RIYADH, 15 March 2006 — Like many other aspects, the Kingdom’s cultural scene is experiencing a sea change. Saudi writers and intellectuals have been more vocal in recent years about the need to increase support and promotion of the arts in the country. Writers in particular, especially young ones, have been yearning for broader acceptance and feel as though they have been marginalized.
The year’s Riyadh International Book Fair that ended earlier this month did show signs that the Kingdom was easing up to some degree with restrictions. The Ministry of Culture and Information allowed nearly all the books that fair organizers and publishers wanted to offer, contrary to anonymous statements that were published in the media regarding titles of certain books that would be banned. This was a significant move on the part of the government toward a wider acceptance of the marketplace of ideas; in the past the regulations had been stricter.
Prior to the book fair, Arab News sat down with Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs at the Ministry of Culture and Information Abdul Aziz Al-Subayel to discuss the literary and cultural scene in the Kingdom, particularly the call by many young writers for more serious commitments by the country’s 12 officially sanctioned literary clubs and 83 public libraries to promote the arts and to engage in more thoughtful and open discussion of ideas.
A Push for Reform
“The culture is changing,” said Al-Subayel. And as such, he says, the Ministry of Culture and Information is mulling reforms to the Kingdom’s literary clubs, which were established 30 years ago at the request of writers seeking venues for promoting the arts. When faced by the complaints of the writers of the younger generation, Al-Subayel said that the change to the way the government promoted the literary arts is “for real” and that “it’s coming soon.”
Through the Kingdom’s General Presidency for Youth Welfare, a dozen literary clubs were established in the major cities. They became places for playwrights, poets and other authors to meet, critique works and hold lectures. Some of the clubs began publishing literary magazines to promote the works of up-and-coming Saudi writers. But as the years passed, the new writers began to view these clubs as stodgy, bureaucratic, and disconnected not just with global literary trends and issues, but local ones, too. Board memberships to these clubs have become de facto lifetime positions. In recent years the management of the clubs shifted from the General Presidency of Youth Welfare to the Ministry of Culture and Information.
Al-Subayel, who holds a Ph.D. in Arabic Literature and is fluent in English, welcomed Arab News to his office to discuss the reforms promised by his ministry, including a mechanism for the rotation of board memberships by consensus of the clubs’ members; in other words, democracy.
Writers themselves have mixed reviews about the proposed changes.
“We are very much optimistic about the coming change,” said Abdullah Bahttab, a manager of the Jeddah drama group at the Saudi Society for Arts and Culture.
A writer who did not want his name published wasn’t as optimistic, calling the Kingdom’s cultural mission “a bureaucratic institution that is not moving anywhere.”
Still, Al-Subayel insists that the changes will hopefully win over the critics. He said the literary clubs are working on choosing new board members, beginning with the flagship Riyadh Literary Club.
The first stage, Al-Subayel said, would be the announcement of the new (appointed) board members that will later elect their own president among themselves. When asked about instituting the selection of the clubs’ leaderships by vote of the members themselves, Al-Subayel said the problem was related not so much to the government’s acceptance of such an idea, but rather to the fact that no mechanism is in place to institute self-governance by the clubs. “We discovered that there are no public committees in any literary clubs that can organize and hold the elections,” said Al-Subayel.
The process of instituting self-governance of literary clubs, according to Al-Subayel, will take approximately two years. After that, he says, the clubs can hold their own elections not only for the presidency but also to choose board members independently and away from the ministry.
“We have to invite the public to participate in those clubs,” he said when asked about the timeframe. “We have to make sure that the voting members are real active members.”
Said Al-Ahmad, a 37-year-old short story writer from Riyadh, said that he would like to see immediate autonomy and self-governance of literary clubs.
“By choosing the board members, the dilemma will continue as they themselves are going to put the rules for the coming elections,” Al-Ahmad said.
He added that he would like to know on what bases the 10 Riyadh Literary Club board members were chosen out of an estimated 4,000 writers and intellectuals in Riyadh. He stressed that the elections are important, as they would represent the will of the active members on the cultural scene.
Will Women Play a Role?
As the Riyadh Literary Club prepares for reform, writers are waiting to see what happens in Jeddah. Rumors have been circulating that tomorrow the club will make an announcement that Lamia Baeshin may become the first woman named to a position at a literary club. Baeshin is a member of the Jeddah club and a staff member of the Department of English Literature at King Abdul Aziz University. She is known for her thoughtful literary critiques of contemporary Saudi works using Western schools of literary criticism.
Al-Subayel said that the Ministry of Culture and Information has no issue with appointing women to the board membership of literary clubs. However, as of yet, no woman holds any position of authority at any of the clubs.
The Jeddah Literary Club is widely viewed to be the best contender for increasing the role of women in the intellectual discourse.
“The ministry lost a great chance of enrolling women writers as board members,” said novelist Abdu Khal, a member of the Jeddah Literary Club. He added that the Jeddah club is most likely to accept women’s appointment because the Western Region has had a tradition of accepting and embracing talented women in journalism and creative writing.
The Jeddah club was the first to open a women’s section, albeit segregated, where they can meet and attend lectures and participate with their fellow writers. In mixed-gender events, women and men communicate through video monitors rather than face to face. Even that privilege is not given to other clubs where women hold their literary hearings outside the clubs at private all-women meetings.
Al-Subayel said that part of the reforms is to institutionalize the clubs’ practice of providing a forum for women inside the organizations.
Young Writers Turn to Internet
Many young Saudi writers have simply given up on the literary clubs altogether and have turned to cyberspace for the cure. Cultural websites and forums have been popping up in recent years, inviting Saudis, both men and women, to discuss, debate and publish their works online.
“We have to depend on ourselves, and in best cases on the cultural sites on the Net. The officials have never shown any interest in supporting us,” said Khaled Al-Samiti, 24, winner of the Best Short Story in last year’s Khartoum Cultural Festival.
Al-Subayel has promised that part of the government’s efforts to reform its institutionalized promotion of the literary art is to incorporate the youths with the board memberships and mix the old generation with the new. The ministry wants those clubs to be more of public gatherings for the youth to discuss and debate.
“We want to initiate different committees in each club, a short story committee, a poetry committee, a novel committee and many others,” the deputy minister said.
Al-Subayel said that most of the time the older generations “underestimate the youth” and accuse them of inexperience and immaturity. “Our youth have great abilities and we must trust them,” he said.
In the age of the Internet, trust may be a moot issue. If the literary clubs don’t trust young writers, then the young writers will simply create a Web forum for their ideas.
A known fact to all Saudis is that the budgets of all literary clubs in the Kingdom combined cannot be compared to a single sport club budget.
An Issue of Funding
Al-Subayel argued that the sport clubs get their own profit and income by selling the match tickets. “You cannot ask the audience attending a lecture to buy a ticket,” he said.
Nonetheless, he said that the budget of these clubs should increase in the near future. And, according to Al-Subayel, the country’s public libraries and the Saudi Society of Arts and Culture can offer collateral support for the activities of the literary clubs.
He told Arab News that the Society of Arts and Culture would be turned into an administrative organization with various civil society institutions emerging from it, such as a fine arts group, a photographers group and others. The ministry would then support them financially and let them work for themselves with no intervention.
Bahttab, the manager of the Jeddah drama group, agrees that creating an administrative wing would help reduce his group’s constant efforts to fill out the paperwork and conduct the administrative functions that take away from efforts to stage actual drama works.
So, according to Al-Subayel, 2006 is going to witness drastic and refreshing changes on the cultural scene. Young writers, in the meantime, will take a wait-and-see approach before wholly embracing the reforms.
