and magazines of some description. Not a single house-hold owned a television set.2 Television could be watched at two of thevillage's cafes and at the community centre. . . . .

1. From an unpublished report in Arabic entitled 'Cultural Development in the Country-side', United Arab Republic, Ministry of Culture (Cultural Field Surveys, 1969).

2. op. cit., p. 77.

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TABLE 2 Approbation of recreational activities

w I, * Percentage Percentage ofActivity umber o ^ totaj educatedJ approvals , /„»-»* sample (250) persons

Religious songs 187 74.8 25.7Wireless programmes 181 72.4 27.7Religious festivals and fairs 131 52.4 26.0Excursions to town 130 52.0 31.0Travelling story-tellers

and poets 122 48.8 23.0Drum rhythms 116 46.4 22.4Mawwal songs 112 44.8 25.0Television programmes 107 42.8 36.5Horse-dancing 88 35.2 28.4Cinema 82 33.8 40.2Entertainers at weddings 75 30.0 24.0Rebeck-playing 73 29.2 30.1Itinerant brass bands 51 20.4 29.4Theatre 41 16.4 48.8Football 30 12.0 33.3Circus 15 6.0 40.0Puppet shows 14 5.6 21.4Conjurors 13 5.2 38.5Peep-shows 10 4.0 10.0Monkey tricks 9 3.6 11.1Female dancers 8 3.2 25.0Clowns 8 3.2 5.0

Source: 'Cultural Development in the Countryside', p. 146-7, United Arab Republic, Ministry ofCulture (Cultural Field Surveys, 1969).

On being asked for their approval of certain entertainments during theirleisure time a sample of the villagers established a significant order ofpreference (see Table 2).

The prevalence of religious interests over any other is immediatelyobvious. So is the preference of wireless to television programmes, andcinema to theatre. Those may be interesting indexes in establishing thetastes and cultural needs of a relatively small rural community.

Cultural demand

National figures can be just as helpful in discovering what the vast majorityof the people, in both rural and urbanized communities, really prefer. Acertain pattern of sensibility can be elaborated and a cultural action plannedeffectively in the light of these needs. Some figures taken from the latestavailable statistics published by the Central Agency for Public Mobilizationand Statistics (June 1970) may give us an indication of the cultural demandif not the cultural needs of the people.

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TABLE 3 Circulation of periodicals for the year 1966/67

Arabic Other languages TotalType of periodical No. of No. of No. of

periodicals Circulation periodicals Circulation periodicals Circulation

DailyWeekly and

fortnightlyMonthlyBi-monthly and

quarterlyOther

1 270 000

14 1492900067 4 385 000

42 310 00013 76 000

69

64

15400019000

90004000

1 270 000

20 1508300070 4 404 000

48 319 00017 80 000

Source: Statistical Indices for the UAR—1932-1968, p. 230-1, Cairo, Central Agency for PublicMobilization and Statistics, November 1969 (in Arabic).

TABLE 4 Circulation of newspapers for the year 1966/67

ArabicType of newspaper No. of

Other languages Total

No. of No. of No. ofnewspapers Circulation newspapers Circulation newspapers Circulation

Daily 5 28341000 7 400000 12 28741000Other 17 503000 — — 17 503000

Source: Statistical Indices for the UAR—1952-1968, p. 230-1, Cairo, Central Agency for PublicMobilization and Statistics, November 1969 (in Arabic).

To the end of 1966, 368,710 television licences were issued in Egypt.Of these 259,055 were issued in the greater Cairo area alone. Since thetransistor revolution it has not been possible to provide figures for radiosets (which do not require licences), but it is generally believed that theremust be approximately one radio set (transistor or electrical) for everythree inhabitants!

The press, long a consecrated form for political and cultural action inthe Arab world, is certainly as effective a medium as radio or television. Thecirculation figures indicated in Tables 3 and 4 do not make allowances forthe large audience which a newspaper reader can gather around him ina village cafe, for example. There is still a very lively tradition of readingaloud in rural areas.

Attendance figures1 may also be given for other types of cultural activityto indicate the growing interest in forms of cultural action which are

1. Figures taken from Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, CulturalStatistics, pamphlets 50-311 (July 1969), 12-311 (May 1970), and 14-311 (August 1970).

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clearly examples of interests that are essentially the result of Westerniza-tion. The following are the number of cultural institutions in the UnitedArab Republic for the year 1968/69 (attendances given in parentheses):31 theatres (459,892); 280 cinemas (65,786,000);! 53 museums (2,031,000);and 439 libraries (8,698,000).

The elements of a cultural policy

The figures and tables mentioned above are an attempt to give certaininsights into the cultural situation. They are not in any way a systematicevaluation of needs, latent or otherwise. Apart from conceptual and statis-tical difficulties in the way of a realistic assessment perhaps it would bemore useful for the reader to become acquainted with the actual mechanismof cultural action. This mechanism will be studied as a response to thechallenges of the cultural needs and demand in the ever-changing situation,which is that of a developing country. Certain general guiding principles do,however, emerge. Perhaps they could be summarized as follows, in orderto indicate what the elements of a cultural policy can be in a state ofdynamic change.To increase awareness of the continuity of culture in Egypt, while strength-

ening links with the humanistic values of other cultures.To contribute to a sense of solidarity between the rural and urban popu-

lations by the encouragement of common cultural action and the affir-mation of common cultural values.

To enable all citizens to enjoy the right to participate freely in the culturallife of the community.

To ensure that the quality of cultural action should not be sacrificed to therequirements of quantitative dissemination.

To create a situation of fruitful dialogue between the intellectuals and themajority of the people.

To provide the intellectuals with a sense of self-fulfilment within thecommunity.

To ensure the patronage of the arts without creating a sense of totalitarianoppressiveness.

To ensure that the alienation of the creative artist should not be overcomeat the expense of the alienation of the public.

To create intelligible links between cultural and socio-economic devel-opment.

To provide systematically for the training and encouragement of agents,for both the creation and the dissemination of culture.

To reconstruct a system of cultural values based on a progressive humanismfrom a synthesis of national and universal cultures.

1. Figure for 1966/67.

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Administrative andfinancial structures

In order to implement the principles which inform State policy in mattersof culture, a certain distribution of cultural responsibilities became absol-utely imperative. The multiplicity of the agents responsible for culturalmatters is part of the natural organization of a country in a state of dynamicgrowth; a general plan could fit the various cultural activities together aspart of the democratic socialist transformation of Egyptian society. Therehave already been two five-year plans which have made ample acknow-ledgement of the multi-faceted nature of cultural action and, now, on thethreshold of the third five-year plan, the co-ordination of these efforts isbeing undertaken.

Action is undertaken by governmental, political and voluntary bodies,but this chapter will be concerned only with those bodies which fall withinthe province of the State budget.

It is convenient to classify the governmental bodies which are concernedwith cultural action in two main groups: (a) ministries primarily con-cerned with cultural methods; (b) ministries which include cultural depart-ments. There are also ministries which have certain specialized culturalresponsibilities.

Before this division is related to a general pattern of community needs, itwould be as well to explain what is meant by this threefold grouping. A sep-arate chapter will be devoted to the policy and activities of the Ministry ofCulture, but this ministry is not solely responsible—others share in both itsgeneral and its specialized activities (e.g. the ministries of national guidance,of tourism and of youth). Moreover, there are the ministries concerned withsecular and religious education, where the cultural content of the curricula isimportant in spreading an awareness of the potentialities for cultural enrich-ment. A third group provides training and information in order to maintainand improve various intellectual and manual skills (e.g. labour is concernedwith workers' culture, health with practical hygiene, agriculture with thespread of important notions for the development of agriculture; and so on).

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Administrative and financial structures

Ministries primarily concerned with cultural matters

THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE

This ministry, founded as an independent entity in 1958, is no longer frag-mented among the different ministries through their cultural departmentsbut is a separate unit committed to organizing State intervention for thefollowing purposes:1The preservation of the nation's heritage in all its aspects.Creating conditions for the nationwide enjoyment of this heritage in

its various manifestations: the written word, national archives, anti-quities, museums, folklore and the traditions of artistic and literarycreation.

The study of cultural realities and the establishment of an inventory of thesources and media of culture.

The widest possible dissemination of cultural services.Discovering hidden talent and the encouragement of artistic creativity.The reactivation of provincial and rural cultural life.The enrichment of the national culture by cross-fertilization with foreign

cultural values and the best presentation of that culture abroad in theinterest of international cultural co-operation.

The development of institutions and academies for the better training ofcultural agents and the fostering of artistic talent.

The patronage of the arts, letters and social sciences in order that they mayfully contribute to the objectives of a democratic socialist society.

The provision of expert advice to all public authorities in matters concern-ing the arts or cultural values.

The actual description of the ministry and all its agencies will be givenseparately, but it should be observed here that it bears specific responsi-bility for State patronage of the arts and for the four functions of culturalaction, namely, preservation, dissemination, training and the encourage-ment of creativity.

THE MINISTRY OF NATIONAL GUIDANCE(MINISTRY OF INFORMATION)

This ministry (renamed the Ministry of Information as from Novem-ber 1970) is divided into two main sections: the Television and SoundBroadcasting Corporation; and the State Information Service. It is, ofcourse, concerned with the organization of the mass media with a view toensuring the cultural and political education of listeners and viewers.

Presidential Decree 62 (1970) gives the precise description and jurisdiction

1. Ministry of Culture, Department of Planning and Research.

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of the Television and Sound Broadcasting Corporation. Article 2 states thefollowing objectives:To ensure that television and radio are used only in the national interest

and in the service of the people.To develop the notion of broadcast information on a basis of recognized

ethical principles.To create a congenial atmosphere for the fostering of literary and artistic

talent and encourage the untrammelled expression of honest opinion.To make available a forum for any person to voice public demands and draw

attention to the problems of daily life.To develop programmes beamed overseas.To raise the technical and artistic standards of all television and radio

workers.To develop television and sound broadcasting according to the latest scien-

tific techniques.The combining of radio and television into one large corporation is intendedas a step towards providing these services with the financial independenceand freedom of action which are essential if the corporation is not tobe swamped by bureaucratic rigidity. The extent of this freedom can beobserved from a quick perusal of Article 3 which allows the new corporationthe powers that are normally enjoyed by a business concern in the privatesector. The corporation is governed by a board of trustees under a chairmanof ministerial rank appointed for five years by Presidential Decree. TheMinister of National Guidance, however, could be called upon to expressopinions and recommendations as a member of the board. Should it provenecessary he may also issue directives which must be sanctioned by theboard as soon as possible.

The State Information Service is responsible for collecting, reproducingand disseminating information about Egypt for diffusion abroad, or infor-mation from abroad concerning Egypt for diffusion at home. The servicehas access to all the means of mass communication although it does notown these means itself. It is concerned also with the enlightenment ofworld public opinion with regard to the political positions adopted by theEgyptian government. Visiting journalists and workers in other informationmedia are received by the information service and provided with all thefacts they may require. The service also has a public relations aspect as itis responsible for arranging interviews and visits at home and abroad. Itspress and publications duties include the preparation of books, booklets andprospectuses on various subjects concerned with social and economic pro-gress in Egypt. These publications are used at the information desks attachedto Egyptian diplomatic missions and in tourist centres within the country.These publications are designed primarily as simple introductions to varioustopics, the service also makes a larger range of facts and data available formore serious research. Another function is that of projecting an image ofEgypt abroad which corrects the distortions of tendentious propaganda

18


while avoiding the pitfalls of extravagant self-praise. From the purely cul-tural point of view the service is able to provide an interesting selection oftape-recordings of speech, music and song, slides of archaeological sites andphotographs and press material for use in feature articles. There is also arich documentary film archive.

The service is under a director-general with the rank of vice-minister,appointed hy Presidential Decree. He has recently also taken over thefunction of official spokesman for the government, holding weekly pressconferences for Egyptian and foreign newsmen. This dual responsibility isnot necessarily part of his duties and functions. However, in recent yearsthe experiment has proved successful, supplementing the news service withstatements bearing the full authority of a high-ranking person of responsi-bility in the State.

The director-general is assisted by four controllers-general, each withhis own responsibilities.1

Controller-General of Information and Publications (responsible for newsbulletins, press and publications, editorials, information).

Controller-General of Information for Overseas Distribution (responsible forinformation centres and press offices abroad, services, overseas relations,foreign journalists, transport and communication).

Controller-General of Home Information (responsible for local communi-cation, local information centres, services).

Controller-General of Information Programmes (responsible for films andvisual media, photography and design, printing, stores and archives).

THE MINISTRY OF TOURISM

This ministry is concerned with the organization and planning of the touristtrade in Egypt. It does not have the functions of a travel agency (of whichthere are two in the public and forty in the private sector). The ministry isa planning and organizing body with the following functions.Planning of a policy and programmes for tourist promotion at home and

abroad.Providing all the information and advertising material for the encour-

agement of tourism in Egypt.Preparing and contracting international tourist agreements.Providing services and public-relation facilities at sea ports and airports for

the reception of tourists.Organizing and taking part in international tourist conferences and

seminars.Supervision of hotel accommodation and control of tourist services in the

public and private sectors.Promotion of hotel management studies and the training of hotel personnel.

1. Information kindly supplied by the Ministry of National Guidance.

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The minister is Chairman of the Corporation of State Hotels, which is runon commercial lines. He is also Chairman of the Higher Council of TouristServices, a supervisory body concerned with the general planning and controlof the tourist industry, and an advisory body for research and planning.

THE MINISTRY OP YOUTH

This ministry deals primarily with social welfare, sport and cultural activi-ties for the young up to the time when their formal education ends. Itcombines the functions of an extramural studies organization, a Boy Scoutmovement, an authority in charge of the planning, preparation and super-vision of sporting events, sports clubs, hobbies centres and vocationaltraining centres. The range is, of course, very wide and the ministry is asdecentralized as possible. Other activities include the organization of youthfestivals and youth camps, international and national, in the internationalmovement of student and youth organizations by attendance at conferencesand international rallies. A lively documentary film unit attached to theministry which has produced over twenty short films for the hobbiescentres, and twenty longer documentary films on youth festivals and youthcamps. Particular attention is being paid now to the young in rural areas,where one of the main problems is finding stimulating occupations for pupilsafter school hours, without creating family conflicts which might occur ifthe children are needed at home or in the fields. With patience and a senseof humour and gentle persuasion much has already been achieved.

Ministries which include cultural departments

THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

This ministry is responsible for the formal education of children up to theage of leaving secondary school (usually between 17 and 18). Education isfree at all stages and compulsory at the elementary level. In 1968/69 therewere 2,189,000 boys and 1,361,000 girls in the 7,816 elementary schools,working on morning and afternoon shifts; 781,000 pupils in 1,311 prepara-tory schools; and 473,000 in 531 secondary schools. In 1969, there were justunder 5 million children in all schools—a veritable education explosion; and123,000 students who passed their school-leaving examination.1 Thesefigures reflect the pyramidal structure of the population. In 1960, 43 percent of the total population was under the age of 15.2

The dimensions of the task are indeed formidable. Undaunted, the

1. Statistical Abstract of the UAR 1951-1952—1968-1969, Cairo, Central Agency forPublic Mobilization and Statistics, June 1970.

2. United Nations Demographic Yearbook, 1968, New York, N.Y., United Nations, 1969.

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ministry lias taken up the challenge to eliminate backwardness and obscu-rantism. It has also embarked on a nation-wide programme of adult edu-cation and set 1975 as the deadline by which illiteracy should be eradicatedfrom every province of the republic. Besides this tremendous task the min-istry has started a programme for the diffusion of culture among themembers of the school population. A desire for culture is regarded by theministry as an essential condition for the useful absorption of knowledge bythe pupils under its supervision.

Its aim, therefore, is to produce, at the end of each school cycle, a certainrecognized level of culture in each student.

It has two means available for this purpose. The first lies in the contentsof the actual school programme itself, which try to cover a sufficiently widerange but also to extend the child's mind gradually from his local intereststo a more universal outlook—social, intellectual, emotional and ethical.Secondly, in activities outside the school programme; books and otherprinted material, talks and debates, and organized services within the localcommunity.

Reading is encouraged by providing access to books for all pupils inaccordance with their ages: books dealing with science, art and literature.Secondary schools now have 584 libraries; preparatory schools, 1,250; forsmaller children there are 700 model libraries. No library contains less than2,000 items. They are not purely academic, being at the service of all the localinhabitants, not only during term but also during holidays, when the schoolsare used as meeting places for discussions and lectures. When librariesdo not exist, circulating libraries are able to replace them to some extent.

Each school is organized into groups with varied functions so that pupilscan, according to individual taste and ability, share in one or more of theseactivities. School clubs are encouraged for specific purposes such as sciencesor languages, or for more leisurely purposes, such as reading, listening tothe radio or watching television. For the holidays there are summer clubsdesigned to meet the needs of the particular neighbourhood. Both parentsand children can take part in these clubs' activities.

Publications within the schools are of the first importance. Each schoolpublishes an annual review that is written by the pupils. The ministryawards prizes each year for the best efforts. Also important, within andoutside the school, are the posters and publications on the walls outside theclass-room that give news on subjects of local interest. Each educationaldivision holds an annual exhibition of such papers. School forms often pro-duce their own magazines and these provide matter for the annual review.In addition there are bulletins for special occasions, such as national orreligious festivals.

Summer clubs aim at profitably filling the students' leisure time. Theyhave cultural, social, artistic and sports programmes. Forty such clubsfor boys and twenty for girls are planned for 1970-71 in the variousgovernorates.

21

. Administrative and financial structures

Increasing use is being made of the opportunities provided by schoolsfor organizing community service centres whose purpose is to raise the gen-eral cultural level. For a token payment, parents and children can join, anduse the facilities provided for various activities. A most important aspect ofthe schools as community centres are the evening classes which continuethe campaign against illiteracy.

Many literary, artistic and scientific activities are encouraged. To stimu-late interest there are music and art competitions, with prizes. Culturaloutings and excursions are considered essential but these naturally varyaccording to the school cycle, beginning with local outings (walks, picnics,weekends and so on) and gradually extending to more distant localities. Theministry itself organizes trips abroad. Camping is also organized, for a day,over weekends or as a form of seaside holidays. A breakdown of the variousschool cultural activities is given below.1Model libraries: for various grades (excluding elementary) in 1964/65 (the

last year for which figures are available)—889 libraries.Model libraries: for elementary-school children (1964/65)—677 libraries.Model libraries: for fifth and sixth forms in primary schools (1964/65)—

12,992 libraries (i.e. 60 per cent of total number of classes).Number of new titles distributed to school libraries—456 for various

grades.Central Schools Library in Cairo—1,675 new books acquired in 1968/69;

in 1969/70 the library had 49,452 books in stock.Journalistic activities—40,000 wall journals.Clubs—50 new clubs organized in 1969/70 for about 8,000 students.Excursions—52 major excursions; 2 sports camps for 222 students of both

sexes (primary and secondary school); 1 camp for children (529 primary-schoolboys and girls); 375 students undertook responsibilities within thestudents' union.

THE MINISTRY OP HIGHER EDUCATION

The purely cultural activities of this ministry (as distinct from its responsi-bility for the administration and planning of universities and higher insti-tutes) come under the authority of the Under-Secretary of State for CulturalAffairs, and include the following.The organization of cultural and scientific co-operation between Egypt and

other Arab and foreign countries.The preparation of international conferences and seminars.The organization of cultural competitions among university students in

Egypt.The diffusion of the Arabic language abroad.Curricula and syllabuses research and studies, national and international.

1. Information from the Ministry of Education, Cairo.

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The operation of Egyptian cultural centres abroad.1Liaison between the government and TJnesco. The ministry also deals with

international assistance and technical co-operation in culture, educationand research.

Documentation and research in all matters relating to educational devel-opment programmes sponsored by Unesco or other international organ-izations.

The welfare and guidance of Egyptian citizens studying abroad eitherprivately or as members of government missions.

The supply of cultural and political material to youth organizations at homeand members of educational missions abroad.

The Minister of Higher Education is Chairman of the Egyptian NationalCommission for Unesco, and of the Higher Commission for EducationalMissions Abroad. The Higher Commission has done some very good workin recent years by instituting a five-year plan for missions, thus gearing themissions plan to the requirements of Egypt during its period of developmentand industrialization. This rationalization of what used to be a slightly hap-hazard missions programme is already yielding worthwhile results in theuniversities and in industry.

In the five State universities in 1968/69, there were 142,975 students.In 1967/68 there were 20,739 graduates and an enrolment of 4,996.

The magnitude of those figures is an index of the nation-wide desire foreducation and qualification which is geared to the State policy of fullemployment. It is also indicative of the magnitude of the purely culturaltasks undertaken by the ministry.

THE MINISTRY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

This ministry was founded in 1961 to administer the activities of the variousresearch centres and institutes which have been founded since the Revol-ution of 1952. The ministry also established an advisory board to draw upa science policy for the nation as well as specialized councils for researchdevelopment. The National Research Centre and the Atomic Energy Organ-ization (both founded in 1956) come administratively under the minis-try. Seventeen institutes deal with specialized aspects of research.

The ministry supervises two specifically cultural bodies, the ScienceMuseum and the Centre for Scientific Documentation. The Science Museum,entirely reconditioned and reorganized, became a modern multipurpose

1. These are multipurpose centres, which serve as bases for the usual cultural activitiessuch as lectures, films and library services as well as being centres for the diffusion ofArabic culture and language. Students On missions abroad may also use these centresfor recreational and educational purposes. There are two such centres in Libya, two inSomalia, one in Mauritania, one in Nigeria and one in Sierra Leone. There is also avery important Centre of Islamic Studies in Madrid which comes under the sameadministration.

23


instrument of scientific culture in 1962. Apart from biology and engineering,a special section is devoted to reduced models and miniature workingmachines. Schools and training colleges use the museum facilities to providelively and interesting illustrations for the overwhelming theoretical class-room teaching. Science is brought to the general public by means of filmand slide projections, lectures, demonstration experiments (in which mem-bers of the public are frequently invited to participate), and simple lavishlyillustrated booklets.

The Centre for Scientific Documentation serves various cultural pur-poses through: (a) a large central library of science and technology, con-taining a wide range of periodicals and abstracts on research in progress athome and abroad; (b) an international patents centre; (c) the publicationof a directory of scientific periodicals in Egypt; (d) the publication ofspecialized scientific journals and the organization of exchanges with simi-lar journals abroad; (e) the publication, in English, French and Arabic,of abstracts of articles relevant to the scientific and technological prob-lems of the Middle East; (f) the reproduction of scientific documents andmaterial; (g) a vast scientific translation programme for the benefit of aca-demic and industrial organizations.

THE MINISTRIES OF WAQFSAND EL-AZHAR AFFAIRS

The State's concern for the promotion of Islamic culture, both at home andabroad, is embodied in the cultural activities of the ministries of Waqfs(religious endowments) and El-Azhar Affairs.

Islamic culture flows through a great variety of channels, from theschools of formal education to the wireless and television programmes andthe printed work. But the mosque, that traditional forum for ethical injunc-tion and religious apologetics, is still the most popular. Over 20,000 mosquesare supported and maintained. Each has a preacher, whose functions covera wide scope. He may proffer advice in matters of morals or religiousorthodoxy, preach the Friday sermon to the congregation, give catechismlessons to the young and organize special evening classes for women. Hisduties may include the supervision of the mosque library, organizing classesfor the study of the Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet and he actsgenerally in an advisory capacity to the community in which he lives.Although there is no priesthood in Islam, the social functions of the imam,especially in rural areas, are not very dissimilar from those of a vicar orcurate. To this day, in the village and the small provincial town, the mosqueis a centre of enlightenment for a working population that has very restric-ted means of entertainment and cultivation.

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The Ministry of Waqfs

This ministry is officially responsible for the diffusion of Islamic teaching inEgypt and abroad. Its main cultural functions are 'the spread of Islamicculture, the cultivation of religious knowledge, the revival of the cultural andreligious heritage of Islam and the preservation and diffusion of the HolyKoran by means of the printed word and other forms of reproductions'.Within the ministry, two main bodies carry out this policy, the DirectorateGeneral for the Diffusion of Islam and the Higher Council for Islamic Affairs.The Directorate General has two departments, the Department of Congre-gational Mosques and Oratories, and the Department of Technical Affairs.The former is concerned with the maintenance and development of the20,000 mosques. It may also distribute literature and information in therepublic, to serve as material for the Friday sermon and the occasionalreligious seminars which are held in the mosque. The Department of TechnicalAffairs is responsible for a monthly publication which is distributed to allthe mosques of Egypt. This publication contains discussions of current affairsand matters of vital concern to public opinion in the light of Islamic teaching.It also issues a series of booklets and pamphlets entitled 'The Imam's Library'which includes expository essays on matters of theology and private de-votion as well as contributions to Moslem apologetics and pulpit oratory.

The Higher Council for Islamic Affairs1 is divided into specialized com-missions and has a number of clear objectives.The preparation of a reliable and clear exegesis of the Koran.The collection of the sound and authoritative tradition of the Prophet

Mohammad.The publication of periodicals and books in a variety of languages to spread

an unadulterated knowledge of Islamic culture and teachings.Islamic diffusion throughout the world through bursaries and grants-in-aid

for foreign Moslem students studying at universities and religious insti-tutes in Egypt.

The preparation and supply of comprehensive libraries of Islamic knowledgeto academic and religious institutes abroad.

The delegation of preachers, theologians and reciters of the Koran to a varietyof Islamic countries, especially during the holy month of Ramadan.

Contributing financially and technically in establishing mosques and centresof Islamic studies abroad in co-operation with the Moslem communitieswhich ask for them.

The Ministry of El-Azhar Affairs

This ministry and the Ministry of Waqfs are at present under the same min-ister, but this is not to say that their functions are identical. The Ministry of

1. See organization chart in Appendix (page 92).

25


El- Azhar Affairs has developed from the venerable traditions of the CathedralMosque of El-Azhar, the most ancient university in the world (founded A.D.971) and one of the high places of Islamic devotion and study. It representsan attempt to give administrative shape and modern executive effectivenessto a traditional centre of religious education. Its functions are as follows:Research and authoritative guidance in matters of faith and morals.The development of Islamic education and the supervision of higher studies

in Islamic theology.The refutation of defamatory attacks on Islam.The publication of studies on Islamic doctrine in various languages.The supply of preachers and religious instructors to Moslem communities

and Islamic cultural centres abroad.The reception and accommodation of foreign students of Islamic theology.The introduction of Islamic culture to foreign visitors.The supervision of religious periodicals.Co-operation with Islamic institutes in various Moslem countries in pro-

viding teachers and establishing syllabuses.The supply of copies of the Holy Koran and religious books to the govern-

ments of Moslem States.

International cultural co-operation

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the official link between the culturalorganizations at home and their equivalents abroad, and operates throughthe Department of Cultural Relations and Technical Co-operation, which inturn operates through various divisions: planning and research, projects andtechnical aid, treaties, the Arab world, Africa, Europe, the two Americas,Asia and Australia, religious affairs, technical affairs and public relations.

The department formulates co-operation policy as part of the State'sforeign policy, and organizes liaison with foreign organizations, includingcultural societies and publishing houses, and advises on international exhi-bitions and fairs. It drafts projects for technical aid and cultural agreements,supervises executive plans and follows up the activities connected withcultural and technical exchange (such as studentships and bursaries).

It prepares the agenda for the meetings of the Foreign Cultural RelationsGeneral State Committee and for its sub-committees and provides thesecommittees with the results of its own studies and research.

Cultural budgets

Cultural activities are directed in principle by the Ministry of Planning andby the planning department in the various ministries. Since 1960 there havebeen two five-year plans, which have been fulfilled in circumstances of

26


considerable difficulty. The third plan is under way. Because of the specialcircumstances of development and growth, certain priorities have beenfeatured in all three plans. The constant hostilities against the country havemade it necessary that defence expenditure should be given first priority.The demographic explosion and the rising demands of a people in a periodof socialist transformation make supply the next priority. Thirdly coniesproduction—rapid expansion under industrialization and the emphasis onraising the standard of living. Finally come services, which include cultureand education. These priorities are dictated by present necessities but, in asituation of growth such as that of Egypt, it can be suggested with someconfidence that services are bound to become more important before long.One reservation must be made, however; culture does not fall entirely intothe services sector, and may belong to production rather than services(e.g. publishing and the film industry). Funds allocated for strictly culturalpurposes are difficult to group together, and the same budget headings mayimply different forms of cultural activity in different ministries. Again, theremay be State contributions, tax relief or subsidies in particular cases wherea temporary solution is required for an urgent problem, e.g. the State sub-sidy to the Ministry of Culture to celebrate the Millenary of Cairo.

Table 5 shows that the Ministry of Culture alone in 1969/70 accountedfor £(E)13,669,900, almost one-third of which went to the archaeological

TABLE 5 Total budget of the Ministry of Culture, 1969/70

Sector

General administrationAcademy of the ArtsPopular cultureNational Library and State Archives

Credits for 1969/70 Percentage of total(in £(E)) budget of ministry

1 140 000463 500525 000669 000

8.33.43.84.9

ArchaeologyDepartment of AntiquitiesCentre of Dociimentation on Ancient

EgyptFund for Financing archaeological

projects and museumsService for the preservation of the

monuments of Nubia

Academy of the Arabic LanguageHigher Council for Arts, Letters and

the Social SciencesEditing and Publishing OrganizationTheatre and Music OrganizationCinema Organization

1 374 400

73800

360 000

2 488 0004 296 200

785 000

2 507 0001 788 0001 137 0003 322 000

31.4

0.57

1.813.18.3

24.3

Source: Department of Research and Planning, Ministry of Culture.

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sector. This is not surprising in view of the vast scale of the problemsinvolved in preserving the national heritage. In plans for the futurethe ministry intends to devote a larger part of its fund to the developmentof the houses of culture and rural cultural centres (listed under 'PopularCulture').

If we remember that cultural financing is in fact spread out over anumber of ministries with various cultural functions, we obtain a very muchmore hopeful picture of the finances available for culture, i.e. 7.95 per centof the total budget (see Table 6). The ministries of national guidance,tourism and youth grouped together with the Ministry of Culture, were1.4 per cent of the total State budget for 1969/70. It is interesting to notethat, in this broader scheme, the ministries of culture and national guidanceeach absorbed exactly 0.56 per cent of the budget, no doubt a survival of thesituation when they were both combined in a single ministry. On the otherhand, the ministries of education, higher education, Waqfs, El-Azhar affairs,labour and social affairs, whose activities have an unmistakable culturalcontent, account for 6.5 per cent.

TABLE 6 Budgets of ministries with cultural attributions, 1969/70

Ministry Credits for 1969/70in millions £(E)

Percentage oftotal State

budget

CultureNational guidanceTourismYouthEducationHigher educationWaqfsEl-Azhar affairsLabourSocial affairs

TOTAL1

13.613.66.03.0

102.328.75.77.62.4

__9.1192.0

0.560.560.250.124.241.190.240.310.100.387.95

1. Total State budget, £(E)2,414.6 million.Source: Department of Research and Planning, Ministry of Culture.

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The Ministry of Culture

The Ministry of Culture was reorganized by Presidential Decree in 1971 (seethe Appendix, page 88). The main constituents are almost identical—itis not an old established ministry with well-defined traditions and pro-cedures. Being both a service and a development ministry, adapting itselfto the changing needs of a situation of growth and enjoying a certain lati-tude for experiment in its methods, it is constantly exploiting new possi-bilities and devising new formulae.

Historical background

The Department of Culture in the Ministry of Education was absorbed intothe Ministry of Culture and National Guidance in 1956, which becameresponsible for the arts and literature, and the mass media. This arrange-ment did not prove altogether satisfactory, as the rhythm of culturalprogress was necessarily much slower than that of the mass media; besideswhich the political and information content of 'national guidance' (happilyrenamed 'information' in 1970) imposed an urgency and a certain measureof discretion which were not at all necessary in long-term cultural pro-grammes. Structural changes and a redistribution of attributions led to theformation of three separate ministries (national guidance, culture, andtourism). Later they were all grouped under a single Deputy Prime Ministerin order to ensure a certain amount of co-ordination. For two years (1964and 1965), a Ministry of Foreign Cultural Relations was set up, andthen reabsorbed into the ministries involved in international cultural co-operation. In October 1966 the Ministry of Culture was formally detachedfrom all ministries engaged in similar activities and placed directly undera minister who was also a Deputy Prime Minister. This was intendedto demonstrate the importance which the State attached to long-termplanning, and as a recognition of the role of culture in development. A

29


recent decision separates the long-term planning and the executive func-tions. While the ministry has been given every assistance in performing itsexecutive duties, a new post has been attached to the Presidency of theRepublic—Assistant to the President for Cultural Affairs. It is at this levelthat research and long-term planning is to be undertaken.

The Assistant will be concerned with the planning of culture in thewidest sense of the term, with first priority to co-ordination between thevarious agencies in the State which are involved in cultural activities.

Organization

The ministry is divided into four main sections: (a) the ministry proper;(b) the corporations under the authority of the minister; (c) The HigherCouncil for Arts, Letters and the Social Sciences, which enjoys a certainautonomy but the minister is its Chairman; and (d) The Academy of theArabic Language, which, to all intents and purposes, is an independentbody; the minister is its Patron.

THE MINISTRY PROPER

After a series of structural changes, the ministry now falls into nine easilydistinguishable sections, each headed by an under-secretary who is directlyresponsible to the minister.

The Minister's Office

Apart from its obvious functions as the centre of authority and control, thisoffice is also concerned with the various projects, experimental or other-wise, which require particular encouragement and patronage, e.g. theNational Ballet Company, the new tapestry workshop and a large varietyof new projects come directly under it. The reasons are not difficult tounderstand. A new project or one which has somehow lost some of its initialdriving force needs special care and close follow-up. As soon as it can stand onits own feet it is placed under the appropriate agency in the ministry. Underthe heading 'New ideas' (page 36), certain projects from the Minister's Officeand benefiting from his own patronage and close attention, are listed.

The office is also responsible for cinema and theatre censorship which isunderstood in Egypt not simply as protecting the nation's morals but alsoas promoting interest in new and unexplored avenues of creativity. Theactual censorship is exercised by a censorship board which includes a broadselection of intellectuals, artists, academics and members of the public. Thecensorship acts, therefore, in two capacities, first, as a gauge of the culturaldemand of minority and majority audiences and, second, as a promoter ofnew ideas and experiments.

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Archaeology

Funds for archaeology are made available by budgetary appropriations orthrough international co-operation and technical assistance. To the outsideworld, culture in Egypt is dramatically exemplified by its vast archaeo-logical heritage, which requires a large organization to supervise the multipleactivities of digging, collecting, displaying, recording and research. Thereare probably more different stratifications of archaeological remains inEgypt than in any other country in the world and, although much hasalready been achieved for the last 170 years by State action and by foreignexpeditions, there is still a world of untapped archaeological discovery.

Fine arts

This sector deals with promotion of the arts and their adequate display.The main concern is to organize exhibitions and help promote the livingarts in Egypt by providing studio space, art materials, research and pub-licity at little or no cost. There are at present forty artists' studios, ownedby the ministry, which are lent for indefinite periods to practising artists.Under the patronage of the fine-arts sector, an annual exhibition of the artsis set up in one of the largest halls in Cairo. Works are bought by the Statefor the Museum of Modern Art, but they are also shown to the other minis-tries which may also purchase. In 1969, for example, the Foreign Ministrybought £(E)5,000 worth of paintings and sculptures for display in embassiesabroad. Almost every important theatre, municipal building or house ofculture now has a small collection of paintings, and these are prominentlydisplayed in one of its main halls. The faculties of Cairo University nowhave a permanent open-air exhibition of Egyptian sculpture comprised ofitems bought with the help of the Ministry of Culture. The sector alsofinances the dispatch and insurance of deserving exhibitions of Egyptianartists abroad. It thus acts as a patron, a marketing agent and an organizerof museums and exhibitions.

The Academy of the Arts

This groups all the educational and training functions of the Ministry ofCulture. It has acquired semi-autonomous status with a rector (under-sec-retary rank) who is answerable directly to the minister and a senate of theacademy. The academy covers preparatory and secondary education, highereducation and post-graduate research. Its distinguishing feature is its artis-tic slant; at the higher level, general educational subjects are abandoned infavour of intensive training in the arts.

