Archives and Scholarship in the Arab World
November 11th, 2008 by Tariq
Rob at Arab Media Shack points to an interesting article by Robert Fisk in Egypt’s Daily News, wherein he highlights a major problem in Arab society, “In Damascus, a massive statue of the late President Hafez Al-Assad sits on a mighty iron chair outside the 22,000 square meters Assad Library, a giant book open in his right hand. Behind him lie the archives of his dictatorship. But not a single state paper is open to the people of Syria. There are no archives from the foreign ministry or the interior ministry or the defense ministry. There is no 30-year rule — for none is necessary. The rule is forever. There is no Public Record Office in the Arab world, no scholars waiting outside the National Archives.”
Posted in Freedom, Journalism, Middle Eastern Media, Syria |
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