FNC urges action on identity

Council members say Emirati national identity is in danger and institutions at all levels must take urgent steps.

ABU DHABI // Emirati national identity is in danger and government institutions at all levels must take urgent steps to preserve it especially by paying attention to use of the Arabic language, a Federal National Council committee said yesterday. The education, youth, media and culture committee of the FNC argued in a report issued yesterday that federal and local authorities must work together more closely if initiatives to promote national culture and heritage were to be effective.

The committee report on the policies of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development, accused the ministry of failing to meet its most basic goal of promoting national identity. Ministry officials quoted in the report, which will be discussed by the FNC before its summer recess, said the department's annual Dh138.49 million (US$38m) budget was spent almost entirely on salaries and running costs. An inadequate budget, the report conceded, undermined the ministry's ability to carry out new initiatives.

Concerns over Emirati identity have grown in the past few years as the influence of other cultures and languages has increased alongside the growth of the expatriate population. Officials and social experts alike have identified cultural and economic globalisation as a major threat to Emirati identity. The debate over national identity was brought to the fore last year when Sheikh Khalifa, President of the UAE, named 2008 as the Year of National Identity. "Identity is not a symbol for a specific period," Sheikh Khalifa stressed last December, seeking to emphasise that the issue would not disappear after the New Year.

The FNC report recommended that the ministry draft a three- to five-year plan, subject to annual revision, to ensure Emiratis are aware and proud of their heritage. The plan should include measures to promote the "concept of national identity" through the media and school curricula. Some members of the FNC have repeatedly raised the question of identity in debates on a variety of issues ranging from health and education to housing.

Many of the 40-member body have singled out the problem of population imbalance - where Emiratis are a minority in their own country - as one of the gravest threats to identity. Additionally, the fate of Arabic is a perennial worry, and members have expressed profound concern on a number of occasions. At a meeting of an ad hoc committee in April, they, along with leading education experts, warned that English should not be taught in public primary schools at the expense of Arabic if the nation's identity were to be preserved.

In its latest report, the education committee called for federal programmes in co-ordination with local authorities to promote the use of Arabic and ensure the 2008 Cabinet decision to make it the official language was properly implemented. But Dr Obaid al Muhairi, a deputy from Ajman, admitted that parents carried a big part of the responsibility. "We're responsible for marginalising the Arabic language," he said. "I sent my children to English schools because I want them to learn English while I talk here about national identity, that's why I say we are the problem."

Bilal al Budoor, who heads the Arabic Language Protection Association, said in evidence to the committee that his sons spoke English at home and they could not read Arabic properly. The committee has met 16 times in the past 12 months to draft the report. During this time it has held a number of panel discussions and heard from officials and experts such as Mr al Budoor. In September it invited more than 200 people, including some of the country's leading intellectuals and social and political scientists, to the FNC chamber.

In a debate lasting more than three hours Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, an Emirati political scientist at the UAE University, said the gravest challenges to a sense of national identity were globalism and a growing tendency among individual emirates to consider their own interests while neglecting the federal ideal. A running theme throughout the 18-page report was the belief that media should be heavily involved in the question of identity.

FNC members proposed a permanent joint committee between the ministry and the National Media Council to design and carry out projects that served the state's policies with regard to identity and cultural heritage. The report was scheduled to be discussed yesterday but Abdul Rahman Mohammed al Owais, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, was forced to leave the meeting for an emergency Cabinet meeting.

The debate on the report will give deputies the chance to air an issue close to their hearts and raise concerns about such things as the introduction of habits and social manners foreign to Emirati society, especially as some of them were angered when the Government rejected an FNC request to discuss the question in December. In April last year, a conference on the issue was held in Abu Dhabi attended by some of the most senior government officials attending.

"Our future and national identity are strongly connected to the demographic structure issue, which requires collaborative efforts and teamwork," Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, said during the conference.
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