Necessity of Developing Cultural Interactions between Tehran and Tunis

2018-05-04 10:36

Concurrent with the TIBF 2018, the stand of Tunis as the Special Guest City was opened attended by Amal Hashanah, the Deputy of the Tunisian Minister of Culture, Mohsen Javadi, the Cultural Deputy of the Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and Mohammad Saleh Maalej. 
In this ceremony, appreciating the invitation made by Iran to host Tunis as the Special City Guest, Ms. Hashanah pointed out to the reinforcement of the relationships between Iran and Tunisia and stated, “Tunisia owns an ancient original civilization and plans to introduce her history and renowned figures to the world.”
She added, “Tunisia has tried to attend this book fair with a collection of qualified publishers and books published in different languages. It’s an honor to have relationships with Iranian publishers and the genuine culture of Iran.”
After the opening ceremony of the Tunisian stand, Amal Hashanah described the different sections of the stand for the guests and said, “The Tunisian and stand is composed of three main sections. A small section is allocated to the art of calligraphy period. This section was unveiled by an outstanding Tunisian calligraphy work based on a poem by the poet Aboulcasem Echebi. The unveiled masterpiece was a portrait of the poet decorated with a calligraphy of his poems.”
She added, “Echebi is the writer of the Tunisian national anthem and exquisite poems.”
Hashanah assessed the object of participating in the TIBF as something aligned with the whole idea of holding the book fair asking for more cultural relationships between the publishers from both countries.  
Regarding the motto ‘Saying no to not reading,’ the Deputy of the Tunisian Minister of Culture said, “Promotion of book reading is achieved in many steps. In the first place is family and teaching the children to read books and then the supporting roles by the government can promote book reading.”
Then she continued with facts and figures about the Tunisian Stand and said, “There are 256 titles in the stand that come from two different sections. First, books printed by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture. Second, books printed by 19 Tunisian publishers, which are related to renowned Tunisian figures, culture and ancient civilization of our country.”
Then Mohsen Javadi, the Cultural Deputy of the Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance pointed out to the jubilant presence of book lovers in the birthday of Imam Mahdi and described it unanticipated. 
Javadi added, “This book fair is the largest event in the Middle East and Tunisia has been invited as the Special City Guest because of its rich culture in book reading.”
He also added, “Tunis has a very powerful education system and different books have been published by the Tunisian publishers in different languages that introduce the self-made Tunisian civilization. This can pave the way for collaborations between Iran and Tunisia.”