• The Postponement of Hopes and the Hastening of Fears

In the Current Impasse of Arab Culture: The Postponement of Hopes and the Hastening of Fears

There is no doubt that we are suffering from an Arab cultural crisis with many facets, in education, social and political declarations, and the definitions of creativity and human production. Instead of working to emerge from this crisis, we are dissipating our efforts on side issues which are of no use.

We are not asked to give up our dreams because others stole them from us or are misleading us with them. This paragraph was from a statement by the writer Salah Essa when he asked to comment on the words of speakers in the first session of the conference Arab Culture towards a New Cultural Statement: from the Challenges of the Present to the Horizons of the Future, which was held in Cairo in the period 1-2 July this year.

This paragraph was not specifically intended for the Algerian novelist Al-Tahir Wattar, who declined the invitation of the conference with an open letter which was published on the pages of some Arabic newspapers as well as on the Internet. Salah Essa had replied exhaustively to Al-Tahir Wattar’s refusal letter before the conference was held, through a lengthy article entitled The Cultural Whispering Letter published by Al-Qahira newspaper of which he is the Editor-in-Chief.

Salah Essa’s comment was directed elsewhere than at Al-Tahir Wattar’s letter. It was noticeable in some cultural circles, indeed on the sidelines of the conference itself, that there was a rejectionist, fearful or cautious current which was covering its rejection, fear or caution that the conference had been convened, and its proceedings had been completed, against a background of so-called American pressure to reshape the region.

I re-read the invitation that had been sent to me and to other participants in this conference, attempting to find between its lines something that smelt of any dictation from beyond Arab borders. All I found was words with which the minds of most Arab intellectuals resonate. The circumstances through which the Arab region is passing compel Arab intellectuals and people of thought and vision in the nation to propose from discussions and deduce from objective visions anything that will help to discover the horizons of the future and explore a different world in view of extremely sensitive and complicated circumstances. Since the present and future circumstances of Arab culture arouse a great deal of controversy which is related to events in the Arab region, and anticipate change of concepts and ideas that are no longer suitable, and create a new perspective for our cultural identity. This emphasizes the need for Arab intellectuals to assume the burdens of their responsibilities resolutely, particularly in these exceptional circumstances.

Is it a Fact?

Apart from how minds resonate, and in order to know the roots of the invitation to this conference, which might reveal what is arousing suspicion if there is something to arouse suspicion it has become apparent that the idea of the conference arose more than two months before it was held, during a seminar in honor of the poet Amal Dunqal on the twentieth anniversary of his death. This was convened by the Higher Council for Culture in the Arab Republic of Egypt. In the course of a discussion by some major Arab intellectuals, who were attending the seminar, with the Egyptian Minister of Culture, the idea was put forward of organizing a meeting which would include a crowd of Arab intellectuals of different countries, schools of thought, visions and a variety of independent judgements, to study the present Arab cultural situation in the light of the circumstances through which the region is passing, and to formulate the principles for a new Arab cultural statement . The idea met with a response, and a preparatory committee was formed to draw up a working paper for the meeting. An examination of the names of this working committee may give an impression of the Arab character of the motivation and the endeavor. They are people of thought and culture: Sayyid Yasin, Mahmoud Amin Al-Alim, Kamel Zuhairi, Dr. Mustafa Al-Faqqi and Dr. Jaber Asfour.

Of course, some people will not be convinced by the mention of these comments, to discount fears of dictation of the American agenda. Let us assume although I am not convinced of it that there are pressures, even if only moral ones, being applied by hinting or insinuation without explicit statement, to follow the steps of this agenda, in accordance with the conspiracy theory that has become a constant feature of our current thinking. This is so no matter how much we preface our Arab conversations with a mention that we reject the conspiracy theory. Let us assume that there is a conspiracy. And let us assume that it is an appeal for truth with evil intent behind it. In confronting these assumptions which come under the heading of misgivings, nothing more let us ask a counter question: can we not change what is intended for us we Arabs from evil into the right what we Arabs want?

The beginning of the answer to this question requires posing another question: is Arab culture in a crisis? Or an impasse? Or does it even lack effectiveness to deal with new developments that happen suddenly to the world? We do not in any way mean the temporal definition of sudden happening and new development, what is repeated a lot since 11 September., which in one of its aspects, at least, was in the manner of magic turning against the magician, or the duplicity of a hidden magician against a visible magician. We completely condemn this criminal disaster which destroyed buildings, killed human beings, caused pain to millions of people who were struck with terror and justified wars whose fires are consuming the killers and their victims equally, even if at a different pace and with varying results.

