Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Notes from Jordan

By Nehad Selaiha

In the Arab world where, in varying degrees, repressive authoritarianism penetrates all aspects of life, informing structures of thought, social relations and government, cultural events -- festivals in particular -- have an air of crude political machination.

The partisan political base of such events, however well camouflaged, is hardly a secret. Over the years Arab artists and cultural activists have had to learn how to manipulate it in their interests without compromising their visions. By taking the establishment at its word, pretending to believe its slogans, and threatening to embarrass it by calling its bluff, artists have been able, in some cases, to secure subsidies, spaces, media coverage and a bigger margin of freedom.

Foreign participants from former colonial powers face a different challenge. Burdened with a heritage for which they feel they have to apologise, they suspend all judgment and exercise the virtue of tolerance and respect for difference to a fault, making them easy prey to autocratic regimes whose internationally acknowledged legitimacy is mere pretence. "If people like it, who am I to judge" about sums up the foreign position. Never mind if what the people (read the natives) like is media-imposed, enforced and popularised. Never mind if many in these militarily and culturally oppressed countries do not go along with the agenda of the new internal form of oppression. What the intelligentsia of the West have not yet realised is that many of the ruling establishments in their one-time colonies have decided to play on their sense of guilt to wangle a form of tacit validation for a new brand of oppression -- all the more lethal because it comes from inside. They are asked, in the name of respect for otherness, to condone dominant discourses and repressive laws that restrict peoples' freedom of action and sometimes physically mutilate them into the bargain.

At the Amman Festival for Independent Theatre (AFIT) this month a German theatre scout was outraged by the sight of a policeman kicking an old woman in the street. His first impulse was to complain in an open letter to the press. What finally restrained him was not knowing the repercussions his action would provoke against the festival. Mind you, he said, there is a lot of police brutality in Germany; but when we find out about it we complain.

Top: Dreams of Sheherazade, Jordan; bottom left: Love in Autumn, Tunisia; bottom right: Sidra, Iraq;

Yet compared to other Arab theatrical events, AFIT has managed to create an open forum for discussion and genuinely democratic dialogue between artists across national boundaries. Moreover, it has succeeded, over six consecutive years, in guarding its independent status, widening its audience base and network of friends and associates and creating a real sense of partnership with its many private and public donors as well as the local authorities, particularly the municipality of Amman. The financial survival of the festival hangs on the ability of its workaholic founders, Al-Fawanees and Al-Warsha troupes, to project a community-based vision of theatre that can convince artists, sponsors and the public that they have a stake in cultivating an independent theatrical movement, and to articulate the needs and concerns of this movement in a way that enthuses the world of money and politics without entailing serious compromises. In this respect, the core function of the festival is not to present top-quality performances in theatres suited to the purpose, as is the case with most festivals, but rather to create encounters between artists of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds to exchange experiences and explore ways of collaborating, making theatre away from governments and promoting intercultural understanding and creative freedom.

One such encounter was the Second Arab-Euro Theatre Meeting in which artists from Europe, Africa and the Arab world, including Iraqis and Palestinians living in Israel, as well as representatives of the Ford Foundation Arab Arts Projects and members of the Informal European Theatre Meeting (IETM), met to discuss their needs and share their visions and dreams. And the remarkable thing was the absence of the factious spirit and overblown rhetoric that usually characterises such meetings.

Many practical matters were addressed: the need for an efficient information system; the crucial importance of creating spaces for artists to work in; the possibility to continue working for a long term without constant insecurity; the need for artistic and management training structures which provide support for young theatre artists; the role of the European festival organiser who wants to invite Arab theatre companies and all of the contradictions this involves; and, of course, money.

In this respect, the Tunisian model of securing state support without state control was particularly useful and I hope it will be adopted by other Arab ministries of culture. According to Izz Eddin Qanoon, founder and director of the Tunisian Theatre Organique, the company sells a number of performances to the Ministry of Culture to cover the production costs and depends for the rest of its budget on the box-office, touring contracts and sundry donations. Other practical models and concrete proposals were given, including an arts management course to be launched in Cairo this June by the Arab Arts Project, a tri-lingual periodical publication (in Arabic, French and English) to provide background and up-to-date information about Arab theatres and a communication network, based in Europe, to facilitate contacts between Arab and European theatre. On the issue of funding, serious questions were raised and debated, particularly the hidden agendas of some funding agencies and the criteria on which funding decisions are made. The reactions to this fruitful meeting, however, were not universally positive. On Sunday, 11 April, the English-language Jordan Times reported that the anti-normalisation committee of Jordan's 13 professional associations had launched a boycott of AFIT on the grounds that it is financed by foreign sources and foreign groups participate in it. Furthermore, the paper continued, the committee had asked the Amman Municipality to take the same stance on the issue, to keep in harmony with public opinion and hold festivals that are purely patriotic.

In the Arab world foreign funding is often regarded as a surreptitious form of cultural invasion and a threat to Arab cultural identity. In Jordan, where unions and professional associations are dominated by Islamists, the opposition takes a more extreme form and is bound up with the question of Arab-Israeli peace. Over the last year, according to the Jordan Times, the unions have stepped up their campaign against seminars, conferences and other events organised in cooperation with foreign institutions, claiming they are part of a Zionist infiltration of Jordan's intellectual and cultural life. This attitude, which brands all foreigners as spies and subversive agents, and any Arab who deals with them, or even talks to them, as a traitor, is, to say the least, unreasonable and can only serve the interests of fanatics and cultural isolationists. Equally unreasonable is the siege imposed by many Arab cultural bodies on Palestinians living in Israel whose only crime is that they did not leave their land and have to carry an Israeli passport. The anti-normalisation campaign against the festival was fueled by the invitation to the festival of Al-Qasaba Theatre, a group from East Jerusalem whose members, all Palestinians, have never received support from the Israeli Ministry of Culture or cooperated with it. Yet however ugly and unjustified, this attack nonetheless served to strengthen the credibility of the festival as a forum for genuine democratic dialogue.

