CAIRO - Renowned Bedouin-rooted artist Moustafa Bakir, who loves Sinai with its spacious, breezy desert, has come up with a 'fascinating idea' to promote this ‘matchless spot' and put it under the spotlight. The veteran artist Bakir, who was born in Sinai in 1941 and is fascinated by Bedouin life, recently suggested to Minister of Culture Emad Abou Ghazi holding a festival in Cairo about Bedouin life and culture. The Minister of Culture has greatly welcomed the idea, which he sees as a good chance to unleash the potential of Sinai and allow other Egyptians and people from further afield to learn more about its culture. “The Minister loved my suggestion and asked me to make a detailed plan for the proposed festival, so that it can be properly implemented," Bakir told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. "The festival, to be entitled 'Out of Love for Sinai', will use several art forms to show people living inside and outside Egypt that Sinai is a place of peace and joy, and that it has a future. "It needs to be given a lot more attention and I want this festival to tell people here and abroad that Sinai, that was once a battlefield, is now a theatre for construction, development, peace and an economic boom," Bakir added. The festival, due to be held in Cairo early next year on the anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, will be organised with the participation of South Sinai Governorate, the Ministry of Culture, the Tourism Promotion Authority, the General Authority of Cultural Palaces and the Cultural Development Fund. It will include exhibitions of painting and photography by professional Sinai artists, folkloric dance, handicrafts by Bedouin women and Sinai cuisine. It will also involve seminars on the artistic, strategic and economic importance of Sinai. Exhibiting Bedouin art and culture will allow the whole world to discover what Sinai is, stressing that the peninsula, whose population is predicted to rise to 3 million by 2017, can be a magnet for tourism and investment.
