ADDRESS BY KIFAH FAKHOURI UPON BEING ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COUNCIL
Dear colleagues,
Allow me first to express my deep and sincere gratitude to each and every one of you for your confidence in me which I will cherish.
I would like to dearly thank the outgoing executive committee for nominating me as candidate as IMC president for 2002-2003.
I promise in the name of the new executive committee to keep the torch lit by the outgoing executive committee and president Frans de Ruiter as glowing as they expected it to be.
I would like also to thank the IMC Secretary General and Executive Secretary for their valuable cooperation and I look forward to its continuation.
The new executive committee has to face many challenges: the most pressing will be to avoid any budgetary deficit in the future. I am sure we will find ways and means to do so, hopefully without exerting extra financial pressure on the shoulders of national committees and organizations.
Changing the image of the IMC from being an organization receiving scarce financial support from a few funding agencies and sponsors to becoming an organization attractive for donors and sponsors is one of the envisaged measures. This means that the incoming executive committee will have to take strategic measures, simple but important, such as listing the total number of members registered in the 75 national committees and the 40 specialized organizations of the IMC, for instance. Displaying such a huge figure in IMC’s promotion campaigns and reports should have additional impact on potential donors, sponsors and music industries.
We might be skeptical about the effect of globalization on culture in general and music in particular but nothing prevents us from using financial and economic equations developed in this era of globalization to support IMC and the committees and organizations under its umbrella.
Another measure to insure the IMC’s financial sustainability might be to follow a trend that we are witnessing in the present "globalization" era; I am referring to the merging of enterprises. It seems that this trend is contagious, and we are hearing nowadays about serious incitements to get different art forms together in highly funded globalized cultural initiatives. It goes without saying that music is one of the major art forms. One of the issues we might be facing very soon could be to figure out how the IMC can play a major role in and benefit from such merger initiatives without drastically altering its agenda and priorities.
I hope that over the next biennium we will always keep in mind that the beauty of the plant is not only in what you see of it above the soil but also in the strength of its roots, the richness of its soil, the proper irrigation it gets and the right climate it enjoys: factors that are priorities for its survival. To some consumers, this plant might play an exotic role in their sentiments. However, to the farmer who is responsible for keeping it alive, it is a mode of life. The musics of the world are these plants that grow in their own soil and those who take care of them are the ones that best know the priorities of their needs and sustainability.
Let us work together at ensuring respect for all musics of the world. Let us treat them as equals without apparent or concealed superiority or inferiority complexes.
Supporting the musics of the world and cherishing their diversity should not be a favor from the rich to the poor, from the developed to the developing, from the west to the east or from the north to the south. We should all consider it a global obligation since musics of the world will always be an incentive and a guarantee for continuous creativity in the field of contemporary music.
Even though your esteemed assembly has given the new president the right to chair from the moment he or she will be elected, I would like to ask our invaluable outgoing president to continue chairing this general assembly.
Kindly assist me in showing our gratitude and appreciation for the magnificent work Frans de Ruiter has accomplished over the last four years.
Once again thank you very much. I promise to be at your disposal at all times. We have a saying in Arabic: The chief is the servant of the tribe. I promise to be your servant without changing the IMC into a tribe.
Tokyo, October 1st 2001