Culture in the ME

The countries forming the main working field for the Finnish Institute in the Middle East – Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt and Turkey to some extent – are very different from each other in the point of view of cultural activities some being exquisitely commercial and free while others have state supporting arts and are more limited in artistic expression. Cultural field is the widest and the most developed in Turkey, at the same time Syria being relatively closed despite of recent opening. The recent political uprising has not changed the functioning of the cultural field or way of relating to arts significantly.

It is difficult to find local founding for cultural activities, but few national and international foundations do support culture also financially. Cultural organizations are very small and usually do not receive fundamental founding from the state or other governmental entity. Therefore most of the organizations are obliged to withdraw e.g. the salaries of their staff from the projects they do, which is good to take into consideration when planning joint projects. EU delegations situated in the area hand out grants according to their policies.

Social and community arts have enormously job opportunities in the Middle East – founding providing. All the countries of action of the institute host several refugee camps and UN refugees waiting for decisions for their placement, many of them obliged to live in their state of waiting for many years. To answer to these needs, a Dutch origin Music In Me International Foundation has been founded to work with refugee children and youth in Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian territories using music and music therapy as a tool. Also, few Finnish associations such as World Comics Finland have organized workshops for refugees in the Middle East.

The status of disabled, mentally challenged and unemployed is week in the Arab world, and child workers are plenty. Bulgarian Cultural Centre in Damascus working in Syria is one of the rare entities targeting regular cultural activities for disabled children.

Visibility of Middle Eastern cultural organizations on the internet is quite sporadic, but most of the organizations working regularly have their own Facebook pages.