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Foreign cultural relations

This sector engages foreign experts where they may be needed in theministry (and especially in the Academy of the Arts). It helps in the prep-aration and implementation of the non-educational aspects of internationalcultural agreements. Some of the commitments involved are best carriedout by the relevant authority in the ministry, but in some cases the sectorhas found it more practical to take responsibility for all stages of theimplementation, particularly in the case of foreign exhibitions, film weeksand musical events. A recent addition to this sector has been the U.A.R. ArtAcademy in Rome which houses distinguished graduates in the arts who aresent to Rome to complete their artistic training.

General administration

This is the central office for financial and administrative affairs. It is respon-sible for all organizational matters and personnel. It has put forward apension scheme for such non-trade-union citizens as free-lance journalistsand self-employed artists and writers, who otherwise have to depend onlyon the general pension scheme of the State, in which pensions are based onactual years of service.

Popular culture

This represents a most successful experiment in decentralization. It is, toquote Dr. Sarwat Okasha who, as Minister of Culture, initiated this part ofthe ministry's activities:It is the Ministry of Culture in microcosm . . . bringing culture to the people inthe villages and provincial towns, re-enacting through the houses of culture andthe village cultural centres all the functions of the central Ministry. . . .

It is generally regarded as one of the factors for change in provincial andrural society. Although its head office is in Cairo, its action ranges far andwide: seventeen houses of culture in the provincial capitals, twenty-fivemobile caravans, 200 village cultural centres and two pilot cultural centres forchildren. However, it must be remembered that there are twenty-five pro-vincial capitals, 7,000 villages and 33 million Egyptians of whom 6 millionare children!

Planning and research

This sector was originally part of the general administration but, in view ofits growing importance, it has recently been detached and placed under anunder-secretary. The day-to-day agitation of administrative offices is not asuitable environment for the long-term and speculative work of planningand research. Another reason for its semi-autonomy is that it works in closeco-ordination with the Ministry of Planning, so that cultural developmentcan be carefully geared to the general growth plan of the State.

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Libraries and archives

Housed in two separate buildings the National Library and the StateArchives are under the authority of an under-secretary. The work of thissector of the ministry is undeniably long-term, and requires a certainmeasure of autonomy. The National Library is being transferred to a newbuilding which has been designed with the requirements of expansion wellin mind.

This, briefly, is the present organizational structure. But the Ministry ofCulture is particularly sensitive to changing conditions and the require-ments of development. Mergers and re-groupings are not unexpected, as thenew organization chart for the ministry shows (see Appendix, page 88).

CORPORATIONS UNDER THE ATTTHORITTOF THE MINISTER

Publishing and printing

After a fairly long series of vicissitudes in the public sector the Publishingand Printing Corporation has become a semi-autonomous body within theMinistry of Culture. The corporation was originally intended to be afinancially independent profit-earning organization. It soon became abun-dantly clear that the State Publishing House must, by the very nature andquality of its work, be run as a subsidized public service. The compromisesolution arrived at recently appears to be satisfactory. The corporationhas some purely commercial operations and a number of long-term non-commercial projects. The commercial side of its activities is meant to yielda certain revenue, but any deficit is borne by the State in order to allow itto carry out its essentially cultural plans.

Theatre and music and folk-art

This is a corporation which enjoys the same financial privileges as the StatePublishing House. It is commonly agreed that the theatre arts are relativelycostly and uneconomical in a developing country but, as their necessity isalso universally recognized, the corporation has become almost entirelyState-subsidized. Music is run as a purely cultural service. Most concertsare free of charge in order to promote interest, especially among the young.

Cinema

The State Cinema Corporation is run on strictly economic lines, like anationalized industry. This is made possible by the commercial success ofEgyptian films both at home and abroad. The corporation has a Documentary

33

Tie Ministry of Culture

Film Centre which, offers purely cultural services and which is supportedwith funds from the commercial activities of the cinema corporation.Although there is a thriving private sector it is the corporation which ownsthe total material means of production, such as the studios and thelaboratories.

THE HIGHER COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS,LETTERS AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

This is a consultative body whose president is the Minister of Culture. Itsprincipal purpose is to give advice and offer patronage in all matters per-taining to culture. It has elected and co-opted members and includes theoutstanding representatives of the various cultural disciplines. Among itsattributions are the supervision of an extensive programme of translation,the holding of international conferences and seminars and the selection ofcandidates for State awards and prizes. Although primarily consultative,it is also the principal instrument of State patronage and a publisher in itsown right of a limited number of books in the humanities.

THE ACADEMY OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE

This will be described at greater length in the next chapter, but one mightpoint out that its link with the Ministry of Culture is through the patronageand honorary chairmanship of the Minister of Culture. The academy isthe highest authority in all matters relating to the Arabic language. Itoccasionally co-operates with the higher council and other bodies withinthe ministry in serious and particularly scholarly publications. It is nowengaged in preparing a dictionary of sociological terms, with substantialUnesco assistance.

Cultural policy

The clearest and fullest text on the ministry's cultural policy is the state-ment made by Dr. Sarwat Okasha, the Minister of Culture, to the Com-mission for Services in the National Assembly on 16 June 1969.1 The mainpoints are summarized below.

The first duty of a ministry of culture is to ensure the widest access toculture and the widest possible participation. To achieve this result, it mustplace under its authority a number of concert halls, theatres, exhibitionhalls and cinemas in order to create the actual venue for the public's accessto culture without its being submitted to the prohibitive conditions of econ-omic supply and demand. Whenever it has been possible, the ministry hasmade cultural events absolutely free of charge. Otherwhise, a symbolic

1. Published by the National Library (in Arabic).

34


entrance fee is charged. Exhibitions are all open to the public, but there areother events which, for reasons of educational promotion, are made almostfree. Such, for example, was the International Festival of Documentary andShort Films in 1970 when an entrance fee of half a piastre was charged inorder to encourage a vast public to take an interest in this apparently rebar-bative form of cinema art. Participation in cultural action is one of thedistinguishing features of a ministry of culture, for it cannot exist merelyas a sort of glorified State impresario. It must be a receiver if it is to becomea true transmitter. A ministry cannot create an individual genius or evenan artistic movement. It can, however, create the atmosphere and themeans which will allow talent and genius to flourish.

Cultural policy is not an independent phenomenon—a plan which canbe devised exclusively for culture in a developing society such as that ofEgypt. Culture is closely related to education and the general ethos of acountry, which is itself an outcome of the system of life and the degree ofeconomic development. It is essential therefore that cultural planning bepart of the over-all plan of development. The exercise of the sensibility andthe intellect which is the result of cultural development makes a real contri-bution to the raising of productivity in a given society.

One of the pitfalls of cultural planning is the temptation to patronize,to lower standards under the mistaken impression that the widest dissemi-nation of cultural values involves a necessary simplification or vulgariz-ation. Dissemination is a matter of finding channels for cultural action, nota sacrifice of quality to the demands of quantity. In other words what theMinistry of Culture diffuses must always be of the highest quality, withoutany concessions to shallowness.

Culture in Egypt must be based on exchange. The cultural heritage mustbe preserved and nurtured, but it must also be open to a situation of dia-logue with influences from abroad. A ministry of culture can help to createthis dialogue, and by means of cultural exchanges, the cross-fertilization ofthe cultural heritage with modern and alien cultures can be achieved.

Cultural planning in a developing society cannot allow for decentraliz-ation immediately. A certain degree of centralization is necessary to ensurethat the ministry is able to initiate, and that it can control with a minimumof fuss and red-tape. Naturally, decentralization or, even better, poly-centrism, is a desirable objective, but until a suflicient 'acculturation' hasbeen achieved, planning must rely heavily on a central controlling agency.

One of the survivals of a situation of neglect and laissez-faire has beena tendency to regard cultural action as nothing but a form of production,the promotion of cultural goods for a consumer whose attitude towardsthem may be dictated by extra-cultural considerations. This belief does not,of course, tally with a socialist approach to the problems of a developingsociety. The ministry regards itself duty bound to establish as firmly aspossible the notion that culture is essentially a service rather than a com-mercial product.

35


In the present period of development and national emergency, the minis-try prefers to concentrate on the improvement of the instruments alreadyestablished rather than embark upon new and costly projects. It is com-monly admitted that the new cultural projects such as the complex ofmuseums to replace the old museums of Egyptian, Coptic and Islamicantiquities must wait for more prosperous times. Research, study and theperfecting of what is already in operation are probably as important as anexpansion which might be too rapid.

The ministry therefore regards its activities as divisible into the time-sequence of the past, the present and the future. The past implies all theactivities devoted to the protection and preservation of the cultural heri-tage. The present is a convenient expression to cover the living arts andtheir promotion. The future, of course, is the prospect of all the ministry'straining programmes. A separate chapter will be devoted to each of thesefacets.

New ideas

The 'retrenchment and reform' being practised at the ministry do not implythe total abandoning of new projects. Some have been initiated, but othersare still at the blueprint stage.

The Palace of the Arts. This is a vast eleven-storey building which isunder construction in Giza. It was designed by a group of architects fromItaly and Egypt. This building is to house the Museum of Modern Art, aGallery of the History of Art in Reproduction (colour prints and plastercasts), the National Film Society, two projection halls for 1,000 personseach, a Library of Art Books, a Record Library with a large auditoriumand cubicles for individual listening, an Art Centre for Children, elevenartist's studios, two multi-purpose exhibition halls, a small theatre forexperimental productions, and a lecture hall.

The Roman Amphitheatre in Alexandria. This was recently excavatedand restored by an expedition of Polish archaeologists. It is being preparedfor productions of Roman comedies and Greek tragedies, with modernlighting but no decor. This small open-air theatre is in the centre of thetown but its position excavated out of a hill of debris makes it acousticallysatisfactory. Concerts can be given by string quartets and soloists withoutdisturbance from the noise of traffic.

The Solar Boat Museum. This is a small, air-conditioned hall speciallybuilt beside the Pyramid of Cheops to display the Solar Boat which wasdiscovered near by.

The Tapestry Centre. In Ancient Egypt the twin arts of weaving andtapestry formed a thriving industry. Experiments with folk-weaving andtapestry are still most successful today, as all will know who have visitedthe exhibitions of peasant children's tapestry and weaving from Harraneya

36


under the supervision of Ramses Wissa Wassef. These children's tapestrieshave been shown in New York, London, Paris and most of the capitals ofEurope. The ministry has revived this ancient art along modern lines.Weavers have been sent on study missions to the French workshops of LesGobelins and Aubusson to learn more sophisticated techniques of tapestry-weaving, and are now back in a tapestry centre in Helwan near Cairo. Theyare producing the first modern tapestries inspired by tapestry cartoonsdesigned by Egyptian artists.

The Youth Orchestra. This is an orchestra formed by the students at theHigher Institute of Music. They have given a few public performanceswhich were much appreciated. Ultimately, this orchestra will provide atesting ground for future players in the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. Atpresent, however, it provides an opportunity for students of music to learnto play together and to gain a wider experience of music than can be learnedin the class-room.

Provincial Museums. Duplicate and supernumerary archaeological ob-jects in the stores of the four great museums of antiquities in Cairo andAlexandria will be gradually housed in smaller museums now being built inthe capitals of the governorates. Two already exist: it is estimated that bythe end of 1975, twenty-five will be open to the public.

Son et Lumiere at Karnak. The tremendous success of son et lumiere atthe pyramids suggested the idea of producing one in Karnak. There was aproblem of presentation, however, for a static show would not be satisfac-tory. An interesting alternative has been devised, to accompany the spec-tator in the course of a gentle walk through the site, culminating in a grandfinale at the Sacred Lake. It should be in operation towards the end of 1971.

Ancient Egyptian Drama. A modern dramatic presentation (with masks,mime and speech) of the religious dramatic texts still surviving from AncientEgypt will be set up near the Pyramid of Chephren. It will utilize the mostrecent methods of dramatic production, with an edited, reconstructed textderived from the hieratic rites of the Mystery of Isis and Osiris.

The Higher Institute of Art Criticism. The dearth of arts administratorsand promoters prompted an attempt to remedy the situation by providinga course in the appreciation of the arts. This post-graduate course isintended as an initiation into a deeper knowledge of the visual arts, thehistory of art, the theatre arts, cinema and music. Entrance is by competi-tive examination. After one year, devoted to a survey of all the forms ofartistic expression, students are expected to specialize in one of the followingdisciplines: music, cinema, the visual arts, or drama; a diploma is awarded.The institute has attracted a large number of people who are not necessarilyengaged in cultural work, but who want to extend their taste and acquirea deeper understanding of the arts.

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The conservationof the cultural heritage

The ancient land of Egypt, long recognized as the cradle of civilization has,in the course of its history, played many roles in the initiation, developmentand transmission of cultural life. It is a commonplace to stress the extra-ordinary vitality of the ideas which emanated from that first example oforganized human society on the banks of the Nile. From Egypt to theWest, by way of Greece and Rome, there is a generally accepted pattern ofhistorical progress. Egypt was not only a transmitter of civilization, butalso a receiver of what was often that same basic culture refashioned abroad.The receptivity of the Egyptian people was, however, constantly tingedwith a capacity for re-absorption and a genius for naturalization. TheHellenism and the Latinity which flourished in Egypt had a quality whichdistinguished them from those that were known anywhere else in the world.In Egypt one empire succeeded another, sinking into the rich land andproducing a superimposition of archaeological strata which is perhapsunique. Egypt today is a vast open-air museum of civilizations. Themigration of peoples and the cross-fertilization of the Egyptian ethos witha tremendous diversity of cultures and religious traditions have created anextremely rich fund of folklore and archetypal patterns of thought andsensibility.

Archaeological sites and monuments

THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES

No country has as vast and well preserved a collection of antiquitiescovering so many milleniums as has Egypt. Its monuments cover 5,000 yearsfrom all the various periods known as Ancient Egypt and on through thePtolemaic, Graeco-Roman and Coptic to the last 1,000 years of Islamicmasterpieces that have no parallel in the world of Islam. Active govern-ment care started well over 100 years ago, and the Ministry of Culture,

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The conservation of the cultural heritage

conscious of its responsibilities for preserving and cherishing a heritage ofsuch variety and richness, is continuing this noble tradition.

The tasks of preservation, restoration, protection and maintenance arealone immense. In addition, there are the problems of adequate display andof storage for the purposes of both the general public and of students, aswell as the control and organization of the never-ceasing search for theremains that still lie buried in countless numbers within the valley, on itsdesert fringe and in the oases.

It goes without saying that the department's activities are many andvarious. They come under the control of the Under-Secretary of State forAntiquities, whose responsibilities may most simply be indicated by listingthe sections that he directly supervises: the Department of Antiquitiesitself; the Centre of Documentation on Ancient Egypt; the Fund forFinancing Antiquities and Museum Projects, three general departments(Egyptian antiquities, Coptic and Islamic antiquities, and technical affairs);Antiquities Museums Section, a Centre of Models and Casts (on sale to thepublic), and a Centre for the Restoration of Antiquities (these last two beingsub-sections of technical affairs).

At the centre for restoration a new laboratory is being built withthoroughly up-to-date equipment so that it can exploit the rapid advancein scientific methods, so essential if the many hazards are to be avoided towhich both old and new acquisitions are increasingly exposed. The FrenchGovernment has donated the equipment for the Carbon-14 dating of ancientobjects, a scholarly resource for which Egypt has so far been entirelydependent upon facilities abroad.

The department maintains inspectors who are in charge of all the archae-ological sites and districts in Egypt, each of whom has a considerablenumber of guards (ghaffirs), who actually live on the sites of variousmonuments. The inspectors are responsible for investigating and recordingany new finds that may turn up by chance or through deliberate excavationwithin their districts. An inspector from the department is always attachedto any foreign expedition. Expeditions and visiting scholars can always relyupon the maximum possible co-operation from the department and itsofficials.

The restoration and preservation of Islamic antiquities constitutes alarge part of the department's work. It has now established a school fortraining the young in the ancient crafts, with the object of creating a newgeneration of skilled workers, the need for whom is increasingly felt as theold skills decay. In addition, agreements have recently been signed with theFrench and Polish Governments, the first for co-operation in restoring oldhouses in Cairo and Rosetta, the second for documenting and repairingCairo's Islamic buildings and converting some of them into cultural centres.

Another agreement of considerable interest is that between the depart-ment and the French National Research Centre to set up a co-operativeFranco-Egyptian Centre at Karnak. Its task is to excavate, restore and

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record the vast Amon enclosure of temples. This long-term project is nowactively in operation. The Polish Government is co-operating at Luxor, onthe west bank, where a three-year co-operative project is in operation torestore Queen Hatshepsut's beautiful temple at Deir el-Bahari.

New local museums are being built for the benefit of tourists andscholars. For tourists, and also as part of the cultural programme to revivifythe past, there are the son et lumiere presentations at the pyramids and inSaladin's Citadel in Cairo, and another to be shortly inaugurated at Karnak.The constant aim, here as elsewhere, is to present Egypt's long panoramaof history and art as forming an integral part of man's culture as a wholeand not merely the isolated story of events in the Nile Valley.

THE CENTRE OF DOCUMENTATION ONANCIENT EGYPT

The need had long been felt for a complete archive of all the ancientEgyptian monuments which would be available to scholars and studentsand at the same time serve as a centre from which photographs, plans, textsand models could be obtained. The centre was organized in 1955, in co-operation with Unesco as an adjunct to, but separate from, the antiquitiesdepartment, and its work was intended to begin with fully recording thetombs on the west bank at Luxor. A beginning was in fact made with thetomb of Queen Nefertari, wife of Ramses II, but this had to be discontinuedbecause of the overriding demands of recording the monuments of Nubiabefore they were submerged by the rising waters behind the High Dam.Its work in Nubia was concluded in 1955, including a great part of the rockinscriptions, after which the centre turned its attention once more to theTheban necropolis. Unesco has continued to supply annual assistance in theform of experts and materials.

Members of the technical staff went to France to receive training, andthe centre now provides many services—photographs in colour and inblack-and-white, casts and models of a precise excellence, copies of textssold at a low price but made by philologists of the highest internationalreputations, and scholarly publications of complete temples and otherrecords made by the centre or under its auspices. These works are at presentdealing progressively with the monuments of Nubia.

The centre also produces excellent Christmas and greeting cards inaddition to well-written and well-illustrated brochures in various languageson interesting subjects concerned with Ancient Egypt.

