In Forbidden Reminisces, Ella Shohat examines multiculturalism as an empowering force in which power is decentralised and a clear stand is taken on behalf of the marginalised and oppressed.
I remember
the moment in which I began to read Forbidden Reminisces
by Ella Shohat. I was sitting outside in the sun, on the sand of Jaffa’s beach. The
statement of intention, already, in the opening article of the book, brought me
to tears. I mumbled the words as I read them: “Polycentric multiculturalism
does not deal with heart-touching emotionalism or sentimentalism toward the
‘unfortunate others’: it deals with decentralizing power, empowering the
disempowered, in changing institutions and means of discourse. It does not
preach for illusionary equality between perspectives, but takes a clear stance
on the side of those whose perspectives are not represented, i.e. to stand at
the side of those pushed to the margins and subject to oppression…It does not
deal with minority groups as ‘interest groups’ which must be ‘added’ to the
existing national or social core, but as active partners and creators in the
heart of a joint history that includes from its inception contradictions and
struggles.”
I raised my
eyes from the letters which came together into clear words and coherent ideas,
and looked into the Mediterranean. In front of
me Arab girls played and I felt that finally I had found the words which would
permit me to rewrite my cultural dialogue with them, with the sea and the
surrounding space.
I returned
to the Department of Cinema in order to study Arabic, Arabic cinema, Middle
East history and theories of cultural criticism in order to conduct that same
‘corrective’ act of taking a “clear stance on the side of those whose
perspectives are not represented”, through bringing the Arabic and Middle
Eastern cinema into the academic discourse. The goal was to map their
influences on Israeli cinema: on the melodramas of George Ovadia, the “cassette”
movies of Yamin Mesika and the popular comedies of Zeev Revah, which I wanted
to compare to their siblings in the popular Egyptian, Persian and Turkish
cinema.
I found
myself reading clever and winding post-colonial theories in English of writers
such as Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Hamid Nafisi. Theories
which were composed in the cosmopolitan western capitals and which deal with
minorities living in the West and the manners in which the ‘West’
conceptualizes non-western cultures, yet which didn’t provide me with the
perspectives of these cultures themselves.
The academic
occupation with “third world cinema”– films of immigrants residing in the West that
deal with their cultural identity, in addition to films created in the third
world which work against western hegemony – did not provide me with answers. I
did not find here the classic Egyptian films or the large film industries of India, Turkey
or Egypt.
I got the impression that the intellectual festival films, which are meant to
represent those whose perspectives are not represented, were in actuality
created for western viewers, within the same discussion that was also developed
in the West. I felt as if it was impossible to break out of this cycle. The
same cycle that Ella Shohat mapped for me, but in which I am still trapped.
In the
article “Columbus, Palestine
and the Arab Jews,” Shohat connects the expulsion of Spanish Jews and the
‘discovery’ of America
with the Spanish Jews who were expelled to the Indians who were ‘exiled’. She
contends that between these two incidents exists a dense connection: “after
all, the Indians in Mexico
were victims of the violent Spanish occupation and as victims of the Inquisition,
they were also forced to relinquish their religion and culture.”
This
connection caused me discomfort. I did not understand why I, here in the Middle
East, need the comparison to Chicanos in the United States. Why must a
connection be made between minorities in the United States and the local
reality? Is this not precisely the ‘American-centric” perception, similar to
‘Eurocentricism’, against which Ella Shohat warns? I wanted to write another
discourse, in parallel, of the Middle East. A
discourse which would take “a clear stance on the side of those whose
perspectives are not represented, i.e. to stand by the side of those pushed to
the margins and subject to oppression.”
I returned
to the same manifest of multiculturalism which appears in the beginning of her
book. Shohat writes: “Polycentrism expands the concept of multiculturalism not
only as a characteristic of ‘America’,
but as marking the aspiration to reorganize the relations amongst communities
within and beyond the nation state.”
I asked
myself whether it was possible that the American ‘multicultural’ model was
appropriate for a cultural analysis of the entire world?
It appears
to me that the Middle Eastern culture is one that can be self-referential,
within the local context. Even the ‘Mizrahi’ part of the Israeli culture is not
an immigrant minority requiring polycentric enquiry. It must be mapped as part
of the centre. It is the centre. Poetry of requests and cassette music,
Friday’s Arab film and burekas films, Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed and the
Muslim Kalam philosophy, Adel Wahab, Zohar Argov, Rivi David Bozaglo, Laila
Murad, Yosef Shiloh, Adel Imam, Charlie and a half, the Square of Dreams.
I found the
perspective for which I was searching in another place, much closer. At a
distance of approximately nine hours on a bus and at a cost of NIS
100 – in Cairo.
I traveled with my good friend Eyal Sagi, whose parents emmigrated from Cairo and whose
grandmother was the cousin of the legendary actress Laila Murad. Eyal was
fluent in the Arabic language and culture, and in his home is a large library
of Egyptian books, DVDs and films. He took me on a journey to his family’s
past, to his identity, which became a journey to the local cultural identity
for which I had searched. We followed the tracks of Jews, who were part of the
Egyptian culture in music and film. We met intellectuals, journalists and
filmmakers. I fell in love with the city.
Several
months later I returned to Cairo
for the international film festival. In parallel, the Israeli Academic Centre
in the city suggested that I screen my film about Faiza Rushdi, an Egyptian Jew
who was transformed in Israel
into the queen of Arabic music. To my surprise the screening garnered attention
from the media. Journalists, friends and filmmakers I met at the festival
arrived. The sounds and pictures opened hearts. I found a sympathetic ear for
my ideas. I spoke of the influence of the Arab culture on Israeli culture and
was interviewed for newspapers and the Sawat Alarab radio. My voice was
heard here, in the space of the Middle East,
in Arabic. A large colour interview with me was published in Al Ahram,
the most widely distributed newspaper in the Arab world, in a special magazine commemorating
the beginning of 2004. The report encouraged numerous responses and articles in
additional newspapers. Suddenly the discourse, about which I dreamed, was occurring.
In the café
of the Opera House, after the screening of the film, I am discussing with
friends the theories coming from the United States and Europe vis-à-vis the
Middle Eastern cultural dialogue, the films of the festival vis-à-vis the local
popular cinema. And the same distance I felt in Israel is echoed here. We continue
to map together this new territory here, in Arabic, and suddenly the cycle is
broken, the perspective is strengthened and I found the centre for which I was
searching. The centre, from where I can look at you, Ella, and continue those
same ideas that you planted in my heart in front of the sea. My perspective is
here, from my eyes that filled with tears when I read your book, and in front
of whom Arab girls played in the sand.
In my next
visit to Cairo
with Eyal, I felt as if I was also coming home. In the bookshop of the Opera
House he stops, as usual, at the shelf of books about cinema. Amongst the books
about Egyptian cinema and the cinema of the Arab world I notice an exceptional
book. On the cover is a celluloid Star of David, out of which flow familiar
photos. Gila Almagor? Ivgi? I read the title in Arabic: The Israeli Cinema. I
gripped Eyal’s arm. Is this possible? Who wrote a book about Israeli cinema in
Arabic? I read your name: Ella Shohat. And here the circle is closed. I
encounter your research, translated to Arabic, here in Cairo. Eyal purchased all the books about
cinema, including this book, even though we both had it in Hebrew. As a
souvenir. On the crowded shelves of his library they sit side by side.
*This
article first appeared in Mitsad Sheni, the Hebrew language publication of the Alternative Information Center.
Translated to English by the AIC.
**Sigalit
Bania is a director (“Ima Faiza”) and teaches in the Department of Cinema and
Television, Tel Aviv University.
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