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Abdul-Wahab Kayyali Arabic 92 Professor Amira El-Zein Spring 2003 The Arab Intellectual and the Responsibility of
Representation Throughout our course on War and Memory, we have studied the writings of many Arab authors, and have discussed the significance of their writings and effects on the reader. We came across the works of some of the most prominent Arab authors, such as Elias Khoury, Mahmoud Darwish, and Emile Habibi. One of the issues that we always raised after reading each work was the extent to which a particular piece of literature was Arabic, or whether it was felt that the piece of literature was Arabic, had we not known who the author was. And from this we can derive another issue to debate which is the extent to which Arab intellectuals are representing Arab communities and whether they are doing so adequately or not. And so in this discourse the following questions are raised: are Arab intellectuals soundly representing their societies, and are they voicing societies’ thoughts and concerns through their own creativeness? What is their place in society? What is the nature of their relationship with authority? To what extent do they conform to societal norms, and to what extent are they inhibited by materialism and political correctness? In this paper, using Betool Khedairi’s A Sky so Close and Edward Said’s Representations of the Intellectual, I will attempt to answer some of these questions, using Khedairi as a case study of the Arab intellectual and A Sky So Close as a representation of that intellectual. I will also be examining some incidents of censorship and suppression that have affected specific contemporary Arab intellectuals, and shed light on how these incidents have affected the intellectual community at large. Of course, all the questions that I posed above do not only pertain to Arab intellectuals, but intellectuals in general. However, this paper will focus on the former, and will attempt to answer these questions with regards to them, while occasionally shedding light on the similarities and differences between Arab intellectuals and their Western counterparts. In A Sky so Close, Khedairi reveals many of the concerns of a typical Arab individual. Recurring themes in Arab writing such as dire poverty, cultural differences between Arabs and the West, and the effect of war in terms of human suffering are strongly present throughout the novel. Other themes such as poverty-driven ignorance and superstition, and sarcasm of official rhetoric are also there, and I will begin by outlining each theme, and showing its relevance to Arab societies and whether this fits or does not fit the general understanding of Arab societies in the West. The most significant theme in the
first part of the novel is the dire poverty, simplicity, ignorance, and
superstition that the people of Zafraniya, a village on the “She moves between her relatives, who live in three huts that lean on each other like the people inside them. When she takes me there, it seems to me as though the rooms can’t contain them. They crowd each other underneath their low ceilings” (Khedairi, 22). This also has an implication on how
Arab families live together. It is a predominant feature in rural and sometimes
urban families that the extended family lives together in the same house.
Aunts, their husbands and children, uncles, their wives and children,
grandparents, parents and their children all live under the same roof. This
resembles the strong family and communal bond in Arab societies, but also
implies a certain collectivity, meaning that often times the opinion of the individual
has to be the opinion of the family. This is important because the clash
between individualism and conformity has impacted Arab societies tremendously,
and it is articulated in many contemporary writings. However, families often
live together in large numbers because they cannot afford relocation, and so
houses are passed on from generation to generation because they are often the
family’s only asset. Another example of the poverty, and perhaps the unsanitary nature of the residents is apparent when Khedeiri’s narrator describes how a local woman – Khaddouja’s uncle’s wife - breastfeeds her daughter. “The little one reaches out and grasps the nipple with her lips. She sucks her mother’s milk with all her strength, exhausted by her hunger. A fly lands at the corner of her little mouth; another hovers around the purple nipple. Nobody pays any attention to the flies here – unlike my mother, if I’ve forgotten to shut the screen door behind me when I return home” (Khedairi, 43). Hence this poverty completely shapes the behavior of the residents of Zafraniya. From this poverty, stem the ignorance, superstition, religiousness, and simplicity mentioned before. They seem so unhygienic to the narrator’s foreign mother that she describes them as “filthy” and “lice-ridden.” The following quote, present very early in the novel reveals this sentiment perfectly. “My God! Haven’t you seen how her mother uses dried cow dung for the fire with which she bakes the break? Haven’t you seen the hordes of flies that swarm