The printing is done by the centre itself, a task for which it is admirablyequipped. It has all the photographic equipment needed for developing andenlarging to any size. In recording a solid monument, it makes use of photo-grammetry, so that it is able to reproduce in model form any object, sceneor building with the utmost accuracy. Its architectural section producesexact plans, sections and drawings of all the buildings studied.

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The centre is faced with an almost endless task, but one that is of thegreatest value, the more so since so many of the tombs and other monu-ments in Egypt are suffering sadly from chemical and various physicalchanges. Man too, one regrets to say, as everywhere else, has also causedmuch destruction and dilapidation.

Saving the monuments of Nubia

No event in archaeology has excited such world-wide interest as has thecampaign to save the monuments of Nubia. Moreover, no such campaignhas ever been conducted on such a scale or with such a remarkable degreeof close, generous and friendly co-operation by so many nations and learnedinstitutions working in harmony with Egyptian colleagues.

TJnesco, at Egypt's request, launched the 'International Appeal' on8 March 1960, the government having decided that, given the short timeavailable before the lake behind the High Dam drowned the whole of Nubia,it was quite impossible for Egypt alone to achieve the task. The responsewas splendid and, ten years later, the work was almost complete. The onlylarge remaining project was, however, an important one: that of saving thebeautiful buildings that adorn the island of Philae above Aswan. The plans,nevertheless, are complete, and the work was scheduled to begin by the endof 1970. It will take five years, and the cost of transferring and re-erectionwill amount to the equivalent of U.S.$12 million, of which the EgyptianGovernment will contribute one-third.

Unesco has been the channel of international aid, but the actual workhas been controlled or supervised by the Ministry of Culture to ensure thatthe project be carried out in accordance with the set programme. The Ser-vice for the Preservation of the Monuments of Nubia has done admirablework, in providing facilities and co-operation for all the expeditions for thesurvey, excavation, documentation and preservation of the monuments ofNubia. With the assistance of the antiquities department, they have beeninstrumental in removing and reconstructing six of the temples and savingother monuments. Three other temples have been reconstructed with inter-national aid. The temple of Derr was due to be completed by 1971, afterwhich there will remain only Wadi es-Sebua (a three-year task) in additionto the rock inscriptions and reliefs salvaged from various sites. Above all,however, there remains the salvaging of Philae from the rising waters.

Abu Simbel has, naturally enough, excited the most lively attention. Itwas not only the most costly, but it was also the most dramatic andambitious of all the Nubian projects. Its total cost has been U.S.$41 million,of which the Egyptian Government has contributed more than one-third.All who have seen these two temples so splendidly rebuilt on their own sitecannot but consider this money to have been well spent.

The vast lake spreads hundreds of miles to the south and in some placesalmost to the limits of the horizon. But from just above the High Dam

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southwards, here and there, preparing for the climax of Abu Simbel, thererise groups of temples, most of which, as a result of devoted care andmodern techniques, are more beautiful than they were before. They aremonuments in which Egypt itself can take pride. They are also monumentsto Egypt's devotion to its past and to the invaluable aid of Unesco and ofall those who so sincerely believed that Nubia was part of the culturalinheritance of mankind and who were prepared to contribute their money,time and expert knowledge to its salvation. Four of these temples havegone abroad to Turin, Leyden, New York and Madrid as eternal tokens ofEgypt's gratitude. They will stand in these famous cities for millions to see,remembering the long journeys they have made in both time and place, andyet, despite that, remembering also that man has but one ancestry andone history.

The Academy of the Arabic Language

One of the happy consequences of the impact of the West on Egyptian lifeand thought has been a serious revival of linguistic studies. In its literaryclassical form, the Arabic language has the qualities of a language spokenand read by nearly 100 million people; among whom the special position ofArabic as the medium for Divine Revelation has given the language aquality of sacredness which sometimes borders on rigidity. With the adventof Western influences, especially in technology and science, a certain re-adaptation of the language to modern requirements became imperative.Furthermore, the constant tension between universal classical Arabic andlocal colloquial dialects1 was uppermost in the minds of linguistic reformers.

In order to contribute both to the enrichment and to the scientificrecording of the language, the Academy of the Arabic Language was foundedby the Egyptian Government in 1932. In 1934 the academy began tohold regular meetings of twenty members, of whom ten were Egyptianscholars, five scholars from other Arab countries and five foreign orien-talists. Although the academy is now presided over by the Minister ofCulture, it enjoys a very large measure of autonomy and financial indepen-dence, guaranteed by a special charter. At present there are sixty electedmembers of the academy of whom forty are Egyptian and twenty fromother Arab countries. There is also a sizeable number of foreign corre-sponding members. The principal objectives of the academy can be listed asfollows: (a) enriching the vocabulary of Arabic in order to meet the require-ments of modern science, technology and the humanities; (b) standardizingthe new technology in the Arab world; (c) applying the rigour of scientificmethod to the study of Arabic dialects, past and present; (d) editing andpublishing the classics of Arabic philology; (e) analysing the various sugges-

1. Reminiscent of the tension between Katharevusa and Demotiki in modern Greek beforethe reforms of Psicharis.

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tions concerning the reform of Arabic grammar and the writing script; and(f) compiling a standard dictionary of classical literary Arabic, upon his-torical principles, according to the latest lexicographical practice.

The academy holds a weekly meeting for its Egyptian members and anannual plenary conference at which corresponding members from the aca-demies of Damascus, Baghdad and Rabat generally attend. The work of theacademy is carried on in commissions of about twenty specialists each,which provide the weekly meetings with an agenda of items of linguisticinterest. Thousands of new terms in science and the arts are regularlyArabicized and defined in these commissions. Technical vocabularies areproduced regularly and then combined in book form. There are alreadyspecialized dictionaries devoted to technical terms, engineering, geology,the terminology of modern everyday life, philosophy and linguistics in printand many others are in preparation. Studies of the grammar and rhetoricof Arabic are also produced in commission.

Among the major publications of the academy are a Dictionary of theTerminology of the Koran, a Concordance to the Koran and a medium-sizedillustrated Dictionary of the Arabic Language in two volumes, which hasproved to be the standard work of reference for the language enriched byall its neologisms and new coinages over the last thirty years. This dic-tionary which is already being reprinted, is a condensed version (still com-mensurate with the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary) of the Dictionary ofthe Arabic Language, of which only the first volume has been published todate.

The academy issues a journal of linguistic studies contributed by itsmembers and by a panel of invited scholars. Periodically the lexicographicalwork in commission is collected and published as an aid to scholars. Twelvesuch volumes have already appeared. On the premises of the academy thereis a library of about 10,000 books on linguistics and allied subjects, consti-tuted in great part by exchanges between the academy's publications andthose of learned societies abroad. The library also contains an importantcollection of unpublished dissertations and ancient manuscripts on micro-film, i

The authority of the academy is involved in all matters relating to theArabic language which is, of course, probably the most precious part ofthe national heritage. Intimately related to the Islamic tradition, it is alanguage which reached a remarkable maturity with the advent of Islam.The model for linguistic correctness and stylistic excellence is still theKoran. The role of an academy therefore is mainly lexicographical andmorphological; and there is very seldom a need to approach syntax, unlessit be for purposes of explanation or comparison. In its work on new coinagesthe academy has, in the past, been accused of a proclivity towards 'ink-hornterms', but, for some time now, this is no longer true. The new terminologyof the academy, especially in technology and medicine, has been absorbedinto the living language with very little difficulty. This healthy trend in the

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academy's work is due in particular to the influence of its President,Dr. Taha Hussein, the doyen of Arabic letters, and to its Secretary-General,Dr. Ibrahim Madkour, the distinguished philosopher and author of an autho-ritative trilingual dictionary of philosophy.

Arabic music

Oflicially sponsored scientific interest in Arabic music dates back to theInternational Conference on Arabic Music which was held in 1932. Beforethat time musicologists and practising musicians would meet at what wascalled the 'Oriental Music Club' (founded in 1925) to exchange views onmatters relating to the preservation of the heritage of Arabic music. In time,this club developed into an Institute of Arabic Music Studies with a seriouscourse of study culminating in a diploma. In 1966 the institute was incor-porated into the Academy of the Arts after having been raised to the statusof a higher institute (comparable to a university faculty).

The Higher Council for Arts, Letters and the Social Sciences (foundedafter the 1952 Revolution) set up two permanent commissions to promoteways and means of preserving the national musical heritage and the nationalfolk arts. One of the principal themes of discussion and study was the reor-ganization of Arabic musical education in schools and institutes. The councilawards a number of State prizes every year for Arabic music. In 1969, UrnKulthum, the grande dame of Arabic classical song for the last forty years,received the highest State cultural award. Prizes and grants are also givenfor musicology and the editing of ancient treatises on Arabic music. It isnoteworthy that the National Library also has a publishing programme forthe editing of manuscripts on Arabic music. The Bursaries Department ofthe Ministry of Culture provides at least two bursaries a year for promisingEgyptian musicologists or composers of classical Arabic music. The Statebroadcasting and television services are, of course, the most popular mediafor Arabic music. This monopolizes about 50 per cent of the 3,388 hours ofsound broadcasting per month and about the same percentage of the863 hours of television transmission per month. There is a permanent Arabicmusic orchestra for radio and television and a choir which includes part-time and full-time members.

Perhaps the most interesting development in the last few years has beenthe formation in 1968 of the Classical Arabic Music Ensemble by the Minis-try of Culture, to help ensure the preservation and revival of the traditionalArabic music heritage. Dr. Samha El-Kholy, the distinguished Egyptianmusicologist and educationist, writes:

The Ensemble is an enhanced form of the old takht; it adheres strictly to its oldinstruments.... The Ensemble comprises a choir, of some twenty male and femalevoices, singing traditional vocal forms in unison, and aa instrumental group of

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about twenty instrumentalists. Abdel Halim Nuweira conducts it in its regularfortnightly concerts given in the new Sayed Darwish concert hall, where it per-forms classical art music in its authentic, purely monodic form.1

The success of the ensemble can be gauged from, the rapid sales of its firstlong-playing record for the Ministry of Culture. Seats are always difficult tofind at its fortnightly concerts in the Sayed Darwish Hall (1,200 places),and its tours of the capitals of the Arab world in 1968 and 1969 have beenin the nature of a triumphal progress. In 1968 the ensemble won a first prizeat the Algiers Festival of Arabic Music.

The ministry organized a second international conference on ArabicMusic in December 1969 as a culmination to all the cultural events whichmarked the Millenary of Cairo. A volume of essays and studies contributedto the conference was due to appear in 1971. Certain conference recommen-dations were circulated very widely to musicologists throughout the Arabworld.

Folklore

The danger of cultural alienation threatens any society which has beensubjected to colonialism in any of its forms. The impact of the West onEgypt was not, however, of a nature to accomplish what President Boume-dienne of Algeria has called 'soul genocide'; except among a very small min-ority, the Egyptian people have remained in uninterrupted communionwith its language and with its religious tradition, which are part of the verytexture of everyday life. The danger was not one of a dominant culturestamping out an enfeebled primitivism but of a cultural dialogue threatenedoccasionally with temporary failures of communication. That is why thepreservation and promotion of Egyptian folklore does not imply an explo-ration of the half-forgotten and irrelevant, but rather the making of aninventory and the study of what is known and unmistakeably alive. Theprincipal purpose of the Ministry of Culture here is to apply modern scien-tific methods to a culture which is part of the living spiritual life of thepeople.

The Higher Council of Arts, Letters and the Social Sciences. This formeda special commission to provide a coherent plan of study and action planfor the folk arts, and help to bring practising folk artists into direct contactwith scholars and anthropologists. After a rather long discussion of defi-nitions and categories, the commission, did establish a plan for the encour-agement of folk artists. One of the annual State prizes was awarded for awork of the imagination, artistic or literary, directly inspired by an unadul-terated national tradition; another was instituted for actual practitioners;

1. 'Music' in: Mustafa Habib (ed.), Cultural Life in the United Arab Republic, p. 195,Cairo, United Arab Republic National Commission for Unesco, 1968.

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a third was for anthropologists or folklorists who had made original contri-butions to the scientific understanding of some aspect of the national folk-lore. These prizes have been awarded regularly for the last ten years. Thecommission was instrumental in organizing a Conference of Arab Folk-lorists (1958) to discover points of similarity and differences in the folktraditions of various parts of the Arab world. Methodology and field workwere also discussed. One recommendation was that various centres offolklore studies should be established in the Middle East and North Africa.This recommendation was taken up by the Ministry of Culture almostimmediately.

The Centre for Folk Arts. This is a centre for study, research and sys-tematic field work. Among its surveys in the early sixties were a descriptionof the folklore of Nubia before and after the migration caused by thebuilding of the High Dam, a study of the effect of industrialization on thefolklore of rural communities living near Cairo, and a survey of the cross-fertilization of folk traditions in the transplanted and mixed communitiesof the New Valley. The major activity, however, is a long-term programmeof field work throughout the country. By means of the cinema, photogra-phy, magnetic tapes and index cards the manners, customs, arts and oraltradition of the people are being recorded in the centre's archives. Thesealready contain 2,000 colour slides, 5,000 black-and-white photographs,25 documentary films and 900 hours of tape recordings. The centre is alsovery active in organizing exhibitions of Egyptian folk art, sending themoverseas, for instance to Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom, Hungary andCuba. It has also been represented at thirty-three international conferencesand seminars.

The centre has a lively role in the exchange of information and experts.It has already received nine foreign ethnologists and folklorists from Hun-gary, Poland, Germany, Syria and Lebanon. Professor Tiberiu Alexandru,the distinguished Romanian ethno-musicologist, conducted an expeditionfor the collection and recording of the folk music of Egypt. The resultsof his work during two years at the centre was a selection of the mostinteresting of his recording on two long-playing records issued non-commer-cially by the Ministry of Culture. On a second expedition he concentratedon the songs of Nubia, and the results of his survey have appeared on a10-inch long-playing record which is also being circulated non-commerciallyby the ministry. Folk music is still very much the main source of inspirationfor Egyptian composers of popular songs and of orchestral arrangementsfor folk-dance companies. The sophisticated compositions of a new gener-ation of Egyptian composers, expressing themselves in the Western musicalidiom, often draw inspiration from the melodies and rhythms of Egyptianfolk music.

The centre has recently placed its collection of some 2,000 items of folkarts and crafts in a special museum which now occupies eight rooms in arestored, early sixteenth-century caravanserai called Wikalet El-Goury.

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Here, the public can see craftsmen working with tlie traditional tools oftheir trade. Some are permanent employees of the ministry; from time totime, craftsmen from outlying regions are invited to spend a few days in themuseum and demonstrate their methods of work.1

In 1968 the centre was attached to the Academy of the Arts in order tomake it the nucleus of a Higher Institute of Ethnology and FolkloreStudies. It is still in process of conversion but a syllabus of graduate studiesin theory and practice has already been elaborated. This will also be a centrefor training field workers in collection, cataloguing and study methods.

The Review of Folk Arts. This is a quarterly periodical, brought out bythe State Publishing Organization affiliated to the Ministry of Culture, andedited by Dr. Abdel Hamid Younes, Sometime Professor of Folk Literatureat Cairo University and Under-Secretary of State for Popular Culture. Thisjournal is devoted primarily to research but it is also a precious record ofmuch of the oral tradition which can only be heard on tapes. One of itspurposes is to act as a forum for exchanges of views and information forscholars throughout the Arab world. A section devoted to abstracts inEnglish of the articles published in Arabic has made the Review an im-portant medium of scientific and cultural exchange.

Folk dancing. The revival of the folk tradition of dancing is regarded asa sacred trust by the Ministry of Culture. It has incorporated two folk danceensembles into the Theatre and Music Corporation: the Reda Ensemble, andthe National Folk Dance Ensemble. Adopting the ethnologist's approach,both have done research into the vast heritage of Egyptian folklore fromthe Nile Valley and the desert, from the delta and the oases. On this basis,the choreographer ethnologists have devised dance numbers into which theoriginal dancing figures were incorporated. Modern orchestration and thesophistication of the dancing have not spoiled the spirit of these dances.Furthermore, these folk dances have been used to depict the hopes, habitsand sentiments of the people in a variety of colourful ways. The RedaEnsemble and the National Ensemble have toured twenty-five countries,demonstrating the universal appeal of folk dancing.

Museums

The Ministry of Culture is responsible for two types of museums: the his-torical museums and museums of antiquities; and the art museums (theministry's terminology).

The museums of antiquities come directly under the jurisdiction of theDepartment of Antiquities. There are four major museums of antiquities inEgypt: Ancient Egyptian Antiquities; Coptic Antiquities; Islamic Antiqui-ties (all three in Cairo); and the Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic Antiquities (in

1. This experiment has been extended to other restored mediaeval houses.

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Alexandria). These represent the four great civilizations of the Nile Valley,not only as repositories of the masterpieces but also as 'dynamic' museums(to borrow a term from modern Senegalese muscology) in which the evol-ution of civilization is presented in all its multifarious aspects. The artefacts,the weapons and the household ware of each succeeding period are linkedto the spirit of the age, which produced some of the world's most splendidmasterpieces.

The original layout of these museums dates back to a more classicalconcept of functions and display techniques. Museums are nowadays beingused for a multiplicity of educational and cultural purposes which requirea totally new outlook on preservation and display. Some of the historyteaching in schools now takes place out of school in the museums, and theshow-cases and display cabinets have to be rendered more attractive to theeyes of young scholars. In 1959, all the Cairo museums of antiquities wereto have been grouped in one area, with each period of civilization housed ina separate series of pavilions. The historical continuity was to be demon-strated by the latest museum methods. To quote Dr. Sarwat Okasha, theminister who originally conceived this dynamic scheme of presentation:

. . . the visitor would be able to view a period in its multiple aspects, or a themein its historical evolution, or the development of an idea by passing from onebuilding to the other. Aside from its complete presentation of the successivecivilizations in the Nile Valley, this complex of museums would also help thevisitor to make his own approach to the historic past and form his ownimpressions. . . .

Unfortunately, the project had to be shelved because of budgetary pri-orities, but it is hoped that it will come into being.

