 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 September 1999 Issue No. 445 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 September 1999 Issue No. 445
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A counter-productive mechanism
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
A few months before the first Arab-Israeli war broke out in 1948, a communist organisation calling itself the Egyptian Communist Organisation and dubbed by its communist opponents Mishmish (a pejorative distortion of its acronym in Arabic) was formed in Egypt. For a while, the great majority of Egyptian communists flocked to join its ranks. But the line it adopted was so uncompromising and radical that it ended up losing much of its membership to the sweeping arrests carried out by the police under the martial law prevailing at the time. The leadership of Mishmish blamed the mass arrests on other communist organisations which remained opposed to it, accusing them of collaborating with the police. It later 'ideologised' the accusation by describing all the other organisations as 'Titoist'. The Yugoslav leader had been denounced by Stalin as the worst enemy of Communism and, in the communist lexicon, this was the greatest insult that could be hurled at anyone at the time.
As Mishmish's ultra-radicalism increased, its membership dwindled, those of its members who had escaped arrest either expelled for not being sufficiently disciplined or deserting its ranks of their own free will. Matters reached such a point that when one of its few remaining members found himself held in the Kharga concentration camp along with detainees belonging to other communist organisations, he refused to speak to any of them on the grounds that they were police informers. After months of this self-imposed silence, his boycott of his fellow detainees prompted the commander of the camp to ask him: "Do you really think you are so important that the state has built this prison just for you out here in the middle of nowhere and surrounded you with all these police spies disguised as fellow communists?"
This amazing incident was a natural progression in a mechanism which generated its own logic, a closed system that fed on itself and remained locked in its own syllogisms. Today, we are witnessing a similar phenomenon throughout the Arab world, this time not emanating from theoretical buildups of a communist nature but from theories of a pan-Arab nationalist and/or Islamic fundamentalist inspiration that are sustaining the relentless campaign of boycotting individuals and institutions suspected of engaging in any form of normalisation of relations with Israel. The phenomenon has outgrown the field of politics into those of art and literature, actually into a variety of walks of life. At first, the boycott weapon was used against whoever normalised relations with Israel, then against whoever refused to boycott whoever normalised relations with Israel, and so on indefinitely, until a procedure initially devised to isolate the opponent ends up isolating its initiators instead.
There are innumerable examples of this mechanism, but one in particular serves to illustrate its inherent flaws. A few days ago, I was approached by a concerned member of the theatre-going public who told me the story of Nader Omran, director of the Jordanian theatre company, Fawanis. Mr Omran claims his anti-normalisation credentials are above reproach, invoking an article written by the late Saadeddin Wahba in Al-Ahram several years ago praising him for demanding the withdrawal of the Shorouk Theatre Company from a festival he had organised in collaboration with an Egyptian team, because many of Shorouk's actors, though of Arab origin, carried Israeli passports.
At the same time, however, Mr Omran takes his company's independent status seriously, insisting on its right to select scripts freely and to perform plays without interference from the censor. Somehow, this rendered him suspect in the eyes of his peers, and the Jordanian Artists' Union led a smear campaign against him in which he was first accused of harbouring undeclared aims then, more specifically, of actively trying to advance the normalisation of relations with Israel. This last accusation, which has become the most effective means of disabling an opponent, was followed by the no less serious charge that he had accepted funds from a foreign foundation.
The foreign funding in question was a grant from the Ford Foundation, which Mr Omran does not deny receiving. Moreover, he has vigorously defended his right to accept such grants. According to a statement issued by the Fawanis Company in defense of its director, "The Ford Foundation is being vilified for financing the defence of human rights, education and artistic creativity... Nowhere has it been accused of supporting Zionism or Israel except in the Arab world. Actually, it is criticised for supporting the Palestinian Bir Zeit University...". The statement goes on to claim that Henry Ford was among the first to warn of the threat of Jewish capitalism in his book, World Jewry, which the Zionist movement has repeatedly pulled out of circulation.
