Democratic Palestine : 31 (ص 56)
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- Democratic Palestine : 31 (ص 56)
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surrender of the Arabs to the imperialist-Zionist assault. The
Arabs are no more known as those who fight the battle of
Port-Said, nationalize the Suez canal, resist Western military
pacts, reject ‘Israel’ and uphold the banner of socialism. They
have become those who were defeated, who have gotten used to
enjoying defeat, to entreat for the blessings and alms of the
West, to preach moderation, to fully accept dependency and
the conditions of the IMF, to fetter any Arab militant and de-
nounce any Palestinian armed action, to glorify the wisdom of
the West, to consecrate capitalist commodities and to make
long speeches about peace... In this context, the Nobel Prize
has found its way to Naguib Mahfouz. The necessary condi-
tions which enabled part of the West to bless part of the Arab
literature have materialized. This part has been found in a
defeated writer with a great stature and a great talent, i.e.,
Naguib Mahfouz.
The Nobel Prize awarded to Naguib Mahfouz has a special
political meaning. While Egypt, the largest Arab country, has
recognized ‘Israel’ and given up the dreams of independence
and Arab unity, the greatest Arab writer has chosen to sail in
the waters of the capitulating regime. In this sense, we are fac-
ed with a sad paradox: Egypt, which should be the supporter of
the oppressed Arab dreaming of a different future, becomes an
unofficial member of NATO; Mahfouz, who should be the
staunchest defender of all the causes of Egypt, the Arabs and
culture, sheds all his turbans and chooses what is comfortable
for him as an individual; he chooses the petit ego and gives up
the common cause.
Some may ask why we try to connect Mahfouz, the consis-
tent writer, with the Arab cause? Hasn’t he limited himself,
through his consistency, within Egypt, the history of Egypt and
the streets of Cairo, with no reference whatsoever to the Arab
cause? Such an objection is valid; Naguib Mahfouz is not
necessarely to be blamed. Yet the author of A Beginning and
an End has not appeared as a mere Egyptian character, but
taken a role unworthy of a great writer, choosing to keep silent
while the regime was selling «immortal Egypt» to the World
Bank, while the «land of the pharaohs» with all its magnificent
glories was changing hands at the cheapest prices. The great
literary figure remained satisfied with his pen, writing pad and
desk, forgetting his big national and social role which happens
to go beyond writing novels.
A sad paradox indeed - such a miserable fate for Egypt and
its great writer: A distinguished writer seeking refuge in mean
and petty positions; a writer wasting his words for personal
safety although he has never been threatened; a novelist whose
name has become a shield; a pen which finds protection and
support in a great name and fame. Mahfouz has failed to
combine his ego as an individual with his person as a great
writer. He gave up the latter to maintain an ego occupied with
small calculations.
After Abdul Nasser, Naguib Mahfouz wrote Al Karnak, a
novel in which he denounced prisons and torture cells. During
Sadat’s rule, he wrote a novel about the judgment of history,
Amam AI Arsh (Before the Throne), equating Nasser and
Sadat, even showing the latter to be more rational and positive
than the former. After Sadat was killed, Mahfouz wrote The
56
Day the Leader was killed, where the «leader» was Sadat who
appeared even more rational and convincing than before. In
these writings, we failed to see the author of Zugqaq Al Midaq
(Midagq Alley), Al Sukkeriyyeh, Bain Al Qasrain (Between Two
Palaces), Qasr Al Shoug (The Palace of Longing), Al Qahire
Al Jadid (New Cairo), Tharthara Fog Al Nil (Chatter over the
Nile), etc. We only saw an ordinary journalist seeking
mediocre material in both form and content. The great artist
disappeared to be replaced by an ordinary writer who opted for
the easiest way and produced easy books that history would
forget, or that, at best, would be marginal in comparison with
the great early texts, or stand as a literary testimony to a
writer’s descent from the peaks of clarity to the foggy steppes
of ambiguity.
Naguib Mahfouz is a prominent writer who belongs to the
past, a novelist who was finished when his first bourgeois
dream vanished. This bourgeois dream ended with the June
war, with a novel which preceded and predicted it, Tharthara
Fog Al Nil (Chatter over the Nile). The dream collapsed
gradually and pulled the man with it. When he reached the
Sadat phase, the man had changed; nothing remained except
the ordinary character who was looking only for protection,
safety and petit aims. He lived through the Sadat phase with a
petty pen. Petty pens never frighten. Yet the tragedy remains;
his, ours or the Arabs reader’s tragedy is the fact that he had
been holding a great pen which founded the Arab novel and
wrote the best examples of the genre. When the Nobel Prize
goes to him after he had become a petit writer, we do not feel
happy but get confused, because we feel that the prize has not
come to the great novelist whom we revere and love, but to his
shadow in which we can see neither the face of «immortal
Egypt» nor that of the founder of the Arab novel.
Before Nasser’s revolution, Naguib Mahfouz could observe
the rhythm of history; he could see history as an ascending
process of evolution through struggle; he could write his great
trilogy. With the revolution, the man is at first happy, then
confused; he withdraws from the big flow of history to the
alienation of the individual and writes Al Lis wa Kilab (The
Thief and the Dogs), Al Tariq (The Path), Al Shahhath (The
Begger), Al Samman wa Kharif (The Grocer and Autumn).
After the defeat, he gets lost in the formulae of abstract time
and writes Al Harafish (The Outcasts), Rihlat Ibn Fattouma
(The Journeys of Ibn Fattouma), Shey’y an Alf Leyla wa Leyla
(Something about the One Thousand and One Nights). When
Sadat settles into power and everything is gone, he writes only
simple and ordinary things as if the chain of defeats spared the
ego after defeating the artist who lost his project and failed in
the realm of literature.
Has the prize come to the writer of dreaming after he has
dissipated his very dream, or to a defeated novelist? Has it
come to honor a pen before its voluntary defeat? Emotion
tears within everyone of us. We do not know what to say to an
author we are proud of. We are extremely confused. Is the
Nobel Prize honoring Naguib Mahfouz or eulogizing him
though he is still alive; is it glorifying him or blessing his
defeat? ) - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 31
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- ديسمبر ١٩٨٨
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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