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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Derrida perhaps
Derrida's series of lectures, delivered in Cairo last Saturday, Sunday and Monday, has made more than ripples in Egyptian intellectual circles. No literary or academic faction has failed to make a claim on the renowned post-structuralist; no rising star, however tenuously related, has missed the opportunity to watch the celebrated champion of deconstruction in action. The realisation that the aging, low-profile Frenchman with a fluffy dash of white hair, briskly engaged in expounding his method -- or strategy as he calls it -- to a predominantly Egyptian audience in the headquarters of the Supreme Council for Culture was none other than Jacques Derrida seemed to overpower people at times, yet it did not discourage even the least knowledgeable in the domain of philosophy from charging en masse into the overcrowded lecture hall. Others, in unadulterated 1968 situationist rebelliousness, went for the he's-my-friend approach, interrupting the opening lecture to hand him flowers and thus slightly unruffle the composure of literary critic Gaber Asfour, the council's secretary-general and the man behind bringing Derrida to Egypt for the first time.
Why the Supreme Council for Culture failed to provide what the French managed to offer during the one lecture Derrida gave at the Centre Français de Culture et de Cooperation remains puzzling: space would normally be thought of as a given on such an occasion, so Asfour's initial apology ("I hadn't realised deconstruction was so popular") hardly ameliorated the discontent, let alone discomfort.
The lecture given at the Centre Français de Culture et de Cooperation on Sunday prodded and illuminated deconstruction, its relevance to Egyptian and Arab culture constituting the main focus. In the Egyptian context particularly, the concept of hospitality was broadly expanded on -- the difference between conditional and unconditional hospitality, the meaning of place and the psychological complexity of the individual self vis-à-vis its geographical and historical location. One of Derrida's plans, that has apparently been adopted, was to create surrogate homes in which thinkers could take refuge when they need to. "Egyptian references" included the fact that Derrida was born and brought up in Algeria; while numerous meditations on identity and historical situation, the perspectivity of the philosophical viewpoint and the multiplicity of Egyptian cultural identity were moderated by the interjection, "You know, I've only been here three days!"
The programme organised by the Supreme Council of Culture, on the other hand, was structured in such a way as to ultimately deter non-specialists: with the exception of the opening lecture, delivered on Saturday, on deconstruction and the future of the humanities, two round tables on deconstruction in literary theory and deconstruction in philosophy were held in closed rooms with some dozen specialists to probe these questions in the presence of some 50 selected observers.
Gaber Asfour with Derrida
photos: Abdel-Wahab El-Seheti
The opening lecture (which was translated into Arabic and distributed to the audience at the start) was a beautifully lucid introduction to deconstruction that would have been more useful to more people had it been delivered in more forthcoming circumstances.
Derrida reiterated the idea of vérité, praising the university as the only setting in which it could be pursued with "unconditional freedom". One couldn't help wondering why such words had to be uttered so far from any university campus and in a way that made them inaccessible to university students. Derrida is hardly to blame, but the absence of students is certainly to be noted -- and indeed Derrida noted it himself, expressing, on the last day of his visit, the regret that he was not given the chance to meet any students.
In the opening lecture many essential concepts were invoked: the term foi, for example, which extends beyond received ideas of faith and commitment to include a sense of integrity whereby the profession de foi practiced by a mere professeur -- the way Derrida unassumingly describes himself -- should be pursued to the last, to the very end.
Elliptically, Derrida delved into such topics as globalisation (the term was rejected for the more precise mondialisation), political dissidence, the difference between acts and oeuvres, and the philosophical significance of the expression "as if", only to return to the initial question concerning the kind of discourse he might be offering his audience, a discourse expounding, if not exactly delineating his own particular profession de foi, whose significance is ultimately to be debated: "Is it philosophy or literature or theatre? Is it a work, une oeuvre, or a course, or a kind of seminar? Finally it will be up to you now, it will be up to others also, to decide this. The signatories are also the addressees. We do not know then, for if this impossible that I am talking about were to arrive, or happen, perhaps one day, I leave you to imagine the consequences. Take your time, but be quick about it, because you do not know what awaits you" was how he questioned the lecture he had just delivered.
In the literary and philosophical contexts, deconstruction emerged primarily as a tool of textual interpretation, and questions of whether or not it is a system, a statement or even a method dominated the scene. Derrida explained that while it is none of the above, as an attempt to eliminate or at least reduce the discontinuity between the possible and the impossible, it is a strategy.
Deconstruction marks the "rupture", the breaking-point beyond which the "structurality of structure" is unveiled, revealing the falsehood of notions of centrality, transcending the sign in its critique of semiology and eventually undermining, or at least attempting to undermine the hegemony of theory. "It would be somewhat naive," Derrida wrote in his classic essay "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", "to refer to an event, a doctrine, or an author in order to designate this occurrence."
