Find the right

Series of steps:

Novelist Yaarub Al-Issa introduced the article by journalist Salman Ezzedine, saying:

I love the art of the essay, but it is hard to find an essay in the mountains of news material that calls itself an essay. To be an essay, it must combine grace and weight (like Muhammad Ali Clay), pleasure and interest (like the olive), reason and irony (like the law of the universe).

Here is the article by Salman Ezz El-Din:

Finding the “right”

The world is still young… and, of course, the left. As for the right, it is reactionary, decadent, selfish, narrow-minded, hostile to the course of history, which must always go to the left, and therefore worthy only of old people. The oath is just a kind of insult, but this insult still exists in the air because we do not find anyone to fight it, because we live in a country without oaths, or more precisely: without oaths. No oath dares to say that it is an oath!

At first glance, my character seemed totally unsuitable as a concrete model for talking about left and right, but a second glance confirmed that, among other things, it was perfectly appropriate.

When I left home for college in the mid-eighties, I knew nothing about left and right, and, apart from a few fragments I had read in some books, I did not know at the time that they were issues that concerned me in any way. I did not know whether I was left-wing or right-wing, and, more importantly, I did not know whether I should be left-wing or right-wing. However, I met a number of college friends who seemed to know, and knew a great deal, and who had had a great deal of discussion on the subject in the years before I met them, and they assured me that it was very serious and critical. Some of them told me that of course I was a leftist, and they presented me with irrefutable evidence. I was a well-read person, that is, a sensible and sensible person, I was the son of a poor peasant family, I believed without a doubt in social justice and women’s freedom, and I certainly longed to make a radical change to outdated traditions and inherited bad habits … “So what will you do, Lord?!” That’s how they settled the issue for me.

Discovering that I was born a natural leftist did not affect my life. It did not add anything to me, nor did it take anything away from me. Because I was too lazy to attend any meetings, and I was bored with the first catechism class prepared for me, I became more like a Muslim who does not pray or fast, or a Christian who has never been to church.

However, the identity of the left is still self-evident. A normal person with at least some sense and conscience must belong to the left and be completely hostile to the right … every right winger. I was very shocked to see that on a television program in a brotherly Arab country, a dignified and elegant man loudly said that he is a right-winger, he is a right-winger, and he will continue to be a right-winger. How can a person admit that he is reactionary, backward, and hostile to the people? !

My life was not easy given my new affiliation, since my friends on the left quickly discovered their suspicions about me in my biographies, to which I brought inappropriate readings: Taha Hussein, Tawfiq Hakim, Abbas Mahmoud-Akkad, Naguib Mahfouz.

The “theoretician of the group” explained the problem to me: “These liberal writers have lived through the Nasserist experience and tried to keep up with it, but in depth they remain loyal to the liberal era before the July Revolution. Unfortunately, many of their liberal ideas have been leaked to you without your knowledge, to your view of society, history and the world!

Contrary to what my friends thought, the word “liberalism” had a magical effect on my ears, and so the aforementioned liberal era became the focus of my diligent research, my secret destination, and with some conviction and a lot of debate, I decided to take a risk: if these relatives of mine were liberals, then so be it.

But being content and arguing requires some courage, which I lacked at the time, so I kept it to myself until an Egyptian director came to us with his film (I think, if I remember correctly, the director was Rafat Al-Mihi and the film was “Tamarind Milk Fish”). During the discussion held after the film, the director was asked about his political inclinations and he said that he had no specific inclinations but “I am a left-leaning liberal, if you insist”. Oh, what a good answer and solution he gave me. “So I am like him,” I said to my friends, “a left-leaning liberal”, and I emphasized “I am left-leaning” and assured them that my morals and family education would not allow me to succumb to left-wing tendencies. Becoming a right-winger, God forbid.

In just a few years, the world has changed dramatically. A great ideology, a great empire, state and system has collapsed, slogans have been destroyed, and many speeches have disappeared. Events have touched us and taught us, and so have books, which remain a treasure trove of the most fruitful advice, illuminating discoveries and stimulating blows.

I read an article in the book of the famous Egyptian thinker Fouad Zakaria, entitled “Right and Left in Philosophy”, in which there is a comparison between traditional right-wing philosophy and left-wing philosophy. More profound than satirizing this or criticizing the other side, in any case, it comes to a pessimistic conclusion that both tendencies of these two schools will lead philosophy to a dead end. However, the author here faithfully enumerates their respective characteristics, at least according to the understanding of its supporters, left-wing philosophy participates in “making history and changing social conditions. Turning from a state of pure theoretical thinking to a state of practical application, and setting goals for itself, striving to truly achieve it, and not just out of reach. “But on the other hand, his words clearly carry admiration for right-wing philosophy, which has been able to “build for itself a huge heritage that dates back more than two thousand years, and this heritage continues to accumulate and become more complex.” In this long historical process, the accuracy and depth of traditional philosophical thought gradually increased until it became a very complex style, very precise terminology, and characterized by excellent abstract and in-depth analytical capabilities.

I also learned from Will Durant (The Lessons of History) that if the Right is characterized by conservatism and the Left by change, both are necessary for human life. They are the oldest in human history, and if one of them is lost, it becomes lame and distorted… We need the Left to remind us of the need to reconsider our assumptions, our outdated traditions and our customs that are no longer suitable for our times, in order to present different ideas and achieve new achievements. We need the Right to resist change and renewal, thus forming a laboratory and sieve of ideas, a barrier that knocks down many fragile and fleeting proposals, but ultimately cannot knock down those that are more effective and more convincing. We also need it to stop changing after the change has achieved its goal, so it can help us digest the changes that are emerging and transform achievements into institutions, laws and traditions that contribute to the relative stability of our society. If the world is only on the right, it knows only stagnation and stagnation; if it is only on the left, it lives in a vortex of permanent and dizzying change, without goals, without compasses, and without stability.

As for George Tarabishi, he explained to me (a book on democratic culture) that the debate between the left and the right, although “essentially a conflict statement, democracy provides a more peaceful and moderate framework for this conflict than the one it adopts under non-democratic regimes. ” Therefore, the right and the left are the pillars of democracy, and “with the stabilization of democracy, the concepts of right and left tend to be deprived of their ideological characteristics and to appear as differences in working methods and programs proposed to solve social problems … And even if the disagreement between the left and the right is concentrated on principles and values, it does not take the form of mutual negation, but is limited to differences and differences in importance and degree. The right seems to adhere more to the values ​​of freedom, while the left, without denying the values ​​of the latter, seems to attach more importance to the principle of equality.

How far are the days when I was afraid to swear was an insult, and an accusation which I was shocked to find someone to admit!

There was a time when I, like some in my generation, believed that the lack of a (non-religious) right in our lives was one of the causes of our current problems, and that we needed a right that would declare itself a religious right. The right, the left would argue, argue, that would motivate them, motivate them.

However, it was a fleeting moment because we soon realized our naivety and that the biggest problem was not the absence of the right and the uniqueness of the left, or as some people like to say, “the left is fragile and only superficial.” It was the right that penetrated deeply into society, infiltrated every corner of society and grabbed its joints. “

The problem is bigger and deeper than this, that is, we live in a society without politics, below the political level, below the political line. Rulers and subjects, rulers do not care about left and right, just as subjects do not care whether they are left-wing or right-wing… until we enter the “circle” of politics, the question of left and right will not appear. Still like our question of whether the inhabitants of Mars are female or male.

Politically, we may find a wise and moderate right and a more capable left. Perhaps the vocabulary of left, right, and center, with their offshoots, derivatives, and mixtures, will be reflected in reality.

For me, who knows, maybe one day what I said to my old friend as a teenager: “left liberal” will become a reality.