The organisers invited their opponents, supporters, and Arab Israeli guests to a press conference to openly debate the matter. It does not matter that many of the zealots stuck to their guns till the end, turning a deaf ear to the Palestinians' anguished pleas for solidarity and support and their moving expression of the ordeal of being regarded as unwanted outsiders by both Israelis and Arabs. What matters is that the bomb was defused through democratic dialogue.

The festival continued as normal, proving every day, through its many workshops, foreign and Arab shows and collaborative events and activities, the value and validity of its agenda of open-minded cultural and human interaction. And as if to make it up to Al-Qasaba artists for the pain and humiliation they suffered at the ungracious hands of the zealots, the Jordanian public gave them a warm and rousing reception.

Their adaptation of George Shahadah's The Emigrant from Brisbane, in which the setting was transposed to Palestine, was a good specimen of the company's work. Proficient acting, efficient use of space, imaginative evocation of atmosphere and states of mind through movement and lighting, serious topics, a lavish use of humour and local colour, and a tendency to cut deeper than the conventional surface of things and provoke reactions other than laughter define its style and explain its wide popular appeal. The ordinary life of simple Palestinians is vividly portrayed without sentimentality or false heroics. Racked by suspicion and torn between greed and honour, the village men who are told that one of their women (who is not named) once had an illegitimate child by a man who after years abroad has died, leaving the child a fortune, are alternately brutal, befuddled and endearingly weak and pathetic.

Equally vigorous and emotionally robust was Abu Arab: Trapped in the Corner -- a one-man show improvised and performed by Ali Abu Yassin of Al-Bayader Troupe in Palestine. In the style of a hakawati, or itinerant story-teller, Yassin gave us a strong and pungent taste of the reality of daily life in Gaza as experienced by a simple Palestinian worker. The narrative is episodic, anecdotal, and interspersed with satirical comments and topical jokes. Like all good hakawatis, Yassin has a strong presence, ready wit, a talent for mimicry and the ability to engage the audience actively in the show. This last trait reached a peak at the end when the actor walked up to the audience and said: "Look, I don't know how to end this play. We tried one version in which the worker decides not to cross into Israel to find work and we were bitterly criticised for not being realistic and accused of stigmatising the thousands of Palestinians who earn their living in Israel. So we changed it, and the worker went to Israel; but the intellectuals objected. Better starve than compromise, they said. Now, I leave it to you to end it the way you like." Given with such stark directness and urgency, the problem puts the audience, rather than Abu Arab, in a difficult corner.

Palestinian daily life featured once more in the Jerusalem-based Theatre Day Productions' revival of Sadalla Wannus's The Glass Café but in a grotesque, metaphoric vein. The tomb-like café, with its ghostly visitors, demented clients and eternal routine of backgammon, insect-hunting and coffee-drinking, ruthlessly exposes the apathy, cowardice, indifference, futility, and blind self-involvement of its inhabitants and ends with an apocalyptic prophecy of disaster.

Palestine was also the theme of the Tunisian Looking for Aida, written and acted by Jalilah Bakkar and directed by Fadil Juaibi, with the accent on Al-Nakba and the experience of the Palestinian Diaspora. But despite the elegiac mood (which moved some to tears), Bakkar's overpowering presence, sincerity, control of tone and refined economy of expression, and notwithstanding Juaibi's sophisticated mise-en-scene and subtle use of lighting, many, including Palestinians, found this monodrama embarrassingly simplistic, sentimental and facilely romantic. A cathartic script which romanticises Palestine out of existence is how I would describe it. Dictatorship, tyranny and oppression came second on the agenda of Arab shows, providing the theme of the rambling, bombastic and self-indulgent Jordanian Dreams of Sheherazade, the figuratively complex and passionately outspoken Iraqi Hollow Men, and the Irbid Art Theatre Troupe's The Tyrant and the Mirror. Less directly, it informed the visually exuberant Tunisian Love in Autumn; Alfred Farag's The Last Walk (competently performed by Vanya Exerjian) which centres on gender oppression; Jean Genet's The Maids performed by Kuwaiti drama students; the Iraqi Sidra, based on a Sumerian legend and directed by Fadil Khaleel in a solid classical style; a Belgian production of Slawomir Morzek's Out At Sea where power takes the form of cannibalism; and the Tanzanian Death of a Coconut Tree by the Bagamoys Players, in which the tyrant (an ugly capitalist) is punished with sterility.

To provide relief from the pressure of politics there was a joint Swedish-Jordanian concert from the Backa Theatre Musicians and the Rumm Troupe; the stunning We Can't Hold Our Breath Any Longer by the ALIAS Dance Group from Switzerland; Kris Niklison's M/F from the Netherlands; two delightful evenings of song, dance, and story-telling from the Egyptian Al-Warsha; the haunting Australian The Descent by The Chapel of Change group; and Enrico Labayen's Puirt a Beul and Other Dances programme from the USA. (Puirt a Buel, I am told, is the name of a type of Gaelic music). For further relief, there was a lot of partying and some excursions to the historic sites of Jordan, and I personally spent a delightful day in the open air at Daret Al-Funoon (House of Arts) observing the Image and Movement Workshop given by the Bonheur Troupe from the Netherlands.

Despite all the politics and heated wrangling, the festival managed to give Amman two weeks of vibrant cultural activity and a lot of food for thought. It also gave the city an appealingly dégagé air, like a party tent pitched for just one night.

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