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Foreign
students of contemporary Egyptian affairs believe there has been a marked
decline in the civility of public discourse in recent years, particularly
when two opposing points of view contend over an issue of public concern.
I have given a great deal of thought to this phenomenon, which I tried to
place in a historical perspective by comparing the language of debate in
use today with that used earlier this century. My research centered on the
now-defunct review, Al-Kashkool, specifically, on the issues which
appeared in the period between 1923 and 1927. To my surprise, I discovered
that the scurrilous language which I thought was the product of the last
few decades was already in use in the `twenties. But further readings of
the political and cultural writings of the period revealed that, side by
side with the unfortunate tendency to resort to name-calling and slander,
a tendency we suffer from to this day, was a sophisticated debating style
that resembled that of the West. When Taha Hussein published his
controversial book on pre-Islamic poetry, he came under attack from many
critics. Some argued their case soberly, using civilized language and
confining themselves to an objective critique of the book, but others
stooped to unacceptable depths of calumny and personal attacks. One such
was Mustapha Sadeq Al-Rafei, whose book, On the Grill, overstepped
the bounds of decency in the virulent personal attack he directed at Abbas
Al-Aqqad.
In other words, public discourse in Egypt was conducted
along two tracks simultaneously: one track observed the rules of civility
and objectivity, shunning the use of insulting language and personal
attacks, the other belonged to the no-holds-barred school of writing,
which had no compunctions about resorting to vilification and mudslinging
to discredit the opposing party.
During
the last fifty years, the objective school of public debate has gradually
lost ground to a defamatory style based on hurling insults at the
opponent, in which polemists find it easier to demonize the proponents of
the opposing point of view than to argue their own case on its merits.
Numerous examples attest to the prevalence of this phenomenon in our
cultural life today, where differences of opinion over a specific issue
are often expressed in the form of vituperative exchanges of accusations
and personal insults.
Take
the strident campaigns launched on a periodic basis by some opposition
papers over one issue or another. All too often, these campaigns
degenerate from an objective discussion of the issue over which they were
launched in the first place into an all-out war against the person holding
the opposing viewpoint, whose personal integrity and morality are called
into question and who is accused of all kinds of private and public
wrongdoing. At first, I thought this was because a public debate offers an
ideal opportunity to give vent to the pent-up feelings of anger and
frustration some of us harbour because of the many problems we face in our
day-to-day life. I have since come to believe that, although this is
certainly one of the factors behind the phenomenon, the real reason is a
fascist trend that has marked public discourse in this country for close
on half a century.
In the
last five decades, public life in Egypt was strongly influenced by two
main realities. The first is that the regime which came to power in 1952
was extremely intolerant of any opposition, indeed, even of the mildest
criticism. I am not making a value judgement here, merely stating a fact.
From the start, the regime brooked no opposition, using all the apparatus
of state to crush dissidents, including the media, which launched
devastating campaigns against anyone who dared raise a voice against the
regime. The other reality is that the strongest underground opposition
movement in the country was the Moslem Brothers, a party that was and
still is notoriously averse to the least
hint of criticism, dealing with whoever refuses to toe
the party line either with an iron fist or with floods of speeches and
writings that are no less fascist. Thus we were caught between a ruling
establishment that crushed its opponents with all the means at its
disposal and an underground opposition movement that destroyed its
opponents both materially and morally.
In the
context of a fascist climate where any divergent opinion was ruthlessly
crushed, whole generations grew up with no knowledge of the rules of
civilized debate, generations raised to believe that opponents and critics
were fair game for the most ferocious attacks on their probity and honour,
and that personal insults and abusive language were par for the course.
Such a
climate is not conducive to the promotion of such values as tolerance of
the Other, accepting criticism, engaging in self-criticism, expanding the
objective margin in thinking and debate or genuinely embracing pluralism.
There have been a number of notable exceptions to this general rule, but
these are unfortunately far outnumbered by the examples of oral and
written debates conducted along fascist lines, which represent the
dominant trend in our public discourse at this time. It is a trend that is
likely to remain dominant for some years to come, until the process of
economic reform now underway has been successfully completed. The
fundamental changes this is expected to introduce to the components of
public life will make of those who now feed the fascist trend relics of a
bygone time, products of a stage which left its mark on the attitudes of
some members of our society until the new global changes divested them of
their very raison d’etre. However, this is still several years down the
road and, in the meantime, we will continue to suffer from the fascist
trend that dominates public debate in Egypt today.
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