ARABIC-L: GEN: Another Attack on academic freedom

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 25 Jan 1999
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Another Attack on academic freedom

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1)
Date: 25 Jan 1999
From: Taoufik Ben-Amor <tb46 at columbia.edu>
Subject: Another Attack on academic freedom

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, Samia Mehrez, Professor of Modern Arabic Literature at the
American University in Cairo came under attack for assigning to her class
the fictional autobiography of the Moroccan writer Muhammad Choukri,
AL-KUBZ AL-HAFI. This work is probably known to many of you as an important
and powerful text that has been translated into many languages (into
English by Paul Bowles under the title FOR BREAD ALONE). Several students
presumably complained to their parents about the "pornographic" content of
the novel. The parents brought the matter to the attention of a family
friend, who is the university  physician and who, in turn, brought it to
the attention of the President of AUC, presumably to hush up the matter
discreetly and spare AUC adverse publicity. On December 17, while teaching
her class, Professor Mehrez was whisked to the office of the President for
an impromptu meeting with the President, the Provost, the Dean, and the
said physician. In this meeting she was informed of the nature of the
charge against her and of the desire of the University to hush up the
matter by having her withdraw the book and apologize to the class for
assigning it. Professor Mehrez, a tenured professor and a highly respected
scholar of Modern Arabic Literature, declined to do either but expressed
willingness to exclude the novel, which she had already taught, from the
examination.

In the wake of this incident a public campaign was launched by some
Egyptian newspapers to discredit Professor Mehrez and to embarrass the
American University. One immediate consequence has been the removal from
the shelves of the AUC Bookstore of  works that are deemed by
self-appointed custodians of public morality as injurious to good taste.
Among these are  Sonallah Ibrahim's
THE SMELL OF IT and ALifa Rifaat's Distant View of a Minaret. In addition,
the committee for the core curriculum at AUC is now seriousely considering
removing
al-Tayyib Salih's novel Season of Migration to the North from its reading
list for this coming semester. Meantime, the campaign against Professor
Mehrez has grown steadily more vicious in the last few weeks, as she is
being charged now with sexual harassment for assigning "pornographic
material" to minors and forcing them to discuss it.

>>From all appearances, this is not merely a gross violation and infringement
of the academic rights of one professor of Arabic literature, grave and
unconscionable as that is, but a wholesale attack on the literary
imagination and on the very foundations of modern Arabic literature.  If it
is allowed to go unchecked, this eager censorship will ultimately consign
imaginative literature to the role of beautifying and consecrating the ugly
reality of violence, oppression, and injustice that prevail, alas, in much
of the contