I don’t remember who it was, but someone once said that a barbarian is someone who seeks to destroy that which he is incapable of creating. The context in which I first read it was referring to the disciples of radical Islam, but some have posited that Islam in general stifles creativity, and the last thirteen centuries devoid of substantive thinking and invention in the Arab world are a result. Now an Arab has the courage to say so:

“We [Arabs] have become extinct,” said Syrian poet Adonis in a March 11 Dubai television interview…. The prognosis by Adonis, the only Arabic writer on the Nobel Prize short list, for the Arab prospect has become more bleak over the years, and his latest pronouncement has a Spenglerian finality.

“We have become extinct … We have the masses of people, but a people becomes extinct when it no longer has a creative capacity, and the capacity to change its world … The great Sumerians became extinct, the great Greeks became extinct, and the Pharaohs became extinct,” he said.

Poets are given to hyperbole, to be sure, but Adonis (the pen-name of Ali Ahmad Said) makes a deeper point in his writings on Arabic poetry. He argues that Islam destroys the creative capacity of the Arabs, who in turn do not have the capacity to become modern. What he calls the “hell of daily life” is the subject of his poetry, of which a representative sample is available in English translation.

I tend to think this is true, and I’m doubtful any amount of Western intervention or globalization will have a significant impact on the situation. Arab culture is resistant change from the outside in general, and it is most resistant to change that appears to be imposed by other cultures. Adonis extends this weakness to the Arab’s likelihood to adopt democratic values:

I oppose any external intervention in Arab affairs. If the Arabs are so inept that they cannot be democratic by themselves, they can never be democratic through the intervention of others. If we want to be democratic, we must be so by ourselves. But the preconditions for democracy do not exist in Arab society, and cannot exist unless religion is re-examined in a new and accurate way, and unless religion becomes a personal and spiritual experience, which must be respected.

I tend to agree with this assessment, but I don’t think religion is the only problem. Filial, tribal and ethnic loyalties further complicate things and point to a long road indeed for the West in Iraq.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, DragonLady’s World, The Bullwinkle Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, stikNstein… has no mercy, The World According to Carl, The Right Nation, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, Wake Up America, High Desert Wanderer, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 and is filed under Culture, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.