Archives and Scholarship in the Arab World

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.”