Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture | Nebulous defeats

The Arab guest-of-honour presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair last week elicited a range of feelings on the part of Egyptian participants. Rania Khallaf gauges out the responses of six representative writers

Arab intellectuals, were very sensitive regarding their participation in this German event, so much so that some went as far as describing it as an assessment of the validity of our very existence in the world today. By overestimating the import of Frankfurt, many were rather more keen on revamping the Western image of Arabs than on discussing the realities of Arab culture. Yet there was relative harmony among Arab participants, who were eager to bring up the more difficult, controversial issues. Part of the problem was that nearly half of the Egyptian delegation were employees of either the Arab League or the Egyptian Ministry of Culture -- a complete waste of money that only acted to undermine the image of the cultural delegation representing. I would certainly urge a follow-up meeting -- to be held under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture -- in order to bring together all those who were there so that they can discuss the Arab contribution to the event, and coordinate the year-long work they are yet to undertake in several German cities.

The event was full of misdemeanours, due largely to the speed with which preparation for it was undertaken. The book that was to provide fair goers with information on the participants, for example, was a complete mess -- full of mistakes. The process of translating texts to be read out by participants was so bad, some writers read out one to text to the accompaniment of the translation of another. German appearances were rather scarce, which points to a failure of publicity efforts prior to the event. And there was very little interaction between Arab and German intellectuals, a task to which the Arab League failed to contribute significantly, with embassies in Germany ignoring the event rather than making arrangements for intercultural encounters. Politicians interfered, too: the Libyan minister of culture, for example, insisted on reading out of Colonel Gaddafi's Green Book, making it the joke of the fair. One rather more complex issue is the lumping together of all Arab countries -- not such a good idea. Arab cultures are so varied, and in some cases so different from each other, it would have made more sense to invite each country separately. In the end the whole event came across as a kind of proclamation -- Arab culture exists, it is still alive. I suppose that in itself is something.

Unlike the seminars organised by the official Arab delegation, those organized by German sponsors like the Goethe Institute were quite successful, with sufficient presence on the part of the German public and media. Arab speakers reflected a kind of schism in their attitude towards the Arab world: when writer Abbas Baydoun was asked if he would leave Lebanon because of the lack of freedom of expression -- something he had complained about rather persistently up to this point -- he said, "No, the picture is not quite so gloomy." On the whole the event certainly provided an initiative for Arab-Western dialogue -- one that benefited from the amazingly creative ways in which Germans display books and promote writers. Part of the pleasure was that the seminars were held in the very spaces where books were displayed, creating a genuine atmosphere of openness. For the average German, the Middle east remains a single, gloomy morass of imagery, and the one fortunate result of current political unrest is that it led to Germans wanting to find out about us. The fact that the Arab League was in charge was not as catastrophic as people make it out to have been, and the Germans were so eager to know they quickly overlooked political as cultural misbehaviour resulting from the official framework in which we were presented.

To my mind the principal goal of the organisers should have been to establish some kind of common ground, a kind of shared language, to facilitate constructive dialogue between Arabs and Germans. This goal was unfortunately not realised, nor was the promotion of intercultural paid enough attention as the focus of the event. Politics were rather more prevalent -- something that was evident in the slogans spread around by official Arab participants and the speeches they gave. Politics was employed not as a means to raising urgent political issues but rather to beautify -- or, worse, beatify -- certain, authoritative aspects of current Arab regimes. Signing contracts with Western publishers was not a priority for most Arab publishers -- as if they cared nothing for the very raison d'être of the event. And yet it would be unfair to describe the event as a complete failure: it laid the groundwork for presenting Arab culture to the West, and I think the opportunity is still there. I would urge Arab writers to make the utmost of the fair's cultural programme, to take place throughout Germany in the next year.

It's really very difficult to evaluate the event as a whole, due to magnitude and variety of activities going on at the same time. Aside from organisational shortcomings, I can positively say that it was, on the whole, successful, the main problem being the lack of meetings between Arab and German intellectuals. The one German encounter I enjoyed, largely through personal initiative, was with writer Ingo Schulze; and we had a wonderful time together. I wish other writers could have had the same opportunity to establish friendly relations with German counterparts. It was certainly not an Arab-Arab meeting, despite the limited German presence in a number of seminars. On the whole the German audience was very keen on attending, and asking questions.

Headed by Secretary General Amr Moussa, the Arab League successfully promoted a positive image of Arab culture and civilisation -- something that the German and European media reflected, with famous newspapers devoting whole supplements to Arab intellectuals, literary life and younger writers. But the choice of books made by the Arab Publishers' Union was extremely haphazard, generally avoiding books that dealt with the Arab- Israeli conflict and other touchy political issues. The most disappointing thing of all was the Arab publishers' nearly complete failure to sell translation rights to Arab books. With the exception of three publishers, the men in question spent the time chatting with each other; they didn't make the slightest attempt at contacting international publishers. This, to my mind, is the greatest opportunity missed.

		28 October - 3 November 2004 Issue No. 714 Culture	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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