How to Destroy a Middle Eastern State

Want to know the easiest way to completely destroy the existing order in a middle eastern country? Hand out fiction novels to everyone, free of charge.

I'm not even talking about deep fiction; you know, the kind of fiction they made you read in English class because it was supposed to mean something. No one actually reads that stuff anyway. I'm suggesting instead that we provide good old fantasy and science fiction novels to anyone who will take them. In a generation, the authoritarian regimes will collapse.

I'm sure you all think i'm being ridiculous, but one of the fundamental weaknesses in societies I've seen here (so really, Egypt) is the incredible paucity of imagination across almost every social group I've had the fortune to interact with. I should add, that because AUC is an extremely upper class institution, for the most part, I'm talking about educated elites. Despite all their education, very few of them seem to have come by this essential quality that the West seems to enjoy in abundance. I'm convinced that much of that has to do with a lack of fiction.

The example (and outrage) I like to use in illustrating this point (I'm making it sound like i've ranted about this before, but I haven't, except in my own head) is that of Diwan Booksellers, a fine establishment on 26 July Street here on Zamalek Island. It's a very nice bookstore, with a little coffee bar, fine wooden interiors, fairly decent selection, and dramatically overpriced postcards - everything you could possibly want in an upscale bookery. It has only one extremely fatal flaw, and that is its complete and utter lack of a sci/fi fantasy section. At all. Period, anywhere in the store. The only exception to this are the Harry Potter books which can be found in the miniscule 'teens' alcove off the main chambers - and I imagine those only made it on the shelf because they're so bloody popular (economics for the win). You can imagine my horror went I went to go buy the next book in any of number of series that I'm currently reading. ("What do you mean, you don't have a fantasy section?! Augh!!"). More seriously though, I think the fact that no one here seems to think its a problem that there isn't a sci fi or fantasy section is really telling about the state of imagination here in Egypt.

You see, imagination is the cornerstone of our ability to create solutions to the problems we face in daily life. For the most part, you don't need much - if you're hungry, make a sandwich, or buy one for 50 piasters (8 cents! whee!) off the guys selling them at the corner. Need money? Get a job. Can't get a job (because, oh wait, there aren't any)? Talk to someone who has a job and see what they or someone they know can do for you. Need housing? See "Job, Get a." Anyway, you see what I mean. Day to day, it is possible to get buy with what little imagination one picks up of necessity on the road to adulthood. Life's little questions can be answered, one way or another. But, if you want to answer the bigger questions (Why aren't there any jobs? Why do I have to talk to my friend in security so he can talk to his brother in the interior ministry so that he can bribe a guy in transportation so that he can get the mechanic to repair a bus so that I can be hired as driver?), you need to be able to do more critical thinking. And that takes imagination, the kind of imagination that can envision alternatives to the status quo, that can see where things aren't right, and drive someone to take action to rectify the situation. While it is possible to pick this sort of imagination from philosophy or more scholarly studies, the most accessible way to do so, I contend, is through fantasy.

Fantasy, unlike regular fiction, is not constrained by the bounds of the real, or the facade of reality. It can take liberties, it can say "what if?" and use that as the fundamental basis on which to write its story. It asks its readers to imagine something dramatically different than what they are used to, wrap their heads around it, and even sympathize or relate to it. In its futuristic form (Sci/Fi), it asks the reader to think about what could be, if only we let it happen. Better yet, in good fantasy, there are situations which on second thought (or, with a little imagination) can be related to real situations here on Earth. Good fantasy promotes unconscious digestion of ideas and modes of thinking that people otherwise would never be exposed to. Think of it as philosophy, but far more accessible for those who can't bear to read the 11th Thesis on Feuerbach, (that's Marx, for the record) much less the first 10. The new mental connections open new pathways and new solutions - liberating the mind from the confines imposed on it by the oppression of the regime, and more importantly, making people aware of those confines in the first place. (Egyptians know they are limited by the regime, but it is one think to feeel you are oppressed and another thing to know you are oppressed, if you catch my drift). More than anything else, imagination breeds hope and the ability to see new solutions to problems. It excites the mind and encourages action where before passive acceptance would have ruled. It helps create new narratives by which action can be governed - narratives owned by the people, rather than by the state.

It is perhaps ironic, then, that the arab and/or muslim mind is simultaneously particularly susceptible to meta-narratives, but also hamstrung by a cultural resistance to individual initiative (Lest I be accused of anti-Islamism or anti-Arabisim, these are not my conclusions, but those of the Arab thinkers i've been reading for classes). Their attention and imagination is readily captured by an effective look at the big picture - perhaps, a partial explanation for the success of the Muslim Brotherhood, with its coherent worldview and plan for the future - but at the same time, they have been denied the ability to take that big picture, manipulate/process it, and make it their own. Helping people develop the mental tools to own their own imaginations and take control of their own stories would go a long way towards breaking the chains of the state on the public at large.

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, I don't think Muslims or Arabs or Egyptians or anyone else are inherently lacking in imagination or intelligence or anything else. I do think that the repressive authoritarian regimes of the region have definitely prevented them from acheiving their potential. In a long and rambling post like this, its pretty easy to lose track of what I've said and not said, and I didn't want to leave the wrong impression (by omission or otherwise).