Sadiq Jalal al-Azm: Critical philosopher and political activist

Though Damascene born and bred, al-Azm is a true cosmopolitan - with no nostalgia for his mother's baking, no tears shed over the good old days, and no longing for the fresh scent of jasmine so reminiscent of Damascus. He has always preferred personal freedom with all its associated risks to the comfort of a familiar environment.
By Yassin al-Haj Saleh

Sadiq Al-Azm's productive life can be split into three stages: the sixties and seventies in Beirut, the eighties and nineties in Damascus, and the early years of the 21st century, when he divided his time between Damascus and the rest of the world.

Similarly, the personality of this Damascene intellectual may be said to have three distinct facets: the academic scholar, the political activist, and of course, the person of Sadiq al-Azm.

On the academic front, Sadiq Jalal al-Azm lectured in numerous universities, including the American University of Beirut, the Damascus University and the University of Jordan for a brief period in the late sixties, as well as in several Western universities.

His renowned books reflect the ideas of a thinking protagonist engaged in public affairs rather than an academic closeted away in an ivory tower.

Affinity with criticism

His book, "In Defense of Materialism and History" (1990), provides the most insight into his own philosophical views, simultaneously expressing a clear political agenda at a time when communism was collapsing. In this work, al-Azm demonstrates an established foundation of materialistic and historical neo-critical theories and reveals the progressive, democratic partiality of his thoughts - just when the time was ripe for such thoughts to see the light. Sadiq al-Azm during a podium discussion, together with Dr Carsten Wieland and Hannah Wettig (photo: DW) Considered one of leading Arab intellectuals writing today, Sadiq al-Azm has been an advocate of freedom of speech, human rights and democracy for decades. He is synonymous with promoting dialogue between the Islamic world and Western Europe. Owing to the escalating violence in Syria, the philosopher and his wife were awarded political asylum in Germany in 2012

Al-Azm's interest in public affairs was directly triggered by the Six-Day War in 1967, although its ideological emphasis would change with the passing of the decades. Initially, during the 1960s and 1970s, he favoured leftist, pro-Palestine and pan-Arab ideologies. The 1980s and 1990s saw him turn increasingly to rationalism and secularism, before he finally settled on liberal democracy with the onset of the 21st century.

Sadiq's interest in politics has been most pronounced during the first and third stages of his life. During the rise and fall of the pan-Arab movement, he was outspoken in his support for pan-Arabism; in recent years, by contrast, he has returned to his roots in support of the Syrian population. He was actively engaged in the "Damascus Spring" forums and the work of the "Civil Society Committees" at a time when Syrian intellectuals were petitioning for democratic reform.

A leading voice

As for the second stage of his life, i.e. the last two decades of the 21st century, Sadiq's involvement erred more on the intellectual. At that time, the Arab world was submerged in tyranny on the one hand, and Marxism, the backbone of Sadiq's intellectual identity, was losing ground due to the collapse of communism, on the other. During this period, many academics found it expedient to put their political convictions on the back burner.

Sadiq al-Azm's most famous publication which still enjoys widespread appeal today is "The Critique of Religious Thought" (1969). It was this particular book that caused the author to be sued for denigrating Islam in Beirut, when he was professor emeritus at the American University there.

In general, it is safe to say that Sadiq Jalal al-Azm has made an impact over the last fifty years as an intellectual who is prepared to speak out about public affairs.

During this entire period, his utterances have been characterised by lucid style and a clarity of expression which has set him apart from his peers and contemporaries.

He is also known for constantly raising controversial issues, especially in his books "Self-Criticism after the Defeat" (1968), "The Critique of Religious Thought", "The Mentality of Proscription", and "Beyond the Mentality of Proscription" (1990s). These days, he is highly vocal in the debate about Syria; many of his interventions are considered controversial, the reaction is often one of ridicule and allegation.

