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Anne-Laure MALAUZAT Dr. JIYAD
Arab Women Novelists Final Paper:
The Political in Arab Women Novelists
“I am a Moroccan, an Arab. My culture is Arab, Islamic, but it was in French, the language of the former colonial power, that I expressed myself when I began to write.” Tahar Ben Jelloun
This quote by one of the most successful post-colonialist writers, born in Fes in 1944, is a perfect introduction to the long-lasting and diverse effects of the political context in Arab women’s literature and Arab literature in general. Some people believe that politics represent a far away activity conducted in the White House and Congress. But in reality, every decision taken in politics has durable consequences on the life of each individual concerned, most particularly in the Middle East. The Arab peoples have been subjected to a tense political context for more than 200 years, mainly through colonialism, the Arab-Israeli issue and their repressive state systems. This effect has not only been political but it has also affected the social, intellectual and economic spheres of life in the region. Through the study of five books written by contemporary Arab women novelists, depicting people of different social backgrounds, from Maha the strong Bedouin woman in Fadia Faqir’s Pillars of Salt to the multimillionaire Palestinian Nadia gradually discovering the real power of independence in Leila Al-Atrash’s A Woman of Five Seasons, from Egypt in Ahdaf Soueif’s In The Eye of the Sun, to Morocco in Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass, we are led into a diverse Middle East where the political is not a faraway dream, but a very close, often disturbing reality.
I- Foreign Occupation : The British, the French and the Spanish
Foreign occupation in the Middle East has changed the politico-regional setting and has had long-lasting effects on the politics in the region today. As a result, it is not surprising that the colonial occupation is a background to the majority of Arab Women literature we have dealt with.
Indeed, we first encountered the French and British occupations in Pillars of Salt by Fadia Faqir, which is set in Trans-Jordan during the early 1920s. The British presence in the region deeply impacts the story and the characters’ lives. The first critique of this Jordanian author concerns the arbitrary establishment of the British mandate by the Society of Nations in 1921, which was only abolished by the English in 1946. In fact, through the storyteller’s speech, we know that the British “first arrived in the valley in the Year of the Lord 1921. My friend the English traveler, who turned over every pebble on their plains and mountains, measured the land and then took notes, called it the “Mandate”.”(Faqir, 3) This represents a very important criticism of the colonial powers and the negative effects the arbitrary establishments of the mandates had on the region. The mandates were created regardless of cultural, religious, ethnic and political distinctions between peoples. How were Syria and Lebanon separated by the French? On what basis was Greater Lebanon divided? Was it a legitimate separation? These issues have undoubtedly had a long-term effect on the situations of these countries today.
In Pillars of Salt, two characters, Harb and Daffash, represent two opposite symbols of the Jordanian society under the British mandate. Harb is a Bedouin fighting against the British occupation of Jordan and Daffash is a Bedouin who aspires to a British way of life. Harb, who is Maha’s husband, is an Arab symbol of resistance to colonization and he dies fighting for his land. On the other hand, Daffash, Maha’s brother, dreams of being British and believes the British are his friends. However, it is obvious that they are using him and being condescending towards him. We are told that Daffash wanted “to move towards the white man and his bundles of money, Daffash wanted to get married to Rose Bell.” but “according to the watchman, the English girl gave the Bedouin horseman a shoulder as cold as her homeland.”(Faqir, 60)
These two men are very important characters in the novel since they are two symbols of the Arab society, most particularly the Jordanian society, at the time of the British mandate. They show that some people benefited from the British colonization, collaborating and working with the colonial powers in the Middle East while others led a violent struggle to push the British out of their lands and out of power in a country that was not theirs.
Fadia Faqir clearly criticizes the British Mandate in Jordan through the character of Maha, who embodies the dignity and independence of Jordan. Maha repeatedly accuses Daffash of being associated with the enemy which killed her husband, the British, “Cursed. Slave to the English” (Faqir, 164) and “I don’t talk to servants of the English.”(Faqir, 217)
The author also emphasizes that even though the story mostly takes place in a Bedouin village of the Jordanian desert, people are directly impacted by the British presence as Harb’s discussion with Jadaan illustrates:
“‘More taxes?’
‘The English…in full force,” Jadaan said.
‘And tax arrears?’ Harb asked.
‘Yes…without consultation with chiefs of tribes.’” (Faqir, 64)
This highlights the powerful influence British decisions had on all of their colonial subjects. Contrary to what a number of people think, the colonial powers did not only have an effect on the cities in which they were stationed. All of the colonized countries and peoples were deeply and durably, ideologically and socially, politically and economically transformed by this decisive period of their History.
