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Barriers to the
Broad Dissemination
of Creative Works
in the Arab World
Lowell H. Schwartz, Todd C. Helmus,
Dalia Dassa Kaye, Nadia Oweidat
Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office for Defense Policy
Approved for public release; distribution unlimited
NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The research described in this report was prepared for the Office of
the Secretary of Defense, Office for Defense Policy. The research was
conducted in the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally
funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands,
the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies,
and the defense Intelligence Community under Contract W74V8H06-C-0002.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication.
978-0-8330-4730-4
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Cover: Hassan Ammar/AP Photo
© Copyright 2009 RAND Corporation
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Summary
The difficulties involved in the production and distribution of creative
works in the Middle East cannot be separated from the overall political and social climate of the region. A series of United Nations (UN)
reports identified three fundamental deficits in the Arab world: in
political rights, in women’s rights, and in knowledge. Related to these
deficits are three critical sources that pose barriers to the greater dissemination of creative works in the region. This monograph addresses
barriers to the broad dissemination of such works as they relate to
Arabic literature and other genres of the printed word.
Three major barriers confront the dissemination and consumption
of Arabic literature. The first barrier is censorship, which is a significant
problem in the Middle East. Nearly all Arab Middle East countries
employ government censors. Censorship is often aimed at stopping the
publication or distribution of content deemed politically, morally, or
religiously sensitive. Religious institutions, such as al-Azhar, Cairo’s
center of Islamic learning, often assist government censors by recommending books to be banned. A second barrier is the small market for
literary material in the Arab world. Book production and, presumably,
reader consumption are relatively low in the Middle East in comparison to other regions with similar socioeconomic levels of development.
One factor behind this low book-consumption rate is the region’s high
rates of illiteracy, especially among the generations born before 1970.
A final barrier is the poor internal distribution systems for books. This
is compounded by the challenge of selling books across a vast number
ix
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Barriers to the Broad Dissemination of Creative Works in the Arab World
of countries all with their own censorship requirements, regulations,
and tax codes.
During the 45-year Cold War, the U.S. and British governments
utilized various forms of media in their ideological conflict against the
Soviet Union. While there are significant differences between the U.S.
efforts to counter extremism and the Cold War confrontation with the
Soviet Union, key lessons can be learned from this period.
One of these lessons is how to overcome the understandable
skepticism that foreign audiences have toward government-sponsored
media activities. During the Cold War, this problem was solved
through the use of public-private partnerships. These partnerships
allowed the U.S. and British governments to distance themselves
from their media promotion activities while at the same time ensuring
that the private groups they supported adhered to each nation’s basic
foreign-policy goals. Another lesson from the Cold War is to carefully
consider the target audience and identify media sources that are most
likely to influence them. As was the case in the Cold War, the intelligentsia, broadly defined, in the Arab world are the mostly likely to read
and be influenced by printed material. A third lesson is the value of
nonpolitical material in combating extremism. The items most valued
by Eastern European and Soviet audiences were those that compensated for the intellectual vacuum in their lives, not those that directly
combated communism.
To overcome these barriers (censorship, the market, and distribution), we advocate a series of policy recommendations, most of which
would involve actions by nongovernmental institutions and other international allies, not overt U.S. government action:
t Make censorship a consistent agenda item in bilateral dialogues
with regional allies.
t Work with European interlocutors to promote constructivethemed works, such as through international book fairs.
t Promote Arab literature prizes.
t Assist individuals in obtaining banned works through person-toperson distribution and Internet publishing.
t Support education reform and promote literacy.
Summary
xi
t Promote specific authors in the United States and in their native
countries.
t Convert or adapt printed material with constructive themes into
other media to reach broader audiences.
t Utilize new techniques in Internet technology to overcome censorship and distribution barriers.
t Assist in the expansion of libraries and bookstores.