In the company of greatness
October 29, 2004
On my Arabic Lit comprehensive the first, mandatory question was something along the lines of, if you were teaching a part in a World Literature course on Arabic literature what 5 authors FROM THE WHOLE OF ARABIC LITERATURE would you choose, and what works would you choose?
Ok, so that was a tough question, but to make a really long essay short I knew as soon as I saw it that one author would have to, absolutely have to, be on that list, and that author was Naguib Mahfouz. Mahfouz may not be my Arabic novelist of choice, but I do love him. Just not necessarily as much as others. However, he is the only Arab writer to have received a Nobel Prize for literature, and well, that is saying something. Also, by merit of his having lived so long (he's 94 now? May God grant him health!) he is simply one of the
most prolific Arab authors, and in his writing he has documented much of the modern history of the Egyptian people. My father read him as a young man, and I read him as a teenager, and I am sure that I will encourage my children to read him as well. In my head I often think of him as the Egyptian Steinbeck, though I don't know if that is really
an apt comparison.
So, on Sunday night I got to go sit in on a Naguib Mahfouz
salon--meetings he holds twice a week with the Egyptian literati and intellectual elite, where basically he does not do much talking but rather listens (or has it shouted into his near-deaf left ear) to the debates of the day. I'd been to one of these about a year ago when Lady Di was nice enough to invite me along via another friend. This time I went with my mom and her friend, a professor at the American University. The issue they were discussing was the idea of veiling, and the main arguer, a guy name Kafrawi, was basically insisting that Muslim men who force their women to veil are genetic mutants and their genes must be studied. He also said that women who claim to choose veiling of their own volition have really just been so indoctrinated by the patriarchal society that they don't know what they're talking
about anymore.
This enraged my mother (who at the age of 52 got veiled a year ago) and her professor friend (who is not veiled but who believes in Islam religious). The argued against this point, and Kafrawi, interestingly enough barely let them talk. He sat there talking about how Arab women get no respect because Arab men are sick, and yet he did not give them a chance to get a word in edgewise and kept telling them, "No, you don't
understand."
Because clearly. They are women. And therefore are mentally inferior.
Okay, though, to be honest I understood where he was coming from. I think what he was trying to say was, something must be done about our Muslim men who go into a tizzy when they see a woman's ankle, but can't devote half the energy they do to keeping women down to doing something like, developing a space program. He also went off on this rant about how women in China and India don't have to deal with such crap. Two interesting, and in my opinion, totally bogus choices. I
wanted to point out to him that this idea of "one million missing women" is a direct result of infanticide and other cruel practices in those two countries. (Sorry I am simplifying all issues here)
Of course, I did not. I could not. I was reminded of how painfully shy I am. I think people who know me well would not necessarily believe the problem I have in communicating publicly. But people who know me better than well I think will realize that I am painfully, awkwardly shy. I wanted to kill our professor friend who took us because when she was introducing us to Naguib Mahfouz she said "This is Newgy. She
writes about you." One, uh, no I don't. Two, this directed the attention of the 12 males sitting there towards me. They asked me what exactly I was doing etc., and I managed to squeak out some sort of response about a masters degree. Our professor friend realized how shy I was then and told me "Don't be shy. Feel free to speak up. Why don't you move closer to Naguib." I gave her a look of death and told her,
"Please just let me ease into this. I'll speak up when I feel more comfortable, but don't direct anymore attention towards me. Thanks." I felt bad because I was kind of rude. I tend to be really rude when I am put on the spot like that.
Anyway, the sitting was nice. Aside from this very loud discussion between my mother and Kafrawi which resulted in Kafrawi pointing at me and going, "Look at your daughter, sitting there unveiled, and look at the young man next to her sitting there not having palpitations [it was something along those lines] because she isn't veiled."
My mom came out of the meeting a little disappointed that Mahfouz did not speak up and defend the veil and Muslim men (on some aspects. My mother has been accused (and I do mean accused) of being a feminist), but it was interesting to me that I think she and our professor friend really didn't understand where this guy was coming from. All in all,to them, it was an attack on everything they hold dear, while I think Kafrawi was exaggeratedly trying to say that there is something wrong with our men, and they need to be stopped.
My personal stance is somewhere between my mother and Kafrawi�s. Sure, Muslim men have their faults, and misuse religion (or not) to keep the womenfolk down, but the reality is not as bad or as good as either side was trying to paint.
But, like I said, I enjoy me a heated debate as long as I�m not the one taking the heat, and for the most part I wasn�t. I did manage to relieve the tension a bit when I said in a very Emma-like tone something along the lines of, �Dear sir, you are going to have me do something I have never done before, and that is defend the veil.� Which kind of shut Kafrawi up, and made the rest laugh.
I went to that salon ostensibly to sit in the company of the great Mahfouz, but honestly in the back of my head I had the small hope that I would see there a journalist who caught my eye when I went to the salon last summer with Lady Di�the Ahmed Said that I mentioned in the survey. He is very soft-spoken but obviously passionate and intelligence. His age (and, hm, sexuality) are hard to place. Last time I saw him he seemed so young. This time he had put on a bit of weight and his hairline was a little more receded, but there was still something youthful about him. It didn�t help/hurt that one of the men there made a comment about being Said�s colleague, and he looked like he was about 21. (Though I realized later that he was much older). Said is THO dreamy, in a typically me dreamy way. He is a little odd looking though also handsome. He is tan, and has light colored (like turquoise?) eyes. And he has a way of making very strong, opinionated points in a very quiet, dignified tone. RAWR.
He spoke to me, and asked me a few questions regarding what I was doing while Kafrawi and my mom were at it. *Sigh* I have been on a quest all week to find out what paper he writes for. No luck yet.
Anyway�I would really like to find a way to get invited to these things regularly, and not just to see my dream boy. I realized that I�ve missed that kind of intense debate since being back here. Yes, life here does revolve around politics (doesn�t all life?), but somehow in social settings we all manage to avoid the kind of heated debates I used to have with friends back in Philadelphia sometimes. It was so refreshing to have that again.
Okay, well, the carpal tunnel or whatever it is that is crippling my right hand lately, has started to act up, and so I�m off.
[Oh, for anyone interested in reading some Mahfouz I would recommend his short story "Zaabalawi" or his novel The Beggar, or the two works for which he is probably most famous, The Cairo Trilogy and The Children of Gabalwi]