The Arabs: A Living History

What was Arab society like during the thousand year period following the decline of the Arab Empire? What memories, what feelings, does it provoke in the minds of today’s Arabs, caught as they are in the turbulence of 20th Century change? Abdelmalek Tazi is a member of an influential family of Fez, ancient seat of the rulers of Morocco. As Abelmalek plays with his children, looks for business contacts in the Arabian Gulf states, prays at his father’s tomb, or revisits his childhood haunts in the medieval quarter of Fez, our writer, Abdallah Hammoudi, questions how deeply the manners, beliefs, attitudes and values of the old Arab world penetrate the lives of modern Arabs. As he says: “Is it really possible to be an Arab in that traditional world and in the world of tomorrow?”

This film looks at changing fortunes in the traditional relationship between Arab city and countryside. We focus on one small corner of Cairo and one small village in the Nile Delta, sixty miles to the north. In the village we meet a young peasant, Mitwali Balah, and come to understand his arduous life which he wishes to exchange for the seemingly magical prospects of life in Cairo. The film follows the young man to Cairo where he seeks the advice and company of other migrant workers from his home village. Disillusion sets in and he returns to the Delta. The lives of these young peasants are looked at not only in the context of the overburdened, overpopulated Cairo of today but in the context of a 19th Century dream, of creating a city to rival Paris. Ever-present are the great monuments of medieval Cairo ­ a potent reminder of the power that flowed from her when she was the greatest of all Arab cities.

The ancient Arabic language, transplanted, with the spread of Islam, from the Arabian Peninsula to Europe and the borders of China, remains the pivot of Arab culture today. Arabic, the language of the Quran, is the sacred language for all Muslims and has played a major role in shaping and maintaining Arab society. Poetry remains the forum for political debate, and major poets attract thousands to hear them recite their latest works. In the words of our writer, Khalida Said: “Poetry is the best witness to our crisis ­ it’s our creative response to these bad times.” Paradoxically, war-torn Lebanon’s a meeting place of contemporary intellectual thought in the Arab world; still the publishing centre, still a refuge for poets, painters and novelists form troubled Arab lands; “the capital of the Arabs’ deepest wounds”.

900 years ago Arab Muslims were the world’s greatest seekers after knowledge and wisdom of the Greeks. Today that Arab scholarship is a natural part of the inheritance of all scientists and thinkers, not least of the modern generation of Arab research-workers, many of whom work in the new Institutes in the Gulf States which we visit in the course of this film. Abdulhamid Sabra, himself an historian of science, stresses the need for all modern societies to recognise and embrace their own scientific and cultural heritage. Only forty years ago Kuwait was dominantly a small community of traders, fishermen and pearl divers on the Eastern fringe of the Arab world. But there was already the promise of oil. The oil-generated wealth of the past twenty years has transformed Kuwait into a thriving, modern city state with highest per capita income in the world.

Muslim author and poet Ali al Mek looks at the ways and meaning of the Islamic Faith as they affect one particular group of Muslims within his own experience, the people of the village of Umduban in central Sudan. No single community or village can ever adequately represent the entire Islamic Faith, but this encounter with the religious life of Umduban leads to an understanding of that living Islam which informs the very existence of Muslims the world over. Umduban is also a religious centre. The film follows small groups of individuals who have come to the village ­twin boys sent to the Quranic school, a young woman seeking a cure, a Khartoum tradesman who belongs to a Sufi order and finds fulfilment in ceremonies through which man draws closer to God. But there is another expression of Islam present in Umduban too- that which lays its sole emphasis on obedience to the laws derived from the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet’s teachings.

This film assesses the changes which came about as the Arab countries were drawn into the new political and economic order of modern times. Those changes not only affected the Arab countries but also the way in which they came to be viewed by people in Europe and America. Its main focus is on the plight of the Palestinians, which can be seen as the most enduring residue of the modern encounter between the Arabs and the West. Edward Said is a Palestinian living and working in New York. He is outspokenly and actively critical of the treatment of his fellow-Palestinians and is no longer welcome in the city of his birth, Jerusalem. In this film he develops the themes contained in his trilogy of books ‘Orientalism’, ‘The Question of Palestine’ and ‘Covering Islam’.

The last three films in “The Arabs” focus on the processes of post-Colonial change in the Arab world. Mahfoud Bannoune analyses the problems faced by Arabs as they constructed their new nations over the past quarter of a century and the solutions open to them. He does so by reference to his own country, Algeria, which achieved its independence in 1962, with appalling loss of life. If old ways were obsolete and a new age had to be created in the aftermath of an eight-year war, what industrial and economic options were open to the Algerians? Mahfoud Bannoune looks at the process of industrialisation and its effects upon a traditional farm and peasant-based economy; its effect upon the quality of day to day life as services and facilities have tried to keep pace with the rush to the cities.

Writer and journalist Nadia Hijab weaves this film around a large extended family of Jordanians living in Amman. The mother, Umm Ghassem, is clearly the powerful heart of this family ­strong and humorous and frank in her description of her life. In spite of its traditional restraints, the extended Arab family is seen to work ­ as secure and loving and caring as it has always been. But we also meet other girls and women who feel that the traditional role of wife and mother is insufficient ­ the Tunisian girl who longs to leave home and find her own flat, the modern Jordanian woman who flies a Tri-star and plays squash to keep fit. As she talks to Arab women and their families and to women active in medicine, politics, literature and the law, Nadia Hijab asks “How can we Arabs preserve the strengths of our family life and still give women a chance to lead their own lives?”

What do the Arabs believe to be the most potent forces in their society at the present time and how do they assess their condition today? How possible is criticism of that condition and who will be the most effective critics? The intellectuals? The politicians? Arab youth? Fifty percent of all Arabs are under the age of twenty and 20,000,000 Arab children are in school today. What effect will this explosion in education have on society? What will be the effect of the huge labour-migration across the Arab world or the revolution in communications, as air-travel, television, video and satellites serve to bring Arabs of all nations into close contact with one another? Just how successful have the Arab political orders been coping with all the needs and pressures of our time and what future developments are likely or possible?