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Organisation
The preliminary project and Mini-Mela laid the foundations for
Mela 2002. First and foremost a small secretariat was established.
Naweed Amjad was appointed as coordinator. His tasks were to survey
and develop a network of contacts and to start preparing the socalled
Mini-Mela to be held in the Vaterland Park in 2001 with the purpose
of promoting the actual Mela of the coming year.
In accordance with assessments in the report from the preliminary
project, The Norwegian National Arts Council and Norway 2000/2005
took the initiative to establish a provisional board under the
leadership of former minister of culture Ms. Turid Birkeland with
the purpose of preparing the establishment of the Horison Foundation.
The founding meeting was held in January 2001 and present as founders
were Hundreårsmarkeringen Norge 2005 A/S, represented by
Director Jan Erik Raanes, and The Norwegian National Arts Council,
represented by Director Ole Jacob Bull.
A board of directors was established which later on appointed
Khalid Salimi as Artistic Director/ Executive Director.
The most critical aspect of organising the festival was to establish
a well functioning secretariat. The Board of Directors had decided
already at the end of 2001 to prioritise this task. However, due
to illness and various unfortunate factors, the administration
of the secretariat was not set up until the very last months before
the festival. This created problems which effected the implementation
of the program, and the secreteriat was caught up in minor conflicts.
It has been acknowledged that with a better planning, miscommunication
and missunderstandings could easily have been avoided. Both the
Board of Directors and the staff, however, did their utmost to
manage through the Mela festival. However, the production and
the artistic work could have been better coordinated than the
Mela managed in the short time period available.
One important dimension of the difference occured during the
implimentation of the projects, touching upon differences in approach
between a typical intellectal milieu and one oriented to event
managment . As was emphasized several times, Khalid Salimi has
after all worked in leading positions of Norwegian organisations
with a predominantly Norwegian staff for more than twenty years,
and he is considered well versed in Norwegian ways of organizing
work. It is evident, however, that in the present connection he
possessed professional artistic competence which was the precise
reason for him being chosen. This dimention will have to be taken
more seriously provided that this work is to be continued. If
so, it shall probably be necessary to establish a secretariat
and get planning and also the more logistic and technical parts
of the arrangement going at a much earlier stage. This responsibility
must rest on the Board.
It is evident, however, that in the continuation better routines
for communication and feed-back between leadership and secretariat,
and between the units of planning and implementation ought to
be found. It was pointed out by both the hired information bureau
Apeland Informasjon and by internal employees that much more resources
must be spent on the technical espect of the actual implementation,
and that this has to be incorporated into the planning at a much
earlier stage if it is to be successfull.
By the Pakistani partners Salimi’s role was assessed as
one belonging to a person being the only one able to lead the
launching of the job at hand with a strong individualist grip.
It was for instance expressed in this way: “He is the clue
and the key. To understand the whole thing is to understand Khalid
Salimi. There is this man who comes to Norway, basically for freedom
of expression. Starts the Antirasistisk Senter, starts Samora.
Becomes a Norwegian bona fide. Respected but from a certain orthodox
perception he is not liked by some. We should have more of the
same kind.”
Even though expressions like the one above might, by some, be
considered a wee bit too panegyrical, it points to something important.
It emphasizes that Salimi is a typical ‘broker’ between
Norway and Pakistan and one, among very few, who was in fact able
to carry out the present job. It had hardly been possible to insist
on Norwegian procedures throughout all the stages; not only beacuse
of the time factor but also considering that this is a pilot-project
of a quite unique character. On this background it may perhaps
be fair to conclude that certain conflicts were hardly avoidable
taking into consideration the enormous pressure the staff were
working under. It is unrealistic to expect that internal information
procedures may be upheld in full in a situation like that. At
least the controversies did not in any way lead to a weakening
of the arrangement. Still, in hindsight, one may perhaps draw
the conclusion that the staff ought to have been recruited from
milieus more in concordance with each other.
The Concept
Mela is a meeting place, a tradition well part of the culture
of the Asian subcontinent. Melas have lately been organized in
various cities of Brittain. Through these Melas the ever increasing
importance of the contribution that the Asian immigrant communities
represent within contemporary European culture and spiritual life
is recognized. The fact is realized that the Asian presence and
influence is rapidly on the increase within all walks of social
life with regard to both culture, life styles, art and business.
The organisers are of the opinion that the Asian population in
these countries represent important values like high work ethics,
strong academic traditions and strong family values. Through Mela
2002 an attempt was made to visualize and recognize this contribution.
Especially it is often emphasized how the Asian communities are
innovative and function as promoters of development within culture
and social life in general. An interesting feature worth noticing
is that the Asian communities are about to take over the focus
of this discourse from the African and black American voices.
This goes both for the artistic scene and the area of popular
culture.
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