By Nawab Khan
BRUSSELS, Nov 1 (KUNA) -- A prominent Dutch orientalist, Professor Emeritus Johannes den Heijer, has proposed that "cultural diplomacy" should be used as a tool to remove misconceptions and foster cooperation and bridge gaps between the West and the Arab world.
"There is a misconception among much of the European public about the Arab world and it is often overlooked that the Arab world has lot to offer in terms of culture and literature," he told the Kuwait news agency (KUNA) in an interview in Brussels.
"This misconception could be dealt with by means of culture diplomacy. Not only literature, but music, theatre, and all that," he stressed.
He noted that an initiative like that of Dar al Athar Al-Islamiyya in Kuwait is "a very good example of how to bridge those gaps." "They organize a cultural season in which culture is defined very widely and they invite scholars from all over the world to give lectures and debate with people based locally," said den Heijer.
The Dutch scholar was invited by the Dar Al-Athar cultural organization to its conference in Kuwait last year, but at the last moment, it was cancelled due to the coronavirus lockdown.
Professor den Heijer's academic career spans five decades in three countries, his native Netherlands, Egypt and Belgium.
He studied Semitic languages with Arabic being the major language, at the world-famous Leiden university in the Netherlands where he later taught Arabic and Arabic literature.
He also lived in Egypt for 13 years doing research and academic work and was the director of the Netherlands Flemish Institute in Cairo from 1995 to 2003. The Dutch orientalist can also converse in Arabic with the Egyptian dialect.
Later, he moved to the renowned University of Louvain in Belgium to teach Arabic and Arabic literature form where he retired in 2020.
In his view," one should not only think and talk about differences between this culture or that culture East-West, Europe-Arab world, but involve several sectors like academics, media, diplomacy, policy makers to promote understanding." During his stay in Cairo, he participated in many conferences and debates organized by the famous Al-Azhar Islamic University with the participation of scholars from the Arab-Muslim and the western world.
"This is another example of how the gap between western and Arab and Islamic studies in the Arab-Muslim world has become far less," he commented.
"My personal experience with the Arabic language, Arabic literature and Arabic culture has been one in which I wanted to understand cultural histories since the beginning until the present day and its impact on the Arab world, "said the Dutch orientalist.
What has impressed him is the diversity and cultural change in the Arab world and how the non-Arab Roman empires in Egypt, Syria, Iraq were majority Christian societies and how they changed to Muslim societies. Non-Arab Iran is another example.
He was keen to understand how "the change to majority Muslim society has come about, linguistically Arabization, and religiously transformation from majority Christians to Muslims," he said.
Today, the Dutch professor said the number of people studying Arabic language, literature and culture in Europe has increased a lot.
Leiden is still in the forefront of Oriental studies in Europe, but there are other important places like Oxford , Cambridge, Berlin, Paris that are important centers for Oriental studies.
He said the European Commission has supported projects to translate works of modern Arabic literature into several European languages and said the Arab world has also taken initiatives to translate European literature into Arabic.
Professor den Heijer has authored many academic articles on Arabic language and literature and co-edited a book on use of script in cultures focused on the Middle East and Central Asia.
He acknowledged his wife, Ismat Jahan's contribution to his understanding of the wider Muslim world.
Ismat Jahan is the current ambassador of the mission of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to the EU. Previously she served as her home country Bangladesh' ambassador to the UN, to the EU, Belgium and to the Netherlands.
"Thanks to the career of my wife, I could visit places that I might not have been able to visit namely Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States which allowed me to see the Arab world in a larger context," he told KUNA.
"And to get familiar with the Muslim world outside the Arab world, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and get firsthand knowledge on the ground of these societies that I didn't know that much before outside the Arab world where a majority of Muslims live," he concluded. (end) nk.gta