KUWAIT, March 20 (KUNA) -- His Highness Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah on Monday said multiculturalism is a necessity for a continuous world peace.
In today's world, multiculturalism crosses borders, enable peoples to know each other, provides better job opportunities for those who learn languages, and opens markets for the flow of business and goods, His Highness Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad told a ceremony to celebrate the International Francophonie Day held at the Canadian Embassy.
His Highness Sheikh Nasser sponsored the event, also attended by several sheikhs, ambassadors and senior state officials. He voiced pleasure for attending the ceremony for the sixth year in a row.
His Highness Sheikh Nasser said that marking the occasion emphasizes the ability of the French language to play a major role in multiculturalism in the world today.
Among about 100 living language, French is spoken by 220 million people - according to the official site of the International Organization of La Francophonie - but the strength of language is mainly judged by its relation to knowledge, and its ability to enrich sciences with vocabulary, phrases and terminology, His Highness Sheikh Nasser said.
This has placed French among the most capable European languages to provide humanities and legal vocabulary, producing chief literary and artistic movements and figures.
These include Surrealisme, with pioneers Andre Breton and Robert Desnos; Existentialisme (Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty); Nouveau roman (Alain Robbe-Grillet and Nathalie Sarraute); Theatre de l'absurde (Eugene Ionesco and Arthur Adamov), His Highness Sheikh Nasser said.
His Highness expressed hope that more non-Western French-speaking writers would win the Nobel Prize for Literature; three African English writers have won the prize; Nigeria's Wole Soyinka (1986), South Africa's Nadine Gordimer (1991) and John Maxwell Coetzee (2003).
In 2006, His Highness Sheikh Nasser gave the go-ahead for adding the RFI (Radio France Internationale) on FM-Kuwait, coinciding with the His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah's arrival at Paris Orly Airport in November on an official visit to the Republic.
In addition, the French Language and Literature Department at the Faculty of Arts in Kuwait University (KU) was opened in cooperation with the Sorbonne.
Talks are under way for opening a branch of the Sorbonne in Kuwait, hopefully to be accomplished by the end of 2017, to further promote bilateral ties, His Highness Sheikh Nasser pointed out.
Kuwait is reaching out to la Francophonie for further exchange of constructive ideas and values, as well as cultural and intellectual production, since the country has been seeking to be a stronghold of culture and arts in this part of the world, His Highness Sheikh Nasser concluded.
Today's International Francophonie Day ceremony was attended by the ambassadors of Canada, France, Switzerland and Belgium, along with other Francophone envoys and diplomats in Kuwait, as well as the Representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kuwait. (end) msa