Opposites attract

Salah Qunsuwwa:
Opposites attract
Profile by Samia Abdennour
My daughter, a postgraduate student at the Academy of Arts, came home one day singing the praises of her professor of methodology and semiotics. She explained: he had presented his subjects casually, with no pomposity or incomprehensible terms, and indeed had peppered the lecture with amusing anecdotes that made it very attractive. The professor in question was Salah Qunsuwwa.
Born in Qena, where he spent most of his childhood, Qunsuwwa had three older brothers, each of whom in turn took it upon himself to imbue the child with his expertise. They had different interests and hobbies, and Salah absorbed them all: "oratory and the Arabic language" from his oldest brother, Mohamed; "art and all its pleasures" from Mustafa, the Don Juan, who opened his eyes to music, drama, literature and joie de vivre; "art criticism" from Ibrahim, his hero and paragon. Enriched and cared for by these three gurus, he never played with children of his own age, but was always seen accompanying one of his brothers, most frequently Ibrahim, on his way to or from a cultural meeting or debate. The lack of games, or even communication (since he was silent at these meetings, absorbing everything but never participating in the conversations) made of Salah a shy and introverted child. Later, to overcome his timidity, he became exaggeratedly talkative and jocular.
From early childhood, he loved to draw and make small mud figurines, which earned him the nickname Rafaello. His drawings often adorned the walls in school, which pleased the shy youngster immensely. For lack of entertainment and to imitate his siblings, Salah spent his time reading. His family's library provided him with a wide assortment of material, and books opened up wide horizons for the youth, who lived with the principal characters of his books, dreaming of great feats: he was the gallant hero who saved damsels in distress, the planner of the revolution, the author of the declaration of the republic... He used his artistic talents to devise an appropriate logo for Egypt, and a new adequate head cover to replace both fez and hat.
'My way of teaching the conventional theories and doctrines was to simplify the concepts and present them as caricatures, thus giving researchers and students the green light to deliberate, analyse and discover their flaws'
In Cairo, where he came to attend secondary school, he became politically active, fluttering from one group to another before strengthening his convictions. Fascinated at first by G Davius's theory of the "citizen of the world," he abandoned that line of thought to join the Muslim Brotherhood. Disillusioned with their rigid tactics and behaviour, he dropped out and was rewarded with a sound beating. Ahmed Hussein's group Misr Al-Fatat was another passing phase. Then he stumbled upon Marxism, to which he was very much attracted. Joining an underground communist group for a short time, he was again unable to tolerate the rigid methods applied, the blind obedience required, his comrades' disdain for culture and his own inability to contradict his superiors. He left the party but retained his faith in Marxist teachings, vowing that he would neither join another group nor even air his views thereafter. Instead, he promised himself, he would concentrate wholeheartedly on his studies.
At university in the early '50s, he studied philosophy, planning to specialise in art philosophy, since he could not fulfil his earlier dream of becoming an artist. He studied the syllabus thoroughly and was appalled to discover that each philosopher claimed to possess the key to absolute truth. In contrast, he viewed philosophy not as the abstract study of principles and concepts, but as a method of thought and behaviour, a comprehensive notion of the universe and a human outlook on the environment.
Through the conflicts between the various schools of thought he studied, he became very critical, eventually losing his awe-struck respect for these doctrines. He made sure, later on, that his students opened their minds, analysing and criticising accepted wisdom. "My way of teaching the conventional theories and doctrines was to simplify the concepts and present them as caricatures, thus giving researchers and students the green light to deliberate, analyse and discover their flaws." He adds: "Personally, I am up for any open discussion and will gladly change my opinion if convinced that it is wrong. This is what I try to hammer into my students -- to be malleable, not to hold fast to fixed ideas."
Upon graduation in 1957, Salah had 18 months of military service to get through. This was a pleasant and rich experience, for several of the other men in his unit were writers and artists. Moreover, his supervising officer loved art and delighted in giving his unit the chance to display their artistic talents.
