Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa; Op-ed

Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Executive Director of the “Isa Cultural Center”, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the “King Hamad International Center for Peaceful Coexistence”, and the founder and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the “Bahrain Book Forum”, passed away to the mercy of God Almighty.

I knew him well within the framework of the Forum for Thought and Culture (the Alliance of Arab Thought and Cultural Centers), of which he was one of its founders and members.

We, Arab intellectuals, were struck by his constant smile, his endless brilliance, his diplomacy with which he appeared among his peers, his pioneering patriotic stances, his many scientific achievements, as well as the lofty responsibilities that he shouldered with great competence and great experience, in various educational, cultural and political fields over decades, and he advanced them with an eagerness to Life with optimism and advice.

As much as the late was trained in studying and researching, he was trained in institutional work, his ideas glowed and his conviction became entrenched, so he added to thought participation and to questioning action. Thus, the deceased was a witness, present and participant.

Al Khalifa honoured me in my house in Fez, and we used to talk for long hours about science, literature, history, diplomacy and other various topics.

We contributed with him, under the umbrella of Dr. Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi, in making the Forum of Thought and Culture (the Alliance of Arab Thought and Culture Centers); a scientific and research body that represents a number of Arab research and studies centres and specialized individuals.

It has an independent legal personality and it plays an important role in the exercise of its competencies to its regulations and rules and seeks to achieve its objectives, including, supporting decision-makers in the countries of the Arab research centres that are members of the coalition, raising awareness among Arab public opinion, providing an in-depth political vision for formulating Arab political decisions and enriching scientific life.

Moreover, the issues that are discussed in these forums are not only political and geo-strategic, but also developmental, industrial, modernizing, and educational. These forums are concerned with discussing everything related to the development of the Arab world in light of the rapid developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which the Arab countries must take into consideration, internalize, and develop to exist within the profitable global industrial and economic system.

All the forums held by the coalition exceed in terms of content what we are used to in official and unofficial meetings related to joint Arab action, first because they have a permanent nature.

Our periodic meetings have not been stopped, cancelled or postponed, nor have the strategists and thinkers been stingy from participating and enriching the axes of the meeting; Secondly, they investigate objectivity and scientificity, so there is no room for using the ego and moving away from the fundamentals of purposeful scientific approaches.

Thirdly, they seek to have a joint Arab action that preserves the Arab nation's entity, its territorial integrity, and the stability and well-being of its peoples.

Fourthly, this union, in addition to providing solutions, has become a planning mechanism that inevitably contributes to the formulation of paradigms and intellectual frameworks to determine the nature of the problems facing the Arab region and the human and societal development in the region in future. That work can direct the decisions of political leaders and develop future solutions and alternatives.

Finally, any possible strategy should be primarily intellectual before it becomes a public policy in order to cure the disease of the Arab mind and reality and to answer the dilemmas of building development, renaissance, and unity, combating extremism and terrorism, and achieving a good position in the global system, where globalization is new. There is no mercy except for those who are good at understanding the game’s and strategic intelligence’s rules.

Within the framework of the activities of the Alliance, the following conferences, forums and meetings were organized in the following countries:

In Abu Dhabi (1 September 2015), Manama (March 2016), Rabat (September 2016), Cairo (April 2017), Amman (September 2017), Riyadh (April 2018), Abu Dhabi (October 2018), in Bahrain and Sharm el-Sheikh (April 2019), a virtual symposium due to the Covid crisis (March 2021), and in Rabat (June 2022), and it dealt successively with the topics of “The Thought Storm Coalition”, “The Islamic Coalition Against Terrorism... Prospects and Future”, “Towards a Multipolar Security Strategy", "The Role of Arab National Security in a New Era", "Development, Education and Media in Confronting Extremism", "Iranian Interventions and Expansion in the Gulf and the Arab World", "The Arab Future in the Age of Technology", "The Future of Education and Scientific Research in The Arab World”, “The World Order in Light of the Corona Pandemic”, “The Arab World in Front of New Global Challenges”.

I ask Allah to bless Al Khalifa with his mercy, and we belong to Allah and to Him, we shall return.