By Barry Rubin
In a real sense, there was more intellectual freedom in the Arabic-speaking world in 1930 or 1940 then there is today. Long years of nationalist dictatorship have been more repressive than the oligarchical democracies of the pre-1952 (the year an Egyptian military coup brought in the era of Arab nationalist rule). In addition, the power of Islamic and Islamist intimidation is far stronger today, being so well organized and ideologically self-conscious.
Consider this little tale, which encapsulates a great deal about Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, and the folly of our contemporary world. Tahar ben Jelloun, born in Morocco, is a very successful writer in France. He migrated to France in 1971 at the age of 26.
As the Paris Review describes him:
“His most recent book, Racism Explained to My Daughter was a best-seller; and in 1987 he was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Sacred Night, which was the first book by an Arab writer to be so honored. For the past two years he has been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature.”
I don’t know his work but he is clearly very well-versed in Western culture, he has written about political corruption and the situation of women in the Arab world as well as a new book about “racism” in France.
The interviewer asked him, “If you lived in North Africa and wrote in Arabic, what could you write now in a fundamentalist climate?”
He answered:
“It would be impossible to write anything-—it would be suicidal. Fundamentalism is against freedom in general, and freedom for a writer is not just to be free to sit down and write, but to think freely, to express oneself freely. So I think that a fundamentalist society can produce nothing but silence or a literature of opposition written in exile.”
Ben Jelloun, whose early education was quite traditionally Islamic though he later attended secular schools and became a psychoanalyst, added:
“I think it is essential to separate politics and religion. Religion is a personal matter, which concerns the relationship between the individual and God. To use Islam for political ends is pure demagoguery, a means of oppressing people. Religion concerns what is eternal, and politics by its nature is temporal. So we have to separate the two, otherwise Muslim countries will never overcome underdevelopment and oppression.”
Yet Western intellectuals and especially those on the radical left, are often champions of the oppressors and the underdevelopers. Ben Jelloun became friendly with Jean Genet, a cult hero of French culture who lionized Middle East revolutionaries and terrorists. Genet, he recalled, told him in 1979 during the Iranian revolution, that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:
“`interests me because he says screw you! to America and to the West.’ It wasn’t the political quarrel…that interested him, it was the rebellious stand of one man against a system, against the world. [Genet]…was a rebel, against power of any kind.”
Well, except the power of ruthless Middle Eastern dictators and would-be dictators. So here is that strange contrast that contemporary history gives us but is seldom sharply drawn: The Third World intellectual who knows he can only breathe in democracy—which he does not hesitate to criticize—and the First World intellectual who wants to impose death, destruction, and dictatorship on other people’s lives because he finds it exciting, and wants to bash his own society—which has given him so many rewards–and others similar to it.
Meanwhile, Europe is turning into a place more like the Muslim-majority Middle East, where it is also “impossible to write anything-—it would be suicidal,” about Islamism and extremist Islam. Not necessarily suicidal for the writer’s life, but certainly for his career and reputation.
Here is the paradox of Ben Jelloun. The atmosphere in his original homeland allows for “nothing but silence or a literature of opposition written in exile,” yet those Europeans who aren’t living in exile an are writing in their own languages are increasingly being forced into silence as well.
very interesting point you make, Barry. Unfortunately, Ben Jelloun is not so kosher, from my viewpoint, although I agree more or less with his critique of Arab/Muslim society. He came to Jerusalem about 15 years ago, and spoke at the French cultural center on Rehov Agron [at that time]. He took a very pro-Arab position on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and his general advocacy for the PLO/PA sounded quite hypocritical to me, although the mere fact that he came to Jerusalem and spoke to an audience mostly made up of Jews could be considered to his credit. By the way, this lecture tour came after he had published the book that you mention.
There has been so much hype about the Arab Spring,the overthrow of despots and tyrants and coming freedom and democracy to the deprived trodden Arab street.
After U.S. and NATO forces wasted over 1 billion dollars to unseat Qadaffi while the genocidal Islamic murder of innocents in Darfur Omar al Bashir is untouched you can bet something nefarious is in the works.
Removing the restraint of Arab dictators against the raging Islamic storm in the street will be proven in hindsight another of America’s major miscalculations.
Iraq and Iran’s strong Islamic Shiite marriage is what we have to show after a trillion plus and lives wasted in the Iraq war.
An interesting message I received today at my youtube channel from a ‘freedom loving’ Saudi pretty much sums it all up.
MILITO110 (7 hours ago)
fu*&ke israel ….. now , we are free from your clients …. mubarak and libyan and BASHAR AL- assad …. now we are free and then .. we well kill you … we are coming palastine
http://www.youtube.com/user/MILITO110
Marcel,
I very much agree with you. I will note, though, that the word “miscalculation” is only appropriate if the policy’s authors had, in their hearts, good intentions towards their country when the policy was formulated. All of the evidence, domestic to foreign, overwhelmingly suggests otherwise.
In other words, the stereotypical First-World intellectual is a short-sighted hypocrite. He’s against colonialism, imperialism, racism, dictatorship, fundamentalism (and often any benign mix of religion and state), and war — except when “authentic” peoples pursue these paths. Then all of the above are legitimate strategies and tools of the oppressed!
Indeed, this calls for a flow chart. Their algorithm is easy to spot.
Y, the word “intellectual” as applied to the nincompoops who wear the mantle in the West is truly ironic. Think of Micheal Moore making millions from movies criticizing freedom and endorsing totalitarian hellholes where he would be shot at sunrise for doing the same thing. People may or may not be born stupid but they certainly can be educated to the point of stupidity.
Was it Orwell who stated that there are some things that only an intellectual could believe in?
Heres another irony: Jean Genet was a renowned homosexual who would be slaughtered with gusto by any sharia compliant (i.e. devout) Muslim in the ME or in Europe these days. A true pervert, not in the sexual sense, but in the sense that his infantile rage was channeled into a loathing for his culture of origin so profound that he cheered ANYONE bent on it’s destruction.
I don’t know “Racism explained to my daughter”, but it features commentary by Bill Ayers and other radical Leftists in the edition featured on Amazon. Other reviews mention that it deals with the issue of “racism” in the context of Europe’s difficulties integrating the 25,000,000 Muslims and Arabs who arrive like a tsunami over the last there decades. When “racism” is applied in this context it almost always is about how white cultures “resist” being destroyed by other cultures. To the Left, racism is peculiar disease of white Europeans and their descendants. Blacks, Arabs, Muslims can’t be racist. And of course Jelloun’s infidel hating Arab-centric culture which still enslaves women and blacks is probably not the target of his j’accuse…
The leftist thinking ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ is apparently common, although holding such a view defies rational, intelligent thought. Ann Coulter may have nailed it best in “Demonic”. Such people may have many academic awards, but they unfortunately demonstrate emotions run wild without any capability of self-examination. Surely there is a psychological/physiological term for this condition.