The statement also maintains that far from trying to normalise relations with Israel, Nader Omran is doing just the opposite. In coordination with the Palestinian Artists' Union, he is cooperating with Jerusalem's Kassaba Theatre Company, which is sponsored by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and includes prominent actors like Mohamed Bakry who, despite holding an Israeli passport, has given up performing in Israeli films, theatres and television and is now devoting all his time to working with Kassaba.
My purpose in recounting the trials and tribulations of a Jordanian theatre director is neither to justify his company's acceptance of funds from the Ford Foundation under the pretext that it is an anti-Jewish institution nor to suggest that the Ford Foundation offer should have been turned down simply because of the American connection. I would also like to add for the record that I am not sure how consistent it is to refuse to cooperate with the Shorouk Theatre Company on the grounds that some of its members are Israeli Arabs, while accepting to cooperate with the Kassaba Theatre Company, which also includes holders of Israeli passports, even if they have dissociated themselves more clearly from mainstream Israeli culture.
What I am questioning is how valid it is to make the issue of opposing normalisation of relations with Israel the key issue prevailing over all others; in other words, how valid it is to make resisting normalisation an end in itself, rather than just a means to an end in the overall confrontation. That is not to downplay the importance of the anti-normalisation mechanism; indeed, it has reemerged at the forefront of the political stage in Egypt following the recent imprisonment of opposition journalists who accused certain organs of the state apparatus of colluding with Israel at the expense of Egypt's national security. It is all the more necessary in this context to step up the anti-normalisation campaign as a means of showing the Israelis that Egyptian public opinion has not retreated from its determination to stand up to Israel's illegitimate ambitions.
The anti-normalisation drive is an inescapable element in the overall confrontation with Israel. Yet it must not stand in the way of other means of confrontation which, in given circumstances, may prove more effective in achieving the desired end. The coordination of efforts in this respect should be the subject of a wide-ranging pan-Arab debate in which all viewpoints should be freely aired without fear of reprisal. A step in this direction was recently taken by my colleague Salah Issa, who published an article in Al-Hayat (7 July, 1999) analysing the anti-normalisation process and highlighting its shortcomings. To my mind, his article can serve as a working paper for a comprehensive debate over how to establish the process on a consistent and solid basis. The debate would be even more fruitful if another working paper, addressing the same issues from an opposing viewpoint, were to be presented.
Actually, the logic of making anti-normalisation the centrepiece rather than one component element of the confrontation with Israel is what drove a number of Palestinian factions to boycott Arafat after the Oslo Accords. Today, these factions are seeking a reconciliation with the Palestinian authority, beginning with George Habash's PFLP and followed by Nayef Hawatma's DFLP. Other opposition organisations, also stationed in Damascus, are expected to follow suit, despite their continued condemnation of the Oslo, Wye River and other agreements signed by Arafat with Israel.
Although reconciliation with Arafat is incompatible with the view of these organisations that the anti-normalisation drive should take precedence over all other considerations, they are basically left with no choice but to make peace with him. For they can no longer count on Syria to champion their cause unquestioningly. Damascus has made it clear that its anti-normalisation line is tactical, not strategic, with Assad announcing his readiness to establish full peace (which necessarily entails full normalisation) with Israel in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
Still, this does not mean that the Syrian-based Palestinian organisations have renounced their opposition to the peace agreements signed by Arafat, only that they are trying to avoid the worst-case scenario by not insisting at this time on the requirements of what they consider the best-case scenario. They realise that if they continue to boycott the peace process they will not be consulted in the final phase of the negotiations, which will be addressing such crucial issues as Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees, final borders, the Palestinian state, security and water.
As the final and most decisive battle in this protracted conflict approaches, the protagonists on both sides are closing ranks, realising that a house divided against itself cannot win. In this spirit, the Arab negotiators must be prepared to use all the cards available to them, including the anti-normalisation groundswell of Arab public opinion. Their willingness to sit with Israeli negotiators at the same table is not incompatible with their readiness to use all forms of pressure available to them, including boycott. The two processes must be seen as complementary, not contradictory, strategies.