Thought is always debatable

One of Sadiq's frequent claims is that every act of thought is debatable. This is no doubt an opinion with which many would disagree, but it must be said that he has always articulated his standpoints, critical, controversial or otherwise, with enviable clarity.

Sadiq was born into an aristocratic Damascene family, which likely fostered his early secularism. From the nineteen thirties onwards (and still earlier in Istanbul), secularism was actually quite common among aristocratic Muslim families living in Damascus and Aleppo. Winners of the Goethe Medal 2015 (photo: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Schutt) Goethe Medal prize-winners 2015: Neil MacGregor (left, 68), British museum director and founding director-designate of the Berlin Palace, the Syrian philosopher Sadiq al-Azm (right) and for the German-Brazilian culture manager Eva Sopher, whose daughter Renata Rubim (2nd from left) and god-daughter Ulrike Mühlschlegel (2nd from right) pose for photos after the awards ceremony on 28.08.2015 in Weimar (Thuringia)

Indeed, Sadiq combined this elitist secularism with his leftist, social and political ideas. The resulting configuration led to him regarding himself not just as a Syrian, but as a cosmopolitan citizen, who could feel a "spontaneous, justified and natural belonging" to any country, city and culture. Compared to other Syrian intellectuals who have relocated to the West, and particularly during the third stage of his career and life, Sadiq has proved the most effective in adopting an outward, global perspective while remaining actively involved in his country's affairs and the debate surrounding it.

It may be argued that the certain distance one senses between Sadiq and those in his immediate environment are down to Sadiq's upbringing, his intellectual education and his own personality. Indeed, it has never been easy to get to know him.

No followers and no personality cult

Furthermore, he himself says he prefers colleagues, opponents, counterparts, critics and friends to partisans, adherers, followers, imitators and admirers. It is therefore hard to claim that a "Sadiqi" movement or a "Sadiqi" school of thought exists.

Indeed, in the long run, the lack of a movement is probably wiser and more democratic than rallying support, which has become synonymous with fanaticism and totalitarianism. Only time will tell.

Sadiq Jalal al-Azm has been awarded the Goethe Medal at a time when the Syrian revolution has turned overwhelmingly apocalyptic. There is no question: the recognition of the individual was deserved, but the award is a broader act of recognition of Syria the country.

One timeless attribute of Sadiq and his work is this interdependence between the personal and the public: a non-conformist intellectual firmly focused on the values of freedom, justice, reason and globalism.

Yassin Al-Hajj Saleh
© Goethe-Institut 2015

Yassin Al-Hajj Saleh, born in the Syrian town of Raqqa in 1961, was arrested for political activity at the age of sixteen. He is an advocate of democratic reform and writes political features for various Arab newspapers, including "Al-Hayat", a pan-Arabic newspaper, published in London.

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Essay: Sadiq Al-Azm

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The Fight over the Meaning of Islam

English

The Syrian intellectual Sadiq al-Azm proposed Self-Criticism after the Defeat to the Arabs in 1968, and in the following year a Critique of Religious Thought. He sees a third way for the Muslim faith between radicalism and state Islam

Without denying that Islam as a faith and a world-historical religion continues to retain a pointed political charge and a fighting edge in the contemporary world, it is very important to recognise that political Islam is not all Islam and that violent jihadi Islam is not all political Islam. It is no less important to point out that, contrary to first impressions, the stakes have been very high in the fierce struggle over the definition and control of the meaning of Islam. This should immediately demystify the common notion - widespread both in the secular West and the Muslim East - of Islam as some kind of unique, ubiquitous and almost omniscient and omnipotent primary determining force for Muslims, dictating everything they do including their goals, strategies, tactics and so on.

In the Muslim East this abstract and distorting notion is self-serving for the Mullahs and their religious power structures and is hence jealously guarded, propagated and manipulated by them. At the popular level, it certainly acts as a useful psychologically reassuring mechanism. In the secular West it provides easy explanations for baffling phenomena, hence its pride of place in the prevalent wisdom about Islam everywhere.

