Beirut seeks to include the Lebanon Television archive on the UNESCO “Memory of the World” list culture

The Lebanese Ministry of Information seeks to include the Lebanon Television archive, which is the oldest in the Arab world, on UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” list, hoping that it will become the third collection for the Land of the Cedars after the Phoenician alphabet and the ancient Nahr al-Kalb paintings on the World Heritage Lists.

Lebanon Television is linked to collective memory, and many Lebanese long for the “golden age” that this screen lived in in the sixties and seventies of the last century, until the characters of its comedy and dramatic entertainment programs became imprinted in the conscience of the majority of those who lived that era.

The “Memory of the World” program, established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1992, seeks to prevent the loss of documentary heritage, which UNESCO defines as collections of documents “of important and lasting value, whether paper, audio-visual, digital, or in any other format.” .

The Lebanese Minister of Information, Ziad Al-Makari, who announced this initiative a few days ago, said, “We aspire to register the archive of Lebanon Television, because it is the first television in the Arab world, as well as the Lebanese Radio and the National Agency for Lebanese Information, Studies, and Publications,” adding, “De facto, we have the oldest visual and audio archive in the world.” Arab world”.

He explained to Agence France-Presse that the archive must “have cultural and historical value” to be included on this list.

“We have video tapes dating back to World War II and the 1940s,” he added from the Ministry of Information building in Beirut, even though the foundation stone for television in Tallet al-Khayyat in Beirut was laid in 1957 and television began its work in 1959.

The minister refers to cooperation with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French National Institute for Audiovisual Media, saying, “We preserve the archive closely and very seriously.”

Collective memory

The Ministry will begin preparing the file in January, and the file will emphasize “the importance of the archive in collective memory and the cultural impact on the region in which we live,” according to the minister, who indicated that there is technical assistance from UNESCO in the preparation.

The archive is described as “collective, national and human memory,” because “the pinnacle of preserving a person’s humanity is preserving his history and preserving his past as it is.”

The archive includes more than 50,000 hours of recorded tapes that store the history of Lebanon, including interviews, news, and coverage of the visits of Arab presidents and kings, and various programs and concerts by Lebanese artists and from all over the world, led by “Planet of the East” Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Farid Al-Atrash, and the French singer Dalida. .

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay asserts that such documentary heritage represents “the shared memory of humanity, and must be protected for the benefit of research and shared with the largest possible number of people,” because it is “an essential part of our collective history.”

In May, UNESCO announced the inclusion of 64 documentary collections in the Memory of the World Register, bringing the total number of these collections to 494.

The Nahr al-Kalb archaeological site, located 15 kilometers north of Beirut, and the Phoenician alphabet were included in the “Memory of the World” register in 2005.

The inclusion of the Lebanon Television archive on the UNESCO list, if it happens, will carry “great symbolic and moral importance,” and “will give greater cultural value to Lebanon and place our media heritage on the global map,” according to the Lebanese minister.

The golden age

Al-Makari says, “The golden age of television was in the sixties and seventies, and it was the first television established in the Arab world on a state level.”

Lebanon TV began broadcasting in black and white, then moved to color, and the broadcast was live the entire time without any recordings. Lebanon Television was the only local broadcaster in the visual media arena until the first private station was established in 1985.

The archive modernization workshop was launched in 2010 with the efforts of employees and almost non-existent financial resources.

Director of the Archives at Lebanon TV, Alfred Akar, says that a team of 12 people is currently carrying out the digitization process, despite the difficulties of transferring old tapes to modern models.

At the Lebanon Television Archive Center, where part of the archives are kept in Sin El Fil while the other part is at the TV headquarters in Tallet El Khayat, these employees watch old videotapes and transmit their content.

Akar adds, “The television archive includes Lebanese cultural and political life” over the years, considering it a wealth that “must be saved and preserved, and there is no other station that owns such an archive.”

Journalist Zaven Qayumjian, author of two books on the history of television, “May God have a good evening… One Hundred Moments That Made Television,” and another in English about the most prominent stations on Lebanese television, says that Lebanon’s television “created the country’s memory and constituted an attempt to introduce the Arab world to modernity and modernity.”

He adds that television created “a legend that brought all the Lebanese together.” Since its independence, Lebanon, which is multi-sectarian and multi-religious, has suffered many divisions and crises.

TV Archive

He says that the Lebanon Television archive is “a national wealth for the country and stores Lebanon’s cultural identity,” noting that the main challenge does not lie in digitizing it, but rather in placing it in the appropriate framework “and linking it to the country’s memory.”

In light of the stifling economic crisis that Lebanon has been experiencing since 2019, the Minister of Information says that the future of Lebanon Television lies in keeping it away from politics, noting that it must have “a different vision and play a cultural, educational and tourism role.”

The website of Lebanon TV has declined significantly, especially due to the financial crisis that the Lebanese state is suffering from.

Minister Al-Makari concludes by saying that Lebanon TV represents “a beautiful image of Lebanon,” a country whose “past is more beautiful than its present,” adding, “Lebanon TV’s restoration of its position on the media arena is a mirror of Lebanon’s restoration of its role on the global stage.”