Contemporary Arab Thought

Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective

Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780231516174
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

During the second half of the twentieth century, the Arab intellectual and political scene polarized between a search for totalizing doctrines—nationalist, Marxist, and religious—and radical critique. Arab thinkers were reacting to the disenchanting experience of postindependence Arab states, as well as to authoritarianism, intolerance, and failed development. They were also responding to successive defeats by Israel, humiliation, and injustice. The first book to take stock of these critical responses, this volume illuminates the relationship between cultural and political critique in the work of major Arab thinkers, and it connects Arab debates on cultural malaise, identity, and authenticity to the postcolonial issues of Latin America and Africa, revealing the shared struggles of different regions and various Arab concerns.

One The First Modern Arab Cultural Renaissance, or Nahda From the Mid–Nineteenth Century to the Mid–Twentieth Century

The modern Arab debates on culture date back roughly to the mid–nineteenth century, a time when most Arab lands had been under Ottoman rule for three hundred years, since the sixteenth century. The waning Ottoman Empire had started to lose control over some of its territories to breakaway nationalist movements: Greece in the early 1820s and the Balkans in the 1870s. It had suffered military defeats at the hands of one of its major rivals, Russia, in consecutive battles in 1806–1812, 1828–1829, 1853–1856, and 1877–1878. It was also facing growing financial and economic difficulties. For many Ottoman officials, economic, administrative, technological, and even political modernization had become necessary for the empire’s survival. The extent and modality of the needed changes gave rise to a wide range of discussions and the formation of various political currents advocating reform. The mounting challenges of the empire also invited a growing intervention by European powers who were eager to benefit from the weakening Ottoman state. These trends resulted in the 1839–1876 Tanzimat reforms, a set of new laws that were to transform Ottoman subjects into equal citizens, irrespective of their religious and ethnic affiliation. It led to the establishment of a modern constitution and to the creation of a representative parliament in which Arab delegates were included. Provisions were also made to guarantee commercial privileges for Europeans. The principles of the reforms were declared in 1839 and 1856 in official statements known as the Gülhane decree and the Hatti-Humayun, respectively. These Tanzimat reforms were met with resistance by the sultans, who did not want to see their power being restricted by a fundamental law, as well as by the military and administrative classes, which had likewise much to lose. The new laws were eventually passed, but the Constitution was suspended in 1876 by Sultan Abdulhamid (ruled 1876–1909) soon after it was established, then reinstituted by the revolutionary Young Turks in 1908, and then suspended again in 1912.¹

The empire’s cosmopolitan center was not the only site of such momentous transformations. Their echoes and effects reached regional centers such as Tunis and Cairo. These places had to deal with their own local needs for change as well as with growing European interventions: the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt (1798–1801), the French colonial occupation of Algeria (1830–1962), the imposition of a French Protectorate over Tunis (1881–1956) and Morocco (1912–1956), and the British occupation of Egypt (1882–1952). Since then, the constant political players in most Arab lands have been the diverse local populations with their communal politics; the local rulers, sometimes foreigners imposed upon the people by outside forces; the regional power brokers; and the international interventionist powers. The actors working for change have constantly had to play these players against one another in making their way through a complex landscape of conflicting interests and agendas.²

