A Critique Of Modern Arabic Literature

"Art is one instinct of our nature."-Aristotle

Why is our modern literature plagued with satire, criticism, objectivity, and melancholy? That is the question that preoccupied for the past three hours, as I sat my Arabic Fiction final. As my eyes skimmed the works of سعد اللة ونوس، هالة سرحان، غادة السمان، كليوت الخولي, I couldn't help but think to myself that Arabic literature truly mirrors the bottled-up expressions of the Arab people.

In our part of the world, "art for the sake of art" is a notion of complete absurdity. Art, for us, must voice the resentment for the status quo; otherwise, it is rubbish. In my eyes, it defies logic for art to be logical, as ironic as that sounds. Art should be an expression of, or rather sublimation of, the artist's imagination, purely appreciated out of its historical value. Unfortunately, I there to be a void when it comes to this in the Arab world. For us, Art is a tool that serves as propaganda by the government, criticism by the intellectual, or a mere distraction for the masses though mind numbing pop music and soap operas.

This all started with the initiation of الحركة الفنية الملتزمة where art for the sake of art, or for the sake of creativity, romanticism, and impressionism was looked down upon at a time when the State needed to mobilize the nation to recover from النكسة. This saw the likes of Umm Kalthoum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Abdel Wahab, and others divert their attention from singing of the romanticist time period of the Arab World to that of nationalist populism. Unfortunately, individualist spirit that inspired the births of some of the most ingenious art movements, such as Cubism, Surrealism, and Expressionism in the West, was regarded as being apathetic since they failed to sacrifice for the sake of the national struggle. Instead of becoming an outlet for artists to project their natural artistic tendencies, art had to have a meaning.

I might have this impression due to the academic milieu in which this class was set, but even from my readings outside of the class, such as Alaa Al Aswany's Yacoubian Building, that has become world renown, the success that seems to stem from his work is his criticism and bleek depiction of Egypt's society. Would he have enjoyed such success if he had focused on the merits of Egyptian society? Are there even any merits to the Egyptian society that an artists eye to produce a masterpiece from?

To conclude, I am going to go on a tangent, but who deems whether art is popular? Isn't it Western critics? Why have the critical works of Middle Eastern society, such as Orhan Pamuk and Naguib Mahfouz (with all due respect to these eminent writers), reaped Western recognition and the ultimate medal of honor of Western civilization the Nobel Prize? Isn't it because of their appeal to the Western audience of perpetuating the image that the Middle East is in a state of social decadence?

This may be a very pessimistic outlook, and I truly hope that I am wrong on every point I make, but it just seems to me that art fails to serve its true purpose in the Arab world, and that is to abstract the humanistic sentiments, instincts, and imagination from social objectives, propaganda, and entertainment.

It is in this spirit that one can understand Aristotle's philosophy that Art is not only a sixth sense, but a necessity, just as natural as breathing, to ensure human survival.

Augmentation:

I just found this quote by Orhan Pamuk that described Turkey's literary/artistic scene of the past that is representative of the state in which Arabic Literature is still stranded:

"There was little interest in the problem of the individual creative writer who drew from history and tradition, or who went in search of the literary form that best accommodated his voice. Instead, literature was allied to the future: its job was to work hand in hand with the state to build a happy and harmonious society."