Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 71-73

Northwest News

In Major Speech, Dr. Edward Said Urges Reform in Arab World

By David P. Johnson, Jr.

Arabs condemning Israel for its racism and violations of Palestinian civil rights must apply those same standards to the Arab world, which needs reform—democracy, greater individual liberties and rights for women— according to prominent Palestinian writer and professor Dr. Edward Said.

In a well-received speech, "Strategies of Hope," delivered to a packed auditorium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently, Said said, "Most of you share the general disillusionment with the Arab regimes and you'll be able to talk about it." He cited the secondary status of women, lack of minority rights, torture and censorship as problems plaguing much of the Arab world. "The Palestinians are not treated well," he said, "but so are many others [in Arab countries]. There is no free media in the Arab world. We are the only part of the world which has not undergone a radical transformation in the past 10 years."

The presentation, part of a conference on the future of Arab Americans sponsored by the Arab student associations at MIT and other Boston schools, was continuously interrupted with applause from the largely student audience. Said stated that Arabs studying in the West today are better suited to seek change than was his generation.

After the 1967 war there was a sense of despair throughout the Middle East, he said, since the war was widely seen as a defeat for all Arabs. That produced the need to stand together and not criticize any Arab regime.

"With the media totally against the Arabs, there was this sense that we had to say, 'We're not that bad.' We had to advance a united front and not talk of shortcomings of Arab governments."

Many Arabs educated in the West, who could have become leaders for change, returned home instead to work for their governments, Said said. Today that is no longer the case.

"You don't feel the need to speak for the entire Arab world," Said explained. "It's possible to identify with writers, artists, intellectuals and others who are victims of state and religious persecution in the Arab world." Said noted that an Arab diplomat told him recently that the Arab world did not want democracy, since it brings with it undesirable social consequences. "What's this democracy?" the diplomat asked. "It's drugs, it's gays, it's pornography. We have a better system."

Many Arabs living in the U.S. do not understand the political system, Said said. For example, many Palestinians living here know about events in the West Bank in detail, but did not know who is mayor of the American city in which they lived.

That isolation helps produce "a total sense of alienation" about American politics, which has kept Arabs outside the political debate, Said said.

When Arabs did try political action, there was often confusion. "Arabs were their own worst enemies. Whenever there were three Arabs, there were four organizations," he said to laughter.

After the Lebanese civil war, the Gulf war and the Oslo peace accords, "There was a depoliticization of my generation," Said said. "We descended into apathy and indifference."

The current generation of students is better suited not only to change conditions in the Arab world, but also to promote more even-handed policies in the West, Said suggested. "The first thing that strikes me about you is that more of you are cultural. You participate in both cultures, unlike Mrs. Albright who forgot about her past," he said to laughter in reference to Secretary of State Madeline Albright's claim that she did not know her family background was Jewish.

"Most of you know English a lot better than people of my generation," he stated, adding that today's students are less apt to feel the need to blindly defend Arab governments.

Another trend praised by Said is the growing diversity of what Arabs study in the U.S. In the 1960s, most Arabs enrolled in either Middle Eastern studies, which was familiar and safe, but often unchallenging, or in science. Engineering, computer programming and other technical professions are relatively safe from prejudice, making them attractive to those who are insecure about their positions in society.

Said urged greater diversity. "I met a young [Arab] man who had just finished a Ph.D. in comparative literature," he said. "We've come out of the ghetto. Why not come here and study American history?"

Said also said that young Arabs have a greater curiosity about Jews, reminding the audience that a generation ago much of the Arab press did not mention the name of Israel. He said a more realistic attitude and willingness to talk with Jews would help the Palestinian and Arab cause.

He urged the students to use their educations to increase Western ideas in their native countries. "Science in the Arab world is a disaster," he stated. "No one is doing science the way it is being done here—or in Israel, for that matter."

"How do you become a force for change?" he asked the students. First, Said felt they must look for a solution to the Palestinian question, which looms over all other policy questions in the Middle East. Because of its importance to Muslims, Christians and Jews, Palestine is of "unparalleled significance. Palestine has been the one common foreign policy position of all Arab governments since 1948."

In addition, the role of the individual in the Arab world needs to redefined. "We need a usable concept of citizenship," he said. "Especially given the current conditions of the Arab world." Said urged students to consider service to their own countries and to Palestine as a way to improve life.