around that cheese they make with their filthy hands?” (Khedairi, 9). The impact of this poverty can also be seen in the ignorance of the little children, which is exemplified in a game that the narrator describes: “The rules of their game are that each boy should obtain the neck tip of the bottle he has broken in the form of a neat round ring so that he is able to wear it without cutting himself” (Khedairi, 19). The narrator also describes how the children of the village used to follow the truck that sprayed pesticide in the village, and how they used to start coughing and choking and tearing after being in the ‘smoke’ that the truck was omitting for so long (Khedairi, 67). Yet with the standard of living that the peasants appear to be living under, it is no wonder that being hygienic is not a top priority. It seems quite natural that their behavior is going to be ignorant, their lives superstitious and their religious beliefs strong. The superstition of the peasant population can be seen in their thoughts about monsters that were living in the river, and how these thoughts were taught to little children so that they don’t get too close to the river. The narrator in the novel describes what she and Khaddouja thought of the river: “The magic of the river beckons to us. But they had frightened us with the story of the Siluwa monster, who rises from the water to swallow little children” (Khedairi, 36). The use of superstition here is effective, because it would deter the little children from playing too close to the river and possibly drowning. So it is not entirely out of ignorance that the elders use the Siluwa monster to achieve their children’s safety, even though their might be elders who genuinely believe in the existence of such a creature. This superstition generally gets overplayed in Western forums, as a way to show how mentally underdeveloped Arab society really is, which has justified and continues to justify many Western practices, ranging from religious missionaries to colonialism. Another theme that Khedairi explored
pretty effectively in her novel is the Eastern stereotype. In the novel, the
narrator’s foreign mother’s life in the Iraqi countryside shatters her
preconceived notion of the East, and manages to change her attitude towards the
East from a somewhat romantic attitude to an almost hostile, reactionary one. Speaking
to her two friends David and Millie, she describes what the “magical East”
turned out to be. “The reality turned out to be a stifling heat that climbs up
the palm trees. Flies in the morning, mosquitoes in the evening, and the
screeching of winged cockroaches that jump around in my bedroom at dawn!”
(Khedairi, 30-31). Her most direct expression of this hostility comes in the
form of the constant quarreling between her and the narrator’s father. The
narrator describes it as a war when she says “how I hated to be the cause of that
day’s battle” (Khedairi, 20). The arguments would take place over almost
everything and anything. Most often though, the parents would argue about the
narrator and how the mother should stay in the household to look after her. In
one particular argument the father says, “Raising a daughter is more difficult
in this part of the world than raising a son. We don’t neglect them when they
are little” (Khedairi, 47) in response to the mother’s request to move to
The quarrels between the parents convey a “clash of civilizations” so to speak, because the mother is always at odds with the life of the countryside and staying in the household to raise the daughter, and the father always reacts to what the mother says in a defensive manner, thinking her position to be a condescending and disrespectful one. This is articulated in the same argument about raising the daughter when the father articulates what he considers his flexibility by letting the mother drink and dance in public. The mother responds by asking, “You comment about my drinking and my dancing as though you were doing me a favor. What about your friends? Who have a wife for parties and another one for the home?” (Khedairi, 47). The most obvious referral to the “clash of civilizations” is in the father’s response to this question. “We disagree for the millionth time. Let’s stop criticizing our traditions and comparing them to what you consider civilized” (Khedairi, 47-48). This is one of the most powerful themes that Khedairi explores in her novel. It does not by any means support the notions that the two cultures she was surrounded with are inherently hostile, but that human beings choose to be antagonistic towards other cultures as a result of either wondrous stereotypes that are disproved, or of lack of understanding to traditions and norms. Finally, the last theme that will be discussed here, that is very provocative and highlights the second half of the novel, is the effect of war on individuals and society. When talking about war in contemporary times, the type of coverage that journalism gives is restricted to the targets that were hit, the damage inflicted on the enemy, the successes of the troops (whichever side they are fighting for) and how great the cause that is being fought for truly is. Nowhere is there any mention of civilian suffering, be that in the material form of casualties, shortages, and physical destruction, or the moral and psychological form of rallying around the flag, the lack of dissent, and depression. This idea that the mass media portrays about war creates a short-sighted, incomplete and distorted picture of what war does to people. Khedairi does an outstanding job of contrasting the official sector’s portrayal of the war, and its true effect on people in terms of what their feeling are and how their behavior is modified to adapt to it. Khedairi also portrays the different narratives that are told about war, which provides a more complete picture for the reader about how wars are perceived. The most direct statement in the
