Today, the work of the conference / Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage after the Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa Region / organized by the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies started over two days, in cooperation with Qatar Museums, Qatar National Library and the Center for Conflict Studies and Humanitarian Action.
The conference will bring together specialists and researchers from the Arab region, Europe, Australia and the United States of America to explore the challenges and opportunities of post-conflict reconstruction of cultural heritage in the Middle East and North Africa, with a special focus on Arab countries.
Dr. Abdul Wahab Al-Afandi, President of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said in his opening speech that the recent events and disasters that afflicted the region and the rest of the world alerted us to the fragility of some aspects of our existence on this planet, on top of which are the archaeological and cultural human treasures due to the wars and fires that ravaged the world in the past few years. past, in addition to earthquakes.
added: "Ironically, the eras that we used to call barbarism, the attacks of the barbarians on Europe, and the attacks of the Mongols on the Islamic world, did not destroy the antiquities and heritage treasures, as modern wars destroyed."enumerating some of the motives that led to this destruction, such as greed, theft and smuggling of antiquities.
He stressed that the challenge is to rebuild and protect what remains, which he considered an urgent need, praising what Qatar is doing through Qatar Museums in this field. He said in this regard: "We have high hopes for this conference, and we affirm that the State of Qatar will play a leading role in the efforts to rebuild and preserve heritage.". For her part, Dr. Amal Ghazal, Dean of the College of Social and Human Sciences at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, praised the efforts of the organizers and volunteers in making the conference a success, noting that 160 scientific papers from all over the world were received to participate and 27 of them were selected, noting that the conference intersects with a message The institute aims to attract the elite of Arab and foreign students, and its endeavor to produce Arab knowledge that would engage and interact with our reality today.
For his part, Dr. Ghassan Al-Kahlout, Director of the Center for Conflict Studies and Humanitarian Action, gave a brief overview of the center as an independent center that seeks to produce knowledge that links theory with practice and spreads the values of dialogue, mediation and reconstruction, indicating that the conference embodies the values of the center and addresses one of the most important issues in the region that It suffers from the ravages of war and disasters and aims to protect and preserve the cultural and historical heritage for future generations.
For his part, Dr. Noor Allah Munawar, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, gave a conceptual speech, in which he indicated that the events of the war in Ukraine and some countries in the Middle East affected museums, antiquities, and the local population, which was reflected on the academic and media person on this issue, indicating The conference brings together different points of view on this issue, with the aim of bridging the knowledge gap of researchers in the region about heritage discourse and prompting them to delve deeper into archeology, as well as showing that the region is not just an arena of conflict, but rather a knowledge center in which heritage plays a pivotal role.
In her intervention on the State of Qatar’s efforts to rebuild cultural heritage in the region, Dr. Fatima Hassan Al-Sulaiti, Director of International Cooperation and Government Affairs at Qatar Museums, and General Rapporteur of the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, said: "Cultural heritage has a value that people communicate with, and it has many aspects and tools" Qatar has always contributed to containing heritage as an integral part of it and contributed to several global partnerships, to enhance the role of culture in social cohesion and sustainable development, including the reconstruction of cultural heritage.
Regarding the efforts of Qatar Museums to protect the world cultural heritage, Dr. Fatima Hassan Al-Sulaiti, Director of the International Cooperation Department and the Office of the Chief Executive Officer at Qatar Museums, presented, in an exclusive statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA), a number of examples of what the State of Qatar has done and sponsored in the reconstruction Cultural heritage and its restoration as international programs such as the Qatari-Sudanese Antiquities Project and the holding of several exhibitions, most notably the Travel Exhibition and the Baghdad Qurat Al-Ain Exhibition, which were hosted by the Museum of Islamic Art, stressing that Qatar Museums has invested its expertise and capabilities in documenting cultural heritage in order to preserve and promote sustainable tourism and hold exhibitions as its efforts continue to commit to preserving The heritage and culture of the region.
She stressed that understanding the role of culture is a basis for promoting social cohesion and sustainable development, and thus Qatar has emerged as a fundamental player in supporting -conflict reconstruction of cultural heritage, with a focus on preserving and restoring cultural heritage.
Immediately after the opening session, the audience followed the first session titled / Relief of Cultural Heritage: Qatar and the World /, which was moderated by Dr. Amal Ghazal, Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, during which Stephen Ebert of Qatar National Library spoke about the efforts of Qatar National Library In preserving the documentary heritage in the Arab region. Meanwhile, Joan Dingwall McCafferty of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, spoke about UNESCO’s efforts to reconstruct cultural heritage sites.
During the second session, entitled Emotions, Influence and Recovery Practices through Post-Conflict Cultural Heritage, which was moderated by Annette Lucek, from the University of Leicester, UK, Sarina Wakefield from the University of Sheffield, UK, delivered research on post-conflict therapeutic heritage in the Middle East and North Africa region. Paul Newson from the American University of Beirut and Ruth Young from the University of Leicester discussed issues and challenges of engaging local communities in antiquities and archaeological heritage after the conflict. The session concluded with an intervention by Ammar Azouz from Oxford University entitled “Reconstruction of Syria in Exile”.
The third session focused on the theme of “competing memory and the reconstruction of cultural heritage” and was moderated by Farah Al-Aridi from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, where Craig Larkin and Ina Rudolph of King’s College London presented a joint paper entitled: Memory, Violence and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Reconstruction Imagine Mosul/, and Groya Badescu of the University of Konstanz in Germany shed light on / international actors and post-conflict reconstruction from Beirut to the Balkans/. As for Jihan Selim from the University of Leeds, she discussed in her research paper / Participation in the Production of Memory: Youth’s View of Beirut’s Disputed Past. The session concluded with a paper presented by Munir Sobeih Afaki, from the Czech Technical University in Prague, in which he discussed “Collective but Divided Memories: The Possibilities of Post-War Memorial Architecture in Aleppo”.
While the fourth session was titled “Gender, Minorities and the Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage”, it was moderated by Dr. Ismail Nashif from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, in which Yasmine Al-Khodari from the British University in Cairo shed light on the agency of Middle Eastern women in preserving cultural heritage. Intangible/, while Eleanor Childs from Deakin University in Australia spoke about / the intersection of gender and the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage.. while Domagoj Kurban from the University of Rijeka, Croatia, discussed / the impact of reconstruction on Yazidi cultural heritage and refugees. The work of the first day of the conference was concluded with a major lecture entitled / Formation of (post) colonial state power and its dismantling /, which was moderated by Dr. Noor Allah Munawwar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and Chiara de Cesari, Professor of Heritage Studies at the University of Amsterdam, spoke in it. , Holland.