The art museums come under the under-secretary responsible for thefine arts and museums. They constitute a variety of what, at first sight,may appear to be disparate elements. In Cairo, there are eight of themwhich include only four collections which can be described as being strictlyrelated to the fine arts. The Moukhtar Museum houses a collection of seventyof the sculptures of the late Mahmoud Moukhtar, who was the first promi-nent sculptor of the Egyptian artistic renaissance during the early decadesof this century. The Nagy Museum near the pyramids is in the originalstudio of the late Mohamed Nagy, one of modern Egypt's most dis-tinguished painters. All the artist's most important work has been placedon permanent exhibition in this small museum. The Museum of Modern Artis in temporary premises, while a modern building is still under construc-tion. It is a retrospective exhibition of Egyptian art over the last seventyyears. The collection is the result of successive purchases by the Ministry ofCulture and of bequests by the artists themselves. This museum thereforerecords the development of artistic taste from the first appearance of amodern movement in the arts in Egypt. Perhaps the most valuable collec-tion is the one offered to the State by the late Mohammed Mabmoud

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Khalil and his wife. They were throughout their lives passionate art col-lectors and connoisseurs of nineteenth-century European painting. Frenchimpressionists and nineteenth-century Orientalists and an eclectic choiceof early Dutch and Flemish masters make this an extremely valuablecollection indeed. The ministry has catalogued and rearranged it, groupingthe paintings according to period or school. This museum is frequentlyvisited by students and schoolchildren as part of their history of art courses.

Four other museums can be more properly described as museums ofcivilizations in its various aspects. The Gezira Museum has three importantcollections, one of the history of glass from Roman to Islamic times,another of Islamic metalwork, ceramics and textiles, and a third of paintingsby famous European artists (from Rubens to Picasso). This museum can beused for various study purposes by educationists and art historians. TheMuseum of Egyptian Civilization is a compendious introduction to theevolution of civilization in Egypt from prehistoric times to the present day.Apart from a respectable selection of artefacts, tools and weapons of archae-ological interest, the museum also presents Egyptian history in a series ofdramatic dioramas. Two museums specialize in the political history oftwentieth-century Egypt. They are the Saad Zaghloul Museum (The Houseof the People) which is a historical museum of the 1919 nationalist Revol-ution against the British occupation, prepared in the very house of SaadZaghloul, the leader of the 1919 Revolution. Then there is a small museumdedicated to the earlier nationalist leader, Mustafa Kamel, which houses hislibrary and a display of early photographs and holograph manuscripts.

In Alexandria there is appropriately a Naval Museum housed in theKait Bey Citadel, giving an illustrated naval history of Egypt from Pha-raonic times to the present. In Mansoura there is a small museum of theArab resistance to and final victory over the Crusaders in the House ofIbn Luqman where Louis IX of France had been held captive by the Arabs.All these museums with their diversity of collections are in fact instrumentsof culture which are being used dynamically by teachers and students. Aglance at the statistics for 1968, for example, shows that about 250,000 visi-tors were registered in the museums of antiquities, while an average of112,000 went to the art museums. Although thousands of tourists wereamong them, it is noteworthy that the average age of visitors was 13!

Libraries and archives1

The National Library (Dar-ul-Kutub) was founded in 1870 as part ofthe general movement of modernization in the second half of the nineteenthcentury. For more than fifty years it remained the principal source of

1. This section is the condensation of a memorandum, prepared by Dr. Mahmoud el-Shenity,Under-Secretary of State for Libraries and Archives in the Ministry of Culture.

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information for scholars and general readers in Cairo. In 1925 the firstmodern university came into being. This university, now called CairoUniversity, houses a special library of printed books. In 1958, when theMinistry of Culture was established, libraries and archives became two ofits main concerns. The ministry became responsible for the NationalLibrary (1.5 million books), the National Archives and the Public LibrariesAdministration.

The main objectives are as follows.First, to lay a solid foundation for comprehensive library services within

a national network, which comprises different types of libraries, closely co-ordinated to constitute the national apparatus for information storage andretrieval. The National Library forms the nucleus of the nation-wide systemfor the preservation of materials and the needs of research. There is alreadya central public library in the capital of each of the twenty-five gover-norates. This library has branches in small towns and service points inadjoining villages, which are one of the most effective instruments of perma-nent education in the country.

Second, to create an adequate national service for historical archives inrelation to the modern and contemporary history of Egypt. The existingcollections of the National Archives are being organized systematically andhoused in a central building in Cairo. Archival material in the variousministries and government departments is being channelled towards theNational Archives. Foreign collections are scrutinized systematically toobtain microfilm material relevant to the history of Egypt. Work has startedon the provision of a network of local archives in the provincial capitals.

Finally, to .establish a number of research centres for bibliographicorganization, documentation and the restoration of materials. Existingcentres include the following.The Centre for Editing and Publishing Arabic Manuscripts. About fifty

scholars and research assistants are engaged in producing reliableeditions of important Arabic manuscripts on history, literature,language, music and science. About twenty volumes have been publishedin the last two years.

The Documentation Ce?itre for Contemporary Egyptian History. This groupsabout one hundred historians and research assistants who are workingon the sources of Egyptian history from 1914 to 1952—State archives,court records, parliamentary reports, published or unpublished memoirs,and so on.

The National Centre for Bibliographical Services. This publishes the UARNational Bibliography in co-operation with the Catalogue Departmentof the National Library. It is now computerizing the National LibraryCatalogue in order to produce a general catalogue of acquisitions overthe past 100 years. Automation problems are being studied in co-operation with Unesco.

The Centre for the Preservation of Documents. The invaluable collections

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containing over 70,000 codices, of which a large proportion are from500 to 1,000 years old, require constant attention and care. The uniquecollection of nineteenth-century newspapers and periodicals filling thou-sands of bound volumes has to be protected against acidification andwear and tear. A biological and chemical laboratory and a restoration(manual and mechanical) unit, constitute the main departments.

NEW BUILDINGS

New buildings to house the National Library, the National Archives andthe technical centres mentioned above will include a conference centre,exhibition halls, microfilming laboratories and a printing press. The firstpart of the programme (the National Library) was due to reach completionat the end of 1971. Already the handsome modern building overlooking theNile is a welcome addition to the Cairo skyline.

The Millenary of Cairo

The thousandth anniversary of an important metropolis like Cairo is not adate to be passed over lightly. In spite of the state of critical tension whichexisted after the hostilities of June 1967, the Ministry of Culture decided toprepare actively for the -marking of the Millenary of Cairo. This was not onlyto be a cultural event of the first order but also an affirmation of the people'sfaith in its attachment to the cultural heritage of Egypt and to the values ofmodern civilization.

The Millenary was celebrated in seven different ways.An international colloquium on the history of Cairo, which was inaugurated

by the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The proceedings are beingpublished separately in Arabic, English and French.

An international conference on Arabic music, the second of its kind in thetwentieth century. In addition to various recommendations, it providedthe ministry with a very interesting volume of essays and studies forprinting.

An international round-table meeting on the planning and architecture ofCairo, held in a small, early nineteenth-century palace within theramparts of the Citadel of Saladin.

An international exhibition of Islamic art in Egypt from A.D. 969 to 1517.This exhibition grouped for the first time some two hundred works ofart preserved in Egyptian museums and collections in London, Paris,Vienna, New York and Berlin. The illustrated catalogue, printed inArabic and English, has become an important work of reference.

Twenty capitals of friendly countries shared the twelve months of 1969among themselves to produce a series of cultural events of the highestquality in the theatres and exhibition halls of Cairo.

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The State Publishing House and the National Library sponsored a series ofimportant books on the history of Cairo. Perhaps the most ambitiouswas the beautiful art book produced by the State Publishing House,The 1,000 Years of Cairo, produced in Arabic, English, French, Russian,German and Spanish.

A vast programme of restoration of the mediaeval architecture of Cairowas undertaken by the ministry in conjunction with archaeologicalexpeditions from France and Poland.

A special effort was also made by national dramatic companies and filmunits to mark the anniversary of Cairo with artistic performances of aparticularly high standard.

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The diffusion of culture

There are many channels for culture, some of which do not appear obviousat first sight. In rural communities, for example, there is an audience forlight entertainment—comedy or farce—on television. It does not take verylong for a peasant audience to imitate what they have seen only fleetinglyon television or in the films shown by mobile cinemas. The serials, thethrillers and the spectacular shows, whether foreign or local, are indirect,almost subliminal, introductions to standards of taste and behaviour whichmay take the innocent viewer on a very long journey of discovery. Radioand television have this extraordinary power of suggesting patterns ofbehaviour and even moral values, which are not part of the familiar tra-dition. In contrast, the press is less powerful, because it relies much moreon the imagination and on the rapid comprehension of the formal sentencepatterns of even modern literary Arabic. Radio is a compelling voice, addedto that of the sermon and oral tradition. The cinema, certainly before theadvent of television, was a very popular school of manners and morals forthe early wonder-struck audiences, especially far from the metropolis. Withtelevision a view of life other than that lived by the viewer is constantlybefore his eyes, and the various admirable attempts to reproduce his lifeand to speak to him in a familiar idiom do not for one moment hide theendless vistas of an unfamiliar landscape of human behaviour.

The mass media are part of the everyday life of all but a few citizens ofEgypt. The tremendous impact of this 'multiple transmission' of opinions,information, ideas and the arts is difficult to gauge during a period ofdevelopment and transition. Necessarily, the mass media sometimes spreada high degree of passive acceptance which is unstimulating and unproduc-tive; sometimes the public is made to feel insecure and alienated by themultitude of contradictory voices, all highly authoritative and persuasive(such is the spell-binding effect of the printed or the broadcast word!),sometimes the public feels afflicted with a general withdrawal of interest,caused by a creeping sense of cynical disbelief. But the positive aspects of

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the mass media are far more vital and impressive. The stimulating education'without tears' which can be derived from the mass media is infinitely moreeffective than the traditional modes of communication. While no one wouldsuggest that the library or the museum should be superseded by the tele-vision set it is nevertheless true that, in periods of rapid expansion anddevelopment, much more is achieved by the mass media than by moretraditional methods.

The government is not unaware of the tremendous instrument of prog-ress and culture which it possesses in television and broadcasting. Thepress, however, is not controlled by the government; it is considered bothan instrument of opinion and political expression and a forum for cultureand the arts. The press is owned by private companies, political organiz-ations, trade unions, or the Arab Socialist Union, but not necessarily thelittle reviews or literary periodicals. Neither type would stand a chance offinancial success in the free market, and it is the State Publishing Organ-ization affiliated to the Ministry of Culture which has undertaken to publishand circulate eight of the periodicals which have the least likelihood ofpopular appeal.

The theatre creates another problem. Broad comedy and farce areextremely popular and economically viable, but the classics of worldtheatre, opera and ballet, serious plays by Egyptian dramatists and theexperiments in drama which appeal only to a minority audience must bethe responsibility of the Theatre and Music Organization (also affiliated tothe ministry). This is also true of serious music by Western composers andof the music of a new generation of Egyptian composers in a Western idiom.State patronage, in short, must extend to all the channels which cannotcontinue to flow if hampered by commercial obstacles.

A broad selection of the various means of the dissemination of cultureby government bodies is described below.

Publishing

The publication of books receives attention on a national scale as beingbasic both to education and to culture in the wider sense. Egypt's large-scale book-publishing industry is also seen as a means of promoting intel-lectual and emotional unity between all Arabic-speaking countries. Theexport of books (general literature and text-books) is worth the equivalentof £4 million sterling. There are, however, other works for which there is ademand both inside and outside the Arab world, in particular books con-cerning religion, which have their special appeal in all Islamic countries,such as Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and so on. In all, some60. per cent of the total book production is exported.

In recent years there has been a notable increase in the number of bookspublished, this being the result of expansion in education and the struggle

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against illiteracy, in Egypt itself and in other Arabic-speaking countries.The government has therefore been obliged to give increasing attention notonly to publishing but also to the marketing of books. Bookshops have beenestablished abroad in various capitals as well as in Egypt itself, even in thesmaller provincial towns.

The Union of Publishers is composed of public and private organizationsconcerned with publication and distribution. It has at present 100 members.The Arab Socialist Union also runs a network of publishing organizationswhich are members of this union.

The Arab Federation of Publishers was set up in 1968 and to it belongsthe Union of Publishers and a similar Union in the Lebanon. It has alsoestablished affiliated branches in other Arab countries.

Close attention is being given to changes in taste and to readers' require-ments. Book production had long been limited to religious and literaryworks. This is now no longer the case. The new society, for example, showsa marked and increasing interest in science and technology. Nevertheless,special care is also devoted to the preservation of the classics and to thepublication of well-edited manuscripts. Another notable change in taste isthe demand for translations of foreign plays.

There are at the moment some 30,000 titles actually in print in Egypt,the annual production totalling about 1,000. Each edition averages4,000 copies. Popular books, of course, run into tens of thousands. Editionsof school books amount to 100,000 copies. A recent development has beenthe large-scale publication of children's books, in which some publishers nowspecialize exclusively. Many are printed abroad in Italy and Japan so thatchildren may have well-produced and colourful books to enjoy at a subsi-dized low price.

One influence which it is still difficult to assess but which will doubtlessprove of importance to the publishing industry is the increasing co-oper-ation between various Arab States in education and in the unifying of theireducational programmes. This is bound to have a marked effect upon thecirculation of Egyptian books abroad.

The State Publishing House, better known as the Egyptian Organiz-ation for Editing and Publishing, is a non-profit-making organization whichis affiliated to the Ministry of Culture. It publishes books of a scholarly orminority appeal which would not be commercially attractive to privatefirms. It also commissions serious academic editions of the classics of Arabicliterature and science, and brings out a series of university textbooks at low,heavily subsidized prices. The State Publishing House owns a number ofwell-equipped and up-to-date printing presses and is able to produce its ownbooks economically. Throughout the Arab world there are agencies anddistribution centres for these books. Trade is lively, with buyers through-out the Islamic world, especially for books on religion, 'and the Arabicclassics.

Although it welcomes competition from other publishers in Egypt,

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especially in matters of distribution, the State Publishing House is morestrictly dedicated to a long-term cultural programme where the profitmotive is not the prime consideration. A vast network of relations withserious book publishers abroad had been established, and art books are nowbeing produced in co-operation with publishers and printers in France, theGerman Democratic Republic, Hungary, Italy and the United Kingdom-There has been a new departure in children's books, where the most beauti-ful examples of book production are made accessible to a very wide publicof children at cost price.

The State Publishing House sponsors the annual International BookFair held in Cairo every January. This is a cultural event of the highestimportance as a meeting place for publishers from all over the world, but itis also one of the most significant events in the history of education inEgypt. Books at reduced prices from all over the world are made accessibleto the public. This is especially true of university textbooks and works ofacademic research. The success of this annual book fair is one of the mem-orable achievements in the modern history of Egypt. In January 1970, thefair had over 1 million visitors.

A number of subsidized reviews are brought out by the State PublishingHouse, from such specialized bodies as the medical profession or universityfaculties. But there is a category of semi-highbrow periodicals which cannotbe published by private means. It is this category that is of particularinterest to the State Publishing House: Al Katib (The Writer) edited byAhmed Abbas Saleh is a forum for socialist opinion and literary experiment;Al Fikr al Mo'aser (Contemporary Thought) edited by Dr. Fouad Zakareyais a review of philosophical research; Al Megallah (The Review) edited byYahya Haqqi is devoted to literary and art criticism; Al Masrah (Theatre)edited by Salah Abdel Sabour and Al Sinema (Cinema) edited by Saad elDin Wahba are self-explanatory; Al Kitab arArabi (The Arabic Book)edited by Ahmed 'Issa is devoted to librarianship and bibliography; AlFunun al Sha'biya (Folklore) edited by Dr. Abdel Hamid Younes is aspecialist journal of ethnology and folklore; Turath al Insaniya (The Heri-tage of Mankind) edited by Dr. Fuad Zakariya deals with the classics ofEast and West.

These semi-specialized periodicals have been cited at length in order togive an idea of the range of themes for which subsidized journals are issuedby the State Publishing House.

While it engages in some commercial work (especially in printing), theoverriding concern of the ministry is to make book production of qualityaccessible to as wide a public as possible by means of the cultural action ofthe State Publishing House.

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Tte diffusion of culture

Cinema

The history of the Egyptian cinema began in 1917 but film-making did notemerge from a phase of timid experiment until 1924 when the Misr Companyfor Acting and the Cinema was formed as a joint stock company largelyfinanced by the Misr Bank. In 1934 the Misr Studios were completed andEgyptian films could then be shot and entirely processed by Egyptiantechnicians in Egypt. This marks the beginning of the tremendous expan-sion of the Egyptian cinema, an Arabic-speaking cinema which was to reachaudiences throughout the Arab world and as far afield as Africa south of theSahara and the Far East.

The relatively long tradition of film-making in Egypt was recognized bythe government, which made the judicious decision that a public and a pri-vate sector should be allowed to function side by side. The private sectorowns 205 cinemas (out of 380), eighteen film-distribution companies andforty-two production companies against the ministry's single Egyptian Gen-eral Cinema Corporation. This corporation, which constitutes the entirepublic sector (except for the production units belonging to television, theState Information Service, various ministries and the armed forces), is runalong commercial lines. In fact, as the corporation's main aim is to raisethe quality of production and the presentation of prestige films both athome and abroad, the reality of the situation is that it is largely a non-profit-making organization. This is a natural concomitant of the ministry'spolicy, which tends to promote the making of better-quality films even atthe expense of box-office success. The corporation is the result of a series ofnationalizations of large cinema companies and the acquisition by purchaseof some private studios. It covers the production and distribution of films,and the management of a cinema circuit.

In 1966 the corporation came into being as an independent organizationcontrolled by the Ministry of Culture. It was at first a loose association offour companies in various sectors of the industry. Then in 1969 it acquireda new status as a single organization divided into sectors.

The corporation is not simply a film-production unit working on its ownaccount; it also subsidizes production in the private sector in cases whichmay merit special encouragement and financing. It also sponsors a younggeneration of film-makers, especially the graduates of the Higher Instituteof Cinema, for films which might not find a ready response among the morecommercially minded producers of the private sector.

The importance of its production can be judged from the figures givenfor 1968 when 6.5 million metres of film (colour and black-and-white) weredeveloped in its laboratories. However, this figure includes the films of theprivate sector, because all laboratories are owned by the corporation. Thisfootage was projected in Egypt and exported to all Arab countries and toa large number of others such as France, Belgium, Spain, the Union ofSoviet Socialist Republics, the United States and Venezuela. The most

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important regular importers of Egyptian films are the Lebanon, followedby the Sudan, Jordan, Syria, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen,Libya and Kuwait.

