Jordanian critic Dalal Anabtawi considers poets’ abandonment of just causes a betrayal (Al Jazeera)
In her creative journey, Dr. Dalal Anabtawi moved between poetry, criticism, and studies, and she possessed a distinguished reputation that left its mark on the Jordanian cultural scene, as well as her participation in intellectual activity and her studies on “The Place Between Vision and Formation in the Poetry of Ibrahim Nasrallah” and “Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab... Another Reading” “Manifestations of Nature in the Collection of Jasmine,” which talks about nature in the poems of academic Dr. Muhammad Miqdadi, and “Among the Corridors of Criticism” received a lot of respect.
In her first collection of poems, “Because I Waited,” which was the beginning of her work, it contained an abundance of a woman’s revelation as if she were all women, while her short story collections, “Space of the Soul,” “Features of Many Faces,” “Thresholds of Absence,” and “Joy Deferred,” were well received among her peers and those following the development of the short story in Jordan.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Anabtawi said that entering the world of criticism is like wandering through a minefield, but she added, “In criticism, there is an addition to the text and revealing its secrets. Through her follow-up of the Jordanian critical scene, she found a lot of ambiguity and an absence of integrity and objectivity, and personal relationships and benefits prevail.”
She called on intellectuals of all walks of life to adopt resistance literature that amounts to “the heroics of the Al-Aqsa Flood,” considering the delay of influential poets in expressing the fighting word in light of what our people in Gaza are exposed to is a betrayal of the homeland. The fairest issue is that “the heroics of Gaza are a provocation to the imagination of the creator and the outpouring of his feelings.”
And the details of the dialogue.
British academic Ronan Macdonald talks about the death of the critic and the decline of his authority. Criticism is not creativity. So, how do you see the critical situation in Jordan?
I say frankly that delving into the subject of criticism is like wandering through a minefield, because what we are witnessing, unfortunately, in the cultural community reveals that the critic falls between two paths: either he is a real critic, employing his tools in criticism in an objective and precise way, or he sides with the author of the text within strange, strange calculations that are very far from criticism. .
A book about the poet Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab by Dalal Anabtawi (Al Jazeera)
From a personal point of view, the critic must be biased towards the text with absolute objectivity, so that he employs his tools as a critic, away from personal biases, restrictions, personal benefits and gains.
Unfortunately, we sometimes lack integrity and objectivity when dealing with creativity in the cultural scene, and we find that what prevails are personal relationships, benefits, and strange calculations that are far removed from creativity and its conditions.
For me, the death of the critic means the death of the text and its creator, and criticism is another creativity, as it is an addition to the text and reveals its aesthetics, its implications, and its secrets for the recipient to see it from a new perspective, who had never thought that its creator had gone to those distant, absent areas.
I see that justice is a thorny and difficult topic, and delving into it in close proximity to the topic of criticism makes the matter more difficult and complicated, because through our careful follow-up of the local and Arab critical scene, we find that the scene is sometimes plagued with a lot of ambiguity and ambiguity, interfering with calculations that I may not be ignorant of.
As for correcting the cultural scene in general and the critical scene in particular, it is an inevitable necessity, but it requires the concerted efforts of all and the true critic and the academic critic not to abandon their role. Here the question arises: Why have critics not succeeded so far in developing an Arab critical theory through which we judge our texts instead of relying on imported Western theories? Far from our environments.
Many people talk about cultural security and the necessity of confronting intellectual invasion. From your point of view, is it isolation or confronting an idea with an idea? Is there cultural devastation?
Cultural security is very important, a necessity and a goal in light of the systematic intellectual invasion to which the Arabic language is exposed first and the Arab culture second. Cultural security, in my opinion, cannot be achieved except by more work to confront and confront the intellectual invasion and work to resist cultural devastation in all its forms.
Unfortunately, many of our intellectuals are still talking in their salons about Western cultural penetration into our country, and this penetration has increased due to social networking sites to force us to abandon our Arab-Islamic heritage, values, and traditions, without making any effort to preserve our identity. Indeed, there are among us those who consider our heritage an obstacle. To advance under the name of “modernism” and keep pace with the spirit of the times.
Some people believe that focusing on resistance literature at this particular stage is “an individual obligation”?
I affirm that resistance literature has become a necessity, and it has been imposed on writers, writers, and poets to write diligently about resistance and confronting the forces of injustice, tyranny, and evil from the Israeli entity and its agents, so that the next generation will find in its hands something that confirms the strength and solidity of resistance literature in confronting the occupier, its injustice, and its oppression of our people and the people of Palestine. General.
Study and book “The Place Between Vision and Formation in the Poetry of Ibrahim Nasrallah” (Al Jazeera)
"If our intellectuals do not adopt the fighting word and the aspirations of our peoples for freedom, especially our people in Palestine who are facing the Zionist oppression machine, then when will that happen? I take this platform to say to our creators that the heroism that is created in Gaza is a provocation to the creator’s imagination and the flow of his feelings. Whoever immortalizes his name, participates in the marathon of heroism."
Al-Maghout says, “Do not be a peak, for this is the time of rock bottom, and do not be talented, for this is the time of the trivial.” Did you suffer in your creative journey?
What Al-Maghout said is 100% correct in this era, which was most expressed by the Canadian critic Alain Dono in his book “The System of Banality.” I have gone through a lot of things similar to that in my creative career, but I honestly have risen above all of that, and even ignored it, and I still play the same role of Rising up and staying away from these people and their time.
