Ardent Zeal for Culture
Issue 12
Dear reader, with this issue coming your way, which is published midway between the celebrations of the Glorious National Day and the National Action Charter, the journal (Folk Culture) enters its 4th year. In our 1st year, we published 3 issues, and have since been publishing it on a regular quarterly basis in an endeavour that can at least be considered worthy of the pains in terms of special efforts, academic experience, administrative organization, financial expenditure and global logistic partnership.
Since its launch more than 3 years ago, (Folk Culture) has been true to its word and kept its promises to the readers in striving for objectivity in investigation, clinging to the essence of this objectivity in terms of “consistency, eschewing uniformality, using descriptive analysis, opening up to accountability and charting an untrodden path and bumpy road.” We have been hankering to build, with the dear reader, a new pattern of knowledge in which our publication becomes “easy to obtain and understand, yet consistent and concise, benefiting ordinary people just like benefiting scholars, and becoming the centre of attention for the public at large, in the same way scholarly people yearn for.” We have strived for this, hoping to achieve as much as we can, but we were not at that time conscious or aware of all the difficulties lying ahead in real life, thus costing us much effort and pains in reviewing the material and fine-tuning it following meticulous academic evaluation and assessment. Needless to say, it is a long march and cycle, but we are insisting to steer ahead in building the edifice of knowledge brick by brick.
Some of those who received our first issue, and who admired its form and structure, we betting that the new publication will be short-lived, and that it will probably not make it after the second or third issue, due to the scarcity of its material and the dearth of writers in its field of specialization. However, we were unruffled by this, because we know very well how much progress has been made in the folklore art as one of the humanitarian sciences in the Arab academic circles and due to our deep conviction of the effect of the liking for knowledge on folk culture as a field of investigation and exploration and the interest it kindles in the mind of wise people. Since then, research works and studies and prolific materials have inundated us from all directions and in more than one language, after the line of the journal became well entrenched, and after the publication became well-established and widely circulated in all Arab markets, reaching all chapters of the International Organization of Folk Art, or IOV in more than 162 countries all over the world. We are now facing an embarrassment with the writers in the journal because of not being able to publish the articles sent to us, which a quarterly journal of only 260 pages cannot accommodate in one issue, particularly when the journal has many sections of folk culture, and every chapter should contain a limited number of articles of the same subject. So, if all articles sent to us are in the field of folk literature, for example, the articles of folk literature are put back to give priority to other chapters and so they fall in queue according to the importance or the seriousness of the subjects discussed. This applies to all subjects, and so most of our writers are now beginning to understand the situation and they wait for the opportunity depending on the circumstances and the limited space available.
We were aspiring for this quarterly to embody the spirit of the National Action Charter under the auspicious and prosperous rule of His Majesty Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, the King of the Kingdom of Bahrain, who considers culture as a strategic depth to his pioneering reformist rule. Thanks to the support of His Majesty and to his personal encouragement, and due to the keenness of the Royal Court in the Kingdom of Bahrain for this publication to continue, and amid the openness we are living and the atmosphere of democracy and transparency the Kingdom of Bahrain is enjoying, we are continuing out efforts restlessly to enhance all the private efforts in collecting, collating and documenting folk culture materials, motivate students to specialize and encourage more research and studies about Bahrain’s folk culture as a prerequisite component of our national culture and open new channels of communication with think tanks and research centers all over the world to drive the folk culture message from Bahrain to the entire world.
All acknowledgement appreciation is due to all noble, dedicated and selfless efforts which will ensure continuity for the journal, Folk Culture.
Ali Abdulla Khalifa
Director General /Editor-in-Chief