Plain Talk
To bring over 100 intellectuals together under the same roof is no mean feat at the best of times, nor is it achieved very often. This month, however, for two days at the Alexandria Library, a remarkable number of Egyptian scholars, writers, politicians and economists discussed the means to Arab reform in a kind of dress rehearsal for a major conference to be convened there from 12 to 14 March. Sponsored by, among other institutions, the Arab Academy for Science and Technology, the Arab Business Council, the Arab Organisation for Human Rights and the Economic Research Club, it is, needless to say, a large-scale event -- a fact to which even this preparatory meeting, in which I had the honour of participating, testified.
In itself the venue was awe- inspiring, and the proceedings were undertaken with exemplary exactitude: everything happened exactly as scheduled, nor were there any logistical or organisational problems. The more I looked around me, moreover, the more I was reminded of Alexandria Library's glorious past; so many major figures were present, representing every aspect of the humanities. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps the Arab intelligentsia will manage to solve the Arab world's endemic problems after all. It was while entertaining this cheering thought that Ismail Serageddin, Librarian of Alexandria, gave the inaugural speech, explaining the objectives of the upcoming conference and delineating the role the present meeting would play in building up to it.
Within minutes the participants were divided into four commissions -- political, economic, social and cultural -- to facilitate discussion of the principal paper submitted by the Library, "Profound Reforms in the Arab Nation: Theory and Practice". And while my own participation was for the most part restricted to the deliberations of the cultural commission, I nonetheless managed to form a more or less clear idea of what was going on elsewhere. Judging by the controversial topics and the authoritative tone in which they were discussed, I could sense a palpable instance of what is sometimes referred to as "the power of the intellectual", each of whom spoke as though the possibility of reform depended wholly on his or her own present argument -- not such a ludicrous idea, after all. For the intellectual remains the principal spearhead of positive change in his or her nation. It was intellectuals who initiated reform in the Eastern Bloc, to cite but one, relatively recent example.
One interesting idea that emerged from the meeting concerns the way in which effective reform in any one of the four aforementioned fields depends on corresponding developments in all the others. The different aspects of the problem are closely linked, in other words, and whatever reform one might look forward to is indivisible. Indeed the particular importance accorded to the cultural commission derived largely from the notion that cultural reform especially is essential to political, economic and social reform. Nor did the participants -- who included such eminent figures as historian Yunan Labib Rizq and poet Ahmed Abdel-Mo'ti Hegazi -- let the cultural commission down.
Indeed the discussion was of a very high standard, with many significant questions raised and responded to in the most sophisticated way. One such topic, the most timely of the lot, was the Frankfurt Book Fair, the present round of which -- to open in October -- will focus on Arabic literature. Discussion centred on preparations for the fair: have any been undertaken, and what might these be? Compared to the $20 million and $40 million Russia and Japan spent on promoting their own literatures at previous rounds of the fair, the contribution of Arab states seemed puny. Intellectuals hoping to participate at some level were nonetheless ready with their sometimes revolutionary, always stimulating ideas -- the value of which is rather greater than even the largest budget. Such, indeed, was the view of many participants, and they expressed it with typical intellectual lucidity.
At the end of the meeting one was confirmed further in the thought that perhaps the Arab world's present-day intelligentsia would, after all, find adequate answers to the problems besetting their nation.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 678 (Issue No. 26 February - 3 March)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/679/cu3.htm