Our cultural crisis has nothing to do with 11 September, even if it is true or proven that those who carried out this crime were a group of our extremist dissidents. It was not the Americans alone who were burnt by their extremism if what is repeated about the involvement of these extremists is true we also have been burnt by the fires of their extremism, which were kindled by political plans with which the Arabs had nothing to do, since they were conflicts of faraway summits in the time of the cold war. This war was cold for their major protagonists, and hell in the lands of small peoples with humble capabilities and borders.

Let us forget this question of 11 September, then, when we are dealing with the matter of our cultural crisis. And let us go back to asking about the existence of this crisis: is it real?

Yes, it is as clear as the sun which rises on our Arab world every day, and it is going from bad to worse. As proof of that, let us content ourselves with what is directly linked to culture and the statement of culture, and leave aside for the time being what is a distant result of the effects of this statement.

In order to emphasize that the crisis of Arab culture and hence its statement goes back much further in time than the time when the so-called American agenda emerged, I will go back to the studies and discussions of a conference in which I participated in the Egyptian capital from 11 to 14 May 1997. It was held under the heading of The Future of Arab Culture . It was sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and the Higher Council for Culture in Egypt under a title which betrayed the early anxiety of Arab intellectuals, namely The Future of Arab Culture . That was more than six years before the last conference, before the American agenda was born out of the clouds of dust and smoke on 11 September.

Is there any clearer evidence than that of the innocence of the research into our cultural crisis? Yes, there is more. True, there was a conference which was held more than six years ago to discuss the future of Arab culture, but the roots of this conference itself go back further than that. This means that anxiety about this culture has been causing sleepless nights to its adherents for a long time, when the crisis of culture was still not so sharply apparent to our eyes. Taha Hussein began to dictate his book Mustaqbal Al-Thaqafa fi Misr (The Future of Culture in Egypt) in 1937, and published it in mid-1938. Although he applied the title and coverage specifically to Egypt, he applied the direction and the dream to Arab culture in general. Taha Hussein emphasized that in the conclusion of his book, which referred to the importance of co-operation to organize culture and unify its programs with regard to all the Arab countries.

Sixty-five years ago the perceptive man Taha Hussein became aware of the warnings of an impending Arab cultural crisis, and dreamed of a program to emerge from the clutches of this crisis. He defined four conditions for it:

One: that it should be human, it should be an active party in human culture, without fanaticism or racial bias. This means it should be a culture that believes in dialogue, tolerance and interaction with the culture of others.

Two: that it should be reasonable that is, it should appeal to the intellect in understanding and assessing matters of this world, in life and politics. Hence it must not be subject to fanatical rigidity, or stiff control. In that it adopts scholarship and scientific thought as an anchor for worldly development in its various aspects.

Three: that it should adopt liberty as a basis for creative intellectual choice and political and social action which rejects tyranny, with no human being having tutelage over another, and without fear of difference or even of error when independent judgement is exercised.

Four: that it should hold firmly to justice as a condition for the dissemination of culture, in terms of both social justice, which does not deprive any mind of culture because of neediness or poverty, and political justice which guards this cultural justice by spreading its umbrella towards the farthest edges and the obscure groups, striving for a general cultural condition that it is difficult for a rigid or vengeful circle to sabotage.

Enclosure within Itself

Those were Taha Hussein s conditions 65 years ago, for the establishment of an Arab cultural project to confront the risks of the future. Contemplation of these same conditions makes us realize with clarity and astonishment that more than six decades have passed, and Arab culture has been content not merely to remain in the same situation in the face of Taha Hussein's four conditions, indeed undeniable deterioration and retreat have taken place.

The human inclination of Arab culture, as an element of dialogue and integration in the canvas of human culture in general, is now withdrawing towards becoming enclosed within itself, on nonsensical pretexts like fear of the Arab identity being dissolved. Indeed, this allegation and those fears have gone further than enclosure within themselves for some people to considering the world outside themselves an enemy who must be resisted, or at least viewed with suspicion and caution. Consequently the logic of dialogue and cultural interaction with the world has dwindled.

This withdrawal into self has brought about distortions in the Arabs own sentiments, which have made considerable sectors take refuge in ideas, styles of clothing and behavior that are several centuries behind the times. These are not among the foundations of the Arab spirit or pillars of faith. More dangerous than that, in the framework of this withdrawal, is that millions of Arabs, who have become citizens or residents of Europe and America, instead of becoming a bridge to convey scientific, technical and civic development to their Arab mother countries, have retreated into their shells and resorted to fortresses from the ancient past. These have prevented them from dialogue of give and take with the advanced Western societies in which they live. They have become isolated minorities regarded as odd in these countries, apart from the fact that they are an object of constant suspicion and accusation.

This situation of being enclosed within themselves, ancient selves, not renewed ones, has led to a decline in the status of these Arab minorities in their Western societies, and has deprived their countries, and their relatives in these countries, of an opportunity to drink from the modern achievements which they missed at the time when they were invented and achieved. And this would have made it more likely that the scientific and technical gap between the Arabs and the West could be closed.

