NNA – Minister of Culture, Judge Mohammad Wissam Al-Mortada, considered that “the role of creators lies in presenting a living example of creativity in which its people compete to rise to the top, to where the highest values reside in the dwellings of arts, beauty and knowledge, which is better and more lasting in the conscience of the homeland than all the struggles of seats and hollow dominions.”
He added: "Beirut, despite the wars, earthquakes, deliberation of rulers and occupations, remained linked to the description of the ‘mother of the laws’ only... This place in which we are was built for the sake of thought on an intellectual occasion, and still enjoys its glory and freshness, because any creative piece, be it a word, a painting, a melody, a building, or anything else, resulting from the work of luminous hands and lavish minds, is nothing but a continuous renewal of life.”
Al-Mortada’s words came during the Ministry of Culture, in partnership with the Foundation for the Land of Creators’ revival of the event, “A Nation’s Centenary Celebration”, at the UNESCO Palace.
The event was devoted to honoring a group of creators in various fields in the presence of Culture Minister Al-Mortada, the President and Founder of the ‘Land of Creators’, Kamal Bkassini, and a crowd of dignitaries, cultural, literary and media bodies and artistic unions.
Al-Mortada considered, in his word, that amidst the widely-spread Lebanese creative talents in all parts of the world, this occasion becomes a “sustainable and much-required initiative, albeit seasonal, to show the true face of Lebanon.”
“Perhaps we are in dire need now, in the midst of the crises surrounding us that have negatively affected the image of the homeland among its people and the peoples of the world, to the extent that many citizens are choosing the danger of death by drowning in the waves of the sea, over the slow death that they taste each day because of the dire social conditions. They are suffering, and we have seen a glaring example of that in what Tripoli witnessed last Sunday, of a national and humanitarian catastrophe,” the Minister added regretfully.
“Our nation exports its creators to enrich foreign countries, and the image becomes more contradictory and painful if we remember how the practice of governance in our country has been since independence - without generalizing, of course - in a path that contradicts the notions of enlightenment spread by Lebanese intellectuals in the whole East,” he said.
Al-Mortada concluded by hoping for a better tomorrow for the country and its people, expressing his well-wishes on the Blessed Eid occasion.
==========R.Sh.