novel that summarizes the situation that results from the war with Khedairi also does a good job in alluding to questioning the official narrative, with the inclusion of numerous military communiqués in her narrator’s story. The language of these communiqués includes such phrases as, “the enemy has been destroyed”, “our troops fought bravely” and “our losses were X martyrs.” Also included in these communiqués are various figures about the number of tanks, planes, personnel carriers destroyed on each side, the location of the fighting zones, and the type of weaponry used. What this does is to show how impersonal, unfeeling and cold the description of death and destruction is in the official sector. There is also a cynical tone present in her description of military communiqués, when the narrator says, “We’ve started getting used to the images of military maneuvers, shelling, unexpected military communiqués, and the expected ones, which always started, ‘In the name of God, the Compassionate, The Merciful.’ And ended with ‘And may the wicked be shamed’ ” (Khedairi, 120). What this quote shows is that Khedairi is trying to reveal how the government hopes to capitalize on public sentiment when they invoke God’s name in their communiqués and how they use the concept of “the wicked” to primarily describe Iran, but also the concept of “the wicked” is so broad that it may encompass all those who do not adhere to the government’s line of thinking. By doing this she is questioning the use of such rhetoric, and possibly showing its ineffectiveness. As for the descriptions of the Gulf War of 1991, in which the total amount of bombardment of Iraq had never been seen since the days the Allied bombardment of Germany in World War II, Khedairi summarizes the total frustration that the war and the following embargo inflicted on people eloquently. A letter sent from Madame to the narrator in her novel said, “It’s raining bombs. You can’t imagine what we’re going through. A black rain covers the gardens, the streets, and the rooftops, resembling black decomposing remains; it makes the days uglier than the nights. The economic embargo has made us cut out hair short to economize in the use of soap and water” (Khedairi, 203). This puts the material and
psychological trauma that Iraqi society has suffered into perspective. All
those who lived in Also significantly effective is the
comparison of narratives in different circles that Khedairi shows through the
letters of Madame. Referring to the different portrayal of the Gulf War in
Iraqi and Western circles, Madame says “This event which you are calling
‘Invasion Day’ we are calling ‘The Day of the Glorious Summons.’ You have
called this ‘a border dispute’ we have called it ‘Reuniting the Province and
the Motherland’” (Khedairi, 199). This statement is remarkable because it
exposes the distortions of the truth by both the official Iraqi sector and the
Western media, because the state of turmoil cannot be accurately described by
any of those statements. This is one of Khedairi’s ways of exposing the way the
official Iraqi sector glorifies the ferocity of the war and raises demagogic
slogans to capture public sentiment and unify it behind a cause that is very
unclear at best and atrocious at worse. It is also a way to show what
simplicity and naïveté with which Western media covers war. The invasion of So those are the main themes that are
explored in A Sky so Close. One
cannot provide a literary criticism of the novel as one is no literary expert,
but as far as my general understanding of the content of the novel, Khedairi
dealt with all the main anxieties that are on the typical Arab mind. A theme
which is also on the mind of every Arab which Khedairi brilliantly portrayed
was that of love and sexuality. However, because this is a very personal topic that
has no substantial relevance to the issue at hand, I will not venture into
analyzing it. I will now turn to examine Edward Said’s Representations of the Intellectual and explore the criteria that
Said sets for the intellectual, and then evaluate Khedairi’s novel using some
