| Thursday, May 7, 2009 4:38PM | | | | A Closer Dialogue | Posted By:
anderbo.com
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| Tags: Nawal El Saadawi, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Arthur Miller Freedom to Write, Egypt | “Is the freedom to write separate from other freedoms?”
This is how the fourth annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture with Egyptian novelist and activist Nawal El Saadawi began on Sunday in Cooper Union’s Great Hall. “I have not seen a real freedom to write in any country,” she continued. “And here the censorship is more dangerous because it is invisible.”
Dr. Saadawi, small, her voice high and lilting, adjusted her seat and microphone for a few moments before continuing the conversation. “Can you hear me?” she asked, shielding her eyes from the stage lights and smiling. “Equality is important in dialogue.”
Before touching on some of the more controversial events surrounding Dr. Saadawi- her time in prison, the death threats by Islamists and her subsequent exile from Egypt- moderator and PEN President Kwame Anthony Appiah asked Dr. Saadawi about her education at Cairo University and her background in medicine. “My life opened up in medical school,” she said, emphasizing what was her first definitive movement away from the traditional female role intended for her. “All writers should study science or medicine,” she continued. “They must know the body, dissect the body.”
Dr. Saadawi then elaborated on what she sees as the crucial role that science plays in our world and the importance of integrating science into religion and the arts. “When there is no compassion in science,” she said, “is when people turn blindly to religion. There can be no separation between feeling and thinking, between the spiritual and the physical, between science and art.”
As the conversation continued, however, it became clear that Dr. Saadawi was not there to provide answers, but to pose questions- questions that were often impossible to answer. Sitting in the audience, passive and quiet as Dr. Saadawi discussed the overwhelming statistics of female circumcision (up to 97 percent in Egypt) or the numerous manifestations of colonial language still permeating our current cultural climate, I couldn’t help but feel daunted by the evening's topics. From my padded and comfortable seat, the issues that Dr. Saadawi brought to light seemed to fall out of my grasp- what could I do except sit and listen? And what could listening really do?
A lot, according to Dr. Saadawi, who went on to stress the importance of awareness and communication. “When I was in prison,” she said, “the guard told me that it would be more dangerous for my life if they found pen and paper in my cell than if they found a gun.” Dr. Saadawi went on to emphasize the crucial role of the critical mind. “We have to criticize God, heads of state- without the critical mind, we cannot have creativity or action.”
Appiah, however, seemed uncertain whether or not this type of critical and atheistic living is truly a means to peace. Using his father, Ghanaian politician Joe Appiah, as an example, Appiah raised the point that while certainly many of the world’s problems stem from religion (and specifically from religious extremists), that numerous people still find great solace, joy and even peace through religion. “People are religious because they are not killed by it,” Dr. Saadawi countered. “I am killed by Egypt.”
Dr. Saadawi then discussed how she was nearly stripped of her Egyptian nationality for her play, God Resigns at the Summit Meeting. If anything, she seemed proud that her writing had provoked such a response, even if that response was largely controversial. “Creativity means to be responsible to the self and to others,” she said. “And self-confidence is very related to creativity- we fight for it and become optimistic- optimistic people are confident. And optimism is power.”
-- Amanda Shank | | |
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1 Comment | Add a Comment |
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| 5-10-09 1:51PM: King Wenclas said...
Doesn't it strike you as curious that every one of the writers on your blog-- a PEN blog-- is a credentialed apparatchik (MFA; BFA) who has conformed to our literary system, with not a dissenting voice in sight?
Where are the renegades?
The curious thing about the PEN events is there's no dissidence. There's not the merest hint of contention about anything, which after all if it appeared might have disturbed the genteel audiences.
"We're fine. You're fine. Everybody's fine!"
There are a few dissenters to the current system-- but you have to really look to find them.
www.kingwenclas.blogspot.com
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