Al Nahda and Arabic Language
Dr. Azmi Bishara
Our aim is to participate in building an Arab renaissance project at a time when we seem so far from it. The highest ambition for some of us has been limited to waiting to hit rock bottom so that our free fall comes to a stop. In any cultural context, renaissance is also manifested in language, if it does not start there. A person’s awakening begins with language. The first renaissance, from which derives the term Al Nahda , in the Italian cities started in the local language, but not without its pioneers knowing other languages, including Arabic in some cases. The same applies to other renaissances such as the French, the English, the German, the Chinese, and the Iranian. In the case of what is termed the humanities, it is almost impossible to think about renaissance without a linguistic renaissance, because language is an essential element of the humanities in their classical definition. If the social sciences and humanities are not proficient in the language of the society and human beings they study, and are unable to formulate in that language, then they lose a large portion of their research tools.
I am not saying that there is some essential difference between societies, and that the main tools of the sciences are not applicable to Arab societies. I am in fact saying the opposite, that it is necessary to study the achievements of the social sciences and humanities everywhere, and be proficient in their main language in our age, which is English. However, is it reasonable for us to have a renaissance in the social sciences and humanities in the Arab nation without the Arabic language? Translation is undoubtedly essential in its capacity as both a transmitter of texts and a producer of culture and science. But is translation enough? The terminology of the social sciences was cultivated in cultural contexts like European industrial cities in the second half of the 19th century, or post-industrial societies at the current period (and “post” here subsumes what came before, that is what comes after industrial society subsumes industrial society just as the post-modern subsumes the modern). The literal translation of these terminologies is thus not sufficient and does not provide the necessary meaning to understand the social and cultural structures of our societies. The test for the growth of social sciences in the Arab context—I do not say Arab social sciences—and the challenge of contributing to these sciences on the global scene is related to our ability to cultivate terminology and concepts specific to our reality, and not just adapt concepts from other contexts, despite the importance of that immense effort. Additional concepts and tools of analysis should be derived in the Arab context, used to understand it, and exported to other cultural contexts. Those researchers can then determine whether they can borrow from them for their own reality. In this way, real dialogue emerges, be it asymmetric, and we must admit that currently we are not equal.
I am not talking about inequality between individuals, but about equality between the level of social science development in the Arab world, Europe, and North America. 9 10 Arabic is also necessary for the social sciences and humanities scholars to be able to engage in dialogue with their society, or at least address the well educated within society. This means going further than a few hundred readers of a specialist journal unavailable to the educated Arab and the insistence on only writing in a language he or she does not read, or in a version of Arabic he or she does not understand. Recently, I have read Arab research papers on ethics that I myself did not understand. I thought about the moderately educated Arab whom we wish to understand what we write. This is especially important in the field of ethics, as the most important result of the crisis we are enduring is the chaos of ethical standards, which has in turn become a main factor in prolonging the crisis. I say this in full knowledge of the importance of specialist journals and participation in the global academic community by specialists in a specific subject, and equally the objectives related to defining academic competence in usual cases. We need agreed standards to evaluate the achievement of the researcher and university professor. However, I am talking about something that goes beyond promotion to deal with the ends that I discussed. That is, the renaissance in the social sciences in the language of our society. Conclusion: On scientific method and ethical stance We are in a time of the failure of the Arab dictatorial regimes and the depletion of their sources of legitimacy and the renaissance of the Arab peoples everywhere behind the calls for justice; dignity and freedom. We have witnessed the extremely violent reaction of the old forces against this and the revelation of deadly drawbacks of spontaneity in the setback of the uprisings against tyranny. We are in a time when some societies disintegrated into their primary elements as soon as they clashed with the ruling regimes intertwined with social structures. We discover that their primary elements are not in the main individuals but groups. We are in an environment that marginalizes ethical standards and replaces them with, in the best cases, ideologies, direct opportunistic benefit, or nothing- a vacuum, and in the worst cases, nihilism.
Given all of that, we must locate our research agenda by ourselves and stop chasing the footsteps of Western academia that begins there as innovations and reaches us as fashions. We must listen to the rhythm of the reality we are living, and investigate from every angle the large testing ground surrounding us, which any researcher from the West would hope to enter. This is where our global contribution begins, not in thinking about it (that is in the contribution itself) but in thinking about the specific phenomena that we want to understand. Obtaining American or European recognition is not a goal, but a contribution to understanding our societies. If that is accompanied with international recognition, then that is a significant achievement on the level of building the academic institution. If our goal is knowledge production, it is not enough for our societies to be simply case studies, or testbeds for the conceptual apparatus that reaches us, normally belatedly, from Europe and North America. From another perspective, it is not permissible for us to fall into a counter-extremism, of rejecting the universality of science, logic, and rationality as an expression of Western colonial, male chauvinist, or white Eurocentric discourse. We should not begin with the scientific refutation and legitimate critique of the ideology inherent in some theories imported from the West and end up with mystical musings. Let us always remember that the critique of modernity in societies that experienced modernity has another meaning than criticizing modernity in a premodern society. The implications of the critique of democracy and its predicaments in a democratic state are different to the critique of democracy in a society living in the shadow of tyranny.
Equally, the critique of science can only be undertaken in a scientific discourse, using scientific tools, lest it become an anti-scientific critique. We should, for example, use scientific tools to uncover the colonial structures in our countries alongside ethical criteria when judging colonialism. Sadly, some turn the task into stitching together a post-colonial science opposed to the colonial sciences, and therefore believe they have undertaken revolutionary work that frees them from an ethical position. The result is a lack of knowledge, at the same time justifying to themselves their lack of an ethical stance on oppression, because they imagine that they have done their moral duty for no other reason than having practiced this presumed science. There are no black sciences and white ones, no Islamic sciences opposed to orientalist sciences, no feminist sciences opposed to masculine ones. The challenge, however, is for us to take an ethical stance against the forces that practice all the kinds of discrimination mentioned above. We must reveal, by means of a rigorous critical scientific method, their ideological influence and the impact of their value judgements on the social sciences and humanities. In this spirit, we set our agenda based on the needs of Arab societies. We research society and state. We research the end of the tribe and its reproduction by tribalism.
We research the end of the Sect and its reproduction by way of sectarianism in the current circumstances. We research class, urbanization, social assimilation, migration, rationalism, metaphysics, Salafism, morality, the roots of authoritarianism, democratic transformation, and the setbacks of democratic transformation, and so on. All the while, we remain aware that we are working for renaissance in a time of decline. Isn’t that the definition of renaissance? Hegel wrote in the Philosophy of Right when stressing the revival of philosophy at the waning of a historical epochs before the dawn of a new era that “the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.”