It has often been said that a society without the arts is a lifeless society. Great cultures and civilizations have banked on the contributions of their poets, artists, musicians, writers, and many more to leave an indelible impression on the history of mankind. So it was encouraging that such an agenda was being planned in the capital city of our Kingdom.

Some time back, a news item appearing in the press caught my eye. It seemed that the Riyadh Literary Club was planning to hold a 10-day cultural event this spring in an effort to spread a message of tolerance and culture among local citizens.

The municipality of Riyadh had initially requested the Literary Club to help organize events for the cultural festival. The club then developed the program that included poetry, fiction and critique readings, and invited a number of Arab writers to attend the function and make it a success.

Well into the preparations, Saad Al-Baziea, president of the Riyadh Literary Club announced that the festival was on hold, and he was not sure whether it would be held during the summer vacation season at all. He stated, “I can’t say exactly when it’s going to take place. The Ministry of Culture is looking at it right now. But I can guess it’s going to be delayed until the beginning of the school year in September or even later.”

Venting his frustrations, he added: “We had provided the municipality with a detailed and rich schedule; we also made arrangements with invited guests and speakers to make sure the timings fit them well. It’s going to be hard now to rearrange the whole thing.

“I understood from municipality officials that the Ministry of Culture asked them to send them a copy of the program to look at. I thought, as our club follows the ministry, we are part of them automatically and that whatever we do comes under their umbrella. I’m not sure what’s going on.”

Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs Abdul Aziz Al-Sebail said that it was a routine bureaucratic procedure for cultural matters to be transferred to the ministry by the municipality. “We are not interfering in the set schedule; we are only giving our final approval,” he said, adding that the Literary Club’s official registry was with the ministry and the program had to be looked at by them. But he was unspecific as to when approval would be granted and specific timings announced for the cultural festival. “Probably after the summer,” Al-Sebail said.

Now a deputy minister for cultural affairs should know better. Summer is when schoolchildren are off, families are on vacation, and with sparse offerings of entertainment besides shopping malls, a cultural festival would have most certainly been on the agenda for most families in Riyadh and the neighboring regions. Still this ministry chose to dismiss such an event into an uncertain tomorrow land.

Why, I must ask. Why such bureaucratic attempts to stifle efforts to promote arts and culture with vague or unexplained reasons?

I happen to know that the minister of information and culture is one for taking this country into the 21st century. Yet it is apparent that some people in the ministry do not share that vision.

Or may be they are cowed down by threats from extremists who have demonstrated their anger in the past at any public display of self-expression, whether it is the arts, book fairs where authors and females were hounded, or at college drama plays where a band of thugs jumped on the stage and attacked the actors during their performance of “A Moderate Without Moderation,” which condemned both liberalism and religiosity in their extreme forms.

Is the promotion of anything to do with art and culture a threat to the intolerant patterns of behavior that course through the minds of fanatics? Do they perceive that self-expression through arts would undermine the foundations of their perception of a closed and xenophobic society? Self-expression should not be held hostage if it is in the interest of the public.

Whatever it may be, the Ministry of Information and Culture must not heed such narrow-minded demands or threats from those groups. But in this particular case, they have done just that and failed the rest of us.