Through the eyes of the novel’s two main characters, Um Saad and Maha, we are introduced to Jordan’s struggle for independence and the westernization that followed. Um Saad explains how things changed with the departure of the English and the arrival of a new king:
They left our country and I saw the celebration and the processions from the veranda. Independence Day Festival. Cavalry, tanks, camel regiments in colorful uniforms, and music. Brass. ‘Long live the King’. (Faqir, 177)
Um Saad also talks about her childhood in Damascus before she was forced to flee to Jordan due to her father’s activity as a freedom fighter against the French mandate in Syria. The author shows us that other countries in the Middle East were going through the same process as that of Jordan, being occupied by a foreign power and struggling for independence. Overall, Pillars of Salt is a critique of the colonization and its effects.
The author also uses Maha as a symbol of Jordan. As a woman who suffered from the occupation, lost loved ones in the struggle and was betrayed by her brother Daffash, she appears to personify the struggle of Arab countries against colonial powers.
The British colonial presence did not only affect the Jordanian society politically but also socially. The British mandate had a modernizing effect on women and men in the Middle East, introducing them to a modernity which clashed with traditional cultural norms and was mostly perceived as negative. This is clear in Daffash’s representation in the novel. He is seen negatively when he brings some of his “Westernized” friends to the village, “My father shuffled into the room and looked disapprovingly at the uncovered legs of the city women.” (Faqir, 40)
The young Bedouin is so attracted by modernity that it leads his father to worry about him and lament, “My son is lured by the city lights. He navigates by false stars.” (Faqir, 21) In fact, as said earlier, Daffash dreams of being British and totally denies his Bedouin roots. He thinks the Bedouin people are backwards and he looks down on them all the time.
This modernity brought by the English is also resented by some city dwellers such as Um Saad, who is not used to Western customs and perceives them as shocking and odd:
Abu Subhi, the guard of the something Jack Club, told my sons many stories about the English. How strong men would chase a brainless tiny ball for hours. How they didn’t wash themselves with water after going to the toilet. By your life they just wash themselves with paper. (Faqir, 177)
The problem is that this modernity, often associated with the “West”, was seen as a violent contradiction and rejection of the Arab world and its traditions and was thus not well received. Nowadays, a number of people in the Middle East, most particularly Islamist movements, still manipulate this opposition to reject the secular States and westernized programs they are challenging. However, today “the West” and “East” interact in a very different way than they used to, through the notable increase of trade exchanges and immigration. Most people of the 21st century in the Middle East have found a way of living in modernity while sustaining their traditional values.
The issue of Western modernity in the Arab region is a crucial question that many Arab-Islamic thinkers such as Mohamed Abduh in the 19th century or Mohamed Arkoun in the 1990s have been trying to find an answer to. This debate also emphasizes that modernity does not have to be Western only. Indeed, each individual has his own interpretation of modernity. Accordingly, Maha is a strong woman although she does not agree with the “Western” model of modernity:
They were women and I was a woman too, but they were so different. One was wearing a tight dress with a wide, shamefully short skirt…every part of the woman’s body was revealed by the light material. I felt like heating some water and washing the colors off their faces. The shame of it! These women were not shy of showing their bodies off to gazing men. (Faqir, p.33)
On the whole, despite a major criticism of the “British” model and the modernity that is associated to it, Maha is an open-minded woman and she recognizes the benefits of progress. In fact, when her trees get sick and she hears an advertisement on the radio about a chemical that could cure them, she instantly tells Daffash and very soon after, “One of Samir Pasha’s servants jumped out of the Land Rover and handed me two barrels full of stinking white liquid.”(Faqir, 133)
In Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass, the French presence in Morocco is omnipresent throughout the novel. This Moroccan author depicts a largely autobiographical story of a young girls’ life in a traditional Moroccan harem in the 1940s, under the French protectorate, which lasted until the country’s independence in 1956. The French influence is once again not only political but also social, intellectual and economic. One of Fatima Mernissi’s most powerful arguments is that Morocco was a passive player, a toy, in the hands of the colonial game which took place between the Spanish and the French on its land. These foreign powers came to North Africa and decided to occupy Morocco and then fought for this land. They established arbitrary frontiers, frontiers that had no reason, just as in Pillars of Salt. This criticism of colonialism is beautifully and unusually depicted in the novel, through the eyes of young innocent child:
Christians, just like Muslims, fight each other all the time, and the Spanish and the French almost killed one another when they crossed our frontier. Then, when neither was able to exterminate the other, they decided to cut Morocco in half. They put soldiers near ‘Arbaoua and said from now on, to go North, you needed a pass because you were crossing into Spanish Morocco. To go South, you needed another pass, because you were crossing into French Morocco. If you did not go along with what they said, you got stuck at ‘Arbaoua, an arbitrary spot where they had built a huge gate and said it was a frontier…No one ever had heard to a frontier splitting the land in two before. The frontier was an invisible line in the mind of warriors…All you need is soldiers to force others to believe in it. In the landscape itself, nothing changes. The frontier is in the mind of the powerful (Mernissi, 2-3)
This particularly reflects the way in which Arab women novelists masterfully use irony and humor to make their harshest and most important attacks.
