Speech of the Chairman of Al Mada Foundation for Media, Culture and Arts
The Erbil Book Fair is not just another facet of the renaissance movement that has been reshaping the city and all the bright spaces in the Kurdistan Region for years and consecrating its identity. Rather, it overlaps with the revitalization process whose workshops move from one field to another and in all directions to consecrate new values that are compatible with the spirit of the age and its requirements and to expand the areas of progress and modernization undertaken by the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. The book, like all other cultural means, occupies a leading position within the framework of what the government, civil society organizations, and all political, economic, and social activities aim to achieve. In this direction, the role of the book fair is defined, going beyond the traditional formulas that have begun to negatively affect this free cultural event that was in its beginnings a tool for spreading cultural values, carrying a cultural concern and an open occasion for the free exchange of news and opinions and deepening them through participation and interaction. In this context, it is far from being a mere market for selling and trading books. Safe Kurdistan within the framework of the new Iraq, embraces the book fair as a free cultural oasis, from which it moves to other parts of the country, to clarify what it carries new in the world of thought, culture and science, and to establish solid foundations in its fields to transfer it and enable other centers in the country to create appropriate structures for it until security and stability are established in it. The Erbil International Book Fair, in its fifteenth session, is an attempt and contribution to present a new form with contemporary content for the book fair, in which it is confirmed that culture is the basis for any development and revival. The fair, being held in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region – Iraq, will appreciate the participants’ response, and will work to ensure that their participation acquires a meaning beyond circulating their products and placing them at the disposal of readers, research institutions, scholars, universities and cultural centers. This fair will gain its unique specificity from other events that open up to all forms of culture, arts, sciences and thought.