LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

writing the nationAmazingly Abduh, Muhsin, and Salim rushed and plunged into the revolution withabandon. Perhaps Zanuba was the only person who noticed that. It seemed to her sheunderstood the secret of that a little. Those three who not long before were still andsilent … Their gloom and melancholy had departed and been replaced by concern,struggle, and zeal … All the bitterness of unrequited love had been transformed in[Muhsin’s] heart into fervent nationalist feelings. All his desire to sacrifice for thesake of his personal beloved had changed to daring sacrifice for the sake of hisnation’s beloved. This was what happened to Abduh and Salim as well, to a lesserextent. (274–5)Unity, thus, is not only contingent on self-sacrifice, or what it is in the selfthat might preclude the emergence of a unison of hearts; as a figurative readingof Saniya’s final displacement suggests, it may well necessitate the sacrifice ofothers as well. And while the imaginative vision of the artist may serve as a powerfulagent for the former, the latter evokes the image of some less benign force.Through al-Hakim’s near flawless weaving of the artistic vision and thetextual allegory into the fabric of the plot, whereby his young protagonistmerges with the community for whom he speaks, ÆAwdat al-ruh succeeds whereZainab had failed: it constructs a genuinely populist image of the nation withtremendous rhetorical appeal. But the nature of the solidarity argued for andengendered in the text should trouble us. At its worst, the image of the Egyptianpeople as a single orchestrated entity marching in an almost instinctive beatportends the excesses of Nasserism. 40 And even at its best, the text remainsconspicuously silent on the direction of that march. Thus, this image of nationalunity leaves us with a final question: Who or what, exactly, are the peoplesacrificing for other than an image of the nation itself? 41 Naturally, one does notlook to novels for political programmes; but given the power and influence ofthis particular novel, it is a question well worth asking. For in spite of its widespreadsuccess, ÆAwdat al-ruh could not rekindle the nationalist spirit that hadalready begun to wane by the time of its publication. Nevertheless, and despitesome clear differences and al-Hakim’s obviously more lasting accomplishment,Zainab and ÆAwdat al-ruh are exemplary products of Egypt’s, and the Arab world’s,first phase of cultural nationalism. As bookends for this particular moment inEgyptian history, these two texts not only represent the dominant focus andtrajectory of the nationalist thought of the period; they also provide valuableinsight into the rhetorical appeal, as well as the ideological limits and contradictions,of the territorialists’ nation-building project. And while one cannotdraw substantial conclusions on the basis of two novels, these two influentialtexts do shed light on some of the less tangible reasons for the ultimate failure ofthat project and the disillusionment with the programme of secular reformswhich by the 1930s had led many of Egypt’s leading intellectuals, includingHaykal and, to a lesser extent, al-Hakim, to finally abandon the territorialistargument.— 157 —www.taq.ir