of those ideas. Representations of the Intellectual is a collection of lectures which Said gave in 1993 about the role of the intellectual in society. There are many duties, he claims, that intellectuals should fulfill, such as representing their respective people by providing accurate assessments of situations and breaking down stereotypes. Said also comments on what he thinks the demeanor and personality of an intellectual should be. He wishes to see intellectuals motivated by passion for their field rather than by material benefits and authoritative acclamations. He also wishes the intellectual to be inquisitive, unrestrained, political and daring. He makes strong case for why he thinks that the intellectual should be as such, and this part of the paper will focus on examining that case. The first part of Said’s criteria for intellectual behavior has to do with the function of the intellectual; what the intellectual’s primary role in society should be and how he or she should fulfill that role. Said sees the intellectual as an articulate representative of society and its concerns. “The intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public” (Said, 11). The intellectual does this by reflecting an accurate and critical assessment of his/her society to both members of that society and outsiders. The external role of the intellectual, that is his duty in regard to members of other societies entails refuting any pre-conceived notions about the intellectual’s society that outsiders would have. “One task of the intellectual is the effort to break down the stereotypes and reductive categories that are so limiting to human thought and communication” (Said, xi). This also includes articulating the sufferings and afflictions of the intellectual’s community, and making sure that they are represented fairly and accurately. “In dark times an intellectual is very often looked to by members of his or her nationality to represent, speak out for, and testify to the sufferings of that nationality” (Said, 43). With regards to the role of the intellectual internally, the intellectual’s duty is to scrutinize norms and socially acceptable practices, to question policies and governmental operations, and to honestly address the problems that most obviously affect society. Referring to American intellectuals, Said remarks that “intellectuals should be the ones to question patriotic nationalism, corporate thinking, and a sense of class, racial or gender privilege” (Said, xiii). This however holds true in principle for intellectuals no matter where they are from, and one could easily replace the issues of corporate thinking with religious fundamentalism and that statement would perfectly fit the Arab intellectual. Said directly relates his personal experience with his opinions on the role of the intellectual; he is well known to be a leading proponent for Palestinian independence and human rights. This affects his idea on the intellectual to a certain extent, but by no means is it an exclusive outlook on what the intellectual should or should not do. Intellectuals are seen as the elites of their communities, and as elites they do have responsibilities of representing their people to the world and the world to their people. This is because their knowledge and expertise position them to be a link between the exterior and the interior, and so they have the duty of effectively linking their culture and heritage to others’ and vice versa. This knowledge also enables them to recognize immoral, irrational and retarded practices that their governments or societies carry out, and hence the duty of speaking out against those practices is of profound importance. It is hence small wonder that Said demands that intellectuals live up to their duties in the way that he thinks he is living up to them. The second part of the criteria Said sets for intellectual behavior has to do with the intellectual’s demeanor; what qualities, skills, traits and talents the intellectual should possess or display. The intellectual’s character plays an important part in whether he or she is capable to fulfill his/her duties and play his/her role. Said’s statement that “the intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public” (11) suggests that the intellectual is a gifted individual, and must not only have the will but also the ability to represent. There are a number of other characteristics that Said thinks an intellectual should possess which enhance his ability to perform his duties. Personality strength is among those characteristics that Said thinks is important for an intellectual to be able to communicate his/her message; that is having a strong and clear stance for a cause or against an injustice. Remarking on the perception of the intellectual as revealed in the writings of Julien Benda, Said says that according to Benda intellectuals have to be “thoroughgoing individuals with powerful personalities” (Said, 7). This alludes to the idea that intellectuals should take risks in order to articulate their views and opinions, and should not be restricted by the threat of ostracism. In Said’s own words the intellectual should be “someone able to speak the truth to power, a crusty, eloquent, fantastically courageous and angry individual for whom no worldly power is too big and imposing to be criticized and pointedly taken to task” (8). This is probably the most important attribute an intellectual should have. In order to represent a cause or