Redefining the relationship between the intellectual and political authority emerged as the most pressing topic during the three-day conference held by the Egyptian Writers' Union, reports Rania Khallaf The Egyptian Writers' Union (EWU), currently headed by Mohamed Salmawy, marked its 30th anniversary with a three- day conference between Monday, 21 November and Thursday, 24 November. While the inauguration and closing ceremonies were held in the lavish main hall of the Arab League's headquarters the conference's actual sessions met in a much smaller venue -- the hall of the EWU's Zamalek premises which, even in the most optimistic of estimates could accommodate no more than a third of conference invitees. Many leading Egyptian novelists were as a result absent, while prominent guests of the conference, including Palestinian poet Samih Al-Kassem and Lebanese critic Abdu Wazen did not participate in the sessions. Thursday's closing ceremony was full of surprises, not least the distribution of prizes worth LE160,000. Leading Syrian novelist , 81, won the biggest prize of the evening, The Arab Writers' Prize, worth $10,000. "Over 50 years," said Salah Fadl, chairman of the award jury, Mina has persevered in enriching Arabic literature. "His lifetime's oeuvre has been devoted to the defence of the poor and marginalised, and of the ordinary man's dream of a fair, cordial society based on the values of love and dignity." An agreement of cooperation between the EWU and the Syrian Writers Union (SWU) was also announced though, surprisingly, the articles of the agreement were not disclosed. Salmawy also promised that other cooperation agreements would soon follow, including with the African and the Italian Writers' Unions, expected to be concluded next month. The Arab Writers' Cairo Statement, announced during the closing ceremony, added some weight to the festive atmosphere. Arab writers, read the statement, in considering the external threats facing Arab culture and national identity, have decided to form a cultural organisation to combat these dangers. Membership will be open to all Arab writers. Although the conference had adopted as its theme the issue of the writer and the future only one session out of seven discussed the future of electronic publishing in the Arab world. The first session was perhaps the most controversial with Farida El-Naqqash, prominent left- leaning intellectual and the editor of the journal Adab wa Naqd, focussing on the deteriorating relationship between Egyptian intellectuals and the regime. She cited the first Arab Development Report, which identified three obstacles in the way of accelerating development across the Arab world, the first being pervasive restrictions on freedom. "Laws shackle freedom of expression throughout the Arab world," she said. "In addition to state censorship of books there is the censorship of a conservative society determined to impose traditional values on writers. The religious establishment, seeking to capitalise on the current political atmosphere and increasing conservatism, has also assumed a censorship role to the extent that, in 2004, Al-Azhar was given the right to order the confiscation of books it deems in contradiction to religious values." It is this ailing cultural atmosphere, she continued, that forced Sayed El-Qemani, whose books deal with Islamic issues, to stop writing after he received threats from an Islamic group. "In addition," she said, in describing the present cultural malaise, "books generate very little income for their authors leading to a high rate of unemployment, particularly among the younger generation of creative writers. It is a situation that must surely hinder the literary movement in Egypt." In an attempt to secure the support of religious groups for amendments to the constitution intended to extend the presidential term the late President Sadat changed the second article of the constitution to make Islamic Sharia' the main, rather than a, source of legislation. One ramification of this deal, said El-Naqqash, can be seen in the way professor Nasr Hamed Abu Zaid was forced into exile in the Netherlands following attempts by Islamists to force him into divorcing his wife on grounds of apostasy. "All these constraints have led to a shrinking of the writers' room for imaginative manoeuvre. Self-censorship," she concluded, "has become a natural result." "Many words have dealt with the bitter reality we face. The key issue, though, is to formulate strategies that can circumvent laws that shackle free expression," said Samir Abdel-Baqi, a colloquial poet. "Rather than acquiescing to a gloomy future as writers we should think of ways to create our own freedom rather than wait for the authority to grant us independence." Prominent Kuwaiti writer Fatma Al-Ali pointed out that, while Arab writers have long-demanded greater freedom "no single public movement in which intellectuals actively participated has emerged to attain this goal". "Over the years we have heard endless statements demanding greater freedom of expression," she continued, "but we have achieved nothing, certainly not in expanding the freedom of women writers." Abdel-Karim Al-Kassem, a representative of the Yemeni Writers Union, questioned the tactical efficacy of intellectuals tailoring their positions to fit what is an invariably tense relationship with political authority. It may well be better, he argued, for intellectuals to interact with the public rather than with political regimes, citing "the powerful role the independent Sufi movement played in bringing about a culture of peace and tolerance and creating an alternative cultural authority in the face of political power". In a change of tack Ali Okla Ersan, former president of the SWU, focussed on protecting the copyright of authors: "Laws protecting copyright have been issued in several Arab countries, in Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan and Syria, and the Arab Agreement on Writers' Copyright has been signed by representatives of concerned ministries within the frame work of the Arab Organisation for Education, Culture and Science. Yet the articles of the agreement have yet to be enforced." Arab creative writers, he continued, "are further protected by the agreement signed by the General Arab Writers' Union, though this too has yet to be put into effect. We must continue to call for the enforcement of the provisions contained within existing agreements." Lawyer Philip Abi Fadl, a representative of the Lebanese Writers' Union, submitted a detailed study of legislation pertaining to literary and intellectual rights in Lebanon. "Generally speaking the Arab world does not suffer from a lack of legislation," he said, "but from the enforcement of the law." The problematic relationship between writers and the mass media was discussed by Hamed Abu Ahmed, professor of translation at Al-Azhar University. "The state-controlled press and the opposition newspapers accord minimum space to cultural issues," he said. "The result is this policy is to effectively marginalise writers and intellectuals." Is there a translation movement from Arabic to another language that parallels the reverse movement of translations from other languages into Arabic? It is a question to which the conference dedicated two sessions, with a majority of speakers underlining the need to form an umbrella organisation that could oversee translation efforts across individual Arab states so as to prevent the duplication and overlapping of effort. Many speakers also agreed that it was important to expand the list of languages from which translations are currently made, moving beyond Europe to include the literature of Africa, Asia and Latin America. "In the framework of the National Project for Translation, supervised by the Supreme Council for Culture, books translated from Spanish are second in number to those translated from English. Around 400 titles have been translated from Spanish to Arabic, covering the literature of Spain and Latin America," Abu Ahmed pointed out. But, he said, the number of books translated from Arabic into other languages remains tiny, a situation he attributed to the fact that such translations need -- and rarely get -- a foreign editor who excels in the target language. Makarem El-Ghamri, dean of Al-Alsun, pointed to the fact that the number of scientific titles translated from other languages into Arabic remains tiny in comparison to literary texts. According to statistics issued by UNESCO in 1986 Arab countries lingered at the bottom of translation league tables, with translations accounting for 0.9 per cent of the total of published titles . 'The national project for translation has assigned only 10 scientific titles to be translated out of 1,000. Yet scientific translation -- given the speed at which technological developments happen -- is ever more important." Training translators, organising scientific conferences to discuss issues pertaining to translation, as well as building a data base for Arab translators would, she argued, facilitate and improve the quality of translation in Arab countries. Where does the Arab world stand as far as electronic publishing is concerned? How can our culture benefit from the revolution in information technology? In answering such questions attention was drawn to several successful projects, including Jehat Al-Shear (www.jehat.com), supervised by Bahraini poet Qassem Haddad, which is among the largest Arab poetry sites on the Internet. Youssef Zeidan, an expert in manuscripts, identified other Arab sites, including www.alwaraq.comwww.alwaraq.comand www.zeidan.com,www.zeidan.com,that provide readers with information across several cultural fields. "The problem is that our civilisation is based on the importance of the word while electronic publishing has tended to favour the image," he said. "Surprisingly enough UNESCO, alarmed by the lack of the Arab cultural content, asked me to establish a site -- www.arabcivilization.comwww.arabcivilization.com-- on the Internet. This, though, was a largely individual endeavour and now the important thing is to cooperate to develop Arab cultural content," concluded Zeidan.
