Forty years after his death, Rania Khallaf reports, Mohamed Mandour -- critic, reformer, politician -- remains as contentious as ever The life and work of critic Mohamed Mandour were the focus of a three-day seminar at the Supreme Council for Culture (SCC) this week. "One persistent question raised 40 years after Mandour's death," said critic Gaber Asfour, SCC secretary-general, "is what remains of his genius. Why it is that he is worthy of being celebrated." The seminar was an occasion for the critic's son, Tarek Mandour, to announce that Mandour's papers are currently being sorted with a view to publishing a few new books of his criticism -- including previously unpublished work. Born in 1907, Mandour earned bachelor degrees from Cairo University in law and art and was soon among those Taha Hussein selected to pursue doctoral degrees in Paris. He travelled in 1930, and though he stayed in France for the entire period, the PhD in question was not completed for nine years. This reportedly infuriated Hussein so much he refused to go on supervising Mandour's work on the methodology of criticism in the fourth century, and so began the young scholar's affiliation with Ahmed Amin. In 1944 he gave up academic life in favour of journalism -- perhaps a reflection of increased engagement. As editor-in-chief of the afternoon edition of Al-Wafd, a year later, he argued for democracy and backed up emerging literary currents. On the pages of Al-Fajr Al-Jadid, he adopted the motto "Literature for life". But when he joined the Wafd Party in 1947, he ended up fighting with its right-wing arm over questions of reform and social justice. He was abandoned, even assaulted, by young party members. "I owe much to this great scholar," Asfour went on. "He was the first to draw my attention to the meaning of tradition versus modernity; tradition being understood as an awareness of oneself, the search for which went hand in hand with that for modern ideas, whether from an individual or collective national viewpoint. We remain subject to either the ancient legacy of the Arabs, or a mere imitation of Western thought. Mandour did not rest content with any such subordination. He insisted, instead, on critical thinking. "'Tradition is the mirror image of modernity' was the motto. Was it a matter of coincidence, therefore, that Mandour's research on Arab critical currents in the fourth century of the Hejira started while he was introducing Western theory into critical discourse? What it denotes, rather, is that he was dealing with that legacy from a largely unprecedented standpoint..." For his part senior critic Salah Fadl began by quoting Mandour: "Literature prolongs people's lives". Ironically enough, he said, it was the critic's love of literature that forced him out of academic life. "Journalism was both his high point and his bane. For in addition to his well-known books The New Balance, Human Patterns and The Arabs' Methodical Criticism, he wrote more than 1,500 articles in literary and political critique. Mandour was more than a critic," Fadl explained. "He participated in Egyptian political life from 1944 until the 1952 Revolution. And because he went against the grain, he was prevented from participating in parliamentary elections in the early 1950s. Yet he maintained his political principles until he died in 1965." The same goes for literary principles, one might add. What is remarkable, however, is the extent to which Mandour's school of thought has proved influential; it has withstood not only the test of time but of space, going far beyond Egypt's borders -- as evidenced by the testimony of Palestinian critic Faisal Darraj. "Mandour is an essential link in that chain of Egyptian critics who developed Arabic literary theory in modern times," Darraj explained in his speech. "Mandour holds a very special position in Arab culture. He has attempted, through a relatively short life span, to develop a national school of thought. And he was more interested in applying it in a social context than developing it in terms of abstract academia." Yet 40 years on, it is arguably the more controversial side of Mandour as an independent critic that proves more stimulating. So thought senior critic Farouk Abdel-Qader, for another speaker: "I believe the nine years Mandour spent in France -- the diplomas in law and French literature he obtained there, no less than the way in which he assimilated contemporary French culture as a whole -- went into the genesis of a unique intellect. That is one lesson," he went on. "The second is that, not satisfied with his position as the editor of Sawt Al-Umma newspaper, he became involved in the national struggle for independence. He founded the radical wing of the Wafd following the 1936 treaty and was detained in the famous 1946 clampdown on communism along with Noaman Ashour and Lotfi El-Kholy." Many have deemed this, in itself, as a major achievement. For his part Tunisian professor Abdel-Salam Al-Massady focussed on the way in which Mandour assimilated Western culture -- another major contribution. Unlike Hussein, who was inspired by Cartesian scepticism, Mandour's work on Arab critical heritage saw in Western theory an affirmation -- a kind of certainty. Urging young scholars to study Mandour's language -- sentence structure, for example -- El-Massady went on to point out, "While dealing with the Arabic tradition of poetic criticism, at more than 11 points Mandour implants the text with foreign terms, which he places in opposition to Arabic terms." Such juxtaposition is worthy of the closest attention it can receive -- for it illuminates the mode of assimilation. In a subsequent interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Fayoum University professor Magdi Tawfik underlined the sheer pleasure of reading Mandour, pointing out that, while there is undoubtedly a socio-cultural perspective, it never interferes with aesthetic evaluation: "I believe that at this juncture, Mandour's work offers a rare opportunity to reassess the notion of the critic and his contribution to literature and society." He gave as an example his work on the turn-of-the-century man of letters Ibrahim Abdel-Qader El-Mazni, which adopts an existentialist perspective not only on the writing but on the socio-cultural realities that inform it. But it is arguably Mandour's well- documented battle with playwright and literary professor Rashad Rushdy -- a proponent of art for art's sake whose perspective excluded the social function of literature, an essential premise in Mandour's argument -- that carries the greater relevance today. The argument erupted in 1962 following the publication of Rushdy's play, Love Game -- the subject of a severe critique by Mandour (the article in question was later published in a book entitled Literary Battles ). As seminar speakers pointed out, in the period 1959-64, many leftists who would have supported Mandour were in prison. "But it is Mandour's theory that stood the test of time," Abdel-Qader explained. "Today there is little space for the art for art's sake theory, partly because in Arab societies social conditions, including literacy rates, allow for no such leisure." More fair-minded was Darraj's contention that the controversy has yet to be resolved: "It is all relative -- partly a matter of taste, partly of ideology." Indeed, as Darraj went on to say, the current recess of Arab criticism is largely due to lack of ideological debate. When the autodictat and famous author Abbas Mahmoud El-Aqqad took issue with Ahmed Shawqi's poetry, for example, it was partly because Shawqi was the palace poet. Indeed the disappearance of a connection between literature and its wider socio- political context has resulted in criticism becoming "a notorious word", as Abdel-Qader put it: "Political corruption is reflected in cultural and artistic life." He went on to take issue with Mandour's phenomenal span -- he wrote on theatre as well as poetry and fiction -- insisting that specialisation is better for both critic and reader: the accumulation of experience in one branch of criticism makes it far more fruitful to concentrate one's efforts in one field. Mandour was battling to establish a new school -- on too many fronts." Yet in so doing, he set a significant precedent. He set an example of the independent critic -- a path subsequently trodden by many scholars. "Academic scholars have foiled criticism," Abdel-Qader said. "A PhD in literature does not entail qualification for the job. Amal Donqol's poems, for example, can hardly benefit from a structuralist analysis, however sound." Darraj agreed: the majority of important Arab critics -- Louis Awad, Mahmoud Amin El-Alem, Hussein Morroa -- were independent rather than attached to an academic institution. In recent decades, indeed, as Tawfik pointed out, criticism has been reduced to academic writing: "The true critic should be more involved in the movement of society." Seconding this view, El-Massady pointed to the creative nature of Mandour's personality, which defies categorisation: "He was an excellent example of the truly engaged intellectual. One cannot possibly forget his call on the Arab cultural elite to join in their peoples' battles."