a people as precisely as possible or criticize a societal or governmental phenomenon, the intellectual must not shy away from controversial positions which address power abuses quite frankly, and must stand firm and dedicated in the face of threats in any shape or form. This may seem like too much to ask from intellectuals; after all they are human and they have their own fears and limitations. Yet when representing a cause or a nation, the intellectual must go beyond personal constraints and embody the spirit of the cause that he or she is so vehemently defending. Anything short of that would compromise the intellectual’s message, and distort his/her ability to speak for ideals such as equality, justice and freedom. Another important attribute that an intellectual should possess is unpredictability and uncontainability. That is the intellectual should not be restricted to a political party line, a national motto or even a religious tradition. Said articulates that “[intellectuals are] those figures whose public performance can neither be predicted nor compelled into some slogan, orthodox party line, or fixed dogma” (xii). This is important because it reinforces the intellectual’s critical nature and contributes to the whole notion of speaking truth to power. If an intellectual is obligated to stick to a party line or a slogan regardless of what is being done in the name of that party or slogan, then that would distort his objective assessment of what state his society or party is in. The same is true with regards to religion; if the criticism of what is being done in the name of religion by an organized party is forbidden, then it is impossible to hold that party into account or speak up to any malpractices that it may take. There are plenty of examples for those types of actions, such as the State of Israel’s aggressive policies that are done in the name of security of the Jewish people, and Al-Qaeda’s terrorist operations that are carried out in the name of Islam. If an intellectual cannot stand up to these kinds of actions and speak up against them, then his status as a sort of guide to society is diminished. Furthermore, the intellectual should be a political personality and must not try to depoliticize his or her work. The American sociologist C. Wright Mills states that “if the thinker does not relate himself to the value of truth in political struggle, he cannot responsibly cope with the whole of live experience” (Said, 21). In today’s world every statement is a political one. Who you are and where you are from is a political statement in itself. One cannot distance himself from this fact, or try to work around it. Even artistic works such as novels, paintings and even musical compositions have a political statement surrounding them. The intellectual should submit to this truth and use it to express his thoughts and ideas. There would not have been so much controversy regarding the statements of the famous actors like Sean Penn or Susan Sarandon against this latest war in Iraq had they not been artists, actors, performers. The responsibility of intellectuals to represent their people’s political issues and their own political thoughts during a particular crisis cannot be avoided. Moreover, the intellectual’s activity should stem from passion and interest, not from any materialistic motivation or political or social aspiration. That is the intellectual must not engage in his or her activity to gain some sort of elevated status, but should genuinely and truly believe in his mission and his work. Said remarks that “[the intellectual’s activity should be one] that is fueled by care and affection rather than by profit and selfish, narrow specialization” (82). Here Said introduces an interesting notion of professionalism vs. amateurism. He argues that one who is a professional or an expert cannot fulfill his intellectual obligations, because he is likely to be consistent in his statements, in conjunction with his source of living. One who has to live out of being an intellectual cannot be an impartial and honest one, because his priority is not revealing the truth of matters but securing his material position. This can be seen most obviously in academia, where professors who do not have lifetime tenure are much more hesitant to generate controversy than those who do. Whereas the amateur is solely driven out of passion and affection for what he does, and can therefore be an honest judge of a particular situation. This situation is analogous to the world of music, where an amateur musician’s sole driving force is the love of music, and so he would not have to worry about commercializing his work in order to appease the music market. A similar situation arises out of amateur intellectuals, who do not aspire to please audiences or crowds, television stations or newspapers, corporations or governments. Says Said, “the intellectual is not a functionary or an employee completely given up to the policy goals of a government or a large corporation, or even a guild of like-minded professionals” (86). It is thus noticeable what effect “professionalism” will have on an intellectual’s behavior. Finally, the last