The Common Culture between Egypt and Tunisia

Hatem Elgoharey
2022 / 4 / 28

In the context of the Egyptian-Tunisian Cultural Year 2021/ 2022, the conference of “The Common Culture between Egypt and Tunisia.. Reality and Hopes” was held on 22/3/2022. The beginning was in September 2021 when we were contacted for coordination by one of the Tunisian female colleagues affiliated with the Tunisian Ministry of Culture , which had previously participated with us in an official seminar organized by UNESCO in Cairo to activate the “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage”, to visit Tunisia by an Egyptian delegation interested in intangible cultural heritage and affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, provided that a similar Tunisian delegation will return the visit In a cultural exchange between the two countries.
The Tunisian colleague who initiated the invitation was not aware of the declaration of the year 2021/2022 as the year of Egyptian-Tunisian culture, so I drew her attention, then I communicated with the “head of the foreign cultural relations sector” in the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to sponsor the cultural exchange and include it in the activities of the cultural year between the two countries. But he kindly apologized for the decision of His Excellency the Prime Minister at that time to rationalize expenses, and our colleagues in Tunisia were unable to sponsor the Egyptian cultural delegation travelling to Tunisia.
In parallel with the cultural exchange event that we were working on and could not be completed for the above reasons, I had the idea of holding a scientific and academic event to study and develop the "common culture" between the two countries, I put it first in the form of a research publication, then I envisioned it to be an expanded cultural conference between the two countries, including Arab participations as well, and because the decision of rationalize expenses was valid, I took the decision to bear the responsibility of the conference, and to establish it with self and voluntary efforts.
I contacted a group of my best Arab and Egyptian academic friends to form the scientific committee of the conference, and all of them were kind enough to volunteer in the scientific committee of the conference, and with the friends at the National Institute of Heritage in Tunis for scientific cooperation, and I contacted Adab and Naqd magazine, whose editor-in-chief kindly agreed to host the conference sessions. But all the administrative and organizational matters of the conference and all its expenses, -print-ing copies of the conference research book, participation certificates, etc., were done with a purely voluntary effort by me and with the participation of some of the scientific committee.
The conference invitation attracted a large number of research papers, all of which served its idea and its main project, however, the great joy was is in the people’s reception fur the idea of the conference and its project, which was published in the conference book entitled: “The Philosophy of the Common Culture.. Towards a Common Arab Cultural Studies.”, Hope remains for the spread of the idea and its transformation into a new scientific school that supports the Arab self and its cultural commons in a severe historical moment.




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