After speaking to the press about his decision to boycott the official guest-of-honour presentation at Frankfurt, novelist Bahaa Taher tells Rania Khallaf about the Arab intellectual's relations with the cultural establishment Our meeting was to take place at Café Riche at 7.30pm, and I was keen on arriving a few minutes early. I felt the trepidation of a student doing homework for her mentor. Ironically, a misunderstanding resulted in novelist Bahaa Taher arriving some 45 minutes later than I expected, and hastening to ask, rhetorically, as if to downplay his embarrassment, "Have I not said enough about this topic already?" But our readers need to understand, I protested. "It was a completely personal decision," Taher began, finally. "I'm convinced I couldn't participate in the Frankfurt Book Fair under such circumstances." By "such circumstances" it was clear he referred to the exclusion of major literary figures. Taher was nonetheless eager to emphasise his good wishes for the official participants, and his respect for those who have supervised the process -- "Amr Moussa, the chairman of the Arab League," he specified. "But had it been an agricultural fair," he went on, expanding on his objection, "nothing would have been more natural than consulting with concerned farmers, placing them at the centre of the process. As it is intellectuals were kept very far from any decision making or planning throughout the process of preparing for this significant event." Why, in this case, did intellectuals fail to adopt a unified position with which to express their objections when preparations began? "I've written more than one newspaper article in this regard, and I think other writers too have raised the issue in the press. Other than the press we have no means," however. "But I can assure you of one thing. Had we been consulted, had our comments been taken into account, the programme would have been very different." Such a line of thinking finds support in the notion, expressed by many Arabs, that the fair organisers were wrong to assign the Arab League the task of organising the guest-of- honour presentation. In an Akhbar Al-Yom article published last Sunday, Moroccan intellectual Mohammed Bennees, for one representative, expressed the view that the Arab League was the wrong organisation for such a major cultural event. "The Arab League is a political institution," Bennees wrote, "which represents traditional Arab regimes, and is thus divorced from modern cultural movements." Yet Taher disagrees. "I am completely against this idea. I respect the Arab League and its secretary-general. In fact my conviction is that this is perhaps the one aspect of the endeavour that is more or less faultless. Though not a cultural institution, the league does work as an umbrella organisation for all Arabs. To make that clearer, let me declare that I am an Arab nationalist, a writer who believes in Arab unity. What I am objecting to, rather, is the league's procedural performance -- the principle of excluding intellectuals from decision making," Taher banged the table with his fist, "especially when the event in question is purely cultural," he paused, somewhat abruptly. "Excuse me, I need to drink some tea before we go on with this conversation." No doubt at home in Riche, Taher spent some time chatting with the waiter before ordering tea and water. By the time we resumed the conversation, I was curious to find out about the cultural establishment's reaction to Taher's decision. "Nothing," he laughed. "I wasn't expecting a reaction, simply because the establishment in Egypt typically fails to respond to actions taken by intellectuals. It's a catastrophe," he added, frowning. "This lack of dialogue is tragic." Nor is such reflection groundless. In the late 1990s Taher was an active part of the intellectuals' tajammu' (rally) set up by Radwa Ashour and the late Ibrahim Mansour to oppose the confiscation of the Egyptian (General Organisation for Cultural Palaces) edition of Syrian novelist Haydar Haydar's Banquet for Seaweed. Compared to the upsurge of insurgent activity on this occasion, the Egyptian intellectuals' stance on the issues surrounding preparations for Frankfurt seems terribly subdued. Since the tajammu' fizzled out, in fact, the voice of opposition has hardly been heard at all. "I cannot speak for intellectuals," Taher retorted. "Individual intellectuals adopt individual positions in accordance with their principles and convictions. Intellectuals are not a political party," he said, "nor do they make up an independent social entity. All that is required of them is that they voice their opinion when the need arises, thus assuming responsibility for cultural life. The problem," he went on, "is that our voice isn't heard at all, that there is no real dialogue going on in society." In his book Abnaa Rifa'a (Rifa'a's Sons), Taher traces how the regime since the 1970s has sought to isolate intellectuals, excluding them from the centres of decision making and rendering their work ineffective -- "mere words" -- a tendency he refers to as "separating culture from society". The success of such efforts has proved astounding, he says, but its negative effect on society, the people, is far greater than its