Bahraini dhow builder, photo by Abdulla Al Khan; insert shows Dr. Abdullah Yateem

A modern culture specialist
By Paul Balles, Bahrain This Month

What makes Dr. Abdullah Yateem a modern culture specialist? He’s an anthropologist who has taken a modern approach to studying cultures.

Many people don’t know what anthropology is or what anthropologists do unless they happen to have attended university and learned that they could take courses in the subject.

If they listened to British television critic Nancy Banks-Smith, they might have heard her say, “Anthropology is the science which tells us that people are the same the whole world over — except when they are different.”

Cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict, with tongue in cheek, put it another way, “The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.”

From these comments, one might safely assume that anthropologists study almost anything related to the similarities and differences between cultures.

Anthropologists like Dr. Abdullah Yateem address questions such as: how can people who look different, talk differently and come from different cultures get along together in today’s world? (paraphrasing Clyde Kluckhohn). Dr. Yateem is not only an anthropologist who studies cultures. Currently, he’s Assistant Undersecretary for Press and Publications in the Ministry of Information.

As a fitting background for his later work in anthropology, Dr. Yateem went to the University of Kuwait where he majored in an undergraduate programme in philosophy, psychology and sociology. It was a natural for a future anthropologist.

However, he didn’t go into his postgraduate studies immediately. He decided to work in Dubai until 1984. “After which I returned to Bahrain to work at the Gulf Polytechnic Institute as an administrator and teacher,” he says. In 1985, Dr. Yateem went to Edinburgh, Scotland to study for his doctorate in anthropology, which he received in 1991. Part of the requirements for majors in anthropology is to spend time in the field.

He spent two years in 1987 and 1988 doing the field work necessary for his thesis, living with and studying the inhabitants of the Al-Hajar mountains in the United Arab Emirates. He had done some exploring of different areas in the UAE when he worked there and found interesting differences in the cultures within the UAE. He found that three societal cultures in the Emirates were slightly distinguishable from each other. That field research provided the basis for his dissertation.

After receiving his PhD from Edinburgh, Dr. Yateem returned to Bahrain where he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Bahrain. He was the first to teach anthropology at the university. “It was very difficult,” he says. He considers it his greatest achievement when he accepted the post to teach such an awkward subject.

“It was not popular at first because cultural anthropology was very much politicised in the Arab world. It was very much associated with colonialism, with missionaries and ideas like these, including plans of dominating the non-Western world,” he adds. At the time there were radical attitudes toward Western culture in the Arab world.

According to Dr. Yateem, much of the reaction was due to ignorance. Writers on cultural subjects would have articles published in the local newspapers. Even bringing all of these Western names — French, British and American — would stimulate negative reactions.

“It was a great challenge; and I think one of the successful stories of Arab anthropologists was from that experience.” As it transpired, Dr. Yateem had students electing to take courses in anthropology from engineering, business, arts, science and other backgrounds.

“My challenge was to introduce an ‘alien’ discipline, if you like, in an environment which was very hostile to anthropology. Outside the university, my job was to popularise anthropology, so I published a lot of articles.” He did this in cultural sections of local Arabic papers.

Dr. Yateem wrote about people who were multi-disciplinary and who had literary reviews written about their books. “I started to talk about living anthropologists who were affecting the intellectual life of the places where they were read. Arab reviews would appear about people like Claude Levi-Strauss in France, Ernest Gellner in England and Clifford Geertz, a very well known American anthropologist who had a great affect on literary theatre and criticism.”

He focused on people who were multi-disciplinary who took anthropology beyond the discipline itself. These scholars were self-critical and had a wider impact. This helped Dr. Yateem a lot when it came to dealing with questions about his field.

In 1996, Dr. Yateem was offered the post as the Under-Secretary of Culture and National Heritage in the Ministry of Information, a position he held until 2002. He thought for a long time about accepting the offer. “I thought of it as a good challenge for an anthropologist to do a job which was quite relevant to my specialisation.”

He recalls, “I was lucky enough to have the challenge to bring my education and experience to being an applied anthropologist. That’s one who takes his knowledge and skills to run institutions close to his orientation and understanding.”

It was a year of challenges. “When I went there,” he says, “I had to try making a strong partnership between the Ministry, civil society and the intellectuals.” It was intended to bring all these together in activities and programmes.

“The idea was to make the Ministry of Information not only the official authority for planning the cultural policy but also to work as a partner with other civil societies and organisations.”

Dr. Yateem had to organise community programmes, art exhibitions, events, archaeological excavations, the annual heritage festival, classical music concerts and manage the museum.

During the time of his position as Undersecretary of Culture and National Heritage, he was also Secretary General for the National Council for Culture, Arts and Literature and Editor-in-Chief of the Council’s publication, al-Bahrain al-Thakafia. He speaks of being motivated by his dreams of doing interesting things in his life that contribute to the society.

In 2002, Dr. Yateem was offered his current post as Assistant Undersecretary for Press and Publications in the Ministry of Information. The offer was for him to take a place on the political side of the ministry. “The year 2002 was the beginning of the literary reforms of Bahrain. Since there was a plan to reform a number of rules regarding freedom of speech, the law for press, publication and media was an important one.”

He says that he was quite excited with the position and he adds, “I am still excited because so far we haven’t finished the job of introducing changes. We had a media law and a new law for video.” He was also engaged for some time in meeting delegations coming to Bahrain about international treaties regarding intellectual property rights.

“We had quite a modern law for copyright,” says Dr. Yateem. “When I came to this job, the law needed to be upgraded and to have a strong policy to fight against piracy. That part of the job was a great challenge for me; but the team working with me managed to introduce good changes in fighting piracy.”

The field of copyright is very dynamic and, as Dr. Yateem points out, “We are still bringing changes to the law. We have to campaign for educating the public and the producers, the writers and members of parliament.” As technology has developed, like satellite TV and the Internet, changes have had to be made to the copyright laws.

“You have to protect the rights of the people who work in these industries,” he notes, “those who work in the field of entertainment or the Internet; and you need to have all the mechanisms to enforce these laws.”

Explaining the role of the Ministry of Information, Dr. Yateem reveals, “Our ministry is in charge of enforcing two national laws: the law of the press and publications media and the law of copyright and labouring. These two laws are the responsibility of my section at the ministry to enforce them.”

Dr. Yateem’s section is also in charge of the government printing department, one of the oldest printing houses in Bahrain. The department publishes all government publications, including the weekly official Gazette.

Though he has been in the Ministry of Information since 1996, he still devotes his spare time to research into cultures and writing about his discoveries. He has had 16 major articles and three books published along with five book reviews and articles translated from English to Arabic.

Oddly enough, he completed the majority of his research and publications after he left the university. He says he has always had a passion for research and writing, but didn’t have enough time to do it when he was teaching at the University of Bahrain. He devoted his energy to teaching his students. He loved teaching so much that he occasionally taught courses after he joined the ministry. He says his greatest challenge has been to satisfy his ambition as a writer.

Dr. Yateem actively keeps up with his profession as a member of several academic and scientific societies; he’s a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, the American Anthropological Association, the Middle East Studies Association, and the Association of Social Anthropologists.

Claude Levi-Strauss, who was the subject of one of the books written by Dr. Yateem and several of his articles, once said, “The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.”

His scholarship, research and growth in his profession as an educator and Assistant Undersecretary in the Ministry of Information attest to his capacity for asking the right questions.