DOCUMENTARY AND SHORT FILMS

For many years documentary and short films were produced haphazardlyby a number of different ministries or by film studios working on com-mission or for profit. In 1957, however, Republican Decree No. 149 wasissued forming a documentary film unit in the Department of the Arts (thenpart of the Ministry of Education). This was the first sign of official recog-nition of the educational and cultural importance of this kind of film.In 1960, the documentary film unit was attached to the State cinemaindustry, embarking upon a difficult career in different branches of the thennascent State industry. However, in 1967, a fully fledged National Centrefor Documentary and Short Films was established as an autonomous unitin the State Cinema Corporation. The national centre became a school ofcinema for the young graduates of the Higher Film Institute who requireda period of rigorous training before embarking on a career in the industry.The centre was a non-profit-making organization, subsidized by the StateCinema Corporation and producing films which certainly contributed toraising the standard of taste among the average film-makers and filmviewers. The centre's films are shown in all the State-owned circuit of cine-mas in Egypt, sent abroad to film festivals and to cultural centres attachedto Egyptian diplomatic missions. In the summer of 1970 one of the centre'sfilms, The Eloquent Peasant by Shady Abdel Salam, won a first prize at theVenice Film Festival. Apart from the centre, an Arab Agency for Cinema(founded in 1969) also produces documentary and short films. The agency,however, is commercial, and produces a large number of films on com-mission for commercial firms, advertising agencies and television. It is alsoa marketing and distributing agency for full-length Arabic films from boththe private and public sectors.

An interesting new departure has had a tremendous success: the ani-mation films which are produced for young audiences or for advertising pur-poses at the cinema or on television. There are now, in fact, four animationfilm units in the public sector, three affiliated to the Ministry of Culture (thecentre, the agency and the Misr Studios), and one in the Television andBroadcasting Corporation, affiliated to the Ministry of Information.

Recently, however, the cost of production of animation and cartoonfilms has proved so high and their commercial success so widespread, thatthe centre's share has been taken over almost entirely by the Arab Agencyfor Cinema, which has a greater capital turnover and better distributionfacilities.

In 1969, four cartoon films were produced by TJ.A.R. Television, fourby Misr Studios and two by the Arab agency.

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As for documentaries and shorts, thirty-five films were produced inEgypt in 1969, as follows: (a) Arab Agency for Cinema, 20; (b) NationalCentre for Documentary and Short Films, 5; (c) Cairo Film ProductionCompany (also affiliated to the Ministry of Culture), 3; (d) State Infor-mation Service, 5; (e) private sector, 2.

THE SCIENTIFIC FILM LIBRARY

This was founded as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Healthin June 1962. Its purpose was to collect or to produce films which couldserve as teaching aids in universities and higher institutes where scientificsubjects are best taught with the help of visual aids, especially to largenumbers of students. These films have been extremely successful in medi-cine. From 1962 to 1970 the Scientific Film Library has produced 150 shortfilms on various aspects of surgery, gynaecology, urology, neurosurgery,cardiology and dermatology. Besides these, fourteen films were made ondentistry. The majority of these films are, of course, highly specialized andare suitable only for faculties, but some have already been shown withnoteworthy success on television.

THE VISUAL IMAGES TECHNICAL CENTRE

This centre was set up in the Ministry of Culture in 1964, to elaborate waysand means of using the visual image to promote scientific, cultural andeducational purposes of national importance. Unesco is following theprogress of the centre very closely, and providing much of the assistanceneeded for this pilot project in accelerated acculturation.

The centre's film library, set up in accordance with the system recom-mended by the International Federation for Film Archives, containsfeature and documentary films from the Arab countries, with detailedcatalogues and indexed information about the role of the cinema in theArab world. The centre issues technical books on film-making and thecinema industry, and a film journal which publishes research on mattersrelating to the utilization of cinema for cultural and educational purposes.It organizes seminars and conferences, and sponsors a small film, society.

THE FILM LIBRARY ('CINEMATHEQUE5)

This was set up by the Ministry of Culture in May 1970. It is to be theNational Film Archive of Egypt as soon as it completes its collection ofArabic feature and documentary films from the earliest days of Egyptiancinema. The library has already acquired the nucleus of selected classics ofworld cinema. It proposes to use this material in order to establish a museumof the history of Egyptian cinema from its earliest beginnings to the present.It is affiliated to the International Federation of Film. Archives.

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FILM SOCIETIES

The history of film societies in Egypt goes back to 1938 when a group ofuniversity students organized their own discussion group on the cinema.Other societies sprang up sporadically immediately after the Second WorldWar, but none were to last for more than a season or two. In 1956 theDepartment of Fine Arts, then part of the Ministry of Education, institutedthe first film society, with regular meetings in Cairo and Alexandria. Thissociety made tremendous headway in creating a serious interest in cinemaand in familiarizing audiences with the film classics and the styles of thegreat directors.

At present there are twenty-two film societies in Egypt. The leading twoare the Film Association (founded in 1960) and the Cairo Film Society(founded in 1968) both of which are in Cairo. The first is an independentvoluntary association partly subsidized by the Ministry of Culture but thesecond, with a membership of 1,326, is a pilot society founded by theministry as a model for other societies elsewhere in the country. Bothissue a weekly pamphlet. An Alexandria film club (330 members) and aMansourah film club (450 members) both work in close co-operation withthe parent body in Cairo. Other societies include the Journalists' FilmGroup (founded in 1968) and the Maadi Film Society (founded in 1968)which is run by the pupils of the State secondary schools in Maadi (one ofthe suburbs of Cairo). The Visual Images Technical Centre also runs a smallfilm society. The smallest (thirty-five members) and newest of societies inthe Cairo area is the New Cinema Group, founded in 1969, composed mostlyof young cinema enthusiasts who hold weekly discussions on such subjectsas commercialism in Egyptian cinema, the censorship and the creativeartists, the battle of the generations, and so on.

The Houses of Culture which the ministry has set up in the provincesare centres of lively interest in the cinema. At the fourteen film societiesattached to these centres, the inhabitants of provincial towns and ruralareas have an opportunity of seeing the world classics and of discussingpoints of interest in the films with a panel of film critics or specially traineddiscussion leaders and cultural promoters (animateurs).

THE FILM-MAKERS' UNION

This is a trade union which has quite a long history. After the Revolutionthe voluntary association of film-makers (founded in 1943) was organizedinto a powerful union for the protection of the interests of all workers inthe cinema industry in both the private and public sectors. This union nowhas an active membership of 672.

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PUBLICATIONS ON THE C I N E M A

The ministry has taken the lead in publishing books and periodicals on thecinema, through the agency of the State Publishing House—200 bookshave been issued and there is a regular monthly journal as well. At a moxecommercial level, three magazines for film fans are published privately, andsometimes include an interesting critical column. Translation of English andFrench works on the cinema has a long history, dating back to 1936. Theworks of the major cinema historians and film critics are now being read bystudents at the Higher Institute of Cinema in excellent Arabic translations.

Theatre

In spite of its distant origins in Ancient Egyptian religion, the drama hasnot been part of the cultural heritage preserved by the people of Egypt.The birth of the Arabic theatre about the middle of the nineteenth century,in Egypt and Syria almost simultaneously, is one of the results of theWestern impact on the Arab world. The theatre is now happily naturalizedand has assumed a very important part in the cultural life of the country.To generalize about the last hundred years or so of Egyptian theatre, threeclear traditions can be distinguished; melodrama, vaudeville or farce, andpoetic drama. The first found its best exponents in George Abyad andYoussef Wahby, the second in Aziz Eid and Naguib el-Rihani and the thirdin the National Theatre Company which performed the poetic plays ofAhmed Shawky and, more recently, of Aziz Abaza. The modern movementin drama begins with Tewfiq el Hakim, whose limpid prose is an excellentvehicle for the semi-philosophical and allegorical themes of his plays. Itis significant that when the ministry embarked on widespread theatre-building after 1958, it named the theatre devoted to the modern Egyptianexperiment in legitimate theatre after Tewfiq el Hakim.

The idea of a people's theatre, untrammelled by the limitations of amiddle-class ethos, emerged after the Revolution of 1952. A decree issuedin 1958 set up the Egyptian Corporation for Theatre and Music.1 Thiswas a semi-autonomous organization, placed directly under the minister,to administer State-owned theatres in Cairo and Alexandria; implementa dynamic plan for the construction of new theatres; and organize theemployment and maintenance of repertory companies and experimentaltheatre groups. In music, the corporation administers the Cairo SymphonyOrchestra and any orchestras, choirs or instrumental groups formed later.

In 1967 a further decree was issued reorganizing the corporation in such a way thatprovincial and rural theatres were withdrawn from it and placed directly under theauthority of the Under-Secretary for Popular Culture. Its full name is now the Theatre,Music and Folk Arts Corporation.

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Folk-dance ensembles, a ballet company and an opera group were soon tocome under its authority.

The ministry is particularly keen on the theatrical arts, as the theatrehas achieved recognition in Egypt as one of the most vital ways in whichpeople can gain cultural experience. This democratic aspects, with itsreliance on collective creativity by dramatists and performer alike, and itsstimulation of audience participation, prompted the tremendous wave ofenthusiasm for the theatre in Egypt.

The theatres run by the Theatre andjMusic Corporation and theirseating capacity (in parentheses) are as follows: opera (760); NationalTheatre (700); Muhammad Farid (750); Al-Gumhuriya (724); BalloonTheatre (1,640); Puppet Theatre (370); July 26 Theatre (400); Nile(Floating) Theatre (870); Sayyid Darwish Concert Hall (1,150); SayyidDarwish Theatre, Alexandria (1,000); National Circus (2,500), This gives atotal seating capacity of 10,864. The private sector owns two theatres inCairo and nine in Alexandria, with a total seating capacity of 5,523. In therest of the country the private sector owns nine theatres, mostly in theprovincial capitals.

THE CAIRO OPERA HOUSE

Since 1869, foreign companies have been performing in this delightful littleItalianate theatre, and talented Egyptian artists and companies have nowjoined their number. In 1967 an Egyptian Opera Workshop was created bythe Ministry of Culture. It has given performances of Gliick's Orfeo andPuccini's Madame Butterfly and La Boheme, in conjunction with the CairoSymphony Orchestra.

THE NATIONAL CIRCUS

This is one of the particularly successful ventures of the Theatre and MusicCorporation. Over the last ten years, it has built up a staff of trainers,acrobats, clowns and trapeze artists which is unicpie in the Middle East.There has been, of course, a very intensive exchange of circus acts withforeign circuses. The German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Unionhave both provided expertise and technical assistance. In 1967 the NationalCircus began a series of visits abroad, and individual acts have been shownin'Berlin, Copenhagen, Moscow, Paris and Stockholm.

THE PUPPET THEATRE

Puppetry is an old folk tradition throughout the Middle East, but is wasnot until 1958 that the ministry decided to introduce modern techniquesof puppetry into the Egyptian theatre. Experts from Romania helped toset up a well-trained group of Egyptian puppeteers who put on specially

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commissioned puppet plays. A number of poets, playwrights and writersfor children contributed to the puppet master's repertoire. Today thepuppet theatre with its plays and musical comedies drawn from the richresources of the folk heritage has become the children's theatre par excel-lence. It gives regular shows in Cairo in its own specially adapted hall, butit also tours the provinces and gives open-air shows in village schools andon the communal threshing floors of the smallest hamlets.

THE 'POCKET' THEATRE

This is a small theatrical company which puts on experimental or avant-garde plays by Egyptian and foreign authors. It is trained to perform insmall areas and sometimes it gives performances in cafes or in a room, orout of doors in a side street. It believes that theatre must become part ofthe texture of our conscious lives and that audience and players should livethrough the dramatic experience in close communion with each other.Much interesting work has been presented by this experimental yet highlyprofessional group.

Many other theatres tend towards specialization, but none are actuallyexclusive in their choice of plays. The National Theatre with its Staterepertory company does tend to limit itself to the classics and to the morelasting productions of the modern Egyptian dramatic movement. Theyhave regular performances of Shakespeare and Moliere and, within the lasttwo years, there have been memorable productions of the Choephoroi andAgammemnon, Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters, Gogol's Revizor; Brecht'sThe Caucasian Chalk Circle and Tchekov's Uncle Vanya. Although theseplays were given in Arabic, their Egyptian producers benefited throughoutrehearsals from the technical advice of dramatic consultants from abroad.Thus, a purely Egyptian production of those plays was given, but theforeign consultant was there to make sure that no untoward liberties weretaken with the original text. Apart from their repertory of the world'sclassics the National Theatre also stage Arabic poetic works and the mas-terpieces of modern Arabic drama.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCESON THE THEATRE

Egypt regularly takes part in theatre conferences, including the conferenceheld in New Delhi in 1966 to discuss relations between Asian and Westerndrama. Egypt is always represented at the Unesco round-table meeting onDrama held every year in Beirut in November. Egyptian drama criticsattended the Berthold Brecht Conference in Berlin in 1968. The annualmeeting of Arab dramatists held in Tunis and the Dramatic Arts Festival inDamascus are both attended regularly by Egyptian dramatists and dramagroups. This regular participation in international conferences is prompted

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by the ministry's desire to keep Egyptian dramatists and critics abreast ofdevelopments in ideas wbich have revolutionized opinions concerning allmatters related to the theatre. Egypt attaches particular value to its closelinks with the International Theatre Institute, which recently held a meet-ing on Arab Theatre in Cairo itself.

Music

The ministry has assumed a very large part of the responsibility for thewider appreciation of the Western tradition in music throughout the repub-lic, and something should be said about the tremendous and ever-growingappeal of Western music to the public and to composers and instrumen-talists alike.

THE CAIRO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Late in 1955 Frantz Litschauer, an Austrian conductor, was invited toEgypt to form, a new symphony orchestra. In 1958 this orchestra was trans-ferred from the Broadcasting Organization to the Theatre and Music Cor-poration. It then had sixty-five players. Now there are nearly one hundredof whom about sixty are Egyptian. The ministry has a long-term pro-gramme for increasing the number of Egyptian players in the orchestra.This increase is naturally tied up with the rate of growth of the numberof graduates from the Music Academy and from the other music-traininginstitutes. It is estimated that by 1975, there should be enough qualifiedEgyptian musicians to Egyptianize the Cairo Symphony Orchestra entirely.At present, there is already a student orchestra, attached to the academy,which has given some very promising public concerts.

The Cairo Symphony Orchestra's aim, since its foundation, has beento create a wider appreciation of the great classics of music. It invitesconductors of international reputation and famous soloists to take part inits performances. The late Charles Munch, Aram Khatchaturian, GikaZdravkovitch, Richard Blareau, Arturo Wolf-Ferrari and many others haveconducted the orchestra which, during the season, gives weekly concerts atthe fully air-conditioned Sayed Darwish Concert Hall (1,150 seats) near thePyramids of Giza. This hall is a splendid example of its kind. The orchestraplays there every Saturday to a full house of keen music lovers from allsections of the population. It also provides the orchestral accompaniment toballet and opera performances by Egyptian and foreign touring companies.In the 1969/70 season, for example, it provided the orchestral accompani-ment to the Cairo Opera Workshop's all-Egyptian production of La Bohemeand to the National Ballet Company's performances of Daphnis et Chloe,Prelude a I'Apres-midi d'un Faune and Don Juan. This, of course, is inaddition to the forty-seven concerts given under the baton of Egyptian and

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foreign guest conductors. Its services are frequently in demand on publicoccasions, and it is often called upon to play the background music for filmssponsored by the Ministry of Culture.

The ministry's policy towards the orchestra is to give it every facility tobe a true instrument of musical culture for the people. Although affiliated toa semi-autonomous corporation run on semi-commercial lines, it is heavilysubsidized, so that it is to all intents and purposes, non-profit-making.Special concerts for the young are given periodically, and the orchestra hasoccasionally done a tour of the provinces, where no Western music has beenperformed live before. From time to time the orchestra presents an introduc-tion to Western music, illustrating it with demonstrations of the functionsof the various instruments. Its vast educational programme of initiationis presented either free of charge or for an extremely small entrance fee.

A chamber orchestra of twenty players has been created out of the sym-phony orchestra and it performs regularly at free concerts in schools, uni-versities and houses of culture. These are frequently the first introductionto music for an ever-growing audience of music-lovers. There is also a stringquartet which has given a number of successful recitals.

The Cairo Symphony Orchestra never fails to play works by Egyptiancomposers, thus rendering a real service to music in Egypt. These havedeveloped a musical idiom which is deeply rooted in the national traditionbut which nevertheless aspires to an international appeal. Youssef Greiss(1905-61) and Abu Bakr Khafrat (1910-63) were the pioneers. But there isnow a very interesting group of Egyptian composers whose music is afruitful fusion between the traditions of East and West. They are GamalAbdel Rahim, Aziz El-Shawwan and Rifaat Garranah.

THE CAIRO OPERA WORKSHOP

This is of recent formation (1967), but it has already succeeded in puttingon three full-scale operas with cast, choir, orchestra, conductor and corpsde ballet drawn entirely from Egyptian amateur and professional musicians,singers and dancers. The Opera Workshop, affiliated to the Theatre andMusic Corporation, has an independent budget.

THE NATIONAL BALLET COMPANY

This was also formed in 1967 to provide a natural outlet for the graduates ofthe Higher Ballet Institute, which is part of the Academy of the Arts. Itnow has over forty professional dancers who, as from the 1970/71 season,will be giving weekly performances at the Cairo Opera House. There isa really widespread enthusiasm for the art of ballet in Egypt—possiblybecause of the frequency with which foreign cultural seasons in the countrytended to rely on the dance to overcome the language obstacle. Like music,and with music, the ballet is a universal idiom which communicates directly

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with an audience, and the ballet season has now become a regular featureof Egyptian cultural life.

