14 - 20 June 2001
Issue No.538
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 June 2001 Issue No.538 |
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Reflections
Spots, but still a tiger
Egyptian intellectuals have been speaking of "the crisis of the intellectuals" for years. This general "crisis" subdivides into a host of others related to intellectual production, including the crisis of the press, scientific research, education, cinema, publishing... the list goes on. And then, of course, there are the related crises of political life in general and party politics in particular, of civil society, of democracy... Almost everybody admits that the Egyptian intelligentsia is embroiled in crises; explanations of various sorts are provided, ideas for solutions are put forward -- and nothing seems to happen. If anything, it get progressively worse; the Egyptian intelligentsia had more vitality a decade ago than it does today, and was more vigorous still 20 than it was 10 years ago.
Is it fate? Most explanations of the crisis, or of this or that particular crisis, seem to indicate that intellectuals are subject to ironclad conditions beyond their control: authoritarianism, Islamic fundamentalism, the corrupting influence of petro-dollars; or foreign funding, globalisation, privatisation and other forms of foreign "penetration."
Most quaint of all is the generation theory. Though I'm one of the potential beneficiaries of the proposition, I fear I've been a great disappointment to my old friends and colleagues from the student movement of the early '70s as far as advocating our common interests is concerned. According to this proposition, we're still "youth" (though we've had more than our fair share of heart attacks and/or by-pass operations, and are already past middle age); therefore, if only the old geezers of the '40s and '50s would relinquish their monopoly on the country's political and cultural life, and hand it over to us, the so-called '70s generation, they would help solve all the above-mentioned crises and others besides -- a recipe for self- advancement if I've ever seen one.
Irrespective of the explanatory validity of any or all of the above propositions, however, none of them even considers the agency of the intellectuals themselves. It's a chicken/egg dilemma for, whether it's authoritarianism, fundamentalism or even the "geezers' monopoly," the activism of intellectuals is necessary to challenge it.
Why is the Egyptian intelligentsia, although it includes highly talented and cultured people, incapable, as a body, of engaging in general debate except at the crudest and stalest levels? Why, indeed, when it comes to the "big issues" of the hour, do such highly talented and cultured people surrender leadership to their most vacuous and empty-headed peers? Why, in a country where there is no political life to speak of, is intellectual debate hostage to political expediency, and political expediency reduced to the most vulgar populism and demagogy? Why is an intelligentsia that has spent nearly half a century totally isolated from "the masses" so obsessed with suiting its intellectual production to various (extremely vague) notions of what the masses are capable of understanding and responding to? And why this insistence on a "national consensus," which invariably stifles debate and criticism, but also predicates "intellectual inquiry" on the search for a "common denominator," which means that anything sophisticated, original or creative must be thrown overboard so as not to rock the "national" boat? Our national consensus, then, is to be defined by the stupidest, least critical and most ignorant among us.
Why is nothing problematised? Why is there so little reflection or self-criticism? We've had some Marxists and Nasserists turn zealous liberals, others turn fervent Islamists. We've been able to observe a "reconciliation" between the two arch- enemies of Arab ideological and political development during the last century: pan-Arab nationalism and Islamism. Yet none of these transitions is achieved via a thorough critique of our intellectual heritage. They come about as largely unexplained "moments of enlightenment." Structures of ideas are not criticised but rejected en masse. It's a question of apostasy and belief -- rejecting one religion for another.
Observe the state of the Egyptian press and publishing. Once upon a time, the tiniest of cracks in the authoritarian monolith would have been filled immediately with some of the most original and subversive of intellectual production. People were challenged to read between the lines, look for the nuances of Salah Jahin's latest cartoon, find a profound political and ideological critique in a short story in Gallery '68. Tarek El-Bishri would write about political life in Egypt between 1945 and '52, and everyone would read this "history" as a scathing critique of the Egyptian political system after the July '52 Revolution.
The tiny cracks have become gaping holes -- filled largely with garbage. The space for pluralism of expression is mostly used for vulgarity, slander and extortion, with each platform doing its absolute best to incite the state to shut down all the others.
The Egyptian intelligentsia has yet to transcend its original state of sheikhs and effendis. Much has been made of this division since the "Islamic renaissance" some quarter of a century ago, yet few have observed the fundamental resemblance between the two. For both (and there's been a lot of functional crossing over between them), the people are an object, not a subject, of history. One has the function of "enlightening" the people with the fruits of modernity, the other of "instructing" them in the truth of their religion and the glory of their tradition; both seek to steel the (Egyptian/ Arab/Muslim) nation to withstand the onslaught of the developed West. The "people's" needs and desires are never an issue in themselves; the glory, strength and advancement of the "nation" (however defined) are the only goals. At heart, we're all descendants of El-Afghani and Mohamed Abduh. Liberals, Islamists, Marxists and Nasserists, the problematic is the same. Perhaps it is time for the problematic itself to be put to question.
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