You are not worthy

Recently, the MBC satellite network announced its suspension of a show planned to be hosted by well-known TV presenter George Kurdahi, called “You are worthy”. According to the report posted on the network-affiliated al-Arabiya website, the management of the satellite network – the biggest in the Middle East – had responded to complaints from audience members, and suspended the show: “Due to his pro-regime stances – i.e. Kurdahi – during the current popular uprising in Syria calling for the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.” For his part, Kurdahi responded in an interview with “Elaph” website by saying that a media campaign was being launched against him, and that his statements were quoted out of context. He added that he neither sides with the regime nor the revolutionaries, and that all he wants is for Syria’s best interests to be served.

The crisis of the host of the Arabic version of the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” arose when he made a phone call at the beginning of Syria’s uprising, on Syrian state television. During that call, Kurdahi considered the peaceful anti-regime protests staged in Daraa, alongside other cities, as “a conspiracy against Syria”. He proceeded to accuse “some Arab [television] stations” of colluding with “the conspiracy which serves Israel’s interests.” Moreover, Kurdahi deliberately repeated his accusations with regards to the “foreign conspiracy” by raising a question in a lecture he gave at al-Assad University Hospital in Damascus in July, where he said: “What has this aspired Arab Spring achieved and accomplished for those who welcomed it, and worked for it to come about with faith and sincerity? It has achieved nothing so far in terms of what the people demanded. This uprising was not without [external] prompts, nor was it spontaneous. It has spread chaos all across the Arab World and struck it with paralysis.”

In the face of Kurdahi’s declining popularity, we might as well wonder: was he right about what he said? To start with, the famous TV host is right with his pessimistic view on the course of the current “Arab Spring”. In Libya, Syria and Yemen, the governments resorted to armed security confrontation with their citizens. In Tunisia and Egypt, the military establishment spared itself a bloody face-off by expelling the president, or forcing him to resign. Nevertheless, both countries are still in a precarious condition. But Kurdahi was wrong when he deduced the reasons which led to the current state of chaos.

Just like the rest of the Arab writers, intellectuals, artists and media personalities, Kurdahi has become accustomed to a wooden discourse, celebrating an imagined resistance, and praising regimes (committed) to Arab issues and to the confrontation with the US and Israel. That has been the overwhelming trend across the region since the 1950s. After the Oslo Accords in 1993, this trend surfaced as a haughty moral discourse seeking to support armed radical militias (like Hezbollah or Hamas) under the pretext of opposition. Yet what Kurdahi and others have not grasped is that the situation has changed somewhat over the past six months. Severe internal discord has emerged within Arab societies; transforming at times into civil war, as in Libya, or into crimes against humanity, as in Syria.

Kurdahi was right to denounce the reaction to his statements. He, along with hundreds of Arab presenters, actors and singers, have become accustomed to presenting a discourse celebrating Hezbollah’s resistance, and the pan-nationalist Arab role performed by Syria in supporting armed militias in the Palestinian camps. From their perspective, an artist who participates in the “resistance”, and champions “The Cause”, can be described as “committed”; a notable figure who is dedicated to the causes of his nation. The same applies to preachers, intellectuals, and Islamic writers, who intersected with the discourse of the resistance-championing Arab Leftists. Hence, the idea of lauding the resistance was welcomed on both sides. Consequently, any media or entertainment personality would curry favor with both parities whenever they repeated age-old clichés about the necessity of struggling for liberation, and resisting foreign presence.

We could run through an extended list of intellectuals and artists, which has formed over the past six decades, who have become icons of an artificial or imagined struggle. Almost every Arab intellectual or artist memorizes lines by Nizar Qabbani, Amal Donkol or Mahmoud Darwish. Some still listen to songs by Sheikh Imam, Ziad Rahbani and Marcel Khalife, or wear the Palestinian scarf around their necks or the Che Guevara T-Shirt, together with an untrimmed beard to signify the state of struggle they are going through. But the bitter reality is that those intellectuals and artists used to get invitations to perform in concerts organized in autocratic Arab countries like Syria and Libya, or countries less enthused by the struggle rhetoric like Tunisia or Egypt. Those intellectuals and artists would receive decorations and words of praise from leaders of armed militias who have never recognized the human rights charter or a peaceful transfer of power at any point in their history.

The problem with Arab intellectuals and artists is that they became addicted to the leftist culture, and subsequently Islamic discourse. Hence, they have become compelled to hang on to features and words which make “committed” intellectuals or artists out of them. But since when have agendas or political opinions been the makers of intellectuals or artists, whose natural standard of appreciation is talent and achievement, rather than “committed” political or religious opinions?

It goes without saying that the events of the current “Arab Spring” have shaken the very foundations of those postulates, even though they have not yet changed. Currently, we can observe two main transformations in the Arab ideological discourse: Firstly, the resistance discourse has retreated behind revolutionary discourse, calling for the overthrow of the regime. This does not mean that resistance discourse has ended. However, it has become impossible for autocratic regimes and armed militias to use it to justify hijacking the political and social space. Secondly, the revolutionary atmosphere has imposed on celebrities, whether intellectuals or artists, a new form of culture and discourse that welcomes the rise against the incumbent regime, and justifies the revolt against the status quo, even if this jeopardizes the political and economic interests of such countries.

In the face of major political events – especially war – celebrities find themselves in front of a compulsory test. They are always required to side with one party against the other. That could take the form of standing with the ruling regime against foreign intervention or against dissidents within the state, or even standing with a specific sect, group or tribe, against its real or fictitious rivals. Presently, a number of celebrities are supporting the ongoing Arab uprisings, as if they were forced to humor the angry masses. This transformation does not differ in principle from the acts of those who supported or praised previous autocratic regimes, including those orientated towards resistance.

Of course, there is an argument which is always provided in such situations, namely that famous people cannot stand silent in the face of injustice, poverty, and the violation of human rights. This approach is right in principle, but it has to extend to every rational and outspoken person, rather than be confined to intellectuals, artists and creative people. It is wrong, and somewhat excessive, to demand that every creative figure have a distinct opinion or political agenda. It is healthy to contribute to humanity and whatever is beneficial to others, however we do not need everyone to turn into politicized individuals, serving the political agendas of this or that regime, or ideology. An intellectual or artist should be respected and appreciated for their art, creativity and talent, and not for their political stances, whether correct or incorrect from our point of view.

In his classic book, “The Left Bank: Writers, Artists, and Politics from the Popular Front to the Cold War”, (1982), Herbert Lottman draws our attention to an epistemic and humanistic impasse in the attempt to mix between politics and artistic or scientific creativity. Lottman says that European intellectuals – the French in particular – encountered a huge moral crisis when they tried to justify their changeable political opinions and stances, on account of their artistic and scientific creativity. Well-known names like Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir kept switching their positions; adulating Fascism and Nazism prior to World War II, before eventually turning against these ideologies. Later on, they again became entangled in contradictory stances during the Cold War. Instead, they could have maintained their silence or abstained from getting involved in the grey world of politics, where principles mix with personal interests.

From his prison cell in Vichy, French Minister Jean Zay wrote: “If a few great writers save honor by the dignity of their silence, how many others, and not the least among them, rush to serve the new gods, curiously forgetting their past and their own works.”  [The left bank by herbert lottman].