Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 9 -15 November 2000 Issue No.507
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

	Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters

East, West and in between

By Amina Elbendary

Egypt has long been a crucible of cross-cultural encounters. It is a place where East and West meet, where the other is part of the everyday scene. But that intellectual mood goes through its ebbs and flows like any other. And very often cross-cultural encounters have turned into exercises in cross-cultural misunderstanding. As Edward Said and the many writers on the discourse of Orientalism have demonstrated, the exchange has never been benign, simple or apolitical.

And it is a mood of ambivalence that seemed to dominate the latest exchange programme organised by the Italian Cultural Centre in Cairo which involved an exhibition of Italian and Egyptian paintings (see below) as well as a "literary encounter." This encounter between the Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim and the Italian writer and novelist Daniele Del Giudice was -- interestingly enough -- introduced in the programme under the ambiguous title "Two writers' confrontation: drafting the novel with reference to mind and emotion." And, indeed, a mood of "confrontation" was evident at times during the evening.

Sonallah never tires of pointing out -- in his novels as well as in public debates of this kind -- that the cause of the Arabs' current predicament lies largely in the hegemony enforced by international (read Western) multinationals that have taken over all aspects of society. It is this hegemony -- epitomised by exploits of the Coca-Cola Company and the Cocacolisation of the Middle East -- which forms the main thesis in several of his novels, including Al-Lagna and Sharaf.

When questioned by the moderator -- Italian writer Marco Alloni -- on the future of democracy in the Arab world, Sonallah retorted by questioning the idea of democracy in the West, and the idea that Western forms of democracy are the only valid ones. "What democracy is there in the United States or even Italy? These countries are also controlled by the large multinationals. What kind of democracy is it in Israel that murders children fighting for their right to live alongside the invaders who conquered their land? The democracy we are working for in Egypt is one that would guarantee freedom of expression and an equitable distribution of incomes and resources. This is what the battle is really about. Attempts to create the outward structures of democracy aren't the real issue."

Jacques Louis David, Death of Marat

Asked what he could learn from the West, Sonallah's response was interesting. The West is at the peak of world civilisation, with all its paradoxes, he conceded. Yet that scientific and cultural achievement was made largely through exploiting the intellectual resources of Africa and Latin America. But "there are many things to learn, of course. Computers, for example [...] On an artistic and creative level I was impressed by Hemingway's writings in the sixties. I was impressed by his simple yet intense language. And then I discovered Al-Jahiz's writings, that difficult to achieve simplicity." Yet there are many things to reject in Western civilisation: "The exploitation of others, be they other races or religions, and the continuous lying by Western propaganda and media establishments over the last few weeks in covering the events in Palestine."

Political events have understandably left a pessimistic mark.

Del Giudice, however, seems more excited about the idea of cultural exchange than Sonallah. In 1999 he founded the cultural festival Fundamenta, held in Venice and organised around a particular topic every year. Fundamenta 2000 dealt with the economic, social, ethnic and religious conflicts resulting from the ongoing process of globalisation. The festival invited experts and intellectuals from all over the globe and this year included several Arabs, including Egyptian economist Samir Amin, Moroccan feminist writer Fatima Mernessi and the mufti of Marseilles. This festival is a forum to bridge East and West. Indeed, Del Giudice's open intellectual stance and his acceptance of the other, his effort at political correctness if you will, was very evident during the "confrontation." Del Giudice did not like using the word "tolerance" in understanding the other, because it implied tolerating a burden, something beyond endurance. He preferred to talk about understanding and respecting others and their cultures. "It is easy to 'tolerate' others. What is difficult is to understand them," he explained.

There are many things the West learnt from the East, he argued. He referred to Arab influence on Western intellect, from the founder of Christian philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, to Dante, whose Divine Comedy was influenced by the tradition of the Prophet Mohamed's ascent to heaven. "I have learnt a lot from the East. Literarily, I was influenced by Arab narrative traditions and structures such as Alf Layla wa Layla where a person [Shahrazad] tells a story in order to live for another day. There is no such thing in Italian literature. I have also learnt that the Qur'an is incomparable."

The different intellectual styles and attitudes that Sonallah and Del Giudice represent are necessarily evident in their writings. And perhaps it was significant that Sonallah Ibrahim referred to Del Giudice throughout the evening as "the Italian guest" without once using his name! It is at least telling of his scepticism towards that "other."

The evening had begun with a reading of extracts from Sonallah's Al-Lagna in Arabic, and a reading from Del Giudice work in Italian. Several of Sonallah's novels have been translated into European languages, including Italian. However, Egyptians could only be familiar with Del Giudice's work through a translation of his novella At the Museum of Reims published in that week's edition of Akhbar Al-Adab (issue 380, 22 October 2000). Yet, the readings, as they were organised, failed to open a channel of dialogue between the two texts. You had to be familiar with the texts beforehand to understand some of what was going on.

Alloni put those writings in juxtaposition -- in "confrontation" -- to each other.

Sonallah Ibrahim, on the one hand, deals with chronic and tragic problems to attract attention to the imperativeness of changing that present reality. For Sonallah, the cruelty of this world embodied in the idea of (the world as?) prison and incarceration, and the horribleness of the modern consumerist trends are the two keys to understanding modern Egypt. Sonallah was quick to add that he did not judge in his writings, he provided questions -- rather than answers -- on the cruelty of prison and consumerist traditions, but, he emphasised, the hegemony of foreign companies is also crucial in understanding contemporary Egypt.

Sonallah's writing is more declarative than suggestive. In several of his novels, like Al-Lagna, Dhat, and Sharaf, Sonallah reproduced texts from newspapers. He also had his characters write and read what amount to rather academic treatises on politics and economy in the modern Middle East. This gave a rather "documentary" effect and a more static defined look to the writing. Sonallah explained that his first novella Tilka Al-Ra'iha (The Smell of It) published in 1966 -- and arguably his best yet -- was about political detention. In that work it is not clear why the protagonist was detained in the first place. Sharaf, he argued, is different. It is about prison, about local forms of hegemony. In that novel Sonallah argues that the ruling elite in Egypt serves Western economic interests which has led to the emergence of consumerist trends, and new life styles and value systems that lead the protagonist, Sharaf, to prison. There he meets other characters who are also imprisoned due to that existing reality. One of those, Dr Ramzi Boutros Nassif, tries to expose the conspiracy and corruption of an international pharmaceutical company, which he delineates in detail in the novel. Sonallah does not hide or water down his judgements of the dominant cultural and political establishment in Egypt. He does not mince his words. And yet, he is surprised that he has not faced imprisonment or censorship for his outspoken writings.

Del Giudice's writing, as Alloni put it, uses language that seems to suggest ideas rather than declare them; a language that suspends judgement and that seeks to liberate the present through a futuristic view.

Indeed, Del Giudice's At the Museum of Reims plays on the different perceptions of reality and what in fact constitutes "truth." In that novella, the young protagonist, Barnaba, is gradually going blind. In preparing for that imminent darkness, and as his vision gradually fades, he visits museums and tries to absorb as much of the paintings as he could, to create a gallery of sorts in his memory. He visits the Museum of Reims particularly to see its version of Jacques Louis David's Death of Marat. Barnaba feels a personal connection with Jean-Paul Marat, the French Revolution figure who was also an ophthalmologist noted for his treatment of blindness in the late 18th century. Marat's involvement with Robespierre and the Reign of Terror makes his murder an ambivalent chapter in French revolutionary history -- a background not entirely visible in David's memorial painting which depicts his assassination as an act of betrayal. In that painting Marat is idealised and his assassination is reminiscent of images of Christ's descent from the cross.

At the museum, Barnaba meets a woman who joins his tour and begins to describe the different paintings to him. In so doing, Ann starts adding details that are not there. Yet "it cannot be said that she lied for lying's sake, not because the situation immuned her, but because there was a moment -- even if fleeting -- when she herself was convinced of what she told him, when she herself saw what was not in the painting, that which Barnaba's desire or imagination created, which was special to him and which joined her to him."

The story alternates between two voices, that of Barnaba and that of the narrator, as well as between two visions of the paintings, that which Barnaba sees, hazy as it may be, and that which Ann describes, made-up as it may be. Del Giudice seems to suggest that reality lies in this ambivalent space of in-betweenness -- in between blindness and vision, lies and truth. It is this multiplicity and shifting of perspectives that characterises Del Giudice's work, perhaps fermented by his love of flying which he celebrates in Takeoff: The Pilot's Lore. "For me, flying is a way to discover and know the earth. From high up you can imagine the city, you can see how the earth changes," he explained. But flying is also a huge responsibility for the author; a pilot is responsible for the life of the people on board. "I feel this same responsibility when I write," he said.

When on another day they come to David's Death of Marat, Ann describes it literally, without additions or subtractions. It is Barnaba who tells her stories he makes up on Marat's life and scientific feats, stories he relates with passion as if he were really there while they happened. "And then he went back to thinking how Ann had described the previous day's paintings, and how now to the contrary, all the details she described on Death of Marat were accurate and true. He thought of how she kept silent throughout all his stories, how it was possible to lie without speaking, to lie without lying." Standing next to him at an appropriate distance from the painting Ann comments that "there seem to be more than 150 images of Marat's face, no two of them identical."

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

	weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg