Is My Brother to Blame?!

Last summer, being free of the tasks that had previously occupied my time, I had the chance to look closely and attentively into what my brothers read — brothers who are passing through that critical period of their lives, adolescence, of which the psychologists have said that it is the most dangerous period a person traverses in his life: in it he is affected by the most trivial causes, and is prone to slipping, to recklessness, to anxiety and turmoil... This period is the period of transition from the life of childhood to the life of boyhood and youth — the life of maturity, sound judgment, and stability. It falls to us, then, the matter being of such gravity, to have prepared for our adolescent young a complete store of reading matter to fill their leisure, form their lives, and build their future. So what have we prepared for them???..

I said that I looked into the reading of my adolescent brothers; and in looking into it I was looking into everything read by boys of their age in this country of ours... I began with my brother of sixteen. I had glimpsed in his hand a huge album, over whose pages he was absorbed in fixing certain pictures... I took up the huge album — and what did I find in it?.. Pictures of actresses and actors, alongside comments from certain newspapers about this one and that; and I was appalled to see those vulgar, half-naked pictures pasted over a comprehensive report on West Germany which my brother had prepared during the school year — these cheap pictures blotting out its features and ruining it.

I showed no displeasure or annoyance, for I wanted to carry my inquiry through to the end. I asked him the name of this actress and that actor, and off he went with the greatest enthusiasm, explaining to me the distinction of each: this one excels in playing seduction roles; that one's fame rests on the beauty of her leg, this one's on the beauty of her bust, and so on... He recited all this without a stammer or a stumble; he had it by heart... And I was certain that had I asked him to give me some of the distinctive merits of al-Mutanabbi or al-Buhturi or Abu Tammam or the others whose lives and poetry he had studied during the school year, the answer would have defeated him. I pressed on with my investigation and asked him to show me his reading; he led me to his bookcase, and there I found an enormous collection of cheap pocket books, of slipshod language and vulgar style; and he went on telling me about Arsène Lupin and his beautiful, thrilling adventures, and about Sherlock Holmes and his cunning and cleverness, and the other heroes of endless adventures and cheap translated detective stories... In another corner of the bookcase I found a well-stocked collection of American magazines, the names of most of which revolve around the word Romance — from True Romance to Screen Romance to Intimate Romance — and there was another set, all of it revolving around movie actresses. I leafed through some of these magazines, and what did I find: pictures of actresses in various poses... stories from which I now pluck a few titles: I Loved My Mother's Husband... I Loved My Daughter's Husband... I Was a Sinful Girl... My Husband Was a "Sadist," that is, a pervert — and so on among these vulgar, misleading subjects... And when I asked him the price of a single issue, he answered me: seventy-five piasters.. and the sum appalled me, spent on such trifles... I breathed a sigh of relief when I glimpsed, in a far corner of the bookcase, Arabic books bearing the names: Kan Ma Kan, Ghosts of the Village, Majnun Layla, and others, and then issues of the magazines al-Sindbad and al-Shabab — this last published by the American University of Beirut. And when I asked his opinion of all the books and magazines the bookcase held, he answered: "I prefer reading these American magazines, and then those detective novels. As for these Arabic stories — they're all just so much talk. And as for al-Sindbad magazine, I used to collect it when I was younger, but now I've stopped.."

I was startled by the surprise.. My eye slid to a corner among the books, and I glimpsed a book entitled Modern Training. I leafed through it and found it packed with advice on performing athletic exercises; and I had always noticed that my brother practiced those exercises, following the book's advice. When I asked him why he shouldered the burdens of that task, he laughed heartily at the naïveté of the question and answered me: "Don't you realize that exercises improve the body?" I said, "And if they improve it, what good does that do you?" He returned to his indulgent laugh, saying: "Don't you know that I want to become as trim as Lex Barker?" And when I asked him to explain the name, he took pity on my naïveté and ignorance as he replied that this is a well-known movie actor... Then he added: "Besides, girls look with admiration on trim, broad, strong physiques..." And here too my hopes were disappointed...

My brother does not realize that the homeland needs sound, strong bodies to defend its precincts when the alarm bell rings for help... He does not realize that the sound mind is in the sound body, and that the homeland is in urgent need of sound minds to guard it from stumbling and rescue it from the abyss into whose depths it is about to plunge... My brother, in keeping his body trim, wants to imitate the heroes of the screen and please the pretty girls..

And he is not to blame for it... So his own limited experience has taught him... The school has not tried to check his straying or straighten his crookedness, nor has the home tried... So is my brother to blame???...