Culture of anger or reasoning
THE word “banned” is a commonly used word in our present culture. A ban looms on any public cultural activity at any time. For instance, in 2011 Book Fair, Saudi intellectuals were barred from participating at the last moment. Protesting the ban, I decided to pull out from the event. It was not intellectually stimulating for me to stand on a podium that was virtually monopolized by other preferences. This is the pattern of events in most cultural occasions and consequently most of our events are viewed with suspicion. Whenever any event is organized we fear that some kind of ban order will accompany it.
This is the primary impression we have formed about any cultural activity. Our judgments and language carry the stamp of a ban. Whenever we hear news of launch of a cultural event, our thoughts immediately search for ways in which the ban will follow. This is what happened at the Qassim Literary Club, when the papers submitted by the two Arab thinkers, Abdullah Al-Qassimi and novelist Abdul Rahman Munif, were taken off from the discussion panel. The decision was taken following Deputy Governor of Qassim Prince Faisal bin Mishaal’s refusal to open the forum in a strongly worded statement.
News of the prince’s statement and the disqualification of the two papers, which came at night, were followed in the morning by tensely worded tweets. Strong fury was welling up following the official ban of our cultural activities. At this point, we realize that we are passing through a phase of cultural confusion that has the power to make us blind and divert our eyes toward the wrong direction of negativity. However, the situation also sheds light on important positive aspects that we might otherwise have missed.
A major positive point that we overlooked, in the midst of our fury is that for the first time we witnessed an important official and decision maker refrain from using his authority regarding a cultural issue. He did express his views and made his personal stance clear regarding the matter, and acted accordingly. However, it is notable that despite his official expression of dissent, he separated his personal views from his authority to ban the activity. As such, he did not ban the activities of the forum and did not go beyond the limit of his personal preference, which he applied only on himself. In my opinion, he is a role model and more officials should follow his lead in allowing the cultural club to operate more independently and learn from its own mistakes without reprisal.
We failed to notice this positive aspect in our moment of anger, which was in fact the result of a conditioned reflex associated with our past experiences of officials ambushing any cultural event with a mere stroke of the pen. It has become a habit for us to react angrily on most cultural occasions.
The situation is reminiscent of an Egyptian saying, “the pain of spanking will disappear and no death occurs because of a small injury.”
But this time, unlike previous occasions, we fell into a different dilemma. In our fury we forgot to look more closely into the matter. What I mean is, when the prince refused to attend the Literary Club Forum, without banning the club from continuing its scheduled activities that was the moment our intellectuals faced the real test. However they failed when the club canceled the papers of Al-Qassimi and Munif with the stroke of their pen.
Why did the club cancel the two papers voluntarily? This is the question we should raise, and if we consider all the answers and possibilities, we will be taking the right steps toward diagnosing the state of our culture.
The cause lies in the humble, subdued and despicable intellectual who has committed suicide intellectually and morally, and then blames the establishment for what happened.
However, we will notice in the Qassim incident a novel situation worthy of celebration, in which the official drew a distinct line between his private right to voice his opinion, and between his decision-making. There is no meaning for culture, without a struggling and courageous spirit. The cause lies within us. We must, therefore look at the illness and not at any newspaper headlines.
— The author is a Saudi critic and thinker
— Courtesy of Al-Hayat newspaper
