The United Arab Emirates will host a high-level, international conference on terrorism versus culture, led by the French president François Hollande and the president of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The exact date and venue is not yet fixed, but the event is due to take place in December in Abu Dhabi, which is building a Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Since 2015, France has taken the lead in this campaign. The decision to hold the conference, which will bring together ministers as well as museum and heritage experts, was made in May by the G7 summit in Japan, on a proposal from Hollande. Along with the other G7 members, France and the emirate are gathering a coalition of states to support the initiative, according to information from the Elysée Palace in Paris. It is expected to be formally announced at the Louvre today (5 July) during a visit by Hollande and a high-ranking official close to the emir, who will be in charge of this mission. According to our information, a French special envoy has already been appointed: Jack Lang, a former minister of culture and the president of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.
The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, invited Jean-Luc Martinez, the director of the Louvre, to present his plan to protect cultural heritage to the heads of state at the G7 meeting. Among a series of 50 proposals, Martinez stressed the need to control freeports around the world. Hollande expressed the hope that the conference in December will enable the creation of a global fund for endangered heritage. Hollande has already contacted Irina Bokova, the director-general of Unesco, to get the organisation involved; France’s wish is to create a global movement similar to the one launched three decades ago to fight HIV/Aids, which involved United Nations agencies as well as public and private donors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Terrorism attacks men, women and children, but also the sites of our collective memory and civilisations,” Hollande said at the G7 meeting. “Terrorism wants to eradicate history, to wipe out any trace. It destroys works; sometimes it sells them, exploiting the dreadful traffic of humanity’s history. The international community must reply, and this is why I asked for this report from the Louvre.”
The report was commissioned in March last year after the destruction of the Mosul Museum and the ancient city of Nimrud in Iraq. The French president also proposed to open “shelters for cultural goods before they could be attacked or sacked, and record the memory of cultural sites, using all forms of media, to keep them alive and restore them one day”.
The specifics should be provided on 5 July at the Louvre, but we understand that the conference in December will be held on a ministerial level and will include a strong scientific contribution. The one-day ministerial segment will be preceded by a meeting of experts, planned with the full support of the Louvre. The museum could not say at this stage how it would co-operate with other institutions and museums such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum in London or the Pergamon in Berlin.
Abu Dhabi was selected as the location because of the planned opening of the Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre Abu Dhabi on Saadiyat Island, which is increasingly presented as a crossroads of culture by the team that took over the project in 2013. The opening was planned for December and could have coincided with the conference; unfortunately, the construction of Nouvel’s spectacular museum has been delayed by technical issues. The Louvre and the French government have declined to confirm an opening date (this will probably be in 2017). But the conference will take place when the building itself is finished, allowing for a symbolic ceremony led by Hollande, with the heads of state and other leaders present in Abu Dhabi.