In 1967 the National Ballet company staged the Fountain ofBakhshisaray produced by the late Leonid Lavrovsky and a programme ofexcerpts from famous ballets under the supervision of the experts of theKirov State Ballet; in 1969 they presented a truly memorable Don Juanproduced by the Soviet choreographer Vladimir Kusnetsov, and an enchant-ing double bill of Daphnis et Chloe and Prelude a VApres-midi d'un Fauneproduced by Serge Lifar himself. In 1970 the National Ballet presented theirfirst performance of Don Quixote and Francesca da Rimini. Future plansinclude a full scale Spartacus to be produced by Grigorovitch, the dis-tinguished Soviet creator of this ballet in Leningrad.

MUSIC FROM ABROAD

It is Ministry of Culture policy to ensure that cultural agreements withfriendly countries always include a clause which encourages the visits toEgypt of well-known musical ensembles and orchestras. Individual instru-mentalists are also covered by this clause. The ministry is particularly con-scious of the need to accustom the ear of the public to as large a variety aspossible of musical performances. It has accordingly enabled Egyptian audi-ences to listen to the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philhar-monic and the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra. Chamber orchestras, of course,travel more easily, and these have come frequently from France, the FederalRepublic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and Italy. Thereis also a tradition of foreign opera tours. For 100 years now there has beena tradition of an annual visit by one of the Italian operas. The operacompanies of Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, have also made successful toursof Egypt. The same is true of ballet. In three seasons, the Bolshoi, the Kirov,the Royal Ballet, the Kiev Opera Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the WestBerlin Opera Ballet and the German Democratic Republic Opera Ballet haveall given seasons in Cairo and Alexandria. Folk dance ensembles from allover the world have also visited Egypt.

Famous instrumentalists are invited to give recitals and to play with theCairo Symphony Orchestra. Again, in three seasons alone, famous nameshave included the late Samson Francois, Nicole Henriot, Denis Matthews,Pavel Serebryakov, Antonio Janigro and Henri Navarre.. In most cases, concerts and recitals are free, as it is the policy of the

ministry to ensure that the largest number of people should be able to enjoymusic of quality.

Mention should also be made, of course, of the fifteen foreign culturalcentres in Cairo and Alexandria where recitals are frequently given byartists on tour. The ministry has always made a point of encouraging thepurely cultural activities of these centres, by providing assistance—the loanof instruments and halls and publicity.

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MUSIC ON THE AIR

In 1968 the Cairo Broadcasting Services set aside a special station forWestern music. For twelve hours a day this station broadcasts the worksof the classical composers, the recordings of concerts and recitals and worksby Egyptian composers in the Western musical idiom. Besides this there isa sizeable proportion of good light music and 'pop' and jazz. Western musicis less well represented on television, but it is remarkable that a station forlisteners in Cairo and Alexandria should produce such a rich and constantflow of the masterpieces of world music. The intention, which is that ofaccustoming the ear to a music that is alien to the national tradition, isbeginning to produce interesting results.

Radio1

With the advent of television, radio has to reconsider the part it can playin the cultural life of the country. It must adapt itself to its own technicalpossibilities, bearing in mind always that, in general, more people are ableto tune in to a radio than can watch television—particularly since the devel-opment of the transistor radio which has many obvious advantages over theas yet cumbersome television set.

Radio in Egypt started in the 1930s on an amateur basis. By 1934,however, the importance of broadcasting had been recognized and it becamea State utility. The original service was in Arabic, with an additional pro-gramme in European languages for foreign residents in Cairo.

Broadcasting now comes under the Ministry of Information and formspart of the Television and Broadcasting Corporation. In 1960/61 there werealtogether 98 hours of daily transmission, but this figure has been increasingyearly so that, by 1968/69 there were, on an average, 159 hours of dailytransmission. Geographically, Egypt stands at the cross-roads of Asiaand Africa, with a Mediteranean sea-frontier and, as might therefore beexpected, the different programmes reflect the heritage of past historyand also the deep responsibility which Egypt feels towards neighbouringpeoples. On a national level, Egypt, in the process of economic and culturaldevelopment, has been able to use the radio as a means of disseminatingculture, education and information on a nation-wide basis.

There are altogether eleven programmes which are described briefly asfollows.The General Programme. This is the main service and, by 1968/69, broad-

cast for 20 hours daily. Light entertainment programmes are allotted

1. Information concerning radio and television is drawn mainly from an essay on 'Radioand Television' by Saad Labib in: Mustafa Habib (ed.), Cultural Life in the United ArabRepublic, p. 127-48, Cairo, United Arab Republic National Commission for TJnesco, 1968.

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51 per cent of the time; cultural programmes, 20 per cent; religiousprogrammes, 11 per cent; and news programmes, 18 per cent.

With the People. This is intended for -women's and youth groups, ruralcommunities, the armed forces, the police, and so on. In 1968/69,9 hours daily.

The Voice of the Arabs. Introduced under the name of 'Voice of the Arabs;Broadcast from Cairo' on July 1953, this programme is intended forArab peoples everywhere—it is therefore both a local and an overseasservice. In 1968/69,26 hours of transmission. As well as serving the causeof Arab Liberation, the programmes are economic, social and cultural.

The Second Programme. Initiated in 1957, this programme is designed tosupplement the other programmes by presenting material of an intellec-tually high standard. In 1968/69, cultural and technical material,3 hours daily.

Local European Programme. Originally a programme for entertainmentonly, this programme has since developed considerably and, besidesproviding light entertainment, has become a medium through which anaccount is given of the development of Arab Society—political, social,economic, cultural and technical. Transmission is in English, French,German, Italian, Greek and Armenian, with news services in all of theselanguages. In 1968/69, 13 hours daily.

Sudan Corner. This service was inaugurated in 1954 with a 30-minute dailytransmission. It has been found extremely popular in view of the par-ticular bonds which link the Egyptian and the Sudanese peoples. Manyprogrammes are recorded in the Sudan where the corporation has anoffice and studio. A special programme is broadcast to the southernSudan in the local dialects. Daily transmission in 1968/69 amounted toan average of 6 hours.

Alexandria. Of particular interest to those living in the region of Alexandriaand northern Egypt. Alexandria has its own broadcasting and relaystation. All of the programmes are in fact relayed from Cairo exceptfor the 7 hours of daily transmission of the Alexandria programmeitself.

The Special Programme. Otherwise known as the Overseas Programmes-these broadcasts are known under the rubric 'Voice of Cairo'; trans-mission in twenty-nine foreign languages including English (for India),Hausa, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Somali, Spanish and Swahili, onnine short-wave stations and one medium-wave for occupied Palestine.There are thirty-five programmes which include cultural, educationaland religious broadcasts. Arabic by Radio is one of the most popularseries. Two daily dictation-speed news bulletins are read, one in Englishand one in Arabic, of 30 minutes duration each. Total daily transmissiontime reached 48 hours in 1968/69.

The Middle East Broadcasting Station. This news service dates back to 1964.It depends for its revenue on advertisements for goods distributed in

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the Middle East area. It is the first programme over Cairo radio whichis wholly commercial. In 1968/69, 12 hours daily.

The Holy Koran. Inaugurated in 1964, this service devotes its programmeto recorded recitals of the Koran by famous Egyptian readers. In1968/69, 12 hours daily.

The Music Programme. Founded in 1968, this service transmits daily12 hours of classical and light music by foreign and Egyptian composers.

EDUCATION AND CULTURAL CONTENTOP BROADCASTING

Under the above-mentioned headings there are also programmes which havea direct educational or cultural impact on the community. School pro-grammes were introduced but, as they were often followed in a haphazardway, they were later dropped. The school programmes in Arabic andEnglish are at present confined to language classes and the critical analysisand presentation of novels and other prescribed reading matter for schools.The service has long been used as a medium for teaching languages toadults. In conjunction with the French Cultural Centre and the CulturalCentre of the Democratic German Republic in Cairo, French- and German-language courses are taught by radio, accompanied by printed materialwhich can be ordered from the Publications Department of the Broad-casting Corporation.

A functional breakdown of all programmes is given in Table 7 (seepage 72). Educational and cultural programmes come under the heading'Culture'.

Television

The importance of television in Egypt as in most other countries is unde-niable. It is a highly effective instrument for education and culture. Thegovernment, fully realizing the potentialities of television, has adopted apolicy of cheap television over as wide an area of the country as is prac-ticable. The first and second programmes cover most of the populated areas,the third programme covers Cairo and its neighbourhood only.

U.A.R. Television is an independent branch of the Television and Broad-casting Corporation under the Ministry of Information.

Inaugurated on 21 July 1960, the service started with one channel only.Daily transmission in the first year was of the order of 10 hours. In 1961/62the second programme was introduced and in 1963/64 the third. By1967/68, the total daily transmission reached some 17.5 hours approxi-mately (first programme 8.5, second programme 5.5, third programme 3.5).

The corporation receives its funds from five main services: licences(about £(E)6 per set per annum); advertising; sale of programmes to other

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Arab countries; profits from the assembly and manufacture of sets; Stateappropriations and allocations from the various services budgets.

By 1966 there were altogether 368,710 television licences, thanks to apolicy of the fullest encouragement. Television sets and equipment wereexempted from customs duty and other restrictions, and maintenancecentres were- set up all over the country. Ministries were encouraged tosponsor their own programmes (especially the ministries of health, socialaffairs, culture and education). Sets were distributed to collective viewingcentres which were sponsored by the television authorities in rural areas.Television drama, folk-dance and music ensembles were formed to providepopular entertainment and promote and encourage the development ofartists and artistic groups. Television viewing hours were steadily increasedand programmes diversified to attract all types of viewers.

Within the three television channels, programmes with a specificallyeducational or cultural content can be broken down into four main groups:(a) schools and students; (b) adult language teaching; (c) the literacycampaign; and (d) rural and collective-viewing programmes.

SCHOOLS AND STUDENT PROGRAMMES

Education programmes for schools were inaugurated in 1961: 200 schoolswere equipped with television sets and special programmes were given forthree hours weekly in the evening. The length of the morning lessons wasreduced so that teachers could answer questions arising from the previousevening's programme. In the following year a morning session of threehours weekly was introduced but was found to be unsatisfactory and waslater dropped in favour of general-knowledge programmes. Up to 1966 thetransmissions, aimed at schoolchildren and university students during theacademic year, consisted of excerpts from the school and university cur-ricula selected by schoolteachers and lecturers qualified to adapt theprogrammes to the viewers' needs. Other programmes, transmitted in termtime and during the summer vacation were aimed at a wider audience. Aprogramme for parents advised them on the psychological problems ofchildren. Another programme, conscious of the aimlessness of childrenduring the holidays, advised them how to spend their time constructively.A third programme was devised for the teaching of Arabic, English, Frenchand German languages.

In 1966/67 the educational programmes were completely revised. Totaltransmission time was raised to 14 hours weekly, with special stress on theperiod from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The scope was widened to cover many moresubjects and a higher academic level was reached.

In conjunction with the Ministry of Education the television service isattempting to improve the educational programmes continuously andensure a wider audience by providing more and more schools with televisionsets.

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ADULT LANGUAGE TEACHING

Television is a particularly happy medium for the teaching of languages,and great use is made of the latest audio-visual techniques.

The French and German lessons are of particular interest because theyteach both the written and the spoken languages. The English language istaught in two different series; one for foreigners and the other for listenerswhose mother tongue is Arabic.

The Arabic language lessons are mainly for school audiences. As withradio, the Publications Department has published a series of books to beused in conjunction with these programmes.

THE LITERACY CAMPAIGN

The advantages of the television screen in reducing illiteracy are only tooobvious and Egypt started to introduce programmes with this object inmind as early as 1963. In co-operation with the Fundamental EducationDepartment at the Ministry of Education, the Community DevelopmentTraining Centre for the Arab States at Sers-el-Layyan (affiliated to Unesco)introduced a pioneering experiment in the campaign against illiteracy. Theinitial use of television proved disappointing but the experience provedmore than useful in that it paved the way for a comprehensive and detailedplan for the future development of television programmes more specificallyadapted to the needs of illiterate viewers.

RURAL AND COLLECTIVE-VIEWINGPROGRAMMES

In 1966 the television authorities introduced rural viewing centres, placedmainly in information centres on the premises of agricultural co-operativesocieties. At first there were only 300 sets in use but, by 1968, the numberhad grown to over 2,000. The programmes sponsored by the Higher Councilfor Rural Information were not directly cultural. They were rather directedtowards re-orientating the farming community so that it should becomemore familiar with the social and technical requirements of a moderndeveloping agricultural community.

This particular objective was not entirely reached, partly because therewas very little intensive follow-up of the programmes. For this reason,collective viewing clubs were established and various experiments are beingmade under the auspices of the television service, the Higher Councilfor Rural Information, the Arab Socialist Union, local government, theMinistry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Culture.

Table 7 gives a functional breakdown of the programmes of the tele-vision service. Although a very high percentage is devoted to pure enter-tainment, nevertheless cultural activities are more pronounced than in thebroadcasting services.

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The diffusion, of culture

TABLE 7 Functional breakdown of radio and televisiontransmissions, 1967

Percentage of total transmission__ by function

Service Hours Per

month i f f • Enter- _ , . .Cultural information . Keliffiontamment

Broadcasting(local service) 3 388 14.5 16.1 52.8 16.6

Broadcasting(overseas service) 1 543 13.7 33.5 45.6 7.2

Television 864 19.3 10.9 63.5 6.3

Source: Cultural Statistics: Cinema and Theatre 1966-67, Central Agency for Public Mobilizationand Statistics, July 1969 (Pamphlet 50-311 (in Arabic)).

Decentralization

Although a certain degree of centralization is advocated for culturalplanning, this does not mean that everything should be centred in thecapital. One of the side effects of long years of poverty and ignorance inprovincial and rural communities has been a stifling of most forms ofcultural life except for religious festivals and village fairs. The prime duty ofa ministry of culture is to contribute to the awakening of a cultural life notonly in the major cities but also in the remotest villages and hamlets.

The Popular Culture Sector in the ministry mirrors a natural extensionto the public throughout the country. It is the reason why, in 1958, when itfirst came into being as an independent entity, the ministry immediatelyembarked on a plan to build and equip houses of culture in every provincialcapital. The idea of a house of culture is that it should be a centre for thetransmission from the capital, and that it should also be a receiver of localcultural enrichment. It is managed by a promoter of cultural activities(animateur) whose task is to create a two-way transmission betweencreative artists and the public, and between works of art and the public.This is only part of the promoter's task for he has also to stimulate com-munity life by organizing cultural activities for and by the people of hislocality. An important item of his programme is the provision of workers'and peasants' education. Next to the secondary school, the house of cultureis the most active centre of permanent education in the provinces.

TRAINING

The training of these promoters is no easy matter. At first, they are selectedfrom the staff of the cultural centres on the strength of their organizationaland cultural abilities and their willingness to live far from the capital. Then

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they are sent to the Unesco-sponsored Community Development TrainingCentre for the Arab States at Sers-el-Layyan, near Cairo, where theyundergo intensive training for two months. They then go to a special pilotcultural centre in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo. Here, for about six months,they attend general courses on the arts and on a variety of practical subjectsconnected with the equipment of cultural centres. Apart from a certain fam-iliarity with the main features of a large number of artistic disciplines, thepromoter must be able to repair or modify the equipment in his centre—almost single-handed if need be. After a tough examination, the fourcandidates with highest marks are sent for six months' training abroad ina country with a well-developed system of cultural centres, such as France,the German Democratic Republic or the Soviet Union. On their return, theyare sent on a tour of the houses of culture, in order to reintroduce them intothe Egyptian provincial setting. Then, finally, each is appointed as anorganizing promoter of a specific house of culture, preferably in an areawith which he or she is already familiar.

Organization

At the central planning administration 'popular culture' is divided intonine functional sectors: theatre, music, spontaneous and folk art, plasticarts, mobile caravans, cinema, libraries and lecture courses, the CulturalCentre for Children and the Centre for Village Culture. These sectors operatethrough a system of decentralization, at three levels: the cultural zone(which corresponds to one of the six administrative 'zones' superimposedon the twenty-five governorates of Egypt); the cultural province (rep-resented by the house of culture in the capital of the governorate); andthe cultural centre (a smaller, more adaptable, multi-purpose organization,which can be integrated into any existing local body, such as a social club,a community centre or a school). This functional organization does notimply a division into watertight compartments, but it is an attempt toprovide a well-balanced minimum programme throughout the entire decen-tralized system. In addition to this minimum, spontaneous and local activi-ties and community-training schemes markedly enrich the programmes.The main aim of the central administration is to ensure that a minimumdegree of acculturation percolates every year to the communities in prov-incial towns and rural areas. An idea of the difference between what isplanned and what is actually presented in the houses of culture, culturalcentres and mobile units is'shown in Table 8.

As the decentralized agency becomes successful, it is encouraged andoften subsidized by the governorate which, in many cases, earmarks specialfunds for the promotion of cultural activities. What the Ministry of Cultureinitiates is often multiplied many times over through the enthusiastic sup-port of local authorities and .the public. Sometimes support comes more

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TABLE 8 Functional breakdown of cultural activities plannedand carried ont, 1968/69

Sector

DramaCinemaMusicPlastic artsLibrary services (discussion on books)Lectures and 'teach-ins'Children's programmes

Number ofevents planned

4001540

865575

806100

Number whichtook place

3911804

471153245

1 388425

Source: Dr. Sarwat Okasha, Statement on Cultural Policy, 16 June 1969, p. 152, National Library,1969 (in Arabic).

directly from a central authority such as the theatre and music and cinemacorporations, or the National Library and State Publishing House. Butthese are all additions to the ministry's initial minimum acculturationprogramme.

HOUSES OF CULTURE

These may vary from a single palatial building to a series of pavilions. Eachis equipped with certain basic utilities, common to all the seventeen housesnow in existence: a lecture hall, which can be turned into a small theatre ora cinema, an exhibition gallery, a library, a workshop for handicrafts anda fairly large store-room for theatrical sets, lighting equipment and artists'materials.

CULTURAL CENTRE FOR CHILDREN

This is essentially a study centre which organizes certain pilot schemes inthe houses of culture or provincial schools. It works in close conjunction withthe ministries of youth and education. Through the various agencies con-nected with the Ministry of Culture, this centre has succeeded in promotinga small range of books designed specifically for children in rural communi-ties, a budding children's cinema and a repertory of plays written for chil-dren or for performance by children.

