Organized by the International Network for Arab Societies (INASS) and the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), we are pleased to invite you to attend the live event of the first digital seminar in the series of seminars of the International Forum (Transformations).
The Arab region has witnessed rapid changes for more than a decade during which social structures and value systems were altered. These changes have led to new models for development and evolution within Arab societies.
From psychological and sociological perspectives, hesitation and resistance to change is natural due to the fear of an unclear future. This has contributed to the failure to form elite groups with clear projects for the future, which has in turn threatened attempts linked to hopes of a forthcoming Arab renaissance.
The Arab renaissance urgently requires the establishment of unified evaluation processes informed by clear, scientific, and objective indicators that remove emotions and understand that change is gradual and instantaneous. The evaluation systems need to transcend the ideological positions that tend to adopt visions and social judgments that reinforce them within the frameworks.
The recent changes throughout the Arab region have resulted in the abandonment of former renaissance values; while they were set as goals, Arab countries have ultimately not achieved them. Therefore, due to the absence of an intellectual accumulation of an Arab renaissance project, they aspire to build new systems that can offer alternatives to the current perceived social, cultural, economic, and educational systems that will ultimately build a paradigm that Arab citizens adopt to cut ties with backwardness and move towards development in its various dimensions.
Within all these contexts, the first seminar in the series of the International Forum (Transformations) organized by the International Network for Arab Societies (INASS) and the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD) will be held on August 15. The seminar will present an epistemological understanding of the relationship of the current changes in the Arab region with the levels of foundation for an authentic Arab renaissance that responds to the basic issues posed by Arab societies. In other words, the seminar participants will discuss the issue of transformation in the Arab world and the project of renaissance and will achieve a solid knowledge exchange between intellectual elites on the following topics:
The nature of the Arab transformations – their dynamics, accumulations, timing, speed, multiplicity; the sudden, urgent, and gradual transformations; the instantaneous, sustainable, and continuous changes; and if they are connected with prior renaissance projects or are contingent on certain events?
The experiences of the Arab transformations, and their evaluation in terms of success and failure – were the transformations in the Arab world able to bring about changes in patterns of thought and action, as well as deep changes within social structures and affected societal culture, or were they limited to superficial levels?
The roles of those concerned with transformations, governments and peoples and if the pace of these transformations can be controlled – do people seek transformation and believe in the necessity of change, or reject it and resist it?
We are pleased to host each of the distinguished professors as speakers who will discuss these topics:
Dr. Mustafa Al-Nashar (Professor of Philosophy in Cairo Literature, Arab Republic of Egypt)
Dr. Magdy Abdel Hafez Saleh (Professor of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, Helwan University, Arab Republic of Egypt)
Dr. Ismat Hussain Sayed Nassar (Professor of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Arab Republic of Egypt)
Dr. Abdallah El-Sayed Ould Abah (Professor of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of Nouakchott, Islamic Republic of Mauritania).
Mr. Shaya Al-Waqyan (a Saudi author specializing in philosophy)
Your participation will enrich the dialogue.