Another frontier, the physical separation between the Moroccan Medina and the Ville Nouvelle, represents the gap between the traditional Moroccan society and the more Westernized Moroccans and French occupiers. For Fatima’s father, Western occupation, associated with modernity as in Pillars of Salt, is a threat to local customs. He makes use of this threat as a justification to hold on to more traditionalistic values of the society, “We live in difficult times, the country is occupied by foreign armies, our culture is threatened. All we have left is these traditions.” (Mernissi, 78) A few women of the harem agree with him on this point and believe in the total continuation of tradition, such as Lalla Mani and Chamaa’s mother. The others or “the rebels”, as they are called, are opposed to tradition and dream of embracing Western values in their entity. As a result, the harem is divided into two camps, the “rebels”, identified as Chamaa and young Fatima’s mother, who also represent the feminist camp, and the traditionalists. Both groups fight over a number of things, such as the right way of embroidering:
And anyone who looked carefully at the embroidery projects would know what that war was all about: the eternal split between taqlidi, or the traditional, and ‘asri, or the modern. Chama and mother, representing the modern camp, were embroidering an unfamiliar object which looked like a big bird’s wing, spread in full flight. It was not their first bird of flight, but evidently, its shock value was as great as ever because the other camp, headed by Grandmother Lalla Mani and Lalla Radia, had condemned the work…” (Mernissi, 205)
These two camps of the harem symbolize a larger debate that was prevalent in the Moroccan society at the time and still exists today. Although most people have individually adapted their lifestyles, the issue is whether one should choose Modernity or tradition. For Fatima Mernissi, as for most modern Moroccans, the answer is clear:
To live in a combination of both worlds was much more appealing than living in just one. The idea of being able to swing between two cultures, two personalities, two codes, and two languages enchanted everyone! Mother wanted me to be like Princess Aisha (the teenage daughter of our King Mohammed V who made public speeches in both Arabic and French) who wore both long caftans and short French dresses. Indeed, we children found the thought of switching codes and languages to be as spellbinding as the sliding open of magic doors.” (Mernissi, 180)
Mernissi reinforces this point by adding that, “in any case, tradition and modernity existed harmoniously side by side, both in the young men’s dress and in our house during the men’s news session.”(Mernissi, 91) This discourse supports a growing postmodernist theory according to which one does not have to choose between two cultures and it is possible to live in a mix of both. These two cultures are also not as incompatible as people originally thought.
This “westernization”, associated with the foreign powers’ presence in Morocco, also encouraged feminism and in the harem, it is a subject that is often discussed and debated. This social situation and these questions, brought up by the foreign presence in Morocco, were also the context in which, at the same time, nationalism developed. We see elements of nationalism throughout the book, first in the respect and admiration the characters show for their King and the royal family, but in the prevalence of nationalist schools systems as well, such as the one Fatima eventually joins after Coranic School. She describes these nationalist schools in her usual ingenuous tone, “In Moulay Brahim’s nationalist school, everything was modern -…- not only did you jump from one subject to another - from Arabic to French, from math to geography - but you also spent a lot of time hopping from one classroom to the next” (Mernissi, 198)
These were nationalist schools but they were very undeniably heavily influenced by the French school system. Nationalist schools taught children to be diverse and proud Moroccans, regularly singing the Moroccan national anthem, which is the subject of Fatima’s father’s pride:
I also found another way to be a star: I learnt by heart many of the nationalist songs that we sang in school, and Father was so proud that he would ask me to recite them in front Grandmother Lalla Mani at least once a week.(Mernissi, 198)
Mernissi broaches the subject of nationalism through the person of Zin, her bright and “extremely handsome” cousin, who “worked very hard at becoming the ideal modern nationalist, that is, one who possessed a vast knowledge of Arab history, legends and poetry, as well as fluency in French, the language of our enemy, in order to decode the Christian press and uncover their plans.” (Mernissi, 87)
The presence of the foreign powers sparked a national consciousness in Morocco and made Moroccans realize that regardless of their tribes or religions, they were one people. However, nationalism seems to be represented as an elitist intellectual movement in Dreams of Trespass, embodied by upper social classes. Most interestingly, this rise of Moroccan nationalism paralleled the rise of Arab nationalism which was taking place in the region, symbolized by Nasser, Egypt’s charismatic leader.
