Essays and Features

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.

While the number of Christians has decreased under the Syrian government – a government that claims to be the “the protector of minorities” – from 15% in 1970 to 4.6% in 2008, the regime still insists on exaggerating the percentage to about 10%. The church itself places it at about 7%. The state’s rationale in offering a rosy picture appears clear: it provides a convenient propaganda tool from which the regime benefits in its “public relations.” 

I read Etel Adnan. I meet her sometimes in Beirut. I try all the time to discover the kind of writer she is, the woman she is, how she perceives herself and the world around her. She tells us that her books are the houses she builds for herself, that she settles nowhere, that she lives all over the world in newspapers, railway stations, cafés, airports. Feeling different early in life, she writes in “Journey:” “Memories are as fresh as cool water and a cool breeze floats over one’s fever.”

In a meeting with my students at the American University of Beirut on December 14, 2000, the Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan told us that she began writing her long, prophetic poem “The Arab Apocalypse” (The Post-Apollo Press, 1989) in January 1975 in Beirut, two months before the outbreak of the Lebanese War (1975-1990).  “Then, the war took the poem over,” said Adnan, and she added: “The war wrote this poem. I started with tensions and rhythms and later wrote 59 pages corresponding to the 59 days of the Tal-el-Zaatar (a Palestinian camp in the outskirts of Beirut, destroyed by the Lebanese Forces in 1976) siege and destruction.”