All entries for Friday 25 January 2008

Beginning at the end

Four years after Edward Said’s death, Rev. Professor Peter Serracino Inglott talks to Norbert Bugeja about his friendship with this great intellectual, literary critic and tireless champion of Palestinian self-determination

 Edward Said has described himself as a man living in between worlds, a ‘Christian  wrapped in Muslim culture’. How do you remember Edward Said?

 I met Edward Said for the first time in Cyprus, at a conference on the survival of small  states in the globalizing world. I was invited there because of Malta’s proposal of the  new Law of the Sea. Pushing forward the idea of the common heritage of mankind  seemed to be one of the ways in which the survival of small states could occur. Said  was invited. Him being Palestinian, I Maltese, we had a common and evident interest  in the issue. In conversation, we discovered many other common interests - music, to  begin with. Although primarily a literary critic and a writer, Said was a very serious  amateur pianist who published a great deal on music. With Charles Camilleri I have  myself written a book on Mediterranean music, and have, like Said, been very much  concerned with music as a means of cross-cultural encounter. In greater depth, we  were interested in the theory of music. I presented Said the thesis that while traditional music, until modern times, was essentially an abstraction from speech, in modern times it began to be conceived of as the language of the emotions – as an alternative to scientific language. ‘Contemporary’ music is an abstraction not only from language, but from all the different sounds - which are one of the most important constitutive features of any one culture.

This is important because the general thrust of all of Said’s efforts was to ensure the survival of national differences, and to very strongly oppose the idea of a fixed national identity. In Malta there lingers the idea of some fixed Maltese national identity, consisting of Roman Catholicism, of patriotism, of loyalty to a certain, quite reasoned, concept of the family. The idea that there is a sharply defined and fixed national identity will lead to racism, to xenophobia, to hatred of foreigners, of the others. If it is strong enough it will lead to imperialism. That has been the worst feature of modern history. It still remains, I think, the biggest threat we are facing - not least of all in Malta today.

Said described the Palestinian cause as a ‘great moral cause’ of our time. Given the bleak prospects of Israel-Palestine today, is there space for great moral causes any longer?

Quite frankly, I do not think that the prospects of an agreement are bleak. Like Said, I do believe that the Oslo Agreements did not set things working on the right track. The roadmap chosen then was to begin to deal with relatively ‘smaller’ issues like Gaza or the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, thinking that step by step they would arrive at a global solution. It has now become absolutely evident that the reverse route should have been followed, as Said had pointed out. There should have been agreement, first, on what they wanted to get at in the end, and then to establish the steps leading up to it. At a recent meeting that I attended in Majorca, the representatives of both parties agreed that it should not be very difficult to reach agreement on a final settlement. It would then be possible to tackle the various steps leading up to it. In European meetings, I have urged the European Union to take a strong initiative in this sense. If the EU were to do so, if it did not allow the matter to be dealt with exclusively by the United States, the prospects of reaching a solution would not be bleak. It is disastrous for Israel to go on living in the present situation, and it is impossible for the Palestinians to even survive in these conditions. When both parties involved are desperate for a solution it is difficult to see that a solution could never be found.

Together with Daniel Barenboim, Said co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – a gathering of young Israeli and Arab musicians. Can this model work for Malta, in terms of lifting xenophobia and stimulating cultural interaction in our country?

I was myself instrumental in getting this orchestra invited to Malta, and it gave a highly successful performance at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta. The reception we had afterwards at my farmhouse was one of the best occasions in which one could see both very staunch Israelis as well as people who shared Said’s views about Palestine, meeting and projecting together this design for peace. It is especially relevant in Malta with regard to the so-called ‘immigrants’. They might becalled ‘irregular’, but hardly ‘illegal’. Said emphasized this a lot - that Europe cannot shrug off its colonial past, its responsibility, especially vis-à-vis North Africa. He emphasized that the North African peoples are in the situation in which they are because of colonialism, really. They cannot be said not to have a right to seek refuge in Europe. In North Africa there was a systematic attempt to destroy their culture, including its Muslim dimension. These people have an incontestable right. It is true that most of these people coming to Malta, although arriving mostly from North Africa, are from further south. However, we should all have a feeling of responsibility. We must not forget - we were ourselves partly responsible for, and certainly beneficiaries of a slave culture that existed until very recent times. We should feel this historical responsibility.

