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Arab Critics of Arab Culture
(Ha'aretz) Zvi Bar'el - The Arabic literary magazine Al Jadid recently published an interview with Egyptian author Gaber Asfour on "the culture of backwardness" in the Arab world. Asfour, who twice served as Egypt's culture minister, wrote, "This is a culture that doesn't seek debate and doesn't tolerate differences of opinion. Anyone who believes in it believes that he possesses the truth, while the other is wrong and is therefore a heretic who must be destroyed." A committee affiliated with Egypt's council for higher education noted that the average Egyptian reads a quarter of a page a year. UNESCO in 2003 reported that one book a year is read for every 80 Arabs, whereas in Europe, 35 books a year are read for every person. The report added that 5,000 books were published in the Arab world each year, compared with 300,000 in the U.S. A report by the Arab Thought Foundation in 2011 concluded that the average Arab spends six minutes a year reading, compared with 200 hours for the average European.