By Mursi Saad El-Din These days one often hears people complaining about the dearth of cultural magazines and journals. And it is true that people of my generation look back wistfully on a time when the cultural field was graced by such great literary and art magazines as Al-Thaqafa (Culture), Al-Rissala (The Message) and Al-Katib Al-Misri (The Egyptian Writer), to mention ju st a few. And yet, in response to the chorus of complaints, one should mention that there are some cultural magazines currently published which are somehow overlooked. Two such magazines are Al-Shomou (Candles), published by Lotus Abdel-Kerim, and Oun published by Ain Shams University. The first is what one might call a labour of love. Lotus publishes Al-Shomou at her own expense and derives a great deal of satisfaction from seeing this beautifully-produced magazine on the shelves of libraries. Oun, which is an Ancient Egyptian word meaning Ain Shams, the place name after which the university itself is named, is an effort on the part of the academy to establish a cultural link with society. This should be distinguished from the formal forum of the refereed university journal which of course publishes research papers that are assessed by a committee of professors in the field for the academic promotion of the author. Oun, by contrast, is a typical cultural magazine with articles of interest to the general public on literature, art, history and science, as well as creative writing -- poems and short stories -- by students. Besides these two magazines there are quite a few publications which are known only to a small group of readers. These are the magazines published by UNESCO in English and French and translated into Arabic by the Cairo-based centre for UNESCO publications. I have just finished reading the Arabic version of Museum International. This issue (number 288) is devoted to the theme of "Protection and Restitution". It deals with the important concern of the protection of cultural heritage and the return of stolen monuments and antiquities, a subject that has been in headlines in Egypt these past months. Not that we are the only ones clamouring for the return of our antiquities; Greece, to take but one example, has been calling for the return of the Elgin marbles for quite a few decades now. Few, I am certain, know about "The Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict", known as the Hague Convention. This convention was invoked at the start of the Iraq invasion when the fate of objects missing from Iraqi museums came to preoccupy the world. There is yet another important UNESCO document, the "Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property", known as the Convention of 1970. The issue of the journal in hand celebrates the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Hague Convention and, thus, contains the details of this important document and its successful accomplishments, as well as missed opportunities. The Convention was the first multi-national treaty universally dedicated to ensuring the protection of cultural property during armed conflict. Examples are given of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s when the UNESCO Executive Board intervened to express their concern and manifested UNESCO's willingness to contribute to seeking a solution for ensuring the protection of human life, as well as educational, scientific and cultural institutions threatened by the conflict. The same UNESCO stand, it should be added, was shown during the war in former Yugoslavia, the first Gulf War in 1991, Afghanistan and the current Iraqi invasion. Another section of this issue concerns cultural property, national treasures, restitution and types of claims for recovery of lost cultural property. And this is where Egypt comes in, with its call for the return of the Nefertiti bust.
