Arab museums .. A painful reality and a mysterious future – the world thinks

The Arab Thought Foundation has published an article by Khaled Azab on the problems of museums in Arab countries, in the absence of his own science, the "museum science" and the lack of legislation governing the work of museums. museums.
The number of museums in the Arab world is over 1,000, but our lack of accurate statistics on their actual numbers is regrettable. These museums are concentrated in several countries. Egypt has more than 200 museums, followed by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Algeria, while some Arab countries lack a minimum of information about their museums, despite growing interest in have sparked museums over the last 10 years.
The first problem of museums in the Arab world is the lack of a special science called "museum science". The number of specialists is limited and the number of fingers is only one, but the majority of people working in this field have gained their expertise through their field work and in contact with others. international experiences. Therefore, the Egyptian National Committee of the International Council of Museums has launched an ambitious project aimed at regulating the science of museums of the Arab world through a series of pamphlets, a series of papers dealing with various aspects of this science or by mothers' translation of their books or by training courses supervised by international experts. On the other hand, there are two exciting experiences in this field. The first returned to the Helwan University in Egypt, which approved a degree in museum science whose fruits began to bear fruit, and the second to the Sharjah Heritage Institute who has approved another degree in museology.
The second problem in this context is our lack of a law regulating the work of museums in the majority of Arab nomads. Morocco is the most advanced country in this respect. On January 31, 1995, a royal decree regulating the work of museums belonging to the Moroccan Ministry of Culture was recently followed by the creation of an independent museum organization. Then come the experience of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which organized and managed the work of the Kingdom's museums through the Authority of Tourism and Antiquities, which had a positive impact on museum work and its increase in recent years.

The origin of the crisis
The Arab museum crisis is due to the lack of a clear policy on museum establishment over the past 40 years, in that it lacks clear answers to questions following: When do we think about building a new museum? What is the purpose of this particular museum ?, and where is it supposed to be located? What is the expected cost? Where do we save huge expenses and who are the target groups?
There is a lack of understanding of the nature of the museum by the Arabs: the lack of vision. The law, the experts, led to a lack of role of the museum in the Arab environment. The museum in brief is a mirror of the progress of nations and peoples. It is the image of a nation, its history and its civilization. Museums thus preserve this image, as well as its role in promoting the artistic sense in particular and the taste in general. The museum is the guardian of national identity and the common and successive culture of the nation through the ages. He therefore acts as a mediator, who passes it on to future generations. Therefore, many consider museums as "the appearance of the altitude of nations and the measure of their progress and their civilization".
Museums are a container of human heritage, because of its material and immaterial goods, presented in order (historical, artistic, objective, etc.). Thus, museum policy administrators must understand that museums are not exclusive to the state and that it is difficult for a country to play this role alone, so that museum ownership is divided between those who belong to the State, those belonging to civil society and those belonging to private individuals. However, we note that Arab countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, Djibouti and Sudan do not have Arab Museums Committees and therefore are not members of the International Council. museums and its committees in Paris, which partly explains the Arab isolation in the fields of museums and their sciences.
Museums open a window on contemporary societies
The number of their museums is in competition with museums that attract tourists, hence the architectural interest of the city. Its buildings are distinctive symbols of cities such as the British Museum in London, the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Hermitage in Petersburg. , The Great Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Cities choose these facilities very carefully, but unfortunately, most Arab museum buildings are weak in architectural design and do not represent distinctive cities. Even television channels see the buildings of some hotels as distinctive emblems of their cities.
The most striking thing is perhaps that museums and their funds in times of political crisis can be a tool to improve the image, advertising or resources of the country. After the setback of 1967, for example, the Tutankhamun group moved from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to Europe, thus contributing to the strengthening and promotion of the resources of Egypt.
Museums here are a tool for expressing national identity and its transmission to new generations in a soft form that permeates them through the stories presented by the museum guide. Behind each piece is a story and, behind each room, stories of art, which children and young people learn in their national history, especially that they sometimes have the freedom to express them in a drawing or in writing. ICOM (2007) defines the museum as a "non-profit, perpetual and open society, open to the public … and continues to exhibit the tangible and intangible human heritage and its environment for educational and recreational purposes" .
Here, museum training and interactive museum programs stand out as a tool for teaching new generations, where history is invoked. Hence the importance of museum training programs aimed at the public in many areas, including Islamic art.
Surveys conducted over the last 30 years in a number of Western countries have shown that the expectations of museum visitors are still relatively stable and can be summarized as "learning and having fun". However, in the Arab region, we miss such studies. About museum visitors and their wishes. A 2012 return survey conducted by the Heritage Branch of the French Ministry of Culture revealed that access to knowledge is what visitors expect, while aesthetic experience comes second. In addition to these two critical objectives mentioned by visitors when visiting a museum, there are two other smaller reasons: "synergy and pleasure" and "entertainment and entertainment". For all types of museum visitors, tasks such as the preservation of heritage and memory, the transfer of knowledge, the sharing of democratic culture and the presentation of extraordinary works as social functions of museums are often called visitor expectations.
Finally, it is worth noting the increasing international increase of ethnographic museums. This type of museum helps to absorb the mental image of human, local and international cultures, and to understand them, thus bringing many solutions to temporary cultural problems. But until now, this tool is not yet used in Arabic.

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