Although Ahdaf Soueif’s work In the Eye of the Sun takes place in the 1960s, long after Egypt’s independence from the British occupation in 1922 and even longer after the French Napoleonic expedition to Egypt in 1798, the British and Western influences on Egypt are undeniable. These influences changed the system of education, as it happened in Morocco in Dreams of Trespass, and the Egyptian elite was mostly educated in French missionary and British schools, where a number of subjects were studied in foreign languages. The country and society were deeply affected by foreign presence in the country. Asya angrily questions how British traditions influenced her life to such an extent although she is of a generation that was born after the British occupation:
It is quite ridiculous, though- as that very English gentleman walking towards her in his grey pinstripe and his hat would tell her if he knew what she was thinking: because of your empire, sir, a middle-aged spinster from Manchester came out to Cairo in the 1930s to teach English. A small, untidy twelve-year-old fell in love with her and lived and breathed English Literature from that day on. That girl was my mother, and here, now, am I. -…- But I haven’t come to you only to take, I haven’t come to you empty-handed: I bring you poetry as great as yours but in another tongue, I bring black eyes and golden skin and curly hair, I bring you Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silk rugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways…” (Soueif, 512)
This beautiful quote symbolizes two elements of colonialism. Firstly, it expresses the deep-rooted effects of colonialism, so deep-rooted that Asya was influenced by it a number of years after the British left Egypt, and so deep-rooted that Abd-al Nasser’s grand-children attended a French catholic school in Cairo. Secondly, this quote is a clear critique of the fact that the culture of the colonized has often been exoticized and looked down upon, regardless of its content and History. Asya is asserting the equal richness of her culture to that of her country’s former colonial power. All of these elements show the profound and long-term effects of colonialism on the Middle East.
Naturally, this description would not be complete without mentioning the rise of a major post-colonialist foreign power in the region, the United States. The presence of the American power is first mentioned in Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass, where the Moroccan people, who already live under French and Spanish occupations, are surprised at the arrival of American soldiers in Fes. The American role in Middle Eastern politics is further described in Ahdaf Soueif’s In the Eye of the Sun where we are introduced to Sadat’s regime and his pro-American stance. Indeed, as soon as Nasser dies, Egyptians start saying that the government is “going to get cozy with the Americans now.”(Soueif, 218) Furthermore, throughout the book, the American regime and its strong influence on Sadat are constantly mentioned, criticized, or made fun of. The best example of a humorous depiction of the Sadat regime is the Sheikh Imam’s song, which was more or less banned in Egypt but clearly shows and ridicules Sadat and his “American friends”:
“Sharraft ya Nixon Baba,
Ya bta‘ el Watergate,
Amaloulak eema we seema
Salateen el-fool wez-zeit” (Soueif, 496-497)
Today, The United States is the largest investor in Egypt and the Egyptian government receives an annual $USD 2.5 Billion package in civil and military aid from the American government. Egypt is not the only country in the Middle East financially supported by the United States, which has led political opponents and critics to say that Arab leaders are puppets, totally dependant on the American government. Lastly, the author points out the active role of the American Central Intelligence Agency in supporting some of the world’s leaders. This argument demonstrates that the American presence in the Middle East has replaced the British occupation, “This is following disclosures that King Hussein of Jordan has been receiving funds from the CIA since the ending of British influence in the Hashemite Kingdom in 1957-” (Soueif, 611)
II- The Palestinian Issue: Arab-Israeli wars, Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese civil war
The Israeli-Palestinian issue is a capital issue that has been at the core of a number of Middle Eastern issues for more than 65 years now, which explains that it is a recurrent topic in most of the books studied. However, there are two very different novels that are both very symbolic of the Palestinian issue, and where the main characters are Palestinian.
The first one is “A Woman of Five Seasons” by Leila al-Atrash, where we are given an insight into the life of an extremely rich Palestinian family living in the Gulf. Through their story, we learn of Palestinian refugees from West Jerusalem who fled Palestine, grew up in Damascus and later made their fortune in the Gulf. This has been a common and important phenomenon as Pamela Ann Smith explains in her article The Exile Bourgeoisie of Palestine, “Palestinians, stateless and living by their wits, have been among the leading capitalists of the Middle East. Their numbers has included Beirut’s greatest banking genius, partners in the foremost contracting firms of the Gulf, Jordan’s top banker and several of Saudi Arabia’s leading managers and industrialists.” Indeed, although the majority of Palestinian refugees live in a dire situation, Leila Al-Atrash shows us the reality of this Palestinian bourgeoisie through the characters of Ihsan and Nadia. They are multimillionaire Palestinians living in London with houses in Paris and Marbella and children who spend their summers at school in Switzerland. They do not resemble the type of Palestinians commonly pictured in the media.
Nevertheless, the author also highlights some of the precarious aspects of Palestinian refugees’ lives, regardless of their wealth. The first wave of Palestinian refugees fled to neighboring countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon after the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Millions of Palestinians had to leave their properties and possessions in a few days, losing all their belongings and resources in one of the biggest exodus movements in History. In fact, there are today at least 6 million Palestinian refugees, 6 million men and women who have been displaced and survive on memories of their homeland. As a result, since then, owning property and land has always been a very controversial issue among Palestinian refugees. Most of them have abstained from investing in real estate for fear of losing everything again, as Ihsan’s father advised him, “Listen now! If, some day, you become rich, then trade in gold. Don’t buy land and lose everything you’ve won! My father and his grandfathers owned great tracts, thousands of acres. And where are they now?” (Al-Atrash, 6) This clearly emphasizes the traumatism and constant insecurity Palestinians have suffered as a result of their situation’s instability and unpredictability. This situation obviously traumatized Ihsan’s father but it also impacted his personality too as he avoids buying land and tells his wife, following his father’s advice, “Land, rather than gold? Gold lasts better… Land! How much of it do people have left? If it hadn’t been for my mother’s gold, we would have been beggars after the emigration.”(Al-Atrash, 78) Not only was the first generation of refugees touched by the events but the Palestinian youth today is also shaped by History. They have grown up without a State, without a land, and that affects their identity as Palestinians and their relationships with others.