Over the course of the nineteenth century, Cairo developed into a center of Arab modernization and eventually became the seat of what was to be called the Arab Renaissance, or the Nahda. Muhammad Ali Pasha, of Albanian origin, ruled Egypt for the Ottoman sultan from 1805 to 1849.³ He was eager to modernize and strengthen Egypt, primarily the army and the administration, in order to maximize his autonomy vis-à-vis the Ottoman state. He initiated a number of economic projects and sent groups of young men to study abroad, mainly to Paris, creating a stimulating circulation of new ideas that eventually gave rise to unprecedented intellectual debates and movements. All these socioeconomic, administrative, military, political, and cultural factors on the local, regional, and external levels contributed to the intensification of cultural and intellectual activities in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. This intensification was expressed in literary and media productions, educational reforms, an important translation movement, the formation of intellectual salons and political secret societies, and the development of protonationalist and protofeminist movements.⁴ The margin of freedom that Cairo enjoyed compared to other places in the empire, which came under the growing censorship of the Ottoman ruler, facilitated the proliferation of these activities. The fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I pushed Arabs to redefine themselves outside of the Ottoman parameters and to articulate post-Ottoman visions for themselves. Pan-Arab, pan-Islamic, and more regional (Syrian, Lebanese, and so on) projects were elaborated and debated. The British and the French soon divided the area into spheres of influence among themselves, however, and imposed mandates on a fragmented Arab homeland. It took these newly created Arab entities a couple of decades to achieve at least formal independence. In the meantime, the struggle in Palestine was raging, and the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 was to become one of the most, if not the most, significant events of the century, engendering a whole set of political, military, socioeconomic, cultural, and human problems—all of which remain unsolved to our day. In sum, the Ottoman reform projects, the post-Ottoman political struggles, and the colonial encounters with Europe stimulated a range of debates within and about Arab societies that came to be known as the Nahda debates.

The consecutive defeats by Israel (1948, 1956, 1967) were followed by military coups in Egypt (1952), Iraq (1958), Syria (1963), and Libya (1969), with promises of a more successful vindication of national and Arab rights. These promises became the convenient pretext for the development of militarized and police states that repressed their populations without achieving any significant victory against Israel. These states prevented the democratic processes of intranational, political, ethnic, and religious conflict resolution. They disenfranchised people and suspended political life by perpetuating emergency laws. They cracked down on all forms of in de pendent and oppositional voices, be they secular or religious. They monopolized power and put in place an elaborate system of corruption. They instituted harsh censorship, repressing freedom of thought and freedom of speech that eventually led to a deterioration of the whole educational system. It is against these repressive regimes that popular movements in recent years have tried to revolt, demanding the cessation of emergency laws, the reinstitution of civil rights, and the reform of the state in Egypt, Syria, Morocco, and elsewhere. But these reform movements, like those of the preindependence period, have to navigate through the multiple agendas of regional and international forces that continue to influence the Arab world.

Despite these adverse and oppressive conditions and under the impact of the shock of the 1967 defeat, a critical intellectual movement emerged in the few remaining pockets of freedom. Some of its leaders, such as Moroccan historian Abdallah Laroui, called this movement the “second Nahda.” The movement’s efforts consisted of radicalizing critique and reexamining the past endeavors for enlightenment and liberation. The circumstances of this second Nahda were obviously more somber than those of the first: it was clouded by a century of disillusionments, disappointments, humiliations, and defeats; it had a narrower margin of freedom owing to the more established systems of state repression and rising religious oppression; it had to deal with a greater cultural defensiveness that developed in reaction to the growing aggressions and defeats; and, finally, it had to face a despair that the first Nahda had not known. The gap between the two periods and moods is perceived to be so large that many post-1967 critics wonder where the legacy of the first Nahda went and why its hopeful promises and liberal impulses were aborted. In fact, reclaiming that legacy and understanding the reasons for the discontinuity with it became one of the central preoccupations of the second Nahda.

Despite this discontinuity, many of the first Nahda themes reappeared in the second one. Their persistence preoccupied contemporary thinkers. Some found in this continuity of themes an additional reason for despair, seeing it as a sign of intellectual stagnation and a manifestation of an incapacity for cumulative learning, whereas others tried to understand the reasons for this persistence. Given this double concern with the continuity and discontinuity between the two Nahdas, it is important here to state briefly the first Nahda’s major themes—briefly because a full rendering of the complex set of phenomena and trends is impossible here. Albert Hourani’s Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939, still remains the main reference on the subject.⁵

The major first Nahda figures had basically five main preoccupations:

1. The rise and fall of civilizations. Much of the Nahda writings turned around the causes of the rise and fall of civilizations, based on a comparative awareness of European and local Egyptian-Arab-Muslim realities of the time. The intensifying contacts with Europe during the nineteenth century shaped a certain perception of this continent that accompanied analyses of the region. This perception changed as the type of contact changed, especially when European powers became colonial occupiers. On the whole, Nahda thinkers were eager to grasp the secrets of progress, to understand what lay behind Europe’s advancement and superiority in the hope of adopting it to their own societies. For some, the interest was more focused on acquiring the means of power from Europe in order to use it against its colonial expansion. There was also the need to define oneself vis-à-vis this spreading culture and vis-à-vis the modernity that it brought with it: How was one to define Egyptian, Arab, or Muslim culture with respect to European culture? Were they related? Could one find some common origins, facets, constituents to them? Or were they incommensurable? The various answers emphasized political justice, science, religion, and gender in different ways.

2. Political justice. For a majority of Nahda thinkers, political justice was the basis of European advancement and the primary condition for the Arab Renaissance. The rule of law and the accountability of rulers were seen as necessary requirements for development. Criticism of despotism was a Nahda leitmotiv. Justice had always been a central notion in classical Islamic political thought. What is notable here is that it is identified as the cornerstone of progress in the perception of European civilization.

3. Science. Some regarded science as another cornerstone of European superiority. Some looked at it as a constitutive element of modern culture, rational thinking, and a new worldview. Others considered it mainly as an instrumental key to power that led to the production of technology and strategic know-how. The call for education was another dominant theme of the Nahda. The Arab press that was created and developed during this epoch disseminated nonreligious and modern knowledge, scientific discoveries, and world news. New schools were opened, and old ones were reorganized. Translations into Arabic were made, and students were sent abroad to acquire European training.

4. Religion. Religion was a major Nahda concern for many reasons. Comparisons with Europe raised questions about the link between religion and progress and about the difference in the links between Christianity-progress and Islam-progress. Was Christianity more conducive to progress, explaining the development of European civilization? Or was Europe’s success due to the marginalization of religion? How did Christianity and Islam compare with respect to modernity?

5. Gender. Finally, gender behavior was a significant part of the comparative cultural evaluation and a domain in which the gaze of the colonial European Other played an important role. According to the colonial discourse, Islamic cultures were inferior to European culture and in need of colonial improvement because they advocated discriminatory treatment of women and tolerated male homosexuality. Feminist doctrines and conservative sexual ideas were used to justify colonial interference. Nahda thinkers, both men and women, had to react to these judgments and to define their positions regarding these questions. Modernity, feminism, sexual mores, colonialism, and civilizational worth were thus intricately entangled.

The first and most famous account of modern European civilization from this comparative perspective was Rifaʿa Rafiʿ al-Tahtawi’s (1801–1873) Paris diary. Published in Cairo in Arabic (Takhlis al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz) in 1834, it was quickly translated into Turkish to serve as a didactic introduction to European modernity.⁶ It became the landmark publication of the early-nineteenth-century Nahda. Its author, a Sheikh trained at al-Azhar,⁷ had been sent to Paris to supervise a group of students between 1826 and 1831. Al-Tahtawi wrote down his observations and experiences of the French capital and upon his return founded a school of languages, from which he launched an important movement of translation. He subsequently wrote a number of books promoting modern education for girls and boys alike and urging the clergy to integrate secular modern disciplines in the training of its members.⁸ His Paris diary, recently translated into English,⁹ shows a wide interest in the life of the Parisians, ranging from the social and cultural to the economic and political. It presents neither an unbiased nor an unapologetic view of Paris, but rather a relatively candid and uninhibited perception of a foreign culture.¹⁰ The author seeks to grasp the secrets of that city’s progress in the hope of adopting them for his homeland, which, in his opinion, clearly lagged behind on many levels. Most of the time he is fascinated by what he sees, without feeling threatened in his Islamic-Egyptian identity. He does present justifications here and there for seeking principles of progress in a non-Muslim country and in nonreligious achievements. He asserts that his faith encourages Muslims to seek knowledge and wisdom wherever they can be found, that this European civilization is not totally foreign to Muslims because it is based on Islamic sciences imported into Europe in the Middle Ages, and that the achievements to be learned from were the product of human effort and not the product of Christianity per se—justifications that have become standard arguments in defense of foreign borrowing since then. However, on the whole, his tone is not defensive, and his general attitude is not judgmental. Al-Tahtawi writes with great curiosity about a wide range of aspects of Parisian life—social mores and customs, gender roles, the architecture and interior design of houses, the nature of indoor and outdoor entertainments; he describes shops, restaurants, coffee houses, ballrooms, theaters, and museums; he talks about the transportation system, the mail service, and taxes; he reports on hospitals, schools, and universities; he speaks about the press, economic institutions, and factories; and he gives a detailed account of the 1830 Paris uprising.

Among the things that impress him most are the general valorization of knowledge beyond the confines of religion as well as the spread of literacy, even among women. He is amazed by the passion for learning, whether through newspapers, journals, books, or traveling. He appreciates people’s encouragement of change, innovation, and creativity, as well as their allegiance to their country. He notes the use of human reason as the ultimate criterion of judgment as well as the general attitude of religious tolerance. For al-Tahtawi, however, what constitutes the solid foundation of civilizational progress in Paris is political justice—that is, a system of government that is not arbitrary, but determined by a fundamental law that clearly sets the rights and duties of both the ruler and the ruled. He translates the French Constitution article by article, for even though, as he says, its contents do not come from revelation or the sacred tradition, they contain valuable human wisdom. He emphasizes the importance of holding the ruler accountable through representative bodies that decide on the laws of governance. Certainly, al-Tahtawi does not advocate the adoption of the French Constitution in Egypt, nor does he promote liberal democracy. His boss, Muhammad Ali, whom he praises for his support of learning and modernization, would not tolerate such proposals. But al-Tahtawi does emphatically assert that the abuse of power by and the ignorance of political and religious rulers are among the major causes of civilizational decline. Political justice is, for him, the necessary condition for subjects’ well-being, for prosperity, and for the advancement of knowledge—in sum, the necessary condition for progress. He prefaces his translation of the French Constitution with the following statement: “We should like to include this book—even though most of what is in it cannot be found in the Book of the Almighty God, nor in the sunna of the Prophet—May God bless him and grant him salvation!—so that you may see how their intellect has decided that justice (ʿadl) and equity (insaf ) are the causes for the civilization of kingdoms, the well-being of subjects, and how rulers and their subjects were led by this, to the extent that their country has prospered, their knowledge increased, their wealth accumulated and their hearts satisfied.”¹¹

The centrality of political accountability, the rule of law, and the importance of political representation in Nahda thought is not acknowledged enough, yet these principles are among its leitmotivs. Indeed, the critique of despotism in general and in connection with questions of culture malaise in particular permeates much of the Nahda writings. This political critique runs throughout twentieth-century Arab thought, but at times it is overshadowed by a culturalist bent and becomes dominated by an obsessive concern with cultural authenticity, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, for a number of reasons that I explore later. This bent has given both contemporary Arabs and others the prevailing and false impression that Arab thinkers have always been predominantly preoccupied with the cultural and religious aspects of their civilizational and societal problems. The fact is that the critique of political despotism has been a consistent object of grievance in modern Arab thought, and a political understanding of cultural crises has persisted across generations of thinkers. The proposed remedies have differed from one thinker to another, ranging from religious repentance and piety to theocracy, populist nationalism, liberal or socialist nationalism, and full-fledged democracy. Al-Tahtawi’s rendering of the secret of European civilizational progress is among the first expressions of this political critique. Subs...