Lebanese writer Elias Khoury and Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji are two progressive Arab intellectuals. The first, 72-year-old Beirut, an acclaimed figure in the Middle Eastern literary scene, known for his pro-Palestinian commitment, inscribes his fight in a pan-Arab and democratic perspective. The second, aged 35, exiled in the United States after being imprisoned for ten months in his country for a few lines deemed immoral, defends global causes, such as the environment and LGBT people.
The world brought together these two voices, representative of two different generations, for a debate on the legacy of the “Arab Spring”.
What is your most vivid memory of these revolutions, the image you retain, ten years later?
Ahmed Naji: I remember the faces of two young soldiers, completely lost, in Tahrir Square [au Caire], Tuesday January 25, 2011, the first day of the uprising. Two soldiers barely 18 years old, typical of those kids from Upper Egypt who couldn’t read or write and whom the army was recruiting. They had lost contact with their officer and were looking for their way. For me, this scene sums it all up. The revolutions deconstructed the lies and ideologies promoted by the Arab regimes after World War II. And today we are lost.
Elias Khoury: I too got lost. It was in Beirut, during the uprising of October 2019. I was caught in a cloud of tear gas, I no longer knew where I was. At that moment, I thought to myself that the Lebanese were facing a very special dictatorship, with not one but six dictators – the leaders of the main sectarian parties. In the rest of the Arab world, the dictatorship is rough. In Lebanon, it is complex, shrouded in the fear of minorities.
Then the explosion of the port of Beirut occurred [le 4 août 2020], the windows of my apartment were shattered, and my wife was injured. Like many Lebanese, I then had the feeling that the regime was coming to us to kill us.
Among the Arab Democrats, in 2011-2012, the euphoria of the first months quickly gave way to despair, due to civil wars, the return of dictatorship and the rise of the jihadists. What is your state of mind today?
Elias Khoury: We are beyond despair. The peoples of the region are caught between Arab despotism and Israeli occupation. We have never felt so lonely. The so-called “first world” no longer looks at us, inhabitants of the so-called “third world”, as a threat to white civilization, which must be kept at a distance. It is this message that is sent to us when [le président français Emmanuel] Macron rolls out the red carpet under the feet of [son homologue égyptien, le général Abdel Fattah Al-] Sissi, in December 2020 [lors de cette visite, le président égyptien s’est vu décerner la grand-croix de la Légion d’honneur, la plus haute distinction française]. Or when the US Secretary of State [Mike Pompeo] declares, in November 2019, that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are legitimate. The ideal of international solidarity no longer exists.
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