Irene Lozano
Director General of Casa Árabe
Alberto Rubio
On entering Irene Lozano’s office, a desk that is much taller than usual catches the eye. “I’ve had it for ten years; it’s been with me in the Congress, in the Foreign Ministry”, she explains, “and it’s very good for my back, to burn calories”. And no doubt that she burns them. In the year and a half that she has been at the helm of Casa Árabe hasn’t stopped.
You spend many hours working here, I guess.
Here and outside. We have a lot of activities. This has been a very intense year. We have created an institutional network that we are very interested in, of course with the other spanish ‘casas’ of public diplomacy, but we have also signed agreements with Efe, TVE, we are talking to CaixaForum, the Cervantes Institute, the University Institute of the Civil Guard. With all this institutional support network we do things together and outside of here.
While you’re on the subject, do you have any plans to open a new Casa Árabe branch?
That’s impossible right now in budgetary terms. But we do put a lot of effort into a chapter we call ‘Off-site events’. For example, in February we organised a concert by Marwan in the Parque Aluche Auditorium. 6,000 or 7,000 people came. We couldn’t do it in this venue because the maximum capacity is 500 people. And we are also working with other institutions to take events to Barcelona, to Murcia, to any city in Spain.
Sadly, last weeks the debate on racism has dominated the media. What can public diplomacy departments, such as Casa Árabe, do to promote tolerance and understanding?
Very much so. One of our missions, stipulated in our statutes, is to combat stereotypes and prejudices, in this case with respect to the Arab population, which is the one that concerns us. When I arrived, we did quite a lot of rigorous work to adopt a four-year strategy. And one of the things that emerged, which we are working on a lot, is that intercultural dialogue no longer takes place only from one society to another, but also within the countries themselves.
To illustrate the case, there are one and a half million Arabs living in Spain, one million of whom are Moroccans, who have a culture with very deep cultural roots. And we realised that by providing programming of their culture to this population we could help them not to be uprooted from their tradition while favouring their integration. Because when the country where you live facilitates this link with your culture, it makes you feel more loved, more welcome. Several of the initiatives we have underway, some of which will crystallise in the autumn, are related to this idea.
Shouldn’t we also address those who consider themselves more Spanish than others?
There is undoubtedly a lot of work to be done there. But it is not Casa Árabe’s job. That’s where other institutions, politics and education have to come in.
Education is the word?
Education is fundamental. So is respect. One of our characteristics is that we build on the Arab in a positive way. We work to highlight their values and virtues. It is true that we organised the conference against daily hatred here, in which the City Council of Murcia participated, and obviously we have talked about these problems because the issue of hatred is underlying. In other words, we do contribute to the debate, but it is not our role to act against those who hate or are racist. Projecting a positive image, that is our job.
What is your assessment of this year at the helm of Casa Árabe?
One of the most important changes we have seen is that intercultural dialogue is taking place within the country. With the excuse of the World Cup, we set up a tent to watch the matches. A lot of Moroccans and also many Spaniards came. It was a very nice experience to see everyone together with nothing more than congratulations at the end. I think it was very revealing and opened a new line of work with sport as public diplomacy.
We have also higlighted women footballers because we want to emphasise gender equality. We had a meeting with the players Nouf Faleh Al Anzi (CD Leganés) and Yasmin Mrabet (FC Levante Las Planas) and the former captain of the Palestinian national team Honey Thaljieh. The business conferences we held in Cordoba with sport as a vector for mobility, tourism and sustainability were also very significant.
We have also made an effort to project ourselves abroad. We have been to the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, to the Frankfurt Book Fair, we have organised the conference of the European Association of Writing Schools, at which literature in Arabic was represented for the first time. And that has helped us to project ourselves internationally because people came from all over the world.
Is that the big difference with respect to its predecessor, the Institute of Spanish-Arab Studies, that Casa Árabe is closer to the people?
I think that at that time the Institute was essential to contribute to knowledge and train many Arabists. Right now, there is a formidable group of Arabists. But when it was decided to create Casa Árabe on that basis, we were looking for a different kind of public diplomacy, not only focused on the study of the past, but also on the present and the future. We are going to carry out activities related to COP28, which will be held in the Emirates, where climate change and the solutions we need to adopt will be discussed.
Do the Arab countries collaborate?
Yes, in every sense. We have a very good relationship with all of them. When they ask us to organise something, we are delighted. One of the focus-countries this year is Morocco and we have the exhibition ‘Hand over Hand’, which is crafts and design. But we wanted to show the crafts of today. And we have done this with the Moroccan Embassy. We have all the possible formulas for collaboration open.
Do you also develop activities within the framework of the Alliance of Civilisations?
Apart from the fact that it is vital for Spain because we were one of the main promoters and because the highest representative is Spanish, the values advocated by the Alliance are very much in line with Casa Arabe. I was at the Alliance Forum in Fez and we are going to hold more events. We have a very close relationship and we are looking to expand our collaboration.
How is the budget going?
To sum it up quickly: we are short. But we are not complaining. With what we have we are doing our best. And collaboration with other institutions is fundamental. You can do things with little money by integrating yourself into other events. Last year we started doing ‘The Thousand and One Nights of the Book Fair at Casa Arabe‘. We had an overwhelming success. And this year we have intensified that collaboration. Creativity is the way to make up for the lack of budget, as well as our sponsors, whom I would like to thank for their trust.
What would you like to say to yourself at the end of your time here?
Two things. Firstly, that we have become much more involved in Spanish society with Casa Arabe, with an emphasis on Madrid and Cordoba, which is where we have our headquarters, but we are also looking for ways to do something more massive, a big event that allows us to project to Spanish society all the positive aspects of Arab culture that sometimes go a little unnoticed.
On the other hand, we have a diamond in the crown, the Arabic Language Centre, which works phenomenally well and has enormous prestige, but I would like to get it out of here. We have more enrolments than we can handle.
That’s a success.
Yes, but we have to work hard to meet all that demand and even more. Another of the things I would like to do would be to extend the language centre from this centre to other areas of Madrid, Cordoba or the rest of Spain, and also online.