"People of your generation should work against apathy," Said said. "That is a betrayal of the human condition." He deplored the suicide bombers in Palestine as the tragic representation of utter hopelessness.

Said called for a vision of the future and a sense of what the future should look like. The future of Palestine, he said, should be one of tolerance and diversity. "We can offer a vision not of exclusion but of inclusion."

The policy of separating different peoples, such as in the former Yugoslavia, "has brought disaster," Said said. "People can live together." One problem with Israel is that it provides democracy only for Jews, he pointed out, when a truly inclusive state offers freedom for everyone.

International Festival Showcases Middle Eastern Culture

It shows up in public opinion polls, classroom discussions and in the media: Americans are amazingly ignorant of the world in which we live. Basic geographic facts, as well as the more complex foreign policy questions, somehow seem to elude the citizens of the world's most prosperous country.

The ignorance even showed up among visitors to Boston's giant International Festival, which brought together food, music, crafts, dance and educational information from some 100 countries and regions for a week recently at the mammoth Bayside Exposition Center. With some 1,000 entertainers, 2,000 volunteers and 100,000 visitors, it is the largest multicultural exposition in New England.

"Very few people even know where Azerbaijan is," said Gyulyara Mamedova, a Boston nurse and leader of the city's tiny Azerbaijani population, which she estimated at 15 to 20, most of them students at area schools. "I had one gentleman and he said 'Africa,'" she said, when asked where he thought her nation was.

Mamedova added, however, that publicity about the war with Armenia had given the country more recognition. "Lately people are more aware of Azerbaijan." Displaying books, photographs and maps of the nation, she said the goal of the booth, sponsored by the Azerbaijan American Society, "is to show people that Azerbaijan has its own culture and traditions," which are separate from those of Russia.

Across the aisle from Mamedova's booth, Marion Adams had a similar problem. As she talked with people underneath a large Albanian flag, featuring a splendid eagle, Adams said there is a lot of ignorance about that nation. Most visitors to the display have never heard of Albania, and when they know anything, it's usually from negative press reports about the recently collapsed pyramid scandals, which undermined Albania's currency, and the ensuing chaos.

A second-generation American, Adams patiently provided information of interest, including a list of Roman emperors and other classical leaders, including Cleopatra, who had Albanian blood.

Adams said that establishing democracy in the nation will be difficult because of the iron rule of Communism. "They almost have to be led because they were led for 50 years," she stated. With some 20,000 Albanians, including a recent wave of 3,000 who arrived since the financial collapse, Boston has one of the largest communities in the United States. Albania's Aano dancers also performed during one of the festivals.

Even representatives of a large, well-publicized country such as Turkey found festival attendees to be astonishingly uninformed.

"They [school students] ask, 'How is your king? Who is your sultan? Do you have harems? How is your camel?'" said Nizam Aydin, an international business professor at Suffolk University. "There is a lot of misinformation. They equate it [Turkey] with Saudi Arabia."

Working at the booth with scientist Erdem Ural, Aydin explained that the people who know Turkey best have been there personally, either as tourists or in the military. "Our best cultural embassies are the people who went and experienced the place," Aydin stated, adding that knowledge is essential to improving international cooperation. "This is a good platform for U.S. kids. The more accurate the information and portrayal of world cultures, the more constructive we can be as individuals. Dictators thrive on the ignorance of the common people or apathy."

The Turkish booth was organized by the Turkish American Cultural Society of New England, which sponsors dinners, Turkish writing contests, soccer matches, and tours throughout the region. The group also sponsored a food counter, which sold Turkish treats and Turkey's popular strong coffee. They held a cooking demonstration of Turkish rolls, made with feta cheese, egg, parsley and vanilla.

For more information, write to the society at: P.O. Box 1308, Boston, MA 02104-1308.

Representing the entire Arabic-speaking world, Steve Hassan and Doha Haidar of the "Arabic Hour" television show wrote names of visitors in Arabic. They enthusiastically explained the differences between Arab countries, letting people know that the region is quite varied.