attribute worth mentioning here that Said prescribed for an intellectual was secularism and opposition to fundamentalism. The intellectual cannot support a rigid interpretation of a religious text and accept it as the one and only source of truth, because it stands against the intellectual’s critical and unrestricted nature and his principles of inquiry and scrutiny. Said notes that “the intellectual must be involved in a lifelong dispute with all the guardians of sacred vision or text, whose depredations are legion and whose heavy hand brooks no disagreement and certainly no diversity” (88-89). There is something suspicious about all those who claim to represent the truth. The intellectual’s job is to raise questions that others in society do not have the ability to raise - this ties with the quality of unpredictability and uncontainability – and so cannot be one to accept either “sacred visions or texts” or those who uphold them. The presence of fundamentalism in a community creates a rigid and basic mindset which accepts no dissent and tolerates no opposition. It retards the essential faculty of scientific research, as it draws boundaries on what human beings should be thinking about and why. This is not only true of religion, but also of government, where an undemocratic government would draw red lines for people not to be crossed in terms of questioning its authority. Any sort of such fundamentalism is detrimental to society, and it is the intellectual’s duty to not only reject but fight the presence of this phenomenon. So these are some of the most important points that Said articulates in Representations of the Intellectual. After looking at them, and after analyzing A Sky so Close, one is bound to deduct that Khedairi is a brilliant example of an Arab intellectual. She effectively articulates the concerns and issues of Arab society and her work reveals most of the above mentioned qualities. Through the characters of the narrator’s mother and father, she explores the cultural relationship between the Arab world and the West, and reveals both societies’ misconceptions and ignorance. Through her descriptions of poverty and its influence on people’s behavior, she highlights the essential problem that most Arab masses suffer from, and breaks the Western-bred stereotype of the oil sheikhs and Arab wealth. Through her description of war and its affects on day-to-day, cultural and social life she reveals the horrors that are associated with war that only people who suffer from it are aware of. Most notable is the competition between hunger and culture that she draws on, and for artists, writers and musicians nothing could be more painful, because not only do they suffer from shortages as the rest of society does but also their work becomes almost extinct. Also, through her narrator’s love affairs, she breaks the taboo of feminine sexuality in the Arab world and speaks on behalf of subdued Arab females on matters that affect them tremendously. One could not ask more from a novel, and A Sky so Close gives a very well-rounded and complete picture to what the situation is like in Iraq in particular, and in the Arab world in general, and so in terms of representation, Khedairi does more than her share of that. Because this is a novel, it is very hard to extract Khedairi’s personal qualities and her demeanor judging by her work. However, some deductions can be made about what kind of writer (and therefore intellectual) she is. Again, this is not an attempt for a literary criticism, but rather the use of literature to judge the writer. Whether this is an effective method or whether it is fair or not is highly debatable, but seen as though it is the only method at my disposal, I am inclined to utilize it. Khedairi’s novel makes a very strong political statement. Her narrator is speaking as an Iraqi woman, so in that sense she is part of two disenfranchised groups of people; Arabs and women. She is a product of two cultures, yet strongly identifies with one over the other, that one being the Arab one. She loves her country and its state is troubling her, but she cannot go back, and therefore is in exile. As for being a woman, she lives ins a male-dominant world, and while her family background is of a progressive nature, her love affairs portray this. Her decision to go through with the abortion was of a very resolute nature, and she went through it alone, without any male support. Through the narrator Khedairi is questioning and criticizing what women have to go through, and what Arab women have to go through in particular. The narrator’s description of the affects of war show that Khedairi is not interested in proving one side right and the other wrong. Her narrator mocks the military communiqués and shows how irrelevant they are to the suffering of the general population. She is not concerned with taking sides in any of the wars she describes, even the war between her mother and father, but rather reveals the victimhood of people who often do not take part in the decision to go to war. In that sense she is speaking out for the disenfranchised parts of society. Said remarks that “The challenge of intellectual life is