The Mentality That Rules Us Is the Mentality of Bygone Eras

The mentality that rules us is the mentality of bygone eras. In an article published by the American social scientist Professor 'Dodd,' examining the differences between the Eastern mentality and the Western, the writer notes that among the striking differences between the two mentalities is that the first is a dependent mentality while the second is marked by self-reliance. The Eastern student, for example, when a problem or difficulty confronts him, goes off to seek its solution from his teacher or from some other person he trusts, instead of setting about solving it by his own efforts or by digging through dictionaries and books.

This phenomenon, which the professor analyzed in his article, points not only to the Easterner's dependency — that dependency bequeathed to him by ages of servitude — but also to the trait of attachment to persons, which marks peoples before they reach the stage of maturity: the trait of following the leader with the booming voice, whether he appears in the guise of a deadly warrior, a man of religion, a feudal lord, or a teacher.

All of that belongs to the vestiges of bygone eras. But were you to look closely into the features of our life and gather up what still clings to it of the traces of those eras, the thing would appall you; the sheer number of those traces would startle you, and your astonishment would grow as you grasped the hold they have over souls — so much so that some of us would sooner have life leave them than have the dominion of ignorance leave them.

Take, for example, the custom of hanging amulets on children's chests to guard them from the evil eye. Do you not see it practiced commonly even among the class that lays claim to learning and culture?

Of a kind with these amulets are the hackneyed phrases which the cultivated and the uncultivated alike repeat in their talk, to ward off the evil of the eye, or in deference to custom, or out of a desire to flatter and oblige: 'God's name upon him.' 'No evil meant.' 'God willing.' 'God keep him.'

Then there is the profusion of God's name in speech and the repetition of oaths and invocations: 'By God.' 'By the truth of your faith.' 'By my father's life.' 'God preserve you.' 'God protect you.' All of that is a visible trace of the Middle Ages, when religion held dominion over souls. But what admits of no denial is that the religious spirit which marked those ages has vanished today, and nothing remains of it but these threadbare oaths and hollow invocations repeated on every tongue. Mikhail Naimy hit the mark when he said: We are a nation whose religion is in its mouth.

Like these conventional invocations are the conventional compliments and the titles with which ordinary letters, the addresses of correspondence, and the puffs of the newspapers overflow: the most magnificent, most honored, and respected Sir; the great fighter; the inspired poet; the great woman of letters; the Miss of exquisite breeding; the lady of modesty and virtue. If these indicate anything, they indicate a decline in taste. And there are those who fasten the title 'Bey' to every name, after the Egyptian fashion. The beylicate, to my mind, is a symbol of reaction and despotism out of a hateful age. It would better become the man who actually bears the title to renounce it — what, then, of those who pride themselves on usurping it or on conferring it gratis?

We return to Professor 'Dodd's' studies. This researcher holds, in some of his articles, that among the values the Arab has inherited from his past two are worth preserving: the first is self-respect and the second hospitality.

What do we mean by self-respect, and what does the writer intend by it? Analysis shows us that the expression means holding oneself above whatever disgraces or dishonors a man in word or deed. It is, consequently, a general term, wide in denotation and quivering in meaning, and not the sort of thing fit for use in a scientific book, for it embraces all the noble virtues and bears every kind of interpretation. What we observe is that Easterners make it a synonym for the word honor — which in their eyes is the measure of morals — and then confine the meanings of honor to a single subject: the guarding of the family honor, that is, the guarding of woman, hemming her in and keeping her from looseness. Meanwhile they pass in silence over many faults which they do not reckon contrary to honor. They wink at lying, evasion, tale-bearing, slander, the plundering of people's money by deceit and hypocrisy, and the man's own looseness, dissipation, and commission of forbidden things. But the day of doom breaks, blood boils, and bullets flash the moment a woman's conduct becomes a matter of doubt and evil tongues play with her reputation; then neither brother nor husband scruples to strike her down on a mere accusation, and he finds nothing in the law nor in public opinion to make him feel that his deed is a crime and a relic of the ages of barbarism. On the contrary, he often hears around him words of approval and vindictive relish, and so counts himself a hero out of the legends. Thus the woman is offered up rather than the man, because she is the weak member of the family, and among us the tale of the animals sick with the plague is played out anew.

As for hospitality, if it had its merits among our forefathers, whose desert country was bare of hotels and means of earning a living, its evils have outweighed its virtues in our present age. Hospitality has today become a means of encouraging parasites; a display of luxury and squandering among the rich; a road to bribery and the buying of souls, after the saying 'Feed the mouth and the eye will be ashamed'; and a convention that drives the poor to dissipate their little substance out of love of show, of dissembling, of covering over the truth. In the name of hospitality we bid the foreign exploiters an ample welcome; in its name we make our country a refuge for vagrants and drifters from the ends of the earth; and in its name the funds of the treasury are squandered, spent on banquets and receptions instead of on schools and institutions.

Some time ago Tawfiq al-Hakim — the well-known Egyptian writer — visited one of the Arab countries as a sightseer. No sooner had he put up at a hotel than the government informed him that it considered him its guest and would settle his hotel bill for him. But he refused to accept this courtesy. And when the hotelkeeper declined to take the money the writer owed, the latter sent it to the government in the form of a postal money order.

Tawfiq al-Hakim could have let the government count him its guest and pay for him the trifling sum he had spent at the hotel; but he wished to teach the men of government a lesson, and to show them that the funds of the treasury exist to be spent on public undertakings, and that a country whose people are ravaged by ignorance and illiteracy needs any sum of money — however trifling — more than Tawfiq al-Hakim needs it.

But which of our would-be leaders will take the moral of Tawfiq al-Hakim's example to heart?