Essays and Features

As the different uprisings continued to unfold in the Arab world, the demand for TV guests called “analysts,” “academics,” and “experts” increased, despite a serious shortage of true professional experts. Faced with this structural deficit, some Arab TV stations resorted to “manufacturing” their expert news analysts, inviting virtual unknowns, and then bestowing supreme titles upon them in an attempt to create artificial qualifications without having to go through legitimate vetting processes, reviewing actual scientific or practical credentials. By contrast, the genuine experts chose to strictly confine their TV appearances within the limits of their expertise, avoiding the temptation to make claims of knowledge in areas outside their specializations or practical experiences. Still, a majority of the guests did willingly plunge into the maze of spotlights, exploiting the qualitative and quantitative shortages of truly qualified experts. Those pseudo experts emerged as “stars” of the screen, triumphing at the expense of the viewer.

With an initial investment of $24 million funding the Palestinian Museum, many attending the opening on May 18th felt surprised by the institution’s lack of art exhibits. The Museum directors had originally scheduled the opening on May 15th to honor Nakba Day, a memorial to the Palestinian “nakba” or catastrophe, and had advertised the opening exhibit, the “Never Part” for almost a year. Thus, the lack of Palestinian embroidery, traditional folk crafts, vintage photographs and collected memorabilia sparked confusion among many of those who attended the event.

A work which would have stirred a rich intellectual debate, involving historical and methodological questions in studying contemporary Arab political thought has, instead, taken a bizarre twist. George Tarabishi's book “Nakd Nakd Al `Aql Al Arabi, Nazariyyat Al Aql" [Critique of the Critique of Arab Reason, Theory of Reason], published by Dar Al Saqi (London 1996), levels harsh criticisms at a fellow Arab intellectual, Moroccan theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabiri in response to his work, “Theory of Arab Reason” or (Critique de la Raison Arabe), the third book of a four volume. Tarabishi focuses on both the intellectual limits of al-Jabiri and an alleged scandal, the fraudulent usage of sources, including misinterpretations and erroneous conclusions. This has not only set the stage for what has come to be known as the Tarabishi — al-Jabiri debate, but also has unleashed another scandal: revealing al-Jabiri’s sectarian predisposition when he explains Tarabishi's criticisms in terms of the Syrian author's Christian faith.