Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture | Games of reason

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni's meeting with the Israeli ambassador this month has re-ignited the perennial debate of normalisation with Israel. Rania Khallaf speakes to two of its most vocal contributors in the literary sphere, gauging representative for and against positions at an ever more explosive juncture

Gamal El-Ghitani, novelist and editor in chief of Akhbar Al-Adab , Egypt's best-known literary journal

This meeting is only to be expected in the framework of long established diplomatic relations with Israel. The press made a fuss about it because of timing: why now? Also because the minister was blunt enough to announce that he met with other Israeli figures as well. If he had a true position against normalisation, he would resign. Because the government is actively normalising relations, so it's his job to make sure it happens on the cultural plane. That said, it seems legitimate to ask why the meeting should take place while the country is in the throes of democratic reform which the government will only go ahead with under foreign pressure.

Intellectuals have held a unified anti-normalisation position since 1979; and they've done so on the understanding that this is a concern of theirs, not of the government's. It's their human consciousness against a racist regime and in support of a just national cause. More than ever now, Israel is making use of the Arab regimes' tendency to bend before the will of Washington. Which makes me think that there was a secret point to this meeting, some kind of agenda, whether or not the minister is aware of it. And he will be in no position to stop the progress of a plan that he helped set in motion. It remains to be said that anti-normalisation is the position of the vast majority of Egyptian intellectuals; others, I'd say a minority, like Lutfi El-Kholi, who became the spokesperson for the Copenhagen Group -- a group advocating some kind of cultural normalisation with the Israelis -- had coordinated with the government. There are still a handful of opportunists who try to make business by working with foundations and research centres that are controlled by Israelis. Right after the Copenhagen initiative, I remember, a presidency official phoned and asked me to receive personally a visiting Israeli journalist. I said no. It was a very simple matter: I abide by the unified stance against relations with Israel until a just and comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli struggle is reached.

This mustn't imply that I'm anti-Semitic, quite the contrary. The distinction is universally made among oppositional intellectuals between Judaism as a religion, and the racist political entity that continues to occupy Arab land and humiliate its rightful people with impunity. I have many Jewish friends who stood by the Palestinians, and I believe the Jews' exodus from Egypt after 1952 to have been a major fault of the Egyptian regime then. That said, how could any conscious cultural agent anywhere in the world condone any dealing with a palpably racist state? How is it possible to accept that the Jews of Europe had a right to the historical land of Palestine because it happens to have been where their forebears originated, thousands of years ago, while those Palestinians expelled in 1948 have no right of return?

The earliest anti-normalisation efforts, such as the committee led by the late writer Latifa El-Zayyat had as their aim defending national culture, not only opposition to normalisation. Our culture is just as undermined from within, and intellectuals should stand collectively against the tendency to emphasise quantity at the expense of quality, reduce cultural activity to an apolitical surface veneer that is bound to lose track of identity and essence. Sadly the Committee for the Defence of National Culture seized to exist, and the present- day revival of its original aims, is absolutely necessary. In recent years "No to normalisation" became the intellectuals' motto; there was a consensus among intellectuals in this regard, though there was no unified programme of action as such. That's why it disintegrated into a battle of slogans. In fact, in the context of this very conversation, I want you to communicate my urgent call on Mohamed Salmawy, president of the Writers Union, to hold and follow up a nation-wide conference on cultural normalisation.

I'm all for translating from and to Hebrew, simply because knowing the Israelis and their literature, can only be a cultural asset. But there has to be an agreement among intellectuals yet. Intellectuals may not wield much influence in society at large, but there has never been a better time to demonstrate resistance. One day intellectuals will have a more powerful organisation through which such resistance can really spread. One Israeli target is to dissolve the Egyptian oppositional stance, this we will never let happen. Saying that normalisation would generate job opportunities, and that the man on the street does not care much for the intellectuals' boycott is really a colonial notion: cheap labour for the settler. It seems rather more worthy to be thinking of how to place Egypt on the international map of industry, how to build the economy internally. Nor is the voice of Israelis for peace as loud as it once was: extremism is on the rise, as the withdrawal from Gaza debate demonstrated. So, to answer your question: no, I don't feel there is much to be gained from breaking the unified stance for the sake of cooperating with Israeli proponents of peace now...