Discussing ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, Said has argued that ‘if one of the serious misrepresentations of the current crisis is to depict it as something coming at Arab societies from the outside, another, no less seriously false image is that fundamentalism is a sudden and therefore entirely new eruption from within.’ Are we any wiser today?

Yes, we are wiser, because we see that fundamentalism is not a property of Islam. We have seen the appalling growth of fundamentalism in the Christian world. Take the ultra-right in America, with its astonishing creations, like that of an extemely popular ‘anti-evolution’ museum done by people with a strong scientific background. Using the most technologically advanced media resources, they are presenting utter nonsense. I find this appalling. This kind of extreme right Christian movement in the United States manages to find some echo even in Malta. There is also secularist fundamentalism, which to me is equally appalling. There are many liberals, as they define themselves, who present their liberalism in just as dogmatic a way as Muslim and Christian fundamentalists. To Edward Said, these were just as frightening as religious fanatics. And why do fundamentalists get such an audience in the Arab world? I have no doubt that if there were to be democratic elections throughout the whole of the Arab world, it is the fundamentalists who would win. They are presenting a range of cases - utilizing a historical memory that points out, for instance, that when Islam was really the backbone, the law of society – in the Middle Ages – then the Arab countries were at the vanguard of the world. Said was deeply aware of and concerned about the perils of such applications, and their advantages for fundamentalism.

What is, for you, Said’s enduring legacy?

I have been myself greatly influenced by Said’s work on the notion of ‘beginnings’. Said distinguishes between the privileged notion of ‘origin’ and that of ‘beginning’ which is secular, a product of human activity and choice. As an initial step in the intentional production of meaning, any ‘beginning’ also sets up its own method - it contains its very design and development. I have published a book titled Beginning Philosophy, a work that addresses a ‘philosophy of beginnings’ rather than an ‘introduction’ to philosophy. I have also been attracted to Said’s work on the role of the intellectual. What makes an intellectual, he believed, is not the special discursive ability which entitles you to be a policy-maker in the political field. The intellectual’s role is that of a heightener of consciousness. He makes people aware of the complexity and interrelatedness of most issues, helps people consider the aspects which they may be neglecting in considering particular policy options. His political role is to enable what should be the substitute of the kind of centralized planning which proved so disastrous in the hands of the so-called ‘real socialist’ regimes. The intellectual carries out a work of enlightenment, so that decisions are taken with an awareness, both of the implications of a particular course of action and of its alternatives. This is the role which Said himself tried to carry out. Very often, he did not propose solutions on the Palestinian issue. He brought out the implications of the solutions being advanced, while drawing attention to the alternatives. There are many people in Malta who think that I have myself exerted the function of a policy-maker. They attribute to me the writing of party programmes, or having influenced politicians. My role has never been that of policy-making, but that role which Said was describing - that is, of developing awareness, of trying to argue against people having this fixed concept of national identity. Like Said, I have tried to get people to see the whole gamut of options that they have before them and to try to enable them to make their choices as responsibly and as consciously as possible.

Rev. Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott is a philosopher and former Rector of the University of Malta.

[This interview appeared in The Sunday Times (Malta), Sunday 30th September 2007]

Norbert Bugeja : 25 Jan 2008 20:37 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Our Dinosaurs whistle Dixie

Fate, Homer writes,

has given us a patient soul. So yes, those of you who still get visions of ‘99%-pure-Popolo-Maltese’ and all that, may wish to stick it out a while longer, for the future is at hand. The human species, we learn,could yet again split in two. It comes as future-shock extraordinaire, a Time Machine remake with a dash of glitz: guys, we’re talking ranks of olive-skinned hunks that will bring Brad and Leo to grovel like Abou the monkey. And, all genes being equal, the coming age will see wise, hairless giants herding flocks of smooshed Condies and Rumsfelds across the pastures of Persia.

Or so it seems. Oliver Curry, a top evolution theorist at the LSE, expects a genetic elite and a dim-witted, ‘squat, ugly, goblin-like’ class to emerge in the coming – well -thousands of years. The upper-class females will have the rare combination all our women dream of but very few of them actually get: the smart bombshell. The girls shall flaunt a ‘lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features’. A sure goodbye, in other words, to the hairy horrors of the local chick seeking to seduce Lars and Thor. To top that, the superstud shall own the cream of genetic blessings – acumen, sexual prowess, zest, vitality, stunning looks and overall existential zing. According to Curry, we’re looking here at 6/7-foot, giants boasting 120-year lifespans, squarer jaws and a deeper voice. It’s such a pity, I would say, the Righties landed here so far ahead of their time.

