The Art of "Debating" : an art that Arabs have lost !
by : Tarek Heggy
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.
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(*) Tarek Heggy (born in Port-Said, Egypt on 12th October, 1950) : a
famous Egyptian public figure who was the chairman and CEO of one of the
largest multinational oil companies in the world (for ten years till
1996) and one of the leading liberal thinkers and authors in the Arabic
speaking societies. Tarek Heggy's lectures, TV interviews, essays, articles and 25
books (in three languages) all advocate the values of political & economic
freedoms, human/women/minorities rights, pluralism, otherness,
universality of science & knowledge, the positive co-existence and the
culture of peace. Though a pioneer advocate of separation between the
religious institutions and the state, Tarek Heggy opposes strongly and
publicly any illegal dealings with any individuals or groups that do not
commit crimes or use violence. In 2008, Tarek Heggy received one of the
world most prestigious prizes of literature
(http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS52095+03-Nov-2008+PRN20081103).
In addition to his participation in the inception of the chair of Coptic
studies at the American University in Cairo, Toronto university
established in 2008 a scholarship (under Tarek Heggy's name) for MA & Ph.D
studies in the area of historic Islamic/Jewish
Relations(http://cjs.utoronto.ca/node/75).To read more about Tarek
Heggy's background,activities and writings :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarek_Heggy (French).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarek_Heggy#Published_works (English).
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%82_%D8%AD%D8%AC%D9%8A
(Arabic).
For
samples of The TV interviews
:
http://www.tarek-heggy-interviews.com
http://www.google.com/search?q=%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%82%20%D8%AD%D8%AC%D9%8A&hl=en&rls=gm&sourceid=gmail&output=search&tbs=vid:1&tbo=1
For a collection of Tarek Heggy's photos:
http://www.tarek-heggy.com/photo-gallery.htm
Tarek Heggy's website URL is:http://www.tarek-heggy.com (Personal website).