Ali Salem, playwright and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Ben Gurion University

It all started with the 1967 defeat, when it first occurred to me that the Arab-Israeli struggle is at bottom a clash of civilisations, not to be resolved on the battle field alone. Sadly, under Nasser, no intellectual was allowed to participate in that broader conflict. But the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, in 1979, further confirmed my view: I have never concealed my admiration for Sadat's peace initiative, which I think amounted to a miracle.

Immediately after Camp David was signed, I met with Israeli university professors and Peace Now activists. Of course I realise that the Palestinian question has yet to be resolved, but this is partly why I feel that having normal relations with Israel is ultimately a good idea for all parties concerned, it's the only way to resolve the issue sooner rather than later.

After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, when an internationally recognised Palestinian state finally came into being, I thought of going to Israel, the better to understand Israelis and their policies; and in 1994 I drove across the border on an exploratory trip I later reported on in my book Memoirs of an Egyptian in Israel. I never changed my views since the work I produced in the 1960s [plays like The Heliopolis Ghosts and You Killed the Beast are politically charged condemnations of injustice], but I realised that what matters is the day-to-day reality of our being in a sate of peace with Israel. And it runs counter to our interests to simply ignore that fact.

It is the duty of every intellectual to stop working against the normalisation of relations with Israel, otherwise intellectuals will in effect be opening the door to extremism and violence. There is no reason the intellectuals' stance should by default be in conflict with that of the government. In the end it's a question for all Egyptians. I am personally involved as an Egyptian citizen, not as an intellectual. And I even wrote my book as a citizen, yes. But let me tell you something: it's not a question of tribal loyalty. Intellects exist outside the heads of those who write novels and poetry too. I'm not going to condemn the intellect of hundreds of employees who found work in Israel.

Nor has my position been especially beneficial to my career. Memoirs of an Egyptian in Israel will be turned into a Broadway play, it is true, but it's not the first time. My texts have been staged in Britain and the US since the 1980s. It is only a sign of recognition of my work, not a reward for my stance. What the intellectuals fail to understand is that Egyptian society is largely disinterested in normalisation; people don't care much either way. Now if you're going to talk about consciousness and dignity, talk to the government, to the people responsible for the situation being what it is. How do I salvage my dignity by simply denying reality? Egyptian intellectuals are scared of dialogue with their Israeli counterparts because they are fundamentally against political and economic freedom. And cultural normalisation will never be all that significant, not at this stage anyway.

What I'm rather more interested in is the strengthening of trade and business ties with Israel. For after ten years of continually visiting Israel, I believe that job opportunities for Egyptians in Israel are an important achievement. I am happy that ties are developing between Egyptian and Israeli businessmen. And in the end I can only be proud of having contributed to preparing the Egyptian mentality for such indisputably beneficial exchange.

The peace movement in Israel is stronger than it has ever been; and the Sharon government is waging war on extremism which is ultimately the only other option. I may be ostracised in certain circles, but I feel I've made a relevant contribution to Arab culture. It is my work that I'm proud of, not any recognition such as the honorary doctorate, but I appreciate such a gesture from a reputable institution of learning. I don't see what's wrong with engaging with Israeli musicians and writers, it can only enrich Egyptian culture. And if I haven't been publishing since the 1970s, well, it's because I've been blacklisted within the Culture Ministry.

I always had antagonists in the ministry, which explains why my books do not receive the same treatment as those of other members of the Generation of the Sixties. And I don't feel isolated, no: all the liberal writers are friends of mine. I have friends, I enjoy my life, I write in four newspapers. One thing I would complain of, though, is that the Writers Union deprived me of my pension, really unacceptable treatment...