Minister of Culture H E Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Hamad Al Thani and officials during the symposium.
Doha: The Ministry of Culture, represented by the Heritage and Identity Department, organized yesterday a symposium titled “Arabic Language and the Qatari Identity”, to mark the Arab Day for Arabic Language, which falls on the March 1 of every day.
Head of the Historical Unit at the Organising Committee for the National Day Celebrations and member of the Shura Council, Khalid bin Ghanem Al Maadeed, gave a lecture in the symposium which was held at the Ministry’s headquarters in the presence of Minister of Culture H E Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Hamad Al Thani, and a number the Ministry’s officials and those who are interested in the subject.
Speaking in the symposium, Khalid bin Ghanem Al Maadeed touched on a number of topics, including the concept of the Arabic language in particular, the relationship between language and identity, and what is meant by identity and its levels.
He also talked about the elements of the national identity, which he outlined as: human dignity, acceptance of the other, work, science and time. He enumerated the pillars and components of the Qatari identity, which are: language, religion, and common history.
The Shura Council member discussed also a number of points, most importantly, preservation of the identity in various spaces such as at home, or with friends, and while browsing the Internet. He then touched on a number of problems, the most important of which are the language of education, the Arabic language and identity, and education in a foreign language.
He stressed that the Arabic language forms the most important aspect of identity, and that whoever loses his language will certainly lose his identity, considering that the Arabic language and the homeland as two faces of the same coin, and separating them would tear apart the fabric of the identity, and leads to its dissolution and loss.
Al Maadeed enumerated the levels of identity, including: individual identity, collective identity, and national identity, and that the more culturally homogeneous people are, the fewer differences between identity at these different levels; adding that the more different cultures in the same country, the greater differences between these levels.
He noted that the elements of identity are formed from the apparent component that is to say the tangible thing such as language, and the intangible such as architecture, behaviour, food and clothing, adding that these are changeable embodiments of identity.
As for the deep component, he noted, it includes a set of pillars such as religion, common history and land, which are cultural structures that are permeated in the formation of the societal fabric throughout the long history.
