Where are the poets of the Arab Spring?
By Sami Moubayed
"Ninety years have passed, while we stand tall like electricity posts, staring
blankly into the skies, like idiots. Entire civilizations pass above our heads.
Earthquakes pass beneath us and yet we feel nothing. We know nothing. And we
remember nothing. Neither God agrees to stay with us, and nor do the prophets."
- Nizar Qabbani
The legendary Syrian poet used these words to describe Arab weakness and fear
in the 1980s. In yet another poem, he says, "Who will declare the obituary of
the Arabs?" In a third, he addresses Arab leaders and asks: "When will you go
away? The stage has collapsed over your heads, and people in the audience are
cussing at you, and spitting. When will you go away?"
Nizar, writing from Beirut in the 1960s and London in the 1970s
and 1980s, was a voice for the oppressed across the Arab world.
For obvious reasons, much of his poetry was banned in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia,
Saud Arabia and even in his own Syria. Often he was accused of "harming public
morale" by exposing weaknesses in Arab society, calling on people to revolt
against their military governments.
Many other Arab intellectuals spoke with similar boldness - if not more -
during the long years of Arab military dictatorships. They include Syrian
playwright Saadallah Wannus, Syrian poet Mohammad al-Maghout, Egyptian poet
Ahmad Fouad Najem, Iraqi poet Muzaffar al-Nawwab, and many others.
All of that literature, however, suddenly sounds obsolete because it no longer
applies to the Arabs of today. All generations since the war of 1967 were
indeed "staring blankly into the skies, like idiots" but the young generation
of today - that of the Arab Spring - does not merit such a derogatory
description.
Simply put, people have put Nizar's words into action, and revolted. All
political literature similar to Nizar's suddenly lost its meaning the day the
Tunisian revolt started exactly one year ago, on December 17, 2010. These young
Arabs are no longer weak, nor are they willing to tolerate their miserable
political conditions any longer.
Throughout history, intellectuals usually excel when freedom of expression is
limited. Often it is because they felt challenged and provoked into expressing
their views in unconventional means, through analogies for example, or
parodies.
This was the case with all intellectual output in the Arab world, starting with
Gamal Abdul Nasser's police state in Egypt in 1952. One needs to review Russian
literature during the communist era, Iranian cinema under Ruhollah Khomeini,
Egyptian plays under Gamal Abdel Nasser, or Iraqi poetry under Saddam Hussein,
to see how creative writers, actors and poets were in expressing themselves.
This was to get their message across, while avoiding arrest.
Poets like Nizar and Mohammad al-Maghout would probably not have been as
legendary as they are today had they operated in fully democratic societies in
the 1970s. Sometimes, intellectuals would be given leeway to express
themselves, under the watchful eye of the government, hoping that their shows
or poems would "defuse" public discontent.
This was the case with Maghout's plays, for example, that were performed on
stage by Syrian comedian Duraid Lahham from 1974 onwards. These intellectuals
would be given a "green light" to talk about corrupt policemen, or a minister,
traffic violations, poverty, and in one or two notable cases, malpractices of
the security services.
Such criticism would always be vague, where it could apply to any country in
the Arab world and would never be directed at any specific regime. He often set
them in make-believe countries, like "Arabstan".
Knowing what kind of regime he headed, Saddam almost always banned these works,
believing that they were talking about him directly. He almost always took it
personally, banning all of Lahham's works. Any young Iraqi in possession of a
Duraid Lahham videotape was subject to arrest in Saddam's Iraq in the 1980s.
Muammar Gaddafi, however, lived in complete denial, often encouraging these
works because "they cannot possible be referring to Libya, since Libya is
heaven on Earth" - as far as he was concerned.
Not only did he promote the works, but hosted such plays in Tripoli, although
every one of their punch lines perfectly applied to Gaddafi's Libya. He was
particularly fond of a TV work that took place in another fairytale land called
"Wadi al-Misk" where one madman corrupts society from top to bottom, arrests
people for expressing their views, and sets up useless projects to satisfy his
ambition - and madness.
Gaddafi would always roll over laughing at the work, ordering re-runs on Libyan
TV, saying: "That must apply to Saddam's Iraq, but certainly not Libya!"
That raises a serious question: what will be the fate of all novels, poems and
plays authored from the 1960s onwards, which speak of Arab autocracy,
corruption, weaknesses and deficiencies?
They have been turned from "timeless classics", as often described by literary
critics, into "temporary political literature" that now belongs to a bygone
era. These works used to sell for two reasons, apart from their literary
boldness, but both reasons no longer apply.
One is that people read these works because they mirrored what was really
happening in society. They reflected pain and hardship that ordinary Arabs
could not dare express, for fear of being arrested in different Arab capitals.
And because of Arab censors, these works were popularized the minute they were
banned, often forcing people to photocopy and distribute them in secret, often
on university campuses, where dissent was always high.
Now as Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Tunisia all herald a free press, where freedom of
expression is tolerated and in fact encouraged, these works will lose much of
their appeal.
And for an 18-year old today, although such literature might have inspired the
Arab Spring, it will no longer apply to their lives, once the Arab Spring
succeeds.
All of that literature will seem outdated, irrelevant and in fact boring to a
rising Arab generation that will emerge after the Arab Spring, perhaps five to
10 years from now.
One day, they will definitely see the light, yet again, where need for them
re-arises, perhaps when the Islamists coming to power today turn into another
Hosni Mubarak or another Gaddafi.
Sami Moubayed is a university professor, historian and editor-in-chief of
Forward Magazine in Syria.
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