If I may say, “I did not achieve what I deserved in my creative journey and the illumination of many cultural events,” and despite that, the slogan that I am enlightened by has not changed, which is, “Life is not a search for the self, but rather a journey to create the self and adhere to its principles and values.”
Studies in novels, stories, and poetry by critic Dalal Anabtawi (Al Jazeera)
The poem illuminates a path. What path do your poems illuminate if the poem is a vision and rebellion?
I completely agree that poetry is the beacon of the way, as it is what gives us the true compass to see things with the eyes of truth, beauty, and love. I do not consider myself only a poet, but rather the writer of a text open to all genders that expresses myself as a human being and a woman living in a society that is still shackled by many restrictions, and who seeks and struggles to liberate her. From darkness, injustice, and marginalization, and sometimes I tried very hard to break away from stereotyping and constant insistence on resistance and rebellion in my texts.
In reference to those who combined more than one literary genre, I say that “the creator’s willingness to write in more than one literary genre reflects a distinguished ability, provided that he remains loyal to the genre in which he creates and excels.”
Good poetry, like bee venom, heals thoughts. What do you think as a poet and critic in a period in which there are many poets and the quality and influence of poetry has declined?
We are now going through a different time in his vision of the creator and creativity and in the standards for judging the text, its quality, its strength, and its ability to approach our transparent spiritual worlds.
Unfortunately, we no longer find this text due to the many texts we come across that were written by their authors in a hurry for the illusion of fame. Many of them, whose creativity I have seen and observed, tend to imitate without realizing it due to the specificity of the experience of those who imitate them, such as Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab, Mahmoud Darwish, Samih Al-Qasim, and others... because poetry In the end, as stated in the question, it resembles bee venom.
Literature is not a profession for a decent living in our Arab world except for the lucky ones.. Does it bring you financial benefit, given the saying, “Literature does not provide bread”?
Literature, creativity, and writing in criticism, for me, in light of the society in which we live, is never reliable in supporting your material life paths, and I personally no longer have to work in this system with any financial return for several reasons that I know and fully understand. We are in the age of “social media.” Writers are no longer reliable. And it sold a lot. Moreover, the publishing houses did not fail to offer the best of the books, such that the recipient, the reader, was confused and lost between those books that were offered to him either for free or at a very low price. Then there are names enshrined in the middle that are the ones behind whom are those who market and support them, and thus they buy and sell with the utmost comfort, and from here. Literature is no longer a profession for living.
Tunisian thinker Abu Yaarub Al-Marzouki says, “The majority of Arab intellectuals keep people away from resistance.” What do you think?
I completely disagree with him, because the true creator is inseparable from the issues of his nation and homeland and is always a resistor, whether in his creative achievement or in his life, and one of his basic missions is to express reality and its cruelty, and not more ferociously and cruelly than what the Palestinian people and the people of Gaza are exposed to these days. Particularly from injustice, genocide, and ethnic cleansing, therefore, ignoring this reality on the part of the creator is a betrayal of the homeland, the cause, and existence.
I would like to say that the majority of true intellectuals, regardless of their intellectual and creative perspectives, were and still are a supporter of national action and the Arab liberation revolutions and support freedom fighters with the fighting word.
In Palestine, the poems of the late Abd al-Rahim Mahmoud, Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, Tawfiq Ziad, and Abu al-Qasim al-Shabi are still the true expression of the role of the intellectual in raising awareness, arousing enthusiasm and mass mobilization, and glorifying the fighters and their sacrifices that pave the way for future generations.
Some believe that cultural salons are merely “elite retreats.” What about the Al-Wasat Salon, its activities and goals?
Literary salons are not the retreats of the elite, as some might describe them. They have existed in our Arab history since the Arabs became aware of poetry and wrote it, and they were not and will not be for the elite only one day.
A poetic study by Dalal Anabtawi entitled “Manifestations of Nature” (Al Jazeera)
The Cultural Salon is in fact a platform for those who have no platform and a platform for those who have no platform despite the large number of platforms and platforms. I see - not as a defense of the “Al-Moustaz Salon for Culture and Literature” - that it is an idea that aims to spread culture and awareness, and celebrates the true creative achievement that deserves to be noticed. We give it ample opportunity to reach the recipient and express it transparently.
“The Center” Salon sought to help creative women who do not find a platform to express their creativity and to take their hand to believe in their creativity, and to be close to the real cultural scene, not the fake one. This is one of the most prominent goals that we seek and struggle for to create a real platform free of compliments and hypocrisy and the constant endeavor to support... Attracting creative women first and creative people second.
After the Al-Aqsa flood, what were called special occasion poems appeared.. Any comments?
The Al-Aqsa Flood incident is considered one of the greatest things that happened and it still accompanies us. Therefore, I find that what was written about it and in it has not yet been met, and will not reach or express its depth and the depth of its occurrence in the history of resistance literature.
From my point of view, what some of our poets have expressed has unfortunately taken on the character of poetry for occasions and celebration of an event that is too big, grand, and noble to be consecrated and expressed in this way. I also find that all the poems and creative works that have been written are far less than the heroics of the resistance and the sacrifices of the “Gazans.” “But I am optimistic about the emergence of a new resistance literature that amounts to the flood of Al-Aqsa, and perhaps extends to it to express the hatred and resistance stored in our chests to this murderous occupying enemy.
Source: Al Jazeera