 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Caliphs, orientalists and other cosmic events
By Mahmoud El-WardaniHashasat Al-Lugha (Le Bruissement de la Langue), Roland Barthes, tr Munthir 'Aiyashi. Syria: The Centre for Cultural Exchange, 1999
Roland Barthes's popularity in the Arab world grew steadily throughout the 1980s as more and more of his works were issued in translation, adding fuel to the fire of structuralist fashion in Arab literary circles. La Bruissement de la Langue, a collection of essays written over the span of many years, first appeared in French in 1984. In this translation, the essays have been grouped into seven thematic sections: From Science to Literature, From the Work to the Text, On Languages and Style, From History to Reality, Lover of Signs, Readings, and On Images.Hiwar Al-Istishraq (The Debate on Orientalism), Ahmed El-Sheikh. Cairo: The Arab Centre for Studies on the West, 1999
In this book Ahmed El-Sheikh, who has been living in Paris for the past 20 years, collects the interviews he conducted over that period with 23 French orientalists. Among those who feature in its pages are Jacques Berque, Maxime Rodinson, André Michel, François Burgat and Yves Lacoste. The book also includes an introduction by the author in which he discusses "orientalism" and "occidentalism", arguing that the similarities between the two terms go far beyond their obvious binary opposition. Occidentalism is a term coined by certain non-Western scholars as a response to some of the more biased orientalist works on the East, most notably Bernard Lewis's famous book How the Muslims Discovered Europe, in which the author contends that Muslims lack the drive to investigate the Other. Many of the interviews collected in this book set themselves the task of refuting such ideological bias by means of intelligent dialogue with some of the most fair-minded Western arabists.Jusour: Kitab ghair Dawri (Bridges: An Occasional Book). Cairo: The Seventies Generation Centre, February 1999
This is the first issue of an occasional journal issued by the Seventies Generation Centre, an organisation which brings together writers concerned with historical and political questions and who, in one way or another, were involved in the 1970s Egyptian student movement. This issue is comprised of studies revolving around two central themes. The first, "secularism", inspires articles by Mahmoud Amin El-Alem, Ibrahim Fathi, Iman Hassan and Osama Amin El-Kholi. Most of the remaining articles in this issue of Jusour are engaged with the current debate about socialism in face of the US-led security pact in the Middle East, the conflict between the Right and the Left in Russia, the so-called Israeli Left and the rise of the Right in Israel. In addition to the work falling within the scope of these two main themes, there are also cultural news items and a round table discussion on the literary achievement/experience of the Seventies Generation.Ma b'ad Al-Sahiouniya wa Akthoubat Harakat Al-Salam fi Israil (Post-Zionism and the Hoax of the Peace Movement in Israel), Ahmed Bahaa Shaaban. Cairo: Merit for Publication and Information, 1999
Shaaban does not confine himself only to Israel writers, but also engages with the works of Arab proponents of normalisation, as well as those of political commentators, to argue that Arab conflict with the Zionist state is with the Zionist state per se -- with its very existence -- and is not confined merely to questions of detail. So-called "developments", such as the peace movement in Israel and the discourse of normalisation, merely gloss over, if not totally ignore the fact that enmity and conflict are structural to the Zionist state.Al-Jil alladhi Wajaha Abdel-Nasser wa'l-Sadat (The Generation that Confronted Nasser and Sadat), Hisham El-Salamoni. Cairo: Qibaa' Press, 1999
The author of this book belongs to the generation of 1967, the first mass movement to defy Nasser's authority since his coming to power following the 1952 Revolution. The student movement, which emerged as a result of the 1967 defeat, was opposed to the political and social corruption which preceded and followed the war. This book restricts itself to the events that occurred in Egypt from 1967 to 1972, since, as the author points out, the second episode of the student movement, starting in 1972, would require a separate book -- that which he is currently writing. Even though the subtitle of the present work is "A Study and Documents in the Student Movement", the book employs no first-hand documentary material and relies instead on previously published books that have dealt with the same material.Awalim fi Tasadom (Worlds in Collision), Emmanuel Velikovsky, tr Rifaat Sayed Ahmed. Cairo: The Hur Cultural Group, 1999
In this, the second part of his encyclopedic work, Velikovsky contends that cosmic events which led to major catastrophes appeared miraculous to ancient peoples. He uses this premise to argue that the Jewish presence in the ancient world was the guiding light for many eastern civilisations. In this volume, Velikovsky deals with a great number of Jewish myths, interpreting them in light of modern scientific discoveries, thus bestowing on them a decidedly secular character. The volume consists of two main parts: Venus (which comprises ten chapters), and Mars (nine chapters). It also includes a lengthy introduction by the translator who draws the reader's attention to the methodological bias of the author, something which all Arab readers must be aware of so they do not fall into the traps laid for them by some of the more ideologically-charged sections of the book.Al-Wajh Al-Aakhar lil-Khilafa Al-Islamiya (The Other Face of the Islamic Caliphate), Soliman Fayyad. Cairo: Merit for Information and Publication, 1999
"It has been the custom, in all that is written in school books and by Muslim scholars, to discuss the great achievements of the Islamic Caliphate, while very little is said in this context about its negative side and its oppression of peoples, intellectuals and opponents," writes the author in his introduction to this book. "This reductionist approach ignores the fact that the flourishing of the Arab-Islamic civilisation, despite the oppression inflicted by its rulers, is in great part the collective effort of peoples and individuals who brought to it the experience they had acquired in the course of their contacts with the civilisations of the past." The book consists of six chapters, covering the following topics: Muslims disagreeing; disagreements because of oppression; theories of the Caliphate among different Islamic sects; the rise and fall of oppressive caliphs; the socio-economic conditions under oppressive caliphates; sedition and revolution; and imams oppressed by sects and caliphs.