Furthermore, the Palestinian struggle is one of the central themes of Leila Al-Atrash’s novel, and one of the main characters, Jalal Ibn Natour, represents a chief figure of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). This movement, which was founded by Palestinian engineer Yasser Arafat in 1967, is discussed in A Woman of Five Seasons. The author draws attention to the PLO’s financing and the tensions existing within the different groups of the resistance movement. Indeed, tensions still exist today between the two main groups, the Fatah and Hamas. This tension is visible in Ihsan’s words to His Highness regarding the struggle’s financing, “Jalal’s group gets only part of it. That’s one of the reasons, as you know, for disputes between them and the others.”(Al-Atrash, 19) This brings up a controversial point, the support of Gulf countries to the Palestinian struggle, which has always been large but uniquely financial.
Leila Al-Atrash brings up a new and controversial topic, the corruption prevalent in the PLO, which is a rarely broached matter. Idealist struggles are often corrupted by money and power. This is what happened with a number of Palestinian struggle activists such as Jalal, who got involved in weapon-smuggling deals and received commissions from them. The author directly criticizes the PLO by showing that money has become more important than the struggle for the organization. Ihsan even had to pay for his brother to retire, “Let it be whispered: his brother, the millionaire, paid the comrades half a million dollars as the price of his brother’s release.” (Al-Atrash, 152)
While a Woman of Five Seasons mainly presents the Palestinian issue in a political light, A Balcony over the Fakihani provides us with a more complete view of the human devastation endured by Palestinians. Indeed, this collection of three novellas written by Palestinian author Liyana Badr is a powerful depiction of the trauma caused by the refugees’ uprooting from Palestine and their difficult life in Jordan and Lebanon. These novellas introduce us to life during the Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990. The Lebanese State has traditionally been weak so the PLO’s development and the large Palestinian population living in the country rapidly became dangers to Lebanese sovereignty. Tensions between Palestinians and Christian Lebanese escalated after a new wave of Palestinian refugees came from Jordan following the events of Black September. This multi-sided war resulted in a destructive conflict in which Lebanese, Muslims, Christians and Palestinians killed one another and 150,000 people died. This war traumatized the Arab world and Lebanon particularly. Everyone still tries to forget these events, as Danielle Arbid’s interviews with past militia killers and politicians in the documentary Alone with War show.
Liyana Badr’s stories describe life during the Lebanese war in Palestinian refugee camps, refugee camps in which almost a third of Palestinian refugees still live today across Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Gaza. We are faced with the precarious conditions of life in the camps, which were exacerbated by war. Death is common, food and water are scarce and surviving becomes a luxury. In the first story, which takes place in the Beiruti refugee camp of Tal-al-Zaatar, Yusra and her family struggle for survival after having been kicked out of Jordan. They are fighting to get a bit of water for the family to drink and cook:
Usually we couldn’t even get two jerry cans of water. The water was cut off early in the morning and came on again in the afternoon or the evening. We used to wait eight or ten hours for our turn at the tap. Sometimes our turn came and sometimes an attack started, with shells falling on us like rain. Then the water would be cut off and no one would get any. (Badr, 6)
Yusra and her sister ran to get water while air raids and sniper attacks were going on, and Yusra had to be responsible very young and conquer her fears in order to fulfill her family tasks. Her father even refused to call for her before his death so that his family would have water to help them survive. This is undoubtedly a different world, a world of war and hardship where the only goal is to live and have water and food to eat.
The conditions of life in the camps are terrible, with no medicine or formal housing. Additionally, refugees constantly moved during the war for fear of being killed by the Lebanese Army or Christian militias such as the Phalangists. But even as they flee the camps to try to avoid the militias, they are met by death. Indeed, one of the cruelest moments in the novel is when Yusra’s family flees Tal-al-Zaatar camp and passes by Christian militia posts on the Dikwana road. At that moment, her brother is killed brutally and violently for no reason, and she is not allowed to look at him, demonstrating a high level of cruelty and the lack of any rules or rights during war time:
A bullet to the head, just like that. We passed by him- he’d gone on ahead of us because he was impatient. I just glanced at him, receiving such a shock that my feet could no longer move forward or hold up my body. My nerves shattered, but I couldn’t stop or lean over him and touch him with my hand. If any of us were to stop by somebody who’d been killed, they’d pick us out and finish us off at once. I couldn’t. We moved on, right past him. (Badr, 15)
Both novellas show the presence of death in Palestinian refugee camps, particularly during the Lebanese War period. In fact, protagonists in both novellas, Yusra and Su’ad, lose their husbands in Israeli air raids and death and grief are everywhere around them.
