{"id":14155,"date":"2016-02-19T12:02:25","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T16:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=14155"},"modified":"2016-02-19T12:02:25","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T16:02:25","slug":"adonis-in-osnabruck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/adonis-in-osnabruck\/","title":{"rendered":"Adonis in Osnabruck"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ARCHIV<\/a>

Foto: Jesus Ochando\/epa<\/p><\/div>\n

Last September I wrote a blog entry about the Syrian poet Adonis receiving the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize<\/em> of the city of Osnabr\u00fcck & the resistance from a range of quarters to this award. You can read my\u00a0original post here<\/a>. Since then a fair amount of pressure has been put on the award committee demanding\u00a0the award be rescinded, while\u00a0the man who was supposed to give the laudatio<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 last year’s winner of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Navid Kermani<\/a>, \u2014 bowed out. The committee has\u00a0stayed with its original choice and today Adonis will be awarded\u00a0the prize. The core reason for this opposition has been the accusation that the poet has not been loud enough in his criticism of the Assad regime. As I wrote in September:<\/p>\n

\n

I have heard such criticisms before, here in the US, & in France as well. Some may be justified \u2014 or can be explained by the elder poet\u2019s weariness. [Adonis is 86]. \u00a0Still, he has been very clear as to his thinking on these matters.\u00a0At\u00a0our last meeting \u2014 a year [& 1\/2] ago \u2014 I asked Adonis about Assad\u2019s regime \u2014 and the wider situation of\u00a0the Arab world. His immediate and spontaneous\u00a0reaction was to express a sense of deep pessimism, something close to despair. He is obviously not a fan of Assad\u2019s, but is afraid that Assad, at this point, will only be toppled\/replaced by a religious-based power structure (By the\u00a0way, he has been saying this for many years, i.e. way before the rise of ISIS …). He is deeply convinced\u00a0that it doesn\u2019t matter who, what kind of ruler, is\u00a0running any given Arab country as long as religion remains central to the culture as such. Change, he said, possible democratic change on the political level too, can\u00a0only come once the people realize that religion is\u00a0what is holding\u00a0them down, culturally and politically, and are willing to free themselves from this imposition. The culture has to change first in such a way \u2014 he put it elsewhere \u2014 that it will allow for questions to arise, which is not possible at this point. The Islamic culture that holds sway claims that\u00a0all the answers to all possible questions were given when\u00a0the religion was founded. There is thus no need to think, because\u00a0any new thought is heresy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He repeated many of these thoughts a few days ago in an interview<\/a> with the German paper Die Welt<\/em>, extracts\u00a0of which I’m\u00a0translating here below:<\/p>\n

\n

DW: An open letter you wrote to Assad in 2011 in which you call him the “elected president” gave offence. What would you write to him today?<\/p>\n

Adonis: Exactly the same words: that he has to resign. But I also wrote a second public letter addressed to the revolutionaries. I have asked them what their vision was. But they didn’t want to read it because they are not independent.<\/p>\n

DW: From whom do they depend?<\/p>\n

Adonis: The Americans, the Saudis, the Qataris, a certain European politics.<\/p>\n

DW: You say the Arab world is sick. What is your diagnosis?<\/p>\n

Adonis: It is built on a totalitarian model. Religion dictates everything: how you walk, how you go to the bathroomn, how you are supposed to love…<\/p>\n

DW: A modern islam is not possisble?<\/p>\n

Adonis: You cannot reform a religion. If you reform it you separate it from itself.\u00a0That’s why a modern Islam is not possible, even if modern Muslims are. If there is no separation between church and state then there can be no democracy, no equality for woman. Then we will remain in\u00a0a theocratic system. That’s how it will end. Theocracies are being set up across the Middle East with the help of the West.<\/p>\n

DW: That’s your old argument, that after Assad something worse will come. Do you think the developments in Syria are proving you right?<\/p>\n

Adonis: Assad is only\u00a0a detail. What interests me is the whole of the Arab world. Why does the West never talk about Saudi Arabia? Is that a democracy?<\/p>\n

[The journalist mentions a book coming out in Germany with\u00a0photos documenting torture under Assad’s regime, photos that remind him of Nazi crimes. Adonis\u00a0is\u00a0asked what they remind him of:]<\/p>\n

Adonis: They remind me of\u00a0Guant\u00e1namo, of the horrors committed by the USA, the land of civilization, progress, technology.<\/p>\n

DW: You really want to compare torture under Assad with \u00a0Guant\u00e1namo?<\/p>\n

Adonis: I am against Assad and against\u00a0Guant\u00e1namo. That\u00a0Assad tortures, we have known for fifty years. The West has been an ally of the regime despite all this.<\/p>\n

DW: Would you call Assad a criminal today?<\/p>\n

Adonis: They are all criminals….in this part\u00a0of the world they are all criminals, not one has come to power through free elections. No difference between the regimes and their opponents…<\/p>\n

DW: You judge the Arab world very harshly, and further\u00a0that you are a critic of Islam. Is that why you are being attacked?<\/p>\n

Adonis: I am a sort of scapegoat. I have been criticizing Arab culture and arab politicians since 1975 and I can only say: the Arabs are at the end.<\/p>\n

DW: What do you mean by that?<\/p>\n

Adonis: I mean that the Arabs are no longer a creative force. Islam contributes nothing to intellectual life, gives no impetus. It doesn’t add any thinking, any art, any science, it has no vision whatsoever that could change the world. This repetition is a sign of its demise.<\/p>\n

DW: A sad conclusion from the mouth of a man who is called the greatest\u00a0Arab language poet alive\u2026<\/p>\n

Adonis: What is needed is a break, a new beginning. I had hoped the “Arab spring” would be such a new beginning, but I was wrong. It only led to regression, because they only wanted to change the regimes in power, but not society as a whole. The liberation of people is what is essential. What matters is to free woman from sharia law, and for all people to gain\u00a0their human rights. To change society would have required\u00a0to change the cultural and religious foundations.<\/p>\n

DW: Isn’t it the Arab world that is destroying itself?<\/p>\n

Adonis: No, it is the West together with the Arab fundamentalists. You can understand what is happening in the Middle East only if you include the West in the equation. It has never promoted human rights or\u00a0democracy. It has even considered Haytham Manna<\/a>, the Syrian opponent to the regime who has always refused violence, as a marginal figure not to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

DW: Have you received death threats?<\/p>\n

Adonis: Of course. I don’t care. There are\u00a0convictions for which one has to risk one’s life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let me end by reprinting Adonis’\u00a0poem I had quoted in September:<\/p>\n

\n

The air, misshapen.
\n<\/span>The country\u2019s entrails,\u00a0 <\/span>shredded by its children\u2019s fingernails,
\n<\/span>the crossroads robed in dust lit up by their wrinkles,
\n<\/span>arrayed in clothes woven from their steps.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who will tell the crossroads: no,
\n<\/span>do not share your secrets with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

We no longer expect the magic of dispersing us in them,
\n<\/span>nor the bliss of reunion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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