to be found in dissent against the status quo at a time when the struggle on behalf of underrepresented and disadvantaged groups seems so unfairly weighted against them” (xvii). That is precisely what Khedairi is doing through her narrator; she is exclaiming her outrage at the status quo on behalf of those that don’t get a say in the decision making process. In that sense her personality strength and unrestraint are made apparent. It also becomes clear that what drives her to write such an account is her passion for this cause that has had so little representation in circles that are only concerned about political rather than humanitarian issues. Very few people know what it is to live under economic sanctions and through massive mobilization for a war, and Khedairi speaks out for those who have suffered from this with such excruciatingly painful detail that almost ridicules any other matters of concern. This motivation makes Khedairi’s work stand out, and one can notice that it is not for any material or societal gain that she has written this, but as a passionate expression of issues of tremendous importance. That being said, it is obvious that Khedairi’s work show some signs of a great intellectual talent. She is both willing and able to play her part as an intellectual in the community, and for that deserves adequate praise. Sadly though, Khedairi is not a representative of the average Arab intellectual. Arab intellectual life has deteriorated and is suffering from many impediments, partly because intellectuals are not playing their roles, partly because they are being inhibited from playing their role. Arab intellectuals continue to turn a blind eye to the ills of their societies. Many not only do not criticize, but support the immoral and outrageous practices that their societies take part in. Example of such practices are honor killings and denial of women’s rights, inequity and unequal distribution of wealth, religious intolerance and fundamentalism, autocratic rule and the absence of rule of law, and lack of accountability and responsibility for actions. An example of ignoring societal and governmental problems, which ties to accountability and responsibility for actions, is the advocacy of the conspiracy theory and the idea that the Arabs can not harm themselves by themselves, but that it has to be some foreign or outside power, or a people that has inflicted this harm, therefore disowning any liability for ill-advised actions. Basically, the lack of self-criticism is what all the intellectuals’ problems boil down to. Any opposition to this mainstream way of thinking and operating is considered treason and is condemnable by all means. This is also somewhat applicable to Western intellectuals especially at times of crises, but in general the pressures to conform and the consequences of rebellion in the Arab world outweigh those in the Western world by far. To be fair though, there have been
cases where Arab intellectuals have spoken out against societal and
governmental malpractices, only to find themselves under the threat of
isolation, imprisonment and sometimes death. To cite a couple of cases, an
Egyptian court ruled that the university professor Naser Hamed Abu-Zaid, who
had encouraged a more secular interpretation of the Koran in his writings, be
divorced from his wife because he was considered an apostate, and so his wife
could not stay married to a non-Muslim man. He faced numerous death threats and
in the end was forced into exile in the Also in fairness to Arab
intellectuals, one has to say that the role of Western intellectuals in times
of crises has also been deplorable. For example, with regards to this latest
military action in However, taking these factors into account, Arab intellectuals still have the responsibility to speak out and reflect their concerns and criticize misguided practices. Abu-Zaid, Ibrahim and Mehrez are great examples of those who do speak out and stand firm in their beliefs, and their positions are commendable, yet they should not be the exception, they should be the rule. They are performing their intellectual roles in the community and are sacrificing for what they believe, and while they are suffering as a result, they should serve as role models for other thinkers in the Arab world, not as exemplars of they type of actions an intellectual should avoid. A nation’s only hope is when those who know better guide those who do not about how they as a collective can improve. In Arabic, there is a saying that says “Silence is a sign of satisfaction.” In this case, intellectual silence is a sign of satisfaction, and so is complacent with the malpractices that are occurring in Arab communities. The British philosopher Edmund Burke once said that when good people witness evil being carried out, and do not do anything about it, evil triumphs. Sadly enough, this is a time period where the triumph of evil is apparent in the Arab world, and so intellectuals must do their part by correcting the wrongs, praising the rights, and contribute to resurrecting this great nation into a life of dignity and freedom. Works Cited:
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