A fierce battle

This fight over the definition of Islam and the control of its meaning is fierce because Islam continues to be the doctrinal basis of Muslim societies in the contemporary world and continues to be a collectivist, communitarian and communal affair in the lives of these societies - as against the highly individualised, personalised and privatised forms of religiosity prevalent and practiced in the West today. Similarly, the modern tradition, which euphemises the original scriptures of Islam by explaining them away symbolically, metaphorically, figuratively, allegorically, etc., remains quite weak, meaning in turn that the literal reading of the Koran today, for example, retains far greater force than any reading of the Old and/or New Testament.

This partially explains the collectivist mass eruptions on the part of Muslims against such phenomena as Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses and the famous Danish cartoons dealing with the Prophet Muhammad and the blessed virgins of paradise. In spite of its rich classical tradition of parody, laughter, satire and criticism (particularly in Arabic and Farsi), contemporary Islam has not yet fully adjusted itself to the idea that in the modern world no religion is either above or below criticism, parody and satire.

Perhaps Muslims have made some progress on this score lately, considering that the recent showing of Gert Wilders' movie Fitna (highly pejorative to Islam) was met by Muslims practically everywhere with much self-restraint - i.e. with rationally considered and planned reactions in lieu of the usual mass emotional eruptions and abusive collectivist outbursts.

Fitna - an interesting term

As a digression, it may be of interest to note here that the word fitna in Arabic carries the double meaning of "great discord" and "civil strife" on the one hand, and of "something so enchanting that it transports you out of your mind and reason" on the other. Beautiful women, in particular, are said to act as fitna on men's minds, charming them out of their senses. Derivatives of the word are common proper names for women in Arabic (such as Faten and Fatina).

Fitna is also the name of a beautiful flower with a charming fragrance. I am not sure if Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali had any of these shades of meaning in mind when they had certain Koranic verses painted on the naked body of a beautiful actress for their joint movie Submission, shown on Dutch public television in August 2004; leading to the fitna of Van Gogh's despicable murder in Amsterdam in the same year and to Hirsi Ali's exile from the Netherlands.

State Islam fighting for command

There are now three main contending parties in the battle over the definition of Islam and the control of its meaning. The first party consists of governments, state apparatuses, established clerical elites and hierarchies, who formulate, propagate and defend what may be conveniently called "official state Islam". The most prominent form of this kind of Islam at present is the "petro-Islam" of countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, fully funded and supported all over the world by abundant petro-dollars.

The official doctrine of Iranian petro-Islam is the Rule of the Jurist (Velayet-e-Faqih), while the official doctrine of Saudi Islam says, "the Koran is our constitution" - i.e. we need no constitution of any kind for the kingdom (absolute monarchy).

Every state in the Islamic world has by now developed its own version of "official Islam" to help serve its vital interests and check those of competing states. Even the secular Kemalist Turkish state has found for itself a benign, elastic and tolerant version of Islam to toy with as necessary for a while. Since Sudan became an oil producing country, a form of petro-Islam has taken hold of the state there as well.

On the whole, official state Islam proved to be an indispensable ally and help meet of the West throughout the Cold War - particularly its most literal, scripturalist and rigorous readings, forms and applications. Thus, this Islam and the West know each other very well, understand each other very well and know how to cooperate very well. The bombastic complaints they keep making about each other in public can thus be taken with a good pinch of salt.

"Action Directe Islam"

The second party on the other extreme side is militant insurrectionary Islam. Its many factions, fractions and groupings resort to spectacular terrorist violence on a world scale under the banner of Islam's forgotten imperative of jihad against all infidels to further their agendas. It is this Islam that occupied the holy shrine in Mecca (the Ka'ba) in 1979, shaking the Saudi Arabian Kingdom to its foundations; assassinated President Anuar Sadat of Egypt in 1981, in the hope of sparking an Islamic revolution in the country; conducted a losing but bloody battle against the Syrian, Egyptian and Algerian regimes; and carried out the assaults of 9/11 inside the United States.

Its doctrine of jihad firstly apostatises (takfir) not only all ruling regimes in the Muslim societies so ruled, regarding them as no more than nominally Muslim entities and governments that require urgent re-Islamisation. Secondly, it calls for imposing Allah's sovereignty (hakimiyyah) and law (shari'ah) first in the so-called Muslim countries and polities and then everywhere else. The practitioners of this type of Islam summarise their approach in two words: takfir and tafgir, which translate as "apostatise and explode." I myself call their approach "Action Directe Islam", after the model of Paris 1968 and after.

The American version for the same period of the last century said: "DO IT" and "Burn, Baby, Burn". For this kind of Islam the attentisme of other Muslims bas become intolerable. Its spectacular violence is seen as at worst an acte gratuit in favour of Allah's cause, where the only kind of politics permitted is direct and immediate attack against the enemy - the more extravagant the better. This is an Islam that has given up completely on society, reform, political parties, social organisation, due process, the popular will, the spontaneous religiosity of the masses, in favour of the blind activism of die Tat.

This is its shortcut course to the restoration of an authentic Islamic order. I should caution here that although Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas carry some family resemblance with this kind of Islam, they should not be reduced to it. Both organisations are really remnants of the old twentieth-century national liberation movements with an Islamist mobilising ideology, concentrating mainly on freeing occupied territories. They conduct their struggles and fights locally, attack only the occupying country, have a carefully defined achievable goal, are ready and willing to negotiate a deal with the enemy and have strong and highly supportive popular constituencies.

Middle-class Islam may well win the battle

The final contender in the fight for control over the definition of Islam is middle-class commercial Islam. This side is represented primarily by the bourgeoisies of various Muslim states and led by an assortment of agencies such as the chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture; multiple forms of Islamic banking, investment houses, venture capital and so on. In so far as these middle classes form the backbone of civil society in their respective countries, their Islam becomes the Islam of civil society in general. It is an Islam that is moderate, conservative and good for business. It abhors the salvific projects of the radical secular left no less than the similar projects of the radical Islamist right.

The model for the hegemony of this kind of Islam is to be found today in Turkey, under the rule of the Justice and Development Party. The impact and lure of the Turkish example are already being powerfully and widely felt in the Arab World, the heartland of Islam. My own prediction is that if and when currently turbulent Arab states and societies stabilise and to some extent democratise, it will be some version of middle-class Islam that will float to the surface and gain pride of place for quite a while.

Sadiq Jalal al-Azm

© Qantara.de 2008

Interview with Sadiq al-Azm

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"Democratisation is a Gradual Process"

Quantara

Qantara.de interviewed Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, one of the most prominent Arab intellectuals, about democracy in the Arab world, and about the stance Arab intellectuals take towards authority

In one of al-Hayat's April issues, the poet Adonis published an essay on the war against Iraq. Instead of offering an up-front analysis of the impact the war has on the Arab world, the poet simply used hollow phrases to describe the situation. Does this example indicate a state of intellectually bankruptcy of the Arab intelligentsia?

Sadiq al-Azm: The word "bankruptcy" is probably too strong in this context. I believe that Arab intellectuals are deeply divided within themselves about what is going on in Iraq at the moment. When an intellectual is divided in such a way, when he has one point of view listening to the news in the morning and another point of view when he is watching the news in the evening, he usually does not admit that he is confused. Instead, he might try to escape that crisis, as Adonis has done, by using a vague language that tends to be emotive - a flexible language of slogans that covers up the actual crisis. Just like many other intellectuals, Adonis does not want to reveal his confusion regarding the war; he does not want to give away what is in his heart - namely, that he might actually be happy or relieved if Saddam's regime is put out of power by whatever means.

At the same time, Arab intellectuals feel horror and shock about the American attack, in which the most modern weapons are used against a Third World country. The intellectuals do not want to reveal any of this, so it is only natural to resort to such language. And Arabic is a very useful language in that regard, because it can give us excellent cover for such situations. Therefore, I would not consider it to be a case of intellectual bankruptcy, particularly if we talk about someone like Adonis. Adonis is more capable and more intelligent than that. I'm sure he acted deliberately and on a reflected level. Yet I believe that the best that has been written regarding this crisis is the article by Abbas Baydoun in the al-Safir newspaper.

But that article was rather an exception.

al-Azm: I don't think it was. Surely, it was a contribution on an extremely sophisticated level. But there are several other intellectuals that expressed their grave concerns in a similar way, even if they did not achieve the same level of clarity, precision and elegance that Abbas achieved. I did not write anything on the subject because Abbas had written everything that needed to be said, so there was really no need for me to repeat all of this. I would, however, like to add that two months before the war started, a group of intellectuals, among which were Edward Said, Shibli al-Mallat, Elias Khouri, and myself, issued a statement in which we called for Saddam Hussein to resign from office and go into exile. We were severely criticised from several intellectuals; we were even told that by making such a demand, we were supporting the United States in its effort to wage war against Iraq.

What do you think are the reasons behind the widespread solidarity with Iraq as shown by the Arab elite and Arab society in general, and would you say that it was actually supportive of Saddam Hussein's regime?

al-Azm: I do believe that everyone in their right mind who participated in those demonstrations was well informed about the true nature of Saddam Hussein's regime. Had we conducted a public opinion poll according to westernised standards - something we do not have, of course -, I am sure we would have found no one with any illusions about the Iraqi regime. Therefore, we really have to take a closer look.

I think that much hatred is directed at the US-American diplomacy concerning Palestine. This led to a perverted situation. As long as the US stand against Saddam, we will support and defend him to spite the Americans, because in such situations people are guided by their emotions. And there is yet another reason for the stance of the Arab majority. We in Syria are not quite familiar with demonstrations, but only with marches that have been organised by the authorities, the security forces and the intelligence services. Only recently have people been demonstrating out of their free will for the very first time as the second Intifadah was started. The demonstrations in support of Iraq were thus only just the second "spontaneous" demonstrations in which the people weren't shoved around by the authorities like a herd of sheep. The authorities are now unable to stop this, but they monitor the demonstrations and try to control their frequency so that people do not grow accustomed to these new habits. Yesterday the people demonstrated for the Intifadah, today they demonstrate for Iraq, tomorrow they will demonstrate for issues such as democracy, human rights and the lifting of the martial law.

Why don't people demonstrate against other vital issues concerning the Arab world, such as terrorism in Algeria or the victims of Halabja?

al-Azm: I have no answer to this question. People usually take to the streets to express grievances that are affecting them directly. Before satellite TV became available, regimes were able to cover up almost all of the activities that were critical of their policies before the respective news were broadcast to a wider audience. Usually, it was only the intellectuals who issued any critical statements. But let us return to Iraq once more: Here, a similar question should be considered. When Saddam invaded Kuwait, I was astonished at how fiercely a great number of people in the Arab world turned against the Kuwaitis. Why did the Arab majority gloat against them instead of sympathising with them, demonstrating to support them? I really can't explain the background of this issue.

But despite those demonstrations in support of Iraq, I believe that, after some time has passed, there will be a feeling of relief at being rid of a nightmare, although one might not be willing to admit it openly. Perhaps the war will even be a lesson for other regimes, prompting them to change their policies after the September 11 attacks, and I'm not only talking about Saudi Arabia. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime has been put out of place, we might as well profit from it. That would only be natural. Those groups working for a civic society, human rights and democracy in the Arab world are probably already debating about how to exploit Saddam Hussein's downfall for their political goals. The recent developments might actually improve their abilities to pressure Arab governments to change their policies, for instance by releasing those being imprisoned for their political beliefs.

But I expect that if chaos breaks out in Iraq, the position of other Arab regimes will be strengthened. "At least we enjoy stability and continuity," they will argue, "and we do not want to be put into a state of chaos and internal conflict like Iraq." And by the way, Turkey has become a model that is regarded with admiration. That is a new development, because in earlier times Turkey was hated by almost everyone. It was hated by the Islamists because of the country's secularism. It was hated by the (Arab) nationalists because of the Turkish occupation (the nationalists refer to it as "Turkish", not as "Ottoman"). And it was hated by the leftists because of its NATO membership, Turkey's position against communism and its alliance with the United States. But now, we find that Turkey has become the example that all those parties cite. Moderate Muslims praise the successful Turkish experiment, while nationalists and democrats praise the independent state that said "No" to the United States.

One basic issue that must be raised, in my view, is the stance that Arab intellectuals take towards authority. Why, after independence and the decades that followed it, are there no intellectual groups today that work independently of ideology or of an intellectual leader?

al-Azm: I'm afraid I cannot entirely explain the background of the historical reasons. The post World War II period, the great shock caused by the founding of the state of Israel, the expulsion of the Palestinian people and the gradual loss of Palestine made intellectuals want to reverse the historical process or at least stop Israeli expansionism. As a personality such as Abdul Nasser appeared, or as the 1958 revolution occurred in Iraq, intellectuals were attracted to such institutionalised programmes. A movement emerged that wanted to bring about radical changes in Arab society which in turn opened up possibilities for major goals. Arab intellectuals had great expectations concerning the movement of Arab liberation, or the Pan-Arab project. I believe that a large proportion of intellectuals supported that project out of conviction, not out of opportunism or a desire for materialistic gains.

But the relation of Arab intellectual towards authority remains problematic. It is said that the Arab intellectual can be bought very easily. Would you say that this is true?

al-Azm: Some of the intellectuals who gained prominence in the sixties and supported the Nasserite movement actually came from the countryside. Those groups that initiated coups d'état and regime changes allowed them to leave the countryside, move to the city, and acquire sufficient education to become intellectuals. So a kind of ends-oriented affinity developed between them and the new authorities, a kind of "filia", to use a term of Max Weber. It was an affiliation, a connection and a basic relationship that overruled the premise of critical distance. It had to do with self-interests and the opportunity that had allowed them, as rural people, to reach the positions they were in. For the longest time, they had been deprived of schools, education, hospitals and the institutionalised services that existed in the city. It was that group of intellectuals that played a considerable role in forming the Ba'th party in Iraq and in Syria and in paving the way to Ba'th's accession to power. Nasserism in Egypt had followed a similar path. After a period of time, however, those groups began to distance themselves from the regimes, which had not only given them the opportunity to gain access to the intellectual elite, but who had also allowed them to develop direct kinship ties to the pillars of authority. For example, a critical intellectual might have brothers who are members of the intelligence services, the army or the government, simply because they all originated from a certain privileged village. Family ties are still very important in the Arab World.

The interest system that prevails in the Arab World is one of the main reasons for its backwardness. But can you explain the backwardness at the political level and the failure to initiate democratic processes with those economic reasons alone?

al-Azm: Economic reasons are never immediate reasons. Economic factors only influence society indirectly. This whole issue of democracy in the Arab world is sometimes presented in such a desolate light. As long as no democratic traditions exist in the Arab World, it is said, democratic values cannot be established. But every country first has to attain democratic values and traditions. That is a historical process. I do not believe that there are some people who are born with democratic genes, and others who do not possess them. I would like to emphasise that the battle for democracy and human rights and the concomitant collection of values does not merely take the shape of a conflict between East and West and between Islam and Europe. It is an internal battle in every country. Every country that has developed certain civilisational standards goes through that battle - whether we talk about Germany, China, India, Syria or Egypt. Each of those countries has reached a particular level in achieving these standards, strengthening them and implementing them. It is therefore necessary to remember that the battle is not only a battle between East and West, between the Middle East and Islam on the one hand and liberalism on the other.

There is a ray of hope in the Arab world for emancipation from this crisis, even concerning the regimes themselves. We have no choice but to embrace the values of democracy and human rights and to establish a balance of powers, even if only in a partial process, even if we start out with thirty or forty per cent of democracy. It is worth noting that democrats try to establish their roots in a previous phase. In Egypt, for example, they refer back to the liberal parliamentary period, described by Albert Hourani as the Liberal age. The same holds true for Syria, where democrats are trying to fall back on the 1950s and the period of struggle against French imperialism. These groups try to create myths of origin.

Did something in particular occur that made those groups try to return to that past?

al-Azm: I do not think that anything in particular has happened. It is just that all other programmes had failed, whether we talk about movements of national liberation, Arab socialism or international communism. That also explains why there was a change of direction. Now, like I said, everyone is turning to Turkey as a model.

In the wake of the September 11 events, you expected Islamist activities to come to an end. Now, however, we experience that the Islamist movement is still alive and kicking, particularly due to the war on Iraq.

al-Azm: I disagree. Firstly, the Islamic movement has filled the vacuum that emerged after the Arab liberation movement ended in the years following the defeat of 1967 - and even more so after the war of 1973. In the following thirty years, Islamist movements have achieved something quite unique and remarkable: They have moved Arab societies into a more conservative and traditional Islamic direction, particularly concerning the role of women. But they have achieved something else as well. They are now in a position to exert control over cultural, intellectual and political issues. In the past, those issues were dominated by the political left, by pan-Arabists and by the secular parties. Now, however, Islamists dominate the public discourse in the Arab world.

But when Islamists become a power to be reckoned with or when they actually take power, they ultimately faile. They did not even offer a hint of a workable Islamic alternative - from Iran to the Taliban. I have pointed out that the resorting to blind terrorism is an expression of the depth of the Islamist movement's crisis, and not at all an expression of its rising and ascending.

Interview: Larissa Bender and Mona Naggar

© Qantara.de 2003

Translated from the Arabic by Samira Kawer

Sadiq Jalal al-Azm was born in Damascus in 1934. He studied philosophy in Beirut and has worked as a university professor in New York, Beirut, Amman and Damascus. The title of his most prominent book is "Critique of Religious Thought".

Portrait Sadiq Al-Azm

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An Argumentative Arab Enlightener

The Syrian philosopher Sadiq Al-Azm is one of the highest-profile and most strident critics of the Arab world. To this day, his ideas are between all fronts, making him enemies of both Islamist and secular dogmatists. Sadiq Al-Azm is soon to celebrate his 75th birthday. A portrait by Kersten Knipp

There are no doubt numerous advantages to coming from the upper echelons of Damascus society. One of these is dealing first and foremost with worldly realities, seeing the metaphysical as secondary.

This type of equation is an incredible relief - not only because it means the world can be measured and calculated, but also because it offers protection from intellectual neurosis. And neurosis, the Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm tells us, was extremely widespread among would-be intellectuals in the 1940s and 50s.

It was easy enough to succumb; all it took was to have read religious literature - and then come across secular works from the West. The result was a culture shock to beat all culture shocks.

Whatever happens in our lives, the religious books taught, is dependent least of all on human influence. "This is how God wanted it" was the explanation for almost everything on earth: good and evil, positive and negative, in politics and society as in private life, among family and friends.

For many in his generation, the idea that this might not be the case was a huge impertinence.

Al-Azm tells us this in his recently published book Ces Interdits qui nous hantent ("The bans that haunt us"), a 2008 collection of essays and autobiographical writing.

Intellectual hauntings

He himself, however, was fortunate enough to grow up in an upper-class household, where there was no room for ideas of God's influence on the ways of the world.

You had to take things into your own hands, the young Al-Azm learned - and then take responsibility for them. Your mistakes have nothing to do with God; and don't listen if the priests tell you otherwise.

"These circumstances" he notes, "protected me from the spectres of psychological and spiritual crisis, which might have seized me when I began to develop an interest in pan-Arabism and nationalism, ideas that were very widespread during my early youth."

Others experienced the political and cultural upsurges of the 1940s and 50s with less composure. For them, these years meant an absolute breakaway from all they had learned, all they had considered self-evident to that date.

The new theses may have been convincing. But above all they were - at least initially - shocking. Many of his friends found themselves in deep existential crises, writes Al-Azm.

The new ideas were incompatible with the old ideas, the gulf between them so deep and wide that it was nigh impossible to build bridges between them. "I knew cases in which that led to nervous depression or complete renunciation of active life."

Some ideas were simply too radical not to prompt shudders in those that came across them. As foreign and strange as they were, it took time to digest them. At some point, however, people could follow them after a while. "Most people I knew overcame their crises, turning to more progressive ideas from then on."

Disappointed nationalism

The story that Al-Azm merely hints at in his book may give us a clue to the circumstances surrounding the birth of secular thought in the Arab world - circumstances that occasionally caused problems.

The fact that Al-Azm was not familiar with these problems from the outset may have led him to couch his critique of the Arab world in such drastic terms, stopping at nothing and no one, and encountering even the allegedly most progressive movements of his time with deep distrust.

What, for example, asks Al-Azm, was Arab nationalism? A reaction to European colonialism and an attempt to unite the Arab states? Absolutely. At least that was one aspect to the phenomenon.

But presumably, he writes, it was something else too: an attempt to regain the role of a major power lost centuries ago. Arab nationalism, writes Al-Azm, was only ostensibly a freedom movement. In actual fact it strove for a place on the world stage.

High ambitions that were not fulfilled, however - and had grave consequences: "And so the grand illusions were born, the infinite inferiority complexes, huge compensatory fantasies, a derring-do spirit of adventure, irresponsible politics and more recently terrorism on a grand scale, to which the whole world has grown accustomed."

Yet the situation is paradox: according to Al-Azm, the very failure of Arab nationalism is responsible for this development - a failure that can be dated very precisely to June 1967, the time of the Six-Day War between Israel and an alliance of various Arab states led by Egypt.

Almost overnight, their defeat devastated all high-flying plans and the belief in a secular future. "And this gap," Al-Azm said in an interview, "was filled by the religious hardliners. Islam was the only answer that could fill the resulting vacuum."

This movement was by no means spontaneous, however. It had powerful patrons behind it: "Financial sponsors from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states immediately supported the Islamists, who occupied more and more of the public space from then on."

Insidious decline of Islam

Statements such as this place Sadiq Al-Azm between all fronts, both the Islamist and the secular. He has no friends on either side, at least not among those with political influence.

When he signed the Beirut-Damascus Declaration in the spring of 2006, calling upon Syria to withdraw from Lebanon, he escaped arrest only because he was not in the country. From Beirut, where Al-Azm spends most of his time, he then made cautious enquiries via middlemen as to whether he might dare to visit Syria.

To his great fortune, things settled down and the coast was clear again in Damascus at some point.

Al-Azm is a phenomenon in the Arab world. There are few intellectuals who criticise their region of origin as sharply as he does. The Six-Day War, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the discussion on Edward Said's book Orientalism, the Iraq War and Islamist fundamentalism: he has barely missed a chance to dive headfirst into a debate over the past 40 years.

He doesn't give Islamism much longer to live. But he also predicts an insidious decline for Islam itself, similar to that which Christianity has been through in Europe. His distance to religion already brought down a fatwa on him in 1970, declaring him an atheist - a title of honour for Al-Azm - but not inciting violence against him.

One thing that has protected him against all manner of wrongs and injustices, he says, is his family background. The name of Azm goes a long way in Syria. And the sharp thinking he learned from his family has so far remained without unpleasant consequences. Another of the advantages of coming from the upper echelons of Damascus society.

Kersten Knipp

© Qantara.de 2009

Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire

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