Liyana Badr also deals with the suffering associated with exodus, in a very personal way since she is herself a Palestinian refugee. All Palestinian refugees live with the nostalgia of their lost lands and the hope of going back to their homes one day, in the example of Ahmad, described by Yusra:
Often, as he sat in front of me, he’d become distracted, his thoughts wandering to the West Bank, to his town. He told me about his childhood days and about his married sister Aisha, who was still there and who he hadn’t seen since the day he left the West Bank…He’d draw a plan of his town as he spoke, sketching it out on paper or dust or sand. He hoped to go back; he kept telling me the 1980s would see us return. He was pretty sure this would happen. (Badr, 22)
This longing for the mother country is very strong among Palestinians and the exodus has reinforced their identities and identifications as Palestinians. The Palestinian identity is all that they have left to hold on to so it has taken a strong importance, particularly since the Palestinian citizenship is transmitted from father to child, as stated in article 25 of the Palestinian constitution:
Palestinian citizenship is secure and permanent for any Arab who lived in Palestine before May 1948. It is transmitted from father to child. It endures and is not cancelled by the passage of time. The law shall determine the ways of gaining and losing it and the rights and duties of multinational citizens.
Despite their successive uprootings, the Palestinian Identity has remained strong and has even grown stronger.
The Palestinian cause has always been supported by a number of Arab and non-Arab individuals and states, principally non-aligned and socialist countries. In the second story, Su’ad’s husband, Umar, is Tunisian, not Palestinian, and he is a successful and intelligent man who graduated at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris. He is promised to a great and safe future but instead of leading a secure life, he chooses to become a freedom fighter for the Palestinian cause. As Su’ad presents him, “he’d joined the resistance, he said, after being a student in the Department of Political Science at the Sorbonne” (Badr, 38) Umar devotes his life to the Palestinian struggle, for a cause he believed in.
Similarly, states supported the Palestinian cause, through funding university education or medical support for Palestinians for example. In the first novella, Ahmad studies five years in India, specializing in radiology, because the Indian government offers scholarships to young Palestinian students as part of India’s support for the Palestinian cause. This support still continues today in the form of scholarships and funding to the Palestinian Authority. In the second novella, Umar has health problems and flies to Hungary to get treatment, as Hungary and Eastern European countries commonly provided health treatment or training for Palestinians.
Interestingly, women seem much more independent and free in the midst of conflicts or wartime. There are women involved in the Lebanese civil war and the Palestinian struggle, and the conditions of life during war allow them more freedom to make decisions. Both protagonists in Badr’s novellas, Yusra and Su’ad, chose their husbands, in spite of their parents’ concern, as in Yusra’s case. Badr’s eloquently written work captures life during war and its cruel conditions, exposing the plight of Palestinian refugees who have nowhere to go.
The contrast between A Woman of Five Seasons and A Balcony over the Fakihani is striking. Ihsan and Nadia’s houses, hotels and Swiss schools represent another world compared to Yusra and Su’ad’s struggle for survival. But however different the characters may be in these two novels, however rich Nadia and Ihsan may be, however poor Yusra and Ahmed may be in comparison, they are all Palestinians. These two novels complete each other very well in that they bring two parts of the Palestinian people together and demonstrate that “There is literally not one Palestinian whose life was not altered by the establishment of Israel in place of Palestine, and the effects live on in the children of those Palestinians, and beyond. The Palestinian experience was varied and, understandably, the more dramatic faith of those who ended up in refugee camps overshadowed the more subtle aspects of exile. Those luckier Palestinians who found roofs over their heads and food and education also suffered, but in a different way.”
