There are no police novels in authoritarian countries .. Why is there no Arab crime literature?

Aref Hamza-Hamburg

Crime literature is based on the story of a police man or an investigator who seeks to solve the mystery of a complete crime, and the novel writer or story usually uses an interesting method through which he tries to deceive the reader who is involved in trying to solve this mystery.

The famous American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is considered the founder of this type of literature after publishing his story "Murgh Street Crimes" in 1841, and then followed it with the story "The Mystery of Roger".

While it was its pioneer in the English novel Charles Dickens (1812-1870) with the publication of his novel "The Bleak House" in 1852, after which many famous writers such as Agatha Christie (more than sixty police novels), and Arthur Conan Doyle (the inventor of Sherlock Holmes), became famous. George Simon, Gaston Lero, and others.

This type of literature is popular in the Western world, and many of her writers have turned into stars and wealthy people, after achieving their novels enormous numbers in sales, as well as after converting many of them into movies or film series, and also because crime literature novels usually come in the top of the best-selling list.

At the time when Arab police systems existed and existed, this literature is still weak or faltering in the Arab world.

In this report, we seek novelists' opinions on crime literature in the Arab world, the reasons for its weakness and stumbling, despite the existence of experiences here and there, and the readers ’eagerness to read it. Is this related to these systems or the weak imagination of the world of crime and its writers? And when will we have Arabic crime literature? What are the conditions?

Arabic crime literature
Initially, the Syrian novelist and critic Nabil Suleiman (1945) believes that there is an illusion prevalent in the examples of the Western police novel, and therefore its loss or limitations in Arab narrative production.

Suleiman added by saying to Al-Jazeera Net that the basis in these examples is "taking a Western model as a sacred paradigm with which the critical and burning question is missing: does the investigator have the lowest qualities of the investigator" Hercule Boar "in the novels of Agatha Christie, or" Sherlock Holmes "in the novels of Arthur Conan Doyle? The police is the beloved of the millions or its enemy? Is the policeman protecting it or her forbidding it? As for crimes, what are the most, and as for gangs, there has been no embarrassment, and therefore these are essential elements in the police novel available to us, but they are not enough about questions about the investigator and the investigation, and this is not the most important.

Crime is exceptional
As for the Lebanese novelist and translator Najwa Barakat (1966), you find that "even if we Arab writers write a novel approaching the police type in some respects, it will remain an emergency or an alien to it."

This is justified in her talk to Al-Jazeera Net that this is due to the lack of those actions, the cultural and terrestrial context, which makes their events and personalities subject to persuasion or ratification, "The police novel as it has been embodied in the West is the city's daughter, laws, rights, and democratic systems, and among its conditions are breaching or insulting these laws, and seeking from Then to correct the error by condemning the criminal and inflicting punishment on him. "

On the other hand, Barakat finds that Arab societies suffer from several imbalances on these levels. "The state is not always the guardian of the laws, but it may be the rogue and repressive party, who commits crime and the law of corruption, but its structure may lack a minimum of organized institutions defending citizen's rights." And the facilitator of his life, this is not to mention the control and prevalence of everything that keeps it from being countries, either in the modern and contemporary meanings, because in most of them they are either countries with tribal tribal structure, or they are military.

That is why the author of the novel "Mister Noun" finds that in these cases, the crime is no longer an exception resulting from the presence of some deviations in the practice of law, the judiciary or democracy "but rather becomes the rule that cannot be corrected and which denies the existence of all social, political or even moral justice" .

The thug of Alexandria
When asked about his readings of the literature of crime and its effects on him, the novelist Suleiman said, "Reading the books of Arsene Lubin in Al-Saba provided me with pleasure that was not exhausted despite the years, and what I do not forget is what these stories were stimulating in my imagination, and a little of that was what my readings provided to police novels. Subtitled or watching movies and TV series. "

Solomon continues, "And less than that, my readings of Arabic novels provided me with only barely reaching the number of fingers, such as" The Question "by Ghalib Helsa, and her sister" The Thief and the Dogs "by Naguib Mahfouz, and the two accounts, as is well known, were centered on the famous thug of Alexandria" Mahmoud Amin Suleiman " And I don’t forget Kamal Al-Riahi’s novel “The Lover's Believers,” or the story of Amara Lakhous, “How do you breastfeed from lupus without biting you?”

The owner of the novel "Samar Al Layali" goes on to say that there are many Arab novels that had the smell of the European police novel, such as "Meryl Streep's line up", "Learning English" by Rashid Al-Daef, or some of Yasmina Khadra's novels .. even even "Who Killed Leila Al-Hayek?" Ghassan Kanafani, her police arm, also says, "Who killed Asad Al-Burouri?" For my beloved Salim.

He explains, "It draws me here that Tunisia has the aforementioned narrations of Riahi and Salmi, and the novel Faraj Al-Hiwar" In my library is a corpse "of three novels !! And I had run around the latter, along with the novel by Saudi Nayef Al-Sahn" Women Coming ", a chapter about the police novel in my book" Contemporary Month of Zad - 2008 " "".

Secret language
And by asking Najwa Barakat, "Professional, How do you write a novel?" Regarding her personal experience in writing novels that have a police nature, she explained, "I personally wrote two novels that had not yet been cleared by a police if it was true, as they included some elements of the police novel, namely, committing a violation of the law and conducting an investigation to uncover the perpetrator, whether the latter is a murderer or a mother A thief or a criminal of any kind. In "The Secret Language", there is an attempt to uncover the "holy tablet" thief whose stealing led to the occurrence of murders that required the commissioner to conduct an investigation to uncover the mystery.

Likewise, with the novel "Bus Bus", which is not without a police rhythm, where the bus passengers are arrested after discovering a severed head hidden in an olive bag and loaded on the back of the bus in the luggage of passengers ... "In both cases, despite the presence of elements such as investigation and investigation And suspense, the adjective "police" did not stick to the two actions, because it requires perhaps other additional tools and contrary goals, not even a different method.

Reality inspired
As for his personal attempt to write a police novel, the owner of the novel "The History of the Red-Eyeed eyes" of Al-Jazeera Net says, "The emirate misled me to write a police novel when two young men assaulted me on the night of 13/1/2001 during what was known as the Spring of Damascus, the aggressors are very well known and very unknown." Very, the police closed the investigation on its fourth or seventh day, and the allegation that I submitted before the Public Prosecutor remained pending to this day. Indeed, I had not thought that day about the obstacles to writing a police novel that would complete the Western police novel.

As for now - Solomon continues - "I think that the answer is wrong, and there is no escape from (environment) the police narration, and if this environment is achieved then the future is very promising for this narration due to the crimes and criminals for decades in our lives that kidnapped, killed, maimed and insulted the right and upheld The falsehood of authoritarian regimes and ugly dictatorships: Isn't the kidnapping of Razan Zaitouneh on 9/12/2013 in Ghouta and its disappearance to this day, is it not (material) for a police novel? Is not the kidnapping of Abdel Aziz Al-Khair from the airport road and his disappearance to this day (material) for a police novel? Examples? "

When asked about the conditions that crime literature needs in order to become the son of the place, the author of the novel "Ya Salam" told Al Jazeera Net, "When the day comes when we arrive at writing an Arabic police novel in the classic sense of the word, we will have built modern countries in which meanings such as truth, law and justice Accounting and fairness. "