CENTRE FOR VILLAGE CULTURE

A group of fifty employees in the various sectors of the Ministry of Culturewere sent to the Community Development Training Centre at Sers-el-Layyan to undergo training in cultural and educational organization in

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rural communities. About twenty of those were then selected by competi-tive examination to form the nucleus of the Study Centre for Village Cul-ture. They were instructed to make thorough surveys of four villages,representing a wide variety of rural societies. Their studies led to the crea-tion of a pilot scheme which is now in operation in areas having centralhouses of culture.

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State patronage andthe training of cultural agents

State patronage for the arts has always been a delicate question in so faras it raises the possibility of State regulation of the writer or artist. Butthere are situations in which it is essential, in order to provide the requisitematerial conditions for artistic creation. This is the case in most of the'Third World', where, without the State, developing societies would simplynot have a serious theatre or a serious movement in. the arts and literature.The choice between sterile non-interference and having the possibility ofmaking an encyclopaedia or a museum of modern art or a symphony orches-tra is one which leaves very little margin for hesitation.

In pre-revolutionary Egypt, patronage came from the king, in somecases from the princes, but largely from the various departments of theMinistry of Education. The purpose of patronage then was to encourage thepublication of a corpus of scholarly (and incidentally very expensive) worksmainly in Egyptology, Islamic studies and Arabic history and philology.

After the Revolution of 1952 the patronage of the arts was establishedon a more rational basis. A heightened national pride and the sense ofefficiency of the government stimulated State aid with a view to bringingabout a cultural renaissance, at a time when universal education seemedto some to have watered down the cultural content because of the wide-spread demand for it. For the first time in Egypt's history, the State becametruly aware of the tremendous fascination which culture could exercise onthe nation's imagination, and for the first time, the organization of culturalpromotion was such that it was aimed at associating the vast majority ofthe people, and not simply at showing the outside world how clever and'Westernized' Egyptians could be if they so wished. A yearly holiday wasinstituted, called Education Day, which has become the occasion when allthe State prizes are announced (there are now over thirty State prizes forliterature and the arts), when every school in the country holds an exhi-bition of children's art and when the school debating societies enter a com-petition for an elocution prize and for a written essay prize.

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State patronage and the training of cultural agents

The Ministry of Culture is the principal patron of the arts and exercisespatronage through different channels.

State bursaries

This is one of the most direct forms of patronage at the disposal of theministry. Some £(E)30,000-40,000 are placed at its disposal every year toprovide fellowships and bursaries for promising artists and writers. Notsurprisingly, there are few opportunities for them to find the time or thefinancial support to engage in serious creative work outside their regularjobs. As in most countries, artists and writers tend to gravitate towardsthe teaching profession or broadcasting or journalism. In order to write orpaint, for example, what they need above all is a fairly long period of timewith no financial worries and no obligations towards what may be, for acreative artist, uncongenial employment. This is where the ministry canhelp. On the advice of a well-balanced panel of experts from a wide varietyof disciplines, it selects a number of promising candidates every year. Theseare given bursaries which release them from the need for regular employ-ment for a year, and so are free for creative activities. The ministry does notexercise any sort of control over what the holders of bursaries produce, butif it is sufficiently good, it may be bought and placed in the reserves in theMuseum of Modern Art. In the case of literary work, the ministry willrecommend deserving manuscripts for publication by the State PublishingHouse. Table 9 shows the distribution of bursaries from 1959/60 to 1969/70.

The reader need not be alarmed at the fluctuations in the total numberof beneficiaries. Clearly, the funds available are the main factor in deter-mining this number in any one year. The table shows a preponderance, in

TABLE 9 Number of artists and writers receiving Ministry of Culturebursaries from 1959/60 to 1969/70

Year Arts Literature Cinema Music Total

1959/601960/611961/621962/631963/641964/651965/661966/671967/681968/691969/70

5891717192421331220

_124616216181324

_———————111

12111144212

611122224364931542747

Source: Department of Statistics, Ministry of Culture.

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all cases but two, of the arts over literature, but it must be borne in. mindthat the heading 'Arts' covers painting, sculpture, pottery, arts and crafts,photography, tapestry, architecture, batik, mosaics and all the arts associ-ated with engraving. The heading 'Literature' covers only prose fiction,literary criticism, poetry and drama. Music and cinema are not as well pro-vided for as might be expected, but then 'Music' refers strictly to musicalcomposition, while 'Cinema' refers to a comprehensive history of cinema inEgypt and not to any of the techniques involved in the making of films.

Candidates for the ministry's bursaries may be free-lance, employed byprivate firms or by the State. The bursary automatically gives them thechance to take leave of absence from their employment, whatever it may be.

Artistic creation

The liberty of the artist is one of the basic beliefs upon which cultural policyin Egypt is based. There is no official art, nor does the ministry regard itselfas a partisan of any particular school or philosophy of art. Its function isunmistakably one of patronage and promotion, not of control or propa-ganda. The ministry is there to provide studio space, artist's materials ata low cost, and facilities for exhibition and display. There are alreadyfour good-sized exhibition halls, leased by the ministry, in which artistscan exhibit their work without having to pay a fee, and it lends thelighting and supports which the artist can rarely afford to provide himself.In 1968/69 alone, there were forty-six one-man shows and eighty-five col-lective exhibitions in Cairo and Alexandria. In each of the seventeen housesof culture there is an exhibition hall for artists from the capital or for theencouragement of local talent.

Once a year the ministry presents what is called the General Exhibitionof Plastic Arts, which groups works by artists from all over the country.From a special fund of about £(E)10,000 a year it purchases deserving worksfrom this general exhibition. It also organizes an annual art fair where thepublic can buy works of art directly from the artists. It owns or leases aboutforty artist's studios; more are being prepared in the upper floors of restoredmediaeval houses, and there are fourteen at the U.A.R. Art Academy inRome. Artists' colonies have been built in Luxor and Aswan where the lightis particularly pure. These are all lent to artists entirely free of charge.

THE ART AND LIFE CENTRE

This centre for research and experiment is run by a group of artists underthe patronage of the ministry. Their purpose is to evolve a style whichderives its inspiration from tradition but yet appeals to the modern con-sciousness. The centre has staged exhibitions and held seminars on folk-art,the survivals of the arts of antiquity in modern art, the tradition of

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Egyptian architectural design, and so on. It is housed in a nineteenth-century Ottoman palace near the Nilometer of Roda. Whatever one maythink of some of the group's more esoteric pronouncements, it is undeniablethat they are making a real contribution towards a profound understandingof the Egyptian artistic tradition.

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

Egyptian artists are encouraged to participate in international exhibitions,such as the Venice Biennale, the Sao Paolo Triennale and the Paris Biennalefor Young Artists, where they have a chance to achieve wider recognitionand they can derive instruction and stimulation from the currents of modernart. In 1955 the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser inaugurated theAlexandria Biennale for artists from countries bordering the Mediterranean.This exhibition is held every two years in the Alexandria Museum of FineArts (founded 23 July 1954). The ministry provides technical and financialassistance for the packing and insurance of the Egyptian artists' exhibitsgoing abroad, and also nominates the panel of experts to choose the worksthat are to be sent.

Voluntary associations

There are twenty-one learned societies in Egypt, some of which, like theEgyptian institute, date back to the last decade of the eighteenth century.Most of these societies are members of an 'Egyptian Scientific Union' whichis subsidized by the Ministry of Scientific Research and the Ministry ofHigher Education. The principal channel for State patronage is in thegranting of subsidies for the publication of the societies' bulletins andproceedings.

Where the society is concerned more specifically with matters of anartistic or literary nature, it is the Ministry of Culture which assumes therole of patron, directly or through the Higher Council for the Arts, Lettersand Social Sciences. A special budget for assisting literary and artisticsocieties is controlled by the General Administration of the Ministry ofCulture.

State patronage provides the material conditions for those who haveembarked on a career in the arts, but there is another aspect: the ministrymust also try to foster a cultural climate to which society can respond. Inthis it is greatly helped by the Academy of the Arts and the varioustraining centres.

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The Academy of the Arts

The Academy of the Arts embraces a number of higher institutes located inCairo. Its purpose is to promote the arts and train specialists, while at thesame time observing the national policy of safeguarding Egypt's traditions.It also has the wider purpose of strengthening artistic ties with similarestablishments in Arab and other countries.

Previous to August 1969, what is now the Academy of the Arts was agroup of unrelated institutes whose only common feature was that they allcame under the Ministry of Culture. There was therefore no possibility ofthe comprehensive planning consistent with having a clear general policy.In order to remedy this situation, Presidential Decree No. 78 was issuedestablishing the academy. It was to consist of the five higher institutes, formusic (the Conservatoire), Arabic music, ballet, the dramatic arts and thecinema. Organization was, however, left flexible, to allow the Minister ofCulture, with the approval of the Academy Senate, to create new insti-tutes within the academy or to attach existing institutes to it. The FolkArts Centre has recently become part of the academy, as has the newlyformed Institute for Art Criticism.

The conditions for admission to the Academy differ from those thatapply to normal academic institutions, since traditional examination gradesdo not cover the special aptitudes desirable in academy students. The1969 decree empowered the academy to bestow the traditional universitydegrees and diplomas.

THE HIGHER NATIONAL INSTITUTEFOR MUSIC (CONSERVATOIRE)

This institute provides teaching at three levels, preparatory, secondary andhigher. The preparatory level is for pupils of 6 to 12 years of age who areadmitted after undergoing various tests of creativity and aptitude, fol-lowing which they are placed in the academic year that would correspondto an equivalent grade in a Ministry of Education school.

In order to qualify for admission to the secondary stage the GeneralPreparatory Certificate or the Preparatory Certificate for Musical Studiesis required, and there are also artistic and creativity tests. For the higherstage, the candidate must possess the General Secondary Certificate or theSecondary Certificate for Musical Studies, and pass further tests to confirmhis ability.

The courses are not confined to music but cover other subjects normallystudied in institutions coming under the ministries of education and ofhigher education.

80


THE HIGHER INSTITUTE FOR ARABIC MUSIC

Long established, this institute based its studies on traditional rather thanmodern methods. Recently, however, it has adopted more modern tech-niques. The institute is the only one of its kind in the Middle East. It hasseparate sections in Cairo and Alexandria, and conditions for admission arethe same as those for the Conservatoire. There is no preparatory stage,admission being limited to students of the secondary and higher stages only.

THE HIGHER INSTITUTE OF BALLET

This has elementary, preparatory, secondary and higher stages becauseof the prolonged training requisite for ballet. A physical examination isobligatory prior to admission. Foreign and Egyptian experts supervise thetraining, but a normal educational programme is also followed. Should astudent prove incapable of continuing the course, he or she can be trans-ferred to the equivalent class in an ordinary school.

THE HIGHER INSTITUTE FORDRAMATIC ARTS

Teaching is given at graduate level for students of acting and at post-graduate level for students of dramatic theory, acting and stage design(who must hold an appropriate university degree).

THE HIGHER INSTITUTE OF CINEMA

Originally designed to provide courses up to graduate level only, this insti-tute now also provides post-graduate studies. It has separate departmentsfor scriptwriting, directing, sound engineering, photography, editing, designand production. Teaching is given by foreign and Egyptian experts.

THE ACADEMY'S ACTIVITIES

The academy not only trains specialists, but organizes the concerts, dra-matic and ballet performances which are given by the companies attachedto the institutes. These are excellent training for students who have toperform in public, and also help to make the general public aware of thework and progress of the academy.

Similarly, each year the Higher Institute of Cinema features films onwhich graduate students have worked, to qualify in their various special-izations; many have won the applause of both critics and audiences.

The academy's various functions are being increasingly co-ordinated,and students and staff are being trained in active co-operation in sisterarts. The public, too, is becoming increasingly aware of its essential

81

TABLE 10

Institute


Number of students admitted to the Academy of the Arts(October 1968)

Preparatory

Primary Regular Exter- Second- Under- Post- Totalnal ary graduate graduate

BalletMaleFemale

Conservatoire (Cairo)MaleFemale

Conservatoire (Alexandria)MaleFemale

Arabic music (Cairo)MaleFemale

Arabic music (Alexandria)MaleFemale

Dramatic artsMaleFemale

CinemaMaleFemaleTOTAL : Male

Female

Source: Rector's Office, Academy

2125

1211

1317

—_

——

——

——4653

of the

24 —22 —

11 13310 74

12 —16 —

— —— —

— —— —

— —— —

— —— —

~47 I3?48 74

Arts, Ministry of

314

4529

——

6648

286

——

——

"14297

Culture.

1422

3519

——

8577

——

12844

5220

~314182

— 62— 83

— 236— 143

— 25— 33

— 151— 125

— 28— 6

32 1603 47

62 1146 26

~94 ~TT69 463

role—an appreciative and critical audience, without which the State'spatronage would have little purpose. Internationally, contacts throughUnesco and individual countries provide a rich background of comparisonand experience, a constant renewal of the creative energy and imaginationof which it is the academy's primary purpose to promote.

The following is a list of the total number of graduates1 of the Academyof the Arts (June 1969) in the various institutes: cinema, 18; dramaticarts, 39; Conservatoire (Cairo and Alexandria), 3; ballet, 5; Arabic music(Cairo and Alexandria), 39. This gives a total of 104 graduates. For thenumber of students admitted to the academy (October 1969) see Table 10.

Librarians

The librarian's profession was officially recognized in 1954 when a specialdepartment of librarianship and archives was created in the Faculty of Arts

1. Details from the Rector's Office, Academy of the Arts, Ministry of Culture.

82


of Cairo University. At first, the department catered only for tinder-graduates, but since 1964, advanced courses have also been given. Alllibrarians working in public and specialist libraries are expected to possessa B.A. in librarianship. With the State policy of full employment it has beenpossible to absorb increasing numbers of trained librarians into the rapidlyexpanding network of public and school libraries all over the country.

Museum staff

The technical staff in museums of antiquities are generally recruited fromamong the graduates of the departments of archaeology of the universitiesof Cairo and Alexandria. In Cairo there are specialist courses in AncientEgypt and in Coptic and Islamic Egypt; Alexandria University catersonly for scholars specializing in Graeco-Roman or Hellenistic studies.The assistant keepers and keepers of the archaeological museums are allgraduates of one of the departments of archaeology. As in many othercountries, museum posts are frequently regarded as research jobs, butactual training in muscology is a matter of experience and practice duringemployment.

Artists

Cairo University has a Faculty of Fine Arts and a Faculty of Applied Arts,Alexandria has a Faculty of Fine Arts only. Graduates become full-timeartists, or art teachers. Architecture can be studied at the faculties of finearts and at the faculties of engineering. Many of the graduates from theFaculty of Applied Arts have been absorbed in the cinema industry, thetheatre and the arts and crafts centres sponsored by the Ministry of Culture.

83

Conclusion

Perhaps it should be stated that this is a conclusion 'in which nothing isconcluded'; culture in its dynamic perspective being a movement ofcontinuous progress and change. The general picture is a proliferation ofservices mostly issuing from a central authority. The idea of service isinherent in the socialist transformation of society, but which also implies aresponse on the part of those served. In many cases, there are still largesectors of the population which are not in a position to respond because oflack of time or resources, but this is all the more reason to accelerate therational organization of services as an extension of the socialist function ofthe government. Once a certain amount of planning from the centre hasbeen achieved it is reasonable to expect that decentralization will becomea reality.

Service also implies democratization but, in cultural matters, constantvigilance is necessary to prevent a lowering of standards. The commonfallacy that culture is 'highbrow' is often used to justify a multitude ofcompromises. Culture must mean what is best and what is most closely incommunion with the profound realities of the human condition. The separ-ation of culture into two categories, one for a so-called elite and a lesser onefor the so-called masses, can only lead to the alienation of everybodyconcerned.

In the special conditions of development and growth in Egypt, the aimmust be the preservation, diffusion and the promotion of culture withoutany dilution of standards; the training of personnel must have these sameuniversal standards of excellence in mind.

Attempts are now being made to resolve the incompatibilities betweensatisfying urgent needs and long-term planning. The President of theRepublic has appointed an Assistant to the President for Cultural Affairs,to elaborate a long-term plan in harmony with the general plan for socialand economic development. The Minister of Culture will be concerned moredirectly with the actual executive and administration aspects. It is too

84

Conclusion

early yet to say what this new division of functions will give, but it isreasonable to expect that it will progressively yield results. Besides, thefact that cultural affairs have been raised to be the direct concern of anassistant to the president (the only post of its kind) is proof of the tremen-dous importance which is attached to culture in the over-all developmentplans of the State.

85

Appendix Organizational charts

87

Appendix

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88

Appendix

Other ministries in the cultural field

Ministry of National Guidance

Minister

State InformationService

TI.A.R. Televisionand BroadcastingCorporation

Ministry of Yontli

Minister

Higher Committeefor Youth Welfare

XTnder-Secrctary forPlanning andFollow-up

Tinder-Secretary forServices

Tinder-Secretary forFinancial andAdministrativeAffairs

Ministry of Tourism

Minister

Higher Council forthe Co-ordination ofTourist Services

General EgyptianOrganization forTourism and Hotels

tinder-Secretary forPlanning, Researchand Follow-up

Tinder-Secretary forthe Minister's Office

Tinder-Secretary forthe Control ofTourist Services

Appendix

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92

Appendix

Ministry of Azliat Affairs

Minister

Academy ofIslamic Research.

Department forForeign Students"Affairs

Technical Secretariat Department forPublishing andResearch

Dep artment' forPreaching

Ministry of Scientific Research

Minister

Under-Secretary forTechnical Affairs

Science Museum Centre for ScientificD o cumeut ation

93

Appendix

Ministries 'with sections dealing with particular aspectsof cultural dissemination

Ministry of Health

Minister

Central Departmentfor Health

and Information

Ministry of Labour

Minister

General Departmentfor Trade Unionsand 'Workers' Culture

Public RelationsDepartment

Workers' CultureOffices in LabourDepartments

Ministry of Agriculture

Minister

AgriculturalInformation Service

General Departmentfor AgriculturalGuidance

Division of VeterinaryGuidance

94

Appendix

Workers* CulturalOrganization.

Board .of Directors

Director-General

Research

General Departmentfor Institutes

General Departmentfor Zonal Affairs

General Secretariatfor Financial andAdministrative Affairs

Institute of"Workers* InternationalRelationsInstitute ofTrade Union StudiesInstitute offndustrial SecurityInstitute ofLabour EconomicsInstitute 'ofSocial InsuranceInstitute of"Workers' Education

95