num_pages: 57
description: Early in the post-colonial period, many Arab states established strong ministries of culture, based on European models. For decades, the government supported most artistic production—everything from painting and sculpture to television drama—in pursuit of ideological agendas marred further by nepotism and noxious censorship. It is no surprise, as covered in Middle East Report 263, that culture and the arts are central to Arab mass dissent as well.
title: Middle East Report No 263: The Art & Culture of the Arab Revolts
publisher: Middle East Research and Information Project, Inc. (MERIP)