"Goddess Dancing" Enchants Crowd

One of the more popular entertainments at the international exposition was the belly dancing performed by "Goddess Dancing" of Arlington. Surprisingly, none of the dancers was of Middle Eastern origin. One woman praised what she called the realistic aspects of belly dancing. "It's a wonderful dance form," said Karen Uminski. "Ballet is too limiting, you have to be thin and have no hips. Belly dancing is a celebration of female flesh. This is what we impart to our students. If you can gain weight—great!"

The others agreed. Anita-Cristina Calcaterra has been belly dancing since she was nine, while Lorraine Lafata took up the art form as therapy while recuperating from an illness.

Whatever their motivations, they drew a large, appreciative crowd which clapped in time as the dancers swayed behind sequined scarves to French and Arabic music.

Bookstore Promotes Arab Culture

With centuries of written and oral tradition, Arabic literature is among the world's richest. Unfortunately, except for the stories in the "Arabian Nights," much of that tradition is unknown to the outside world.

A year ago, Joseph Adi, a computer programmer who ran a book distribution business on the side, and Mona Fayad, a professor of comparative literature, decided to change the situation. To help spread the word about Arabic culture and to provide more accurate information on the Middle East, the pair founded Daff & Raff, an Arabic-language bookstore in Harvard Square in Cambridge. The name was chosen to represent the two main items in the store. Daff is the Arabic word for tambourine, commonly used in Arab music. Raff means bookshelf.

"We like to look at it as more than a regular bookstore," Adi said. "We didn't open it to become millionaires. It's a cultural center. We want to disseminate unbiased information."

In addition, Adi said they want to improve the image Arabs living in the United States have of themselves. "We want to enhance our self-image as an ethnic group."

He said he is pleased when visitors enter the store who obviously have no knowledge of Arabic scholarship. "They come in here and see all of these things and they say, 'You guys have a lot of culture.'"

Daff & Raff carries some 6,000 titles in Arabic and another 2,000 English titles, mostly translations. The Arabic-language books come from all over the Arab world, with an emphasis on work published by small presses. There are classics, cookbooks, religious texts, art books, history, travel guides, new novels, short stories and many non-fiction political works from a variety of perspectives, including a section on gay themes and women's rights. "We're more on the progressive side," Adi stated. "We expose those issues. We try not to filter everything." There is even a book on the Holy Land from an Israeli perspective.

Among its English titles, the store has a complete set of the works of Edward Said, plus a variety of fiction and non-fiction. There also are children's books and educational materials in English which are popular with teachers. In addition, they sell educational videos in English.

They also sell movies in Arabic, with and without subtitles, cassettes and CDs of popular and classical Arab music and the Qur'an on tape.

Included in their selection of women's, news and general-interest magazines is the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which Adi said sells out quickly.

Gift items include prayer rugs, mugs featuring Arabic currency, handmade inlaid boxes from Damascus and Cairo, postcards, posters, pure Lebanese olive oil soap made by craftsmen in New Jersey, and art work. Adi points out paintings by local Jewish peace activist Mitch Kamen.

A native of Beirut, Adi arrived in the United States during the civil war in Lebanon, where his family ran the Dar al Fikr publishing house and three bookstores in the Beit al Fikr chain. "Business was destroyed during the war," he said.

After attending school in the U.S. and getting a job in computers, Adi started a mail-order business out of his house as a sideline, finding Arabic-language books and cassettes for bookstores in the U.S. "Early last year I thought about going into the retail business. There was a lot of demand, but the supply wasn't there. So we thought that Harvard Square was the best place to open a store."

With a doctorate in comparative literature, Fayad is a professor at Salem State College, specializing in post-colonial world literature. She came from Damascus to attend school in the U.S. and remained.

Explaining that she took a year off from school to help at Daff & Raff, Fayad said, "I was interested in education other than in the classroom. This would be a great way of letting people know about the culture."

In addition to Fayad and Adi, the store has four other part-time employees, two students and two recent graduates. They are an Arab, an Arab American, a Persian and an American. All can read and write Arabic.

Daff & Raff also holds author's readings, sponsors musical performances at area cafes, and offers mail-order service. To be placed on the mailing list or receive more information, contact the store at: 52-B JFK St., Cambridge, MA 02138, call (617) 868-5555 or fax (617) 868-8686. Hours are Monday & Tuesday, noon-7 p.m.; Wednesday/Saturday, noon-9 p.m.; Sunday, noon-6 p.m.