impact on intellectuals. The Writers Union, at which Taher tendered his resignation as a member of the board in 1998, is one example he gave. The union's decision- making power, he explained, had been deteriorating, taking away from the credibility of writers in Egyptian society. But what could put an end to such unannounced enmity between intellectuals and the regime? "The authorities should work towards a healthy atmosphere in which cultural interaction between intellectuals and the society can take place," he responded, briefly, while sipping the last of his tea. "The cultural establishment should by no means discriminate among writers." Taher nonetheless endorses state support for the arts, which he believes to be necessary "in developing countries, where there is a severe lack of NGOs capable of supporting cultural activities. There are thousands of NGOs in Egypt," he went on, "but hardly any are aware of the importance of supporting culture in the society, the reason being lack of awareness in educational establishments and beyond." In his article, Bennees laments the fact that many intellectuals in the Mashriq have but a scant understanding of Maghreb culture, implying that few "eastern Arabs" are even eager to find out about their counterparts in "the west". "I am against this kind of generalisation," Taher said; he referred to Fi Madih Al-Ruwaya (In Praise of the Novel), another non-fiction book in which he deals extensively with the work of two Moroccan writers: Mohammed Zafzaf and Al-Mayloudi Shaghmoum. "That is not to say that inter-Arab cultural relations have become lamentably weak," he retracted. "In the 1960s they were very strong. Whenever a book was published in Beirut, Egyptian intellectuals would be reading it the next day. These days," by contrast, "we only get to know about Arabic writing from different countries through international literary events. With all due respect for the mission of boosting Arab- Western cultural relations, I have no doubt that supporting inter-Arab cultural relations should come first." One interesting aspect of the article in which Taher explains the reasons behind his decision not to participate in the official presentation is what he describes as an unmerited focus on Arab writers working in other languages. Now he still insists that they "do not represent Arab culture, irrespective of the extent to which their work reflects Arab issues. We conceded that the works of Algerian writers Mohammed Deeb and Mawloud Pharaon are part of Arabic literature because the French language was imposed on Algeria by French colonialism, and because their work was actively engaged with the resistance; the same license cannot be extended to writers like Taher Ben Jaloun, who choose to write in French," he declared. More generally, has Frankfurt divided intellectuals into two categories: pro- and anti- establishment? Unlike the late Edward Said, for one writer who doubts if the intellectual is capable of distancing himself from the influences of power, Taher contends that the intellectual is an inherently independent entity, never vulnerable to power. "I take issue with the notion of 'authority's intellectual'," a charge frequently levelled at writers who maintain friendly relations with the regime. "There is no such thing," he said, angry. "My essential problem is with the cultural institution, not with intellectuals taking part in the presentation. No true intellectual will depend on support from the cultural authorities," whether or not he takes part in their activities. "An intellectual is sustained by his work alone," Taher believes. "Nothing else." Nor is the Arab establishment the only party to blame. In his introduction to the seventh edition of his famous novel Khalti Safiya wal- Dayr (My Aunt Safiya and the Monastery) which appeared this month, Taher assesses his experience with Western publishers. "They are all biased," he writes. "They want to translate Arabic literature, which focusses on stereotypical conceptions of Arabs as an underdeveloped people living in poverty. They are concerned primarily with highlighting the oppression of women and other undemocratic practises. Now one doesn't deny that such problems beset Arab societies, Taher goes on, but this over emphatic focus on them results in other novels, some of them of greater human interest, being ignored. This can no longer be tolerated." Such experience had come as a shock, he added, "because I expected the West to be more open and tolerant". When the translation of Khalti Safiya wal- Dayr -- a novel that depicts age-old conventions of tolerance and friendly relations between Muslims and Copts in the small Upper Egyptian village in which Taher was born -- was first published, Taher recounts, the New York Times Book Review highlighted the novel, describing it as a Greek tragedy that "transcends the boundaries of life in a typical village in Upper Egypt". Many Western publishers were to make proposals to Taher following the appearance of this article. "After I sent them the novel, however, many of these publishers failed to respond. Only two sent me short rejection letters, to the effect that the novel's content does not fit in with their policies." Taher laughed. "I'm very proud of that."