Or pity not, maybe. For there is reason to believe, says Curry, that by then interbreeding will have ironed out all racial variations and produced a uniform race of coffee-coloured people. Well, that’s as far as the brainiacs go…. as for the brainless, I leave those to your imagination. Truth be told, you need no HG Wells to help you out with this one - the place already teems with the types. Their evolution process is well under way and sure enough, they have a knack for breeding faster than forest mushrooms.

We are, today, seeing some bizarre mutations of the latter. Not least among these are the extreme christian ‘movements’ cropping up in the United States. They pass themselves off as ‘anti-evolutionists’, ‘creationists’, ‘young-Earthists’ – you name it. By and large, these chaps reject the idea of evolution on religious grounds and read the Bible literally. The world was created in six 24-hour days some time between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Humans showed up on Day 6. Tyrannosaurus Rex was a strict vegetarian, chilled out with Adam and Eve, graced Noah’s Ark and managed to hang around till some years ago. And guess which beast did Saint George slay? A DRAGON? You don’say. That was a dinosaur.

Trouble is, for the Anti-Evolution minions this is no laughing matter at all. What we see in the US right now is propheteers and profiteers hobnobbing together in what promises to be yet another lucrative shot at religion business. They’ve just launched a professional, $25-27 million religious showcase – a splendidly done-up ‘Creation Museum’ in Northern Kentucky. Bloggers describe it as the creationist ‘Louvre’. It boasts a scale model of Noah’s ark, ‘animatronic’ cavemen and 80 lifesize dinosaurs moving their heads and tails and roaring. A special-effects theater has shaking seats and water-sprinklers in the ceiling that go off during the ‘flood scenes’. Another exhibit shows models of two children leaving a church whose minister still believes in Evolution. The boy is soon off browsing porn sites, and the girl on the phone to Planned Parenthood. The idea is, belief in evolution is at the root of our evils.

Mainstream scientists bemoan its opening, call it The Fred and Wilma Flintstone Museum and grumble that this is all so unbelievably twisted. Meanwhile, the place itself has grown the Midas touch. American high priests of creationism cash in on the venture, target the kids and pull out all the stops to lure in the schools, Sunday classes and young people’s groups.

It is an outrage, a thick-headed, moronic outrage. It’s hard to believe people cling to such a fiction, even as they know this is the latest businessman’s cow. That such shenanigans should thrive in Northern Kentucky comes as no surprise, but it surely is the last thing our kids could afford over here. If such anti-evolutionist tricks muddle their way through Malta as well, the only thankful party will be Ghar Dalam site and museum. Some sexing-up would suit the place fine. But otherwise, no good will come out of this.

****

In the continuing US racism showdown, DNA pioneer James Watson – yes, the chap who penned The Double Helix - has claimed that black people are less intelligent than white ones. Now that was some very rotten stuff he stirred up, as is plain to all and sundry. What no one talked about, however, was the equally obnoxious payback. Watson got fired, savaged by the media, ridiculed ,cold-shouldered on all fronts, his talks cancelled, his books turned down as if everything he had ever said or done were now anathema. It’s the scale of the reaction to Watson's outrageous comment that got so scary, a well-orchestrated, goody-goody chorus of retaliation. I found myself thinking, is this what our society needs right now, inoffensive, mealy-mouthed mumblers who never challenge anything? As professor PZ Myers of Minnesota Uni put it, ‘you have to tolerate the tenure of ass****s in order to have the possibility of heroes’.

As I browsed through Watson’s story, I thought: these antics reek of the good old days of Malta's Extreme Right and the rest of the circus. Back then, I had wanted to watch the extravaganza. I needed to read, to listen to the wholesale follies being preached, the sloppy commentaries on discussion boards, the thundering Manson-like delirium. I needed to know simply because I have the right to know. What I surely did learn back then was that the country’s ‘liberal’ powers-that-be  had deliberately closed ranks, allowing only so much information about the issue to come my way. Because, they said - after I pricked the snootier ones to hand-wringing point –a single ounce more for you would pump oxygen into unwanted agitprop.

Now that’s kind of primitive, isn’t it? Ave YouTube, I say, and a toast to Melita’s incredible grapevine. 

Norbert Bugeja : 25 Jan 2008 17:57 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem