"We Needed Honest Answers"

​​Mr Beydoun, what is your view of the official Arab participation in this year's Frankfurt Book Fair?

Abbas Beydoun: I don't believe that those who thought out the programme always had a clear idea about who the Germans were who were on the receiving end. We were here in Frankfurt to come into a dialogue with the West, so to speak, mediated by the Germans

We should have known, though, what questions the Germans would want answers to and how we should respond to them. I don't understand what the point of an event like "Tendencies in contemporary Arabic poetry" might be, and I assume that no German will have felt that such an event was addressed to him.

There would have been more interest in a topic such as the involvement of Germans in Arab culture, but not a single event dealt with it. An event called "Rilke in modern Arabic poetry" or "Contemporary Arabic poetry and its relationship with German poetry" or something else similar on narrative art or other forms of literature, would have been more interesting for the Germans.

Germans are more curious about the possible influence of German culture on Arab culture. This side of things was completely neglected in the programme, as a result of shortsightedness and lack of imagination, and because those who planned the programme were too much bound up with themselves.

Do you have the feeling that the burning Arab issues were dealt with?

Beydoun: There were important issues, but they weren't handled adequately. It was important to talk about the position of Muslim women, but it wasn't absolutely necessary to defend the position of women in Islam.

It was important to speak about the role of Saudi Arabia in the support of world-wide terrorism—naturally not Saudi Arabia as a nation, but Saudi Arabia as an ideology. But it was stupid to come here to defend Saudi Arabia, which, of course, as a state has nothing to do with terrorism. However, the schools which Saudi Arabia has set up all around the world have gone on to spread the ideology of terror.

Another point is that since the second world war Germany has developed a strong tradition of self-accusation and self-criticism. It doesn't understand a culture which defends itself and paints itself in good colours.
German culture since the war is not just based on this self-criticism, but even to a certain extent on self-hatred.

I don't believe that the programme really fulfilled its objectives. Even with the little we have, it should have been possible for us Arabs to have achieved more if we had had more imagination and understanding. I don't think the Germans were necessarily looking for extraordinary literature, or even magnificent ideologies. They wanted honest answers.

Since September 11th, they want to know who the Arabs are, and they want from these Arabs or Muslims honest, realistic, discursive and critical answers in a dialogue they can understand.

These questions have been under discussion for some time. Didn't you find that Arab intellectuals were pushed further than that?

Beydoun: I believe that the Germans wanted to find out that there are different kinds of Arab intellectuals, and that not all Arab intellectuals are subject to official and nationalistic ideologies. They wanted to see nuances among the Arabs. They wanted to hear what the Arabs think about their history which has been characterised by tyranny, or what they think about all those totalitarian regimes and nationalist ideologies.

They wanted to find out something about the precise status of women in Islam and in the Arab world. They wanted to find out what's really going on in Iraq and Palestine, and they wanted to do so in critical discussions.

They wanted a real discussion with Islam and Islamic history. They wanted to know which questions Arab intellectuals ask themselves and what Arabs think about ethnic minorities. The whole Arab programme at the Book Fair avoided, for example, the topic of suicide bombings, even though that's become a daily topic of discussion.

And it would have been important for the Germans to have learnt about the different opinions there are on these events. These examples show how we weren't in a position to answer all these questions.

Are you pessimistic? What can Arabs do to profit from the lessons of Frankfurt for the future?

Beydoun: There was certainly more attention given to Arab culture. We found books by Arabic writers not just in the Book Fair but also in book-shop windows. Readings by Arabic authors were well attended and some books met with great interest, like Elias Khoury's "Gate of the Sun."

Another point is that the Book Fair brought Arab themes to the centre of discussion for quite a time, and that was significant and useful. I believe the situation will be better after Frankfurt than before. When the Arabs discuss their experiences in Frankfurt, they'll draw valuable lessons about their way of dealing with it and about the kind of image they presented.

I think the experience was multifaceted and I'm not pessimistic. The responsibility doesn't lie with the politicians but with the intellectuals themselves, and I'm confident they have the ability to understand and to learn.

Where do you see the positive developments? In translation or in general cultural exchange?

Beydoun: Although there's no real proof, I think that German intentions towards Arab culture and the Arab world are honest. Naturally there's self-interest behind that too, which is perfectly normal. But I think there are other factors which lead German intellectuals to pay more attention to Arab culture and the Arab world.

One of the most important factors is Germany's special situation after the war. Consciously or unconsciously, German culture tended for quite a long time to ignore Arab culture. There was an unusual kind of avoidance and caution about everything which was going on in the Arab world.

I think German intellectuals have had enough of this strategy of avoidance, and that they now see in it a considerable degree of injustice towards Arab culture.

They tend to accuse themselves of not having shown enough interest in this culture, especially once they found out that the Hamburg cell which planned September 11th was based among them in Germany, so that the problems were no longer something far away. So now they see they can't behave as if the Arabs lived in another world.

I note that you place your hope on the German rather than on the Arab side.

Beydoun: You can rely on the German side. When the German side moves, the Arab side will react. We can't expect an Arab initiative, since we can summarise our entire cultural and political life in a positive or negative dialogue. When I speak about the German-Arab dialogue, I mean above all the opening up of the West to the Arab world.

Germans don't know much about Arabic literature, culture or about Arabs in general, and I think it's time to fill this gap. There are probably reasons to do so which lie in the system, and by the system I mean the institutions which take the initiative and have the ability to plan and finance such a project.

At the same time, the Germans could in return use the same possibilities to help the Arab world to get to know them better. They could translate German literature into Arabic and not just Arabic literature into German.

Don't you consider that you are rather putting all the responsiblity on the other side?

Beydoun: Now it's the turn of the Germans. The Arab side has been open to western culture for the last two hundred years. The dialogue between the West and the Arab world means now the opening of the western side to Arab culture. Everything in our Arab life is changed by the influence of the West.

For the last three hundred years the Arabs did nothing but react to a dialogue with the West whether it was forced on them, voluntary or hated, wished for or privileged.

If we talk about a German-Arab dialogue, we mean—and this is not an objection—that it's now the turn of the Germans. For centuries, the Arab-Western dialogue, and even the Arab-German dialogue, has been a one-sided dialogue in the direction of the Arab world.

You only have to meet an Arab intellectual to realise that he knows Goethe and Schiller, Hölderlin and Benjamin, Hegel, Heidegger and Habermas. Very many Arab intellectuals were Marxists at a particular point in their lives, Brechtians at another, so in every Arab intellectual you will find a German side.

Interview: Youssef Hijazi

© Qantara.de 2004

Translation from German: Michael Lawton