Omar Sultan, former deputy minister of culture for Afghanistan, had a slogan when he was in office: "Taliban, you can break it. But as long as I live, I will rebuild it.”
Now, as part of that effort to rebuild his home country, he's urging western leaders “not to take any quick decision to recognise the Taliban government”.
He said the international community should instead “put pressure on them for the education of girls", so "women can work together next to the men".
Sultan, who was speaking with archeologist Robert Parthesius of NYU Abu Dhabi during a recent public talk organised by the university, served in the government under former president Hamid Karzai from 2005 to 2011.
He is credited with helping to reconstruct the cultural heritage sector in Afghanistan after the civil war and for taking crucial steps to staunch the looting of cultural heritage material at the time.
Sultan was raised in Kabul in the 1960s and '70s, and left to study archaeology in Greece, but was persuaded to return to Afghanistan in the 2000s, when he worked closely with the influential director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, Omara Khan Massoudi.
He helped to secure funding from Unesco and the Greek government to rebuild the damaged museum and restore its collections, which had been reduced – owing to vandalisation, destruction or looting – by an extraordinary 70 per cent to 80 per cent.
Another focus of his was broadening the reach of the National Museum to reflect the rich spread of cultural heritage across the country. A network of 11 provincial museums was planned, with sites to be established in cities such as Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat, Balkh and Bamiyan. Preparations for the project were continued until recently by the National Museum’s current director, Mohammad Fahim Rahimi.
“What I did in the last 20 years, it is like I'm in a dream,” said Sultan. “It’s like I am sleeping and seeing that we went back 20 years, and gave back Afghanistan to the Taliban.”
Sultan’s work in archaeology has underlined the uniqueness of the Afghan region. Because of its situation on trade routes and the number of empires it has belonged to, Afghan culture incorporates several forms and idioms.
In one of Sultan’s excavations, for example, he identified a figure of Heracles standing behind one of a Buddha, in a striking meeting of Buddhist and Hellenistic traditions.
Faced with the potentially repeated situation of the Taliban's suppression of culture, Sultan remains sceptical of the capacity of international agencies such as Unesco to protect the National Museum or other heritage sites on the ground.
The possibility of widespread looting has returned because of a worsening economic situation and the lack of implementation of anti-looting laws. And although the National Museum has not suffered as before, international agencies are closely monitoring and publicising claims of further destruction throughout the country.
Cultural heritage is also threatened as an intangible asset – in the form of songs, knowledge and traditions – and Sultan emphasises that its strength is also intangible.
“When I was young, in Afghanistan, culture heritage united us,” he said. “The people in Afghanistan come from different tribes and different ethnicities, but when it came to culture, everybody was united. So that's why I talk with all my friends and the Afghan and international people to do something about culture as world heritage.”
The fake news generation
288,000 – the number of posts reported as hate speech that were deleted by Facebook globally each month in May and June this year
11% – the number of Americans who said they trusted the news they read on Snapchat as of June 2017, according to Statista. Over a quarter stated that they ‘rarely trusted’ the news they read on social media in general
31% - the number of young people in the US aged between 10 and 18 who said they had shared a news story online in the last six months that they later found out was wrong or inaccurate
63% - percentage of Arab nationals who said they get their news from social media every single day.
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The past Palme d'Or winners
2018 Shoplifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda
2017 The Square, Ruben Ostlund
2016 I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach
2015 Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
2014 Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu), Nuri Bilge Ceylan
2013 Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie d'Adèle: Chapitres 1 et 2), Abdellatif Kechiche, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux
2012 Amour, Michael Haneke
2011 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat), Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2009 The White Ribbon (Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte), Michael Haneke
2008 The Class (Entre les murs), Laurent Cantet
Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press
MATCH INFO
Red Star Belgrade v Tottenham Hotspur, midnight (Thursday), UAE
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
Top 10 most polluted cities
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- Ghaziabad, India
- Hotan, China
- Delhi, India
- Jaunpur, India
- Faisalabad, Pakistan
- Noida, India
- Bahawalpur, Pakistan
- Peshawar, Pakistan
- Bagpat, India
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
TEACHERS' PAY - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:
- top end schools tend to pay Dh16,000-17,000 a month - plus a monthly housing allowance of up to Dh6,000. These tend to be British curriculum schools rated 'outstanding' or 'very good', followed by American schools
- average salary across curriculums and skill levels is about Dh10,000, recruiters say
- it is becoming more common for schools to provide accommodation, sometimes in an apartment block with other teachers, rather than hand teachers a cash housing allowance
- some strong performing schools have cut back on salaries since the pandemic began, sometimes offering Dh16,000 including the housing allowance, which reflects the slump in rental costs, and sheer demand for jobs
- maths and science teachers are most in demand and some schools will pay up to Dh3,000 more than other teachers in recognition of their technical skills
- at the other end of the market, teachers in some Indian schools, where fees are lower and competition among applicants is intense, can be paid as low as Dh3,000 per month
- in Indian schools, it has also become common for teachers to share residential accommodation, living in a block with colleagues
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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