This is a task that many emigrants have fulfilled to the benefit of their mother countries and their faraway peoples. We do not need to cast light on the situation of Jewish minorities in the West and their relationship with Israel, since it could not be clearer. But we mention the Chinese minorities in the West and the Japanese missions to the West, let alone the case of the Indians, who in spite of their former similarity to us socially and as inhabitants, have now come to be effective in dialogue in the international modernization movement, in technical, scientific and even cultural terms.

With regard to the second condition of Taha Hussein's dream for the future of Arab culture, reasonableness, he spoke without embarrassment about the nonsensical stories that find a ready market among sectors which are counted in the tens of millions, who watch astrology programs through some Arab satellite channels, or read yellow books on the sidewalks of conjuring tricks. At a higher and more dangerous level than that appear the rigid obscurantist tendencies which trade in fanatical interpretations in order to control the political market and social influence. The general and unceasing effect on Arab society itself, or a limited Arab space of time, is the absence of scientific thinking regarding the affairs of life. This facilitates the tasks of those who mislead, and makes it easy for saboteurs - in terms of civilization to carry out their sabotage. Hence we have come to see haphazard performance widespread where it should not be, and it threatens both our present and our future. Backward educational systems which are hostile to creativity, content and curricula learnt by rote which paralyze thinking, strategic projects which lack the basics of scientific design, literary and artistic conventions which hamper development and progress of the arts and letters, and confine them to crude superficial husks.

The third condition, liberty, is the edifice which the parties are agreed in destroying, whether they be the rulers of the tyrannical Arab regimes on the one hand, or the people with tyrannical fanatical visions on the other. The development of any cultural enterprise depends on independent thinking, whether in the arena of religious culture or of worldly culture. The suppression of liberty of thought and expression is nothing but a crime against the cultural development of any nation, which hampers it from keeping pace with what is new and equip itself with what is new for the changes of the age. These are many, particularly in the age of the information explosion in which we live. Those who apply tyranny may think that the suppression of freedom of thought and the silencing of free speech will make it easier for them to govern and control. This is possible in the short term, but in the medium and longer term, this acts like malignant tumors, which kill the body at whose expense they grow, and then turn to kill themselves. Cultural liberty is not merely a necessity to preserve the vitality of the nation s thinking, and safeguard the independent-mindedness of its individual thinkers. It is also a wise strategy for every sensible government which wants to avert from its future the historical death which is the inevitable outcome for every tyranny. There is no doubt that the situation of public liberties, and freedom of thought and independent judgement in particular, is grievous and deplorable in our Arab world. This is a great cultural danger, not only for the Arab cultural intellect, but also for the societies and regimes in power. The danger to culture is transformed into a non-cultural, or anti-cultural, action characterized by savagery, which can distort any likely change.

Opening the Doors to Intellects

As for "justice" according to Taha Hussein s conception associated with his vision of the future of culture, which he expressed in a statement that has become well-known: Learning is a right, like water and air . It is one of the things that have become ambiguous after the deterioration that occurred in the realm of state education in most parts of the Arab world. Some people from their own social and economic positions like to attribute this deterioration to Yaha Hussein's program of free education, which he began as soon as he was appointed Minister of Education several decades ago. They allege that education which is free of charge like this has become permissive and burdened by quantity at the expense of quality. But the deeper truth says that Taha Hussein, when he proposed the concept of justice in his project for the future of culture, meant to give the opportunity and open the doors before every intellect which deserved education and would be enlightened by culture. Then the spreading of culture and its values in Arab life is a condition of progress which prepares people for flexibility and effectiveness to confront and draw inspiration from everything new and useful from the data of human development. It is an appeal for cultural justice which spreads light, and does not sanction haphazardness and chaos.

That was Taha Hussein's prophetic vision 65 years ago, before any American plan, agenda for domination or any of those anxieties which ought not to overwhelm us even if there is some truth to them and make us halt our postponed project for the renaissance which has been buried alive. It is true that the plans exist, and true that 11 September has ignited some of these plans. But the matter remains subject to our will in confronting the wills of others. Then shall we bury our aspirations and endeavors merely because of ambiguities which have made others borrow them?

Dr. Abdulsalam Al-Masadi, in his speech at the opening session of the recent Cairo conference, said: Criticizing others begins with self-criticism. The hour for new truths has come. The journey of an Arab intellectual has never been more exhausting than it is now.

Yes, it is a journey whose results for intellectuals in this phase are obligations which are more strenuous and require more sacrifices, and are consequently more exhausting. It is logical, for humanity and culture, since the situation is so, that we should not add more to the severe exhaustion by making our historic fears, our accumulated suspicions and our chronic doubts an implement to halt and delay our cultural dreams which have been postponed anyway, and from a long time ago.

Sulaiman Al-Askary

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