Time to Revive Our Deep Rooted Culture [Archives:2001/26/Culture]

Saleh Abdulbaki 
Yemen Times 
Vital importance is attached to culture. That is so due to the crucial cultural development role it plays. In our country culture has been given a special focus, especially after the unification in 1990. However, in the past few years the state of affairs of culture has remained stagnant. In an attempt to retrieve the situation, the President gave directives to the Culture Minister to activate cultural activities to revive the past cultural glory and give artists their due right. 
The Cultural Minister has been actually up to the expectations. He has launched sincere efforts to translate President’s directives into actions. Now the atmosphere seems to be more conducive and pertinent to revive the culture and boost it. It is actually a matter of pride to experience the current cultural activities in all the cultural sectors and levels. Meetings with literary men and artists to review their concerns and worries that impede their full involvement in their career are also of importance to fulfill our goal. Since he assumes his activities as a cultural Minister, Mr. Abdulwahab al-Rawhani has conducted several visits to many cultural centers to review and identify limitations, discuss them with authorities concerned and propose solutions. These are actually promising initiatives which could constitute a turning point in the cultural movement. Activating the cultural movement will lead to many changes to take place to the advantage of the literary men. Supporting literary men also includes ensuring good living and housing conditions. With the commitment of the new minister I can confidently say things are in the right track. As to contribute in forming the awareness and the desirable cultural change, we put forward the following suggestions to be considered by the authorities concerned in the Culture Ministry: 
1- Ensuring material and moral support devising a proper vision for conducting cultural activities and cooperating with the media means to cover these issues through the TV and radio. 
2- Encouraging creative artists in reviving and reorganizing singing parties. 
3- Launching a unified study with the objective of promoting the musical performance between the Information and Culture Ministries to form a semi-orchestra musical band. 
4- Reconsidering the issue of joining Yemen in the Arab Publishers and Musicians Syndicate in Paris to protect the musical ownership. 
Finally, we pin high hopes on the Culture Ministry to make all these dreams come true and revive the past glory of our culture. 

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