The Palestinian Issue also deeply and constantly marks Ahdaf Soueif’s work In the Eye of the Sun, which mostly takes place in Egypt, where the Palestinian community and topic are both very important. We are first introduced to the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, also known as the Six-Day war, in which Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq fought Israel and lost in one of the shortest war ever waged in History. The novel shows us the extent of this lost war’s impact on Egypt and the Middle East, highlighting the disorganization of Arab armies and leading up to Nasser’s resignation speech taking responsibility for the defeat in 1967. The global concern and interest of the Arab world and Egyptians in the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli war is visible in the novel, and from Cairo University’s shop owner ‘Am Salih to the biggest intellectuals of the region, everyone supported this war against what the Arabs saw as an occupier and enemy which had forced Palestinians out of their homes. ‘Am Salih’s excitement and support for the Palestinian cause is obvious, “You’re really going to fight! You’re going to fight and be men and get Palestine back after all these years!”(Soueif, 52) as well as the greengrocer’s wife in Zamalek who wants to participate, support the cause and asserts that “If I were a man. If only I were a man. You wouldn’t see me here today. By the grave of my mother I’d be at the Canal If I had to get there on foot.” (Soueif, 54)
This global support for the Palestinian cause is clearly in contrast with the common rejection faced by Palestinian refugees in Egypt and most of the Arab world. Indeed, everyone supports the Palestinian cause, but as in A Balcony over the Fakihani, no one wants to be responsible for Palestinians or the Palestinian Liberation Organization. They are often seen as a community to avoid. The first symbol of this is the description of the events of Black September, in Jordan, which took place during the month of September 1970 when the Jordanian military launched attacks to push the PLO out of Jordan and the violence resulted in heavy civilian Palestinian casualties. This event shocked the Arab world and Egyptian president ‘Abd-Al Nasser played an important role in the peace negotiations regarding the Black September conflict. In fact, these negotiations mostly took place in Cairo, as Ahdaf Soueif explains in The Eye of the Sun. We are invited to see the severe effect the month of Black September, a dramatic fratricide time of Arabs killing each other, had on the Arab world, through a series of news excerpts relating the state of events in Jordan as well as the progression of peace talks in Cairo, “Saturday, 12 September: Amman: Reports say one hundred and fifty dead and five hundred wounded in the clashes in Jordan.” (Soueif, 201 to 215)
These news reports which run throughout the novel emphasize the reality and the cruelty of the incidents, particularly since Black September’s end corresponds to Nasser’s death which was a shock to all the Arab peoples which worshipped “El Rais” as the leader of Arab unity. Demonstrations took place all over the world and “All Arab countries declare a forty-day period of mourning.” (Soueif, 215)
Unfortunately, Palestinians are not only rejected by states such as Jordan or Lebanon but they are also rejected by some of the populations they live among. In the novel they are depicted as a community which is unstable and should stay within itself and not mix with Egyptians, most particularly regarding the issue of marriage, as Chrissie’s mother says regarding Palestinians “They should fall in love, yes, fall in love as much as they want to: with their own people. Among themselves. They shouldn’t spread their disasters over other people’s daughters.” (Soueif, 115) In that same discussion, the Palestinians’ situation and its instability is also mentioned so we are once again faced with the trauma of the exile from Palestine and the loss of land, the loss of any security, whether social or financial. Chrissie’s mother mentions this issue of instability when she hears the young Palestinian boy, Bassam, is the nephew of the Governor of Gaza:
Governor of Gaza? Houses and lands in Nablus? Houses and lands in the palm of the Devil. Are you all mad? Don’t you live in this world? Tomorrow his mother could go out shopping and come back to find she hasn’t got a house to put her shopping in.”(Soueif, 115)
This quote is a representation of the uncertainty of Palestinians’ life, most of them having been displaced or evicted from their homes. It also illustrates the long-term damages inflicted to Palestinians since the events in the books happen in the 1960s and 1970s and the issue is not resolved today.
III- Authoritarian Regimes in the Middle East: Egypt and Barqais
The Egyptian state system, which is described in Ahdaf Soueif’s work “In the Eye of the Sun”, is symbolic of the repressive and authoritarian regimes which exist throughout the Middle East.
What makes the Egyptian regime particular is that is a military regime. Indeed, all the presidents who have governed the country since the fall of the monarchy and Revolution of 1952 have always been part of the Army. Since the “Free Officers’” coup, the regime has been an authoritarian military regime in which the Army, the police and the Intelligence service have always held a very privileged position. An example of the power they have is the number of clubs in Cairo specifically designed for their leisure, such as the Officers’ club next to Asya’s house in Zamalek. Furthermore, Uncle Hamid’s powerlessness regarding his car accident with an Egyptian Army truck and his very poor compensation of 7000 Egyptian Pounds for an event that destroyed his whole life and nearly killed him emphasize the strong power held by this institution. These elements show us the prevalence of corruption in Egypt and the supremacy held by authorities in this state where Emergency laws have been in place since 1981.
The repressive state, as presented in “The Eye of the Sun”, leaves no space for opposition, commonly jailing or even torturing the people considered a threat to the regime. In reality, torture is used as a pressure tool on political opponents and a lot of people and their families are affected by it. Unfortunately, torture is still a widespread and persistent phenomenon in a number of Middle Eastern countries today, as it is practiced to wipe out opposition. Egypt came under fire in January 2007 as two videos of policemen torturing and raping prisoners were posted on the internet. This event is one of many which Human Rights Watch has been documenting in Egypt since 1992. Ahdaf Soueif repeatedly exposes the theme of torture in the Eye of the Sun, particularly when Deena writes a letter to Asya describing her husband’s experience in jail:
I saw him yesterday and he said el-Prof was there too. He almost could not speak. He could not look at me. They have all been tortured: they have been beaten everywhere, everywhere on their bodies and their heads, they have been held down and raped, they have been hung upside-down-. (Soueif, 32)
These issues are obviously present in the novels and in movies as well. In fact, another example of torture was shown in Marwan Hamed’s movie Omaret Yacoubian, in which Taha-al-Shazli was tortured and raped for taking part of a protest at his university. In such an authoritarian state, any form of protests or demonstrations is severely reprimanded by the Central Security services, protesters arrested and jailed, often unjustly:
The students register their names as required, then express their fears that they might be arrested. Mr. Sadat gives them his word of honour that that will not happen and hands over his personal phone number in case they are molested in any way-…-Later that night, the members of the delegation are arrested in their homes.” (Soueif, 104)
Jailing and repressing opponents is a common process in Egypt, regardless of the opponents’ political background, as the Four Women of Egypt documentary reveals. The four main characters of the film are very different women but their friendship is strong despite their dissimilarities. They have different political affiliations, one being an Islamist, the other a communist, but they have experienced jail, regardless of the difference in their opinions, simply because they were opposing the regime. All political prisoners, or mu‘taqilun, are imprisoned for having an opinion that is different from the government’s opinion. As Deena explains to Asya regarding the food in jail, there is no difference between parties; in the end prisoners are simply individuals who need to eat:
‘It’s for all of them. There are seven in the cell.’
