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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Interview Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters The function of outsiders
By Abdelwahab Elmessiri *This series of articles proposes a new way of looking at the Jewish question and the Zionist solution thereto, namely, the establishment of the state of Israel. It argues that the "functional group" paradigm has great explanatory power in dealing with both the Jewish question and the Zionist solution.
A functional group is a group of people, usually a numerical minority, either imported from outside the society or recruited from within its ranks, who are generally defined in terms of a definite, limited, abstract function (profession, etc.), rather than their complex, concrete, and full humanity. They are entrusted with certain jobs or functions which members of the host society (the majority) either cannot or will not perform for a variety of reasons.
In traditional societies, people form an organic community (gemeinschaft) and therefore consider fellow members as sacred, that is, fully human and not simply matter to be manipulated or subjected to contractual relationships and rational objective calculations. Moreover, people in traditional societies live in close proximity, which makes objective rational relationships impossible. Because the community is closely knit, its tolerance of envy and competition is very low, and secrets cannot be kept. The ruling elite usually fears the concentration of power and state secrets in the hands of a single group or of a native who, as a member of the community, can always use the power he has mustered or the secrets he has gathered to bargain for a bigger share in power.
For all these reasons, traditional societies allow, and even welcome, the existence of functional groups to perform the jobs that the structure of society and its view of itself make impossible for its members to perform. The job assigned to the functional group could be mean or dirty in a literal sense (draining sewage, executing criminals, embalming corpses and burying them), morally shady (prostitution), exalted (priesthood), requiring special skills (medicine or translation); it could entail great danger (fighting and espionage), involve extreme risk (any pioneering work), demand certain entrepreneurial skills and capital (international and local trade and money lending), or be considered too important and too close to the ruling elite to be entrusted to a native (supervising domestic affairs or guarding concubines). To perform any of these tasks, one must be emotionally and morally detached, characterised by as much neutrality as possible, and without a power base in the society. In other words, one should be a rootless outsider, beyond the pale of normal human considerations -- envy and disgust, competition or emulation, love or hatred -- and severed from the rest of the community.
Utility, neutrality, rationalisation, instrumentalisation: The very structure of traditional societies generates the need for functional groups. For instance, it is not easy for a member of a traditional society to lend money to another member of the community, for their relationship is regulated by a higher, non-economic law. In such societies, interest rates are usually quite high given the absence of a rational banking system. When the time comes to collect the debt and interest, sacred and human considerations will come to bear; objectivity cannot be maintained, and the "law" (the contract) cannot be enforced. Both creditors and debtors subscribe to the same system of belief; the one cannot instrumentalise the other.
The same applies to prostitution. If a man wants to use a woman for temporary pleasure, in other words, if he wants to instrumentalise her, it is very difficult if she belongs to the gemeinschaft, and he has a sense of her sanctity and humanity. Mercenaries are another example. They perform a job that is morally suspect (killing others) and can threaten the powers that be if they have roots in the society, for they can accumulate too much power. "The job" (the function) therefore has to be assigned to an outsider who can be instrumentalised, for he has no sanctity. Members of the host society can also enter rational, contractual relationships, unfettered by human considerations, with members of the functional group. As outsiders, members of the functional group can perform their function efficiently without subverting the solidarity, social harmony, cohesion and values of the host society, and while preserving the boundaries between sacred and profane.
The relationship between the host society and the functional group is not seen as that of exploiter and exploited, but rather as a fair, rational, contractual relationship in which each party achieves its objective. The society's purity and harmony is preserved, the function is accomplished, and the functional group achieves economic survival and preserves its identity.
The utilitarian, contractual relationship persists as long as both parties to the contract need each other. In this sense, members of the functional group, completely dehumanised and neutralised, are not actually a force of production but rather a means of production. A society can have axes, horses, hammers, or members of a functional group: a eunuch, a Janissary, a slave, a Swiss guard, a gypsy dancer or singer, an Armenian or a Jewish trader in Poland, a Chinese merchant in Malaysia, or an Arab merchant in Africa.
Isolation, alienation, powerlessness: After the host society has invited in members of the functional group, it isolates them, either in a physical ghetto (a special neighbourhood) or a symbolical one (special badges and dress; a special language, or even a religious doctrine or sect). In this way, the society can make full use of the functional group while keeping it at a safe distance, its members permanent outsiders or permanent temporary residents.
Members of the functional group, in turn, internalise their isolation and even promote it. They insist on preserving their special dress, ghetto, or dialect and resist any attempt at de-ghettoisation, seeing it as a threat to their identity (which indeed it is).
Members of the functional group, on account of their mobility and isolation from the society at large, accumulate wealth and power, thereby becoming targets of the envy of the poor classes in society. Since the functional group has no roots in society, and no power base, it must rely on the ruling classes for its very survival, gradually becoming, in many cases, a tool in their hands to exploit the masses.
This starts a vicious circle, for as their exploitation of the masses increases, public resentment of the members of the functional group also increases -- which leads members of the functional group to rely even more on the ruling elite for protection.
*The writer is professor emeritus of philosophy at Ain Shams University
