Mrs. Asma Al-Assad receives a delegation representing the Omani National Records and Archives Authority

First Lady, Mrs. Asma Al-Assad, received members of the delegation of the Omani National Records and Archives Authority who recently visited Syria to establish Omani-Syrian cooperation in documentation and history writing.

Documents play a core role in writing and preserving history. They are an essential means to manage and organize the present and are part of making and possessing history.

Mrs. Asma Al-Assad explained the great importance of documentation in all fields for both the state and society, because the document “reflects our vision on events and facts and gives us the ability to manage knowledge”. “The document produces collective thinking about events and without documentation events turn into mere stories narrated by generations without benefiting from their lessons and themes,” Mrs. Asma said.

Mrs. Asma went on to say that the document also constitutes an intellectual reference that protects identity and preserves belongingness, particularly as the war which Syria has experienced for 12 years has affected the people who are interested in intangible heritage and greatly damaged the tangible heritage, and therefore, documenting this heritage protects it from extinction so that it continues through the coming generations.

For his part, Hamad bin Muhammad Al-Dhawani, head of the Omani delegation and Chairman of the Authority, reviewed the Omani experience in organizing, managing and benefiting from documents in organizing the work of the state institutions in higher flexibility and better performance. He stressed his country’s readiness to cooperate with Syria in the project to document and preserve the Syrian heritage.

The meeting was attended by Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, the Special Advisor at the Syrian Presidency and Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of “Wathiqat Watan” (Homeland Document) Foundation.

Hamda Mustafa