27 Dec. 2001 - 2 Jan. 2002
Issue No.566
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 27 Dec. 2001 - 2 Jan. 2002 Issue No.566 |
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Plain talk
The case of the 21st century was written in 1970 and deals with the trial of four American terrorists who planned to blow up the statue of liberty and burn the Library of Congress," wrote Samih Karim in the pages of , in an article dealing with a neglected play by Tewfik El- Hakim.
The play opens with a visit an American journalist pays to Tewfik El-Hakim in his office in Al-Ahram. The journalist is making a tour of some countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East in search of an answer to a recurrent question: "What is the reason behind the world's hatred of America?"
"The world," he is told, "hates America because she is responsible for wars in Asia, Africa and the Middle East".
But, asks the journalist, "do you think America can solve its problems without a war?"
The American journalist invites El-Hakim to accompany him to America. On his arrival he is shocked to read bold headlines in the American press, threats to blow up the Statue of Liberty and burn the Library of Congress by four young people, two men and two woman. The four are graduates of Harvard and the two men, in their thirties, had taken part in the Vietnam war.
The aim of the culprits is to express publicly their opinions about American policy. They courted a public trial to voice their opinions after having failed to get to hearing using peaceful means.
"What kind of minds are these that decide the fate of humanity with blood-stained hands?" In court they ask why Asians are not allowed to decide their own fate, and why should America be involved in Vietnam.
The two girls who are given the task of burning the library say: "We see nothing wrong in our plan. The only wrong would be to keep silent about the mistakes that are championed by America." The four culprits, in El-Hakim's opinion, reflect the anger of the young. What is the reason for this antagonism and rebellion against American society is the question that lies at the core of this play.
The four young people, in Samih Karim's opinion, are used by El-Hakim as vehicles for his own thoughts and feelings, operating as little more than ciphers. They are his mouthpiece. And he is expressing, through the arguments that take place in court, his opinion about American foreign policy, and the export of wars to countries whose populations become doubly victims.
This prophetic aspect to the work of Tewfiq El- Hakim is little known. Another prophetic writer is George Orwell. In January this year England celebrated 50 years since his death. This brought to me memories of reading for the first time his last novel, 1984, and seeing the film that was made of it in 1956. Furthermore, I lived in England at the time that he was writing his novel. Although many of his prophecies never materialised, yet some of his conclusions came true, especially the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he had deemed essential. If he were living now he would have cherished the implosion of the Soviet Union, and would have noted how ordinary people in both East and West proved ultimately resistant to the communist myth.
It was amazing how he could describe a totalitarian world without living in it. His creation of a terrifying landscape, replete with Big Brother, Newspeak and thought crime, helped to arm people against the totalitarian mindset. The novel was described as "a warning in which he portrays the kind of society he believed would evolve if man allowed the state to assume more power and permitted politicians to establish and perpetuate totalitarian rule."
Orwell's prophecies may not have happened in countries of the West, but there appears to be a creeping totalitarianism elsewhere in the world.
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