As the year and a half drew to an end, he was interned suddenly, "under suspicion" because of his alleged Marxist beliefs, although he was not a member of a communist organisation. He was only released two years later, penniless and jobless. His greatest problem, however, was his in-laws' determination to break off his engagement to his sweetheart, a fellow student. They wanted her to marry a rich suitor, they had decided. He preserved his sanity, he says, thanks to her tenacious loyalty to him.
Through the assistance of his school friend, Makram Mohamed Ahmed, he was taken on as a trainee at Al-Ahram. He also translated books for the Information Department, and was thus able to convince his in-laws of his merits, after which the couple were married.
Then he heard of an opening at the National Centre for Social Research (NCSR). Qunsuwwa passed the preliminary exam and won a scholarship to study for his master's degree. Here his studies took a different turn. He was required to choose a subject related to the work of the centre, and opted for philosophy of science, starting what was to become a systematic and intense programme of research in nuclear physics.
His master's thesis, however, which blended pure science with a clear interest in the humanities, was titled Science and Values: A Humanistic Approach. He wanted to prove that although science was seen as objective, cold and factual, it is also subject to the values elaborated by human beings. "Science affects our course of action," he explains, "but the methods used by every person are the same methods used in all other aspects -- they are bound by values."
Qunsuwwa passed his exam brilliantly and, fortified by his first glimpse of bright light at the end of a dark and difficult tunnel, he presented his papers to the NCSR, believing that he was automatically qualified for a position as demonstrator. Unfortunately, his prison record tripped him up: the department of investigations at the Ministry of Interior, which could veto any appointment to a government post, gave his application the red light. It was only thanks to the personal intervention of the NCSR's director at the time, the late Ahmed Khalifa, that he was accepted after all.
Six years later, the investigations department again stood in his way when he received a scholarship to continue his studies at Oslo University. This time, one of his wife's uncles, a high government officer, interceded on his behalf and the couple could proceed to Norway unimpeded. His PhD dissertation was titled Objectivity in the Social Sciences.
Upon his return from Oslo, he continued working at the NCSR, supervising many theses and dissertations. He was also delegated to the Academy of Arts, and believes this assignment initiated a most fruitful period. Here he was able to read feverishly about art; the critical work to which he had access was both more abundant and more diverse than publications related to philosophy.
From the centre, he was transferred to Zaqaziq University, as professor of philosophy and head of the philosophy department, later becoming deputy dean. He went to Yemen for two years (1988-'90), returning to Egypt as a full-fledged member of the staff of the Academy of Arts. Now Qunsuwwa felt that he had finally come home.
Sociology of art, semiotics, methodology, art in modernism and post-modernism: he introduced all these topics to the traditional fare on the academy's curriculum. Intense reading and critical analysis allowed Qunsuwwa to assimilate and impart his knowledge to the postgraduate students of the different institutes of the academy: the Conservatoire, ballet, theatre, cinema, and art criticism.
Professor Qunsuwwa has earned many prestigious rewards for his contribution to the philosophy of science. He is a member of the Supreme Council of Culture's Philosophy Committee, the Egyptian Society of Art Lovers, the Egyptian Society of Aesthetic Studies and the International Society for Art Criticism. He was nominated as an expert to the Arabic Language Academy, where he coined new Arabic technical terms in logic, philosophy of science and methodology. He also contributes literary criticism to Al-Hilal and Al-Sutour, and has composed the introduction to foreign books translated into Arabic, among them Thomas Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree and Samuel Huntington's The End of Ideology. As if such an abundance of productive activity were not enough, he writes in the national papers, and remembers with particular pleasure an article in the form of two open letters to the American people, in which he compared the work of Noam Chomsky to that of Samuel Huntington, describing the former as a researcher and the latter as a mere lackey.
Before it was Arabised, Qunsuwwa's family name was Qansuh, a Turkish name meaning "red blood." Unlike the Turkish rulers immortalised in the Egyptian collective memory as brutal, distant figures of authority, however, Qunsuwwa is an amiable and friendly presence -- always proposing, never disposing.
photos: Randa Shaath
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