An interesting if incidental point that came up concerned the possible discontinuity between Derrida the serious philosopher and Derrida the poignant and playful poet. Both, he insisted, exist simultaneously. Derrida seemed to be placing himself somewhere in the twilight zone in which philosophical exposition, political agitation and poetic rumination converge.
The contribution of Egyptian intellectuals was extensive and, though not always probing, impressively substantial -- perhaps due to the presence of many well-established intellectuals whose informed opinions served to contextualise the event and help view it from an Egyptian and Third World perspective. In the most general terms, the question levelled at Derrida related to the legitimacy and relevance of deconstruction as an aid to political and social understanding in Egypt today. To what extent and in what ways is deconstruction a realistic or committed practice?
The left-wing critic and writer Mahmoud Amin El-Alim made that very point, accusing post-structuralism in general of lacking substance. Deconstruction is neither an assertion nor a denial, he said, so how can it be relevant to real life? Veteran journalist Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, too, asked whether deconstruction was ultimately a necessity or simply a luxury, and why it emerged now of all times. Wouldn't it be possible to argue that deconstruction is ultimately a cop out, in the sense that its greatest accomplishment is that it relieves the intellectual self of the otherwise inevitable responsibility of turning knowledge into dogma or transforming laden fragments into a meaningful system?
Elsewhere Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at Cairo University, questioned the fact that deconstruction utilises both phenomenology and analytical philosophy, thereby making use of the very precepts it sets out to combat. Literary critic and professor Amina Rashid, on the other hand, pointed out that fascination with structure tends to emerge at moments of historical rupture, regardless of whether or not it is a negative fascination. To what extent, then, does deconstruction reflect a context-specific response to history? And does it stand in for a specific intellectual hegemony? Implicit in that formulation is the question of whether deconstruction can be employed in a Third World context without perpetuating intellectual dependency, the post-colonial misfortune everybody is trying to escape. Is the French professeur ultimately a colonial agent in disguise? Is deconstruction finally a regressive discourse?
On the third and final day the questions still retained an emphasis on the dominance of European/Western thought on the post-colonial world while trying to integrate the Arab world, Arab poetry and Sufism into the "whole", making it all part of "us". Hala Fouad, lecturer in philosophy at Cairo University, in something closer to an ode than a question brought to light her view of Sufism as it incorporates deconstruction. Ahmed Al-Barqawy, professor of philosophy at Damascus University, talked about Heidegger announcing the end of philosophy while appending that philosophy had only reached that "end" in Europe. Abdel-Ghaffar Mikawi, Professor Emeritus at Cairo University with a long-standing interest in the poet-philosopher, asked why Derrida hadn't expanded his poetic sphere of reference to Arabic poetry.
But there was still a requisite array of strictly philosophical questions. Salah Qansouh, professor of philosophy at Zagazig University, asked what Derrida and deconstruction aimed to achieve and why Derrida refuses to be termed a post-modernist. Anwar Moghith, who has recently translated On Grammatology with Mona Tolba, referred to the central role of politics in le professeur's work and asked about the constitution of his political position. Abdel-Wahab El-Missiri, professor of comparative literature and author of many works on Zionism and Jewish thought, referred to the rumour on Cairo's streets that Professor Derrida had left deconstruction proper behind to become more of a universalist. He asked if it is possible to deconstruct deconstruction positing that if not then it is an absolute and went on quoting Susan Hindelman's work on heretical hermeneutics dealing with the affinity between Kabalism and deconstruction, with the Jew, according to her hypothesis, being the ultimate deconstructor.
Time for this meeting was restricted because Derrida had asked to end at 9pm, as opposed to the first night's 12am, but as always lucid answers delivered with trademark, and occasionally biting, wit were forthcoming. He did not apologise for the lack of Arabic poetry and Sufism in his work but rather his ignorance of Arabic. Hala Fouad, he said, had awakened in him a desire to read more on Sufism but said that he did not have the tenacity of Goethe to write on things he could not read in their original language. He promised to learn Arabic in the future. As for the "us" and the "them" aspect, he said that as a philosopher he worked in the abstract, neither a Jew nor a Muslim nor a Christian, thus "we" can all operate together.
In reply to Salah Qansouh, Derrida referred to Jean Hyppolite who, he said, also asked him what he was aiming to achieve. His answer then, as it is now, was that if he knew what the aim was he wouldn't be en route. In response to Abdel-Wahab El-Missiri's reference to Susan Hindelman's work, he replied that he himself had written on being Jewish, and if she was to come into the equation she could come and discuss her works with him.
Derrida's responses were perfectly in character -- consistent, thought-provoking and profound. Yet, aside from further explaining his thought, he simply proceeded to deconstruct his opponents' positions, pointing out that he is neither an agent of globalisation nor a utopian dreamer, but simply a professeur struggling to extend the scope of possible democracy and thereby reaching out to the realm of the impossible. If you don't share those beliefs, he said, then you need not engage with deconstruction. History deconstructs reality regardless of professeurs. Yet to be here, to seek out the most appropriate discourse to offer Egyptians, is valid enough.
See also:
The impatience of fish
