8 new inscriptions on the list of Intangible Heritage, Harissa and Rai are not part of it

UNESCO revealed Tuesday in the early evening the list of new inscriptions on the list of Intangible Heritage retained during the 17th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage held in Morocco. A total of 8 world heritages were selected. No North African has been selected.

After two years of pandemic, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage met face-to-face again and chose Rabat, the Moroccan capital to hold this event.

An occasion all the more special since it is being held in the country of origin of the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay.

“The spirit of the UNESCO Intangible Heritage Convention is its unwavering determination to keep these traditions alive,” she said.

The meeting inaugurated on November 28 will be held until December 3 and will be chaired by Samir Addahre, Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of the Kingdom of Morocco to UNESCO.

On Tuesday, the Committee examined several files presented for this session, in particular 24 reports on an element inscribed on the Urgent Safeguarding List, 42 reports on the implementation of the 2003 Convention, but above all 4 nominations for the Urgent Safeguarding List and 46 nominations on the Representative List.

The 4 nominations for urgent safeguarding included the pottery of Quinchamalí and Santa Cruz de Cuca in Chile, the traditional stonework of Ahlat in Turkey, the pottery art of the Chăm people in Vietnam, and the xhubleta, a knowledge -making and crafts originating in Albania. These 4 applications were all accepted.

On the other hand, on the representative list which included 46 candidates, only 4 were retained and none of them is Arab or African.

UNESCO has listed the ancestral system of knowledge of the four indigenous peoples, Arhuaco, Kankuamo, Kogui and Wiwa of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, the bear festivals in the Pyrenees listed by France and Andorra, traditional techniques processing of tea in China, as well as Kun Lbokator, traditional martial arts in Cambodia.

Morocco has not applied for any registration on the representative list, with the exception of a grouped application comprising 16 Arab countries, among others, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. for the knowledge, know-how, traditions and practices associated with the date palm.

Tunisia, for its part, had applied for the recognition of the know-how around the hot sauce Harissa, and Algeria had applied for the paternity of the Rai music. His file was first submitted in 2016, but UNESCO did not respond to these requests.

On Monday, on the sidelines of the inauguration of the new bus station in Rabat, King Mohammed VI thanked the Director-General of UNESCO for all her efforts to safeguard and protect the cultural heritage of Nations and is congratulated, on this occasion, on the quality of the partnership between UNESCO and Morocco, underlining the excellent collaboration between the United Nations Organization and the Kingdom for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage and the preservation of culture and traditions.

For her part, Audrey Azoulay praised the centrality and the strategic nature of the relations between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Kingdom of Morocco, while recalling that Morocco has ratified all the UNESCO conventions relating to Heritage.