‘I thought it was just Muhsin and el-Prof’
‘There are other prisoners’
‘All from the same organization?’
‘Oh no. There’s one other leftist: an independent. And four from the Islamic currents.’
‘But I thought they were supposed to be enemies?’
‘Outside, yes’ Deena had said, ‘but inside they’re all “Politicals”. They don’t read the same books but they eat the same food.’(Soueif, 743)
Jails in authoritarian regimes are a mixture of all political opponents, regardless of their political affiliation. This has sometimes created interesting friendships or political alliances between traditionally opposed political parties in the Middle East, in countries such as Jordan or Yemen. These events show the lack of freedom of expression that exists in countries such as Egypt and the whole population is affected by this phenomenon.
This lack of the right to the freedom of expression is represented in the unofficial ban on Sheikh Imam and his songs in the novel. The authoritarian regime is a regime that fears and destroys any form of protests or opposition it encounters, and indeed, even Sheikh Imam, who is just “an elderly, blind man, who is a protest singer” is “more or less banned by the government” (Soueif, 495) for criticizing the government in his songs. The song mentioned by Asya, a controversial song humoring the Egyptian government and its allies, is seen as disruptive by the State which does everything to prevent Sheikh Imam’s performances, as the “authorities make it difficult for him to perform.”(Soueif, 495) And as with Sheikh Imam, artists and intellectuals who criticize or protest the government’s actions are immediately put under very close surveillance, repressed, or even jailed. The control over freedom of expression is even instituted in universities and governmental organizations.
The media are very important in an authoritarian regime and the State clearly uses propaganda as one of its tools for power. In fact, the press in a number of Arab countries is censured and information is heavily controlled. In the novel, the news released by the Egyptian government and State media always praises the Arab’s military victories. Asya questions the truth of this news, since, the war having been lost by the Arab armies; it is obviously biased and false. “The radio announces: ‘Our troops are valiantly holding the Second Line of Defence.’ How, wonders Asya, do we go from shooting down a hundred and fifty planes and incurring minimum casualties to holding the second line of defence?” (Soueif, 59)
Egypt is one of many repressive states in the world but there also exist different types of repression as the symbolic Barqais characterizes in A Woman of Five Seasons. Barqais, an imaginary country created by Leila Al-Atrash in her novel, represents a typical Gulf country in the 1970s, rich in resources but lacking the necessary manpower. In a number of Gulf countries, such as Oman or Saudi Arabia, the state relies on close family networks and the power is in the hands of a central family and its close relatives. These families control all business in the land and take commission from all business deals, as Leila Al-Atrash demonstrates in her novel with the characters of “His Highness” and the “Shyoukh”, whose approval is needed for any important transaction. Rights for foreigners and people outside these power circles are limited and Palestinians are not allowed to own businesses without a Barqaisi partner for example. The independence of foreigners is also very limited, as Ihsan’s experience with the Barqaisi government demonstrates.
This system leads to a general corruption in state systems, economic institutions and the society itself, as officials are paid to facilitate deals or arrange the victory of a political opponent over another. In A Woman of Five Seasons, Faris is faced with corruption as he wishes to go to an auction but an arrangement has already been made for someone else to buy this auction, ““I’ll be frank with you, my dear fellow,” the first man said. “The whole thing’s settled already. In fact, to be blunt, your little trip would be quite pointless. We’ve made an agreement with the official concerned.” (Al-Atrash, 56)
CONCLUSION
The past two centuries have been very politically active years in the Middle East, as the region has gone through brutal institutional, social and political changes. Most importantly, the overwhelming importance of the political context in all novels studied represents the reality of a politically aware and politically involved Middle East. As these novels show, Arab people are subjected to a very political life, whether it is through conflicts, wars or the effect of authoritarian states. Therefore, politics should not be considered of secondary importance in our daily lives. On the contrary, it is what defines our rights and freedoms and shapes our lives as citizens and human beings. The Middle East is the most striking example of this.