Fes Festival 2007 Encounters

Then I was up and out of the house this morning for the first conference of the Fes Encounters. This year's theme is The Sacred and the Modern. For the first time, HRM King Mohamed VI sent a special message to the Festival organizers and participants. I will discuss that in a separate posting.
The central theme to this morning's discussion was Cultural Identity and Globalisation. One of the main ideas in every presentation is the fear people are experiencing today - fear of loss of identity, loss of culture, uncertainty about change and the elements causing this. I can't possibly relate all that was said by the panel of excellent speakers, but will try to give a highlight here.

Michael Barry of Princeton University made some excellent points in his lively discussion of the importance of culture and the equal importance of our common humanity. He mentioned the struggle in the United States by Black African-Americans to reclaim their history and heritage and of Native Americans to preserve and pass on their history and culture as a conquered people living in their own land. He likened the Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II to today's suicide bombers in that they believed they would become stars in the sky, together forever and forever a part of Japan's effort to win their war. He insisted that we should live by our concepts of humanity and band together to make our reality stronger than that of the sick elements threatening our world.

Kenneth Brown brought up the artificiality of names in relation to culture and identity and asked the age-old question of whether a name is more important the thing or the person it represents. Nedim Gursel suggested that oftentimes 'identity' excludes people from being part of a group. He spoke of Turkey and the European Union and whether the European concept of history is completely valid or valid only to certain parts of Europe. What exactly defines Europe and is that definition real? Looking at the 'big picture' requires questioning some of these views and ideas taken as truth.

Reza Deghati started his discussion by saying that all human beings are a part of one body. He used a computer hard drive as his example. All hard drives are the same until individualized by the software added, then they become unique. Underneath it all, however, a hard drive is a hard drive. His point that we must educate our children better in order to assure our future was very well taken and generated a lot of post-discussion commentary.

The conference was very well attended and seemed to achieve its purpose in that we all carried away food for thought. My main criticism of the event is the poor English translation. The event was in French and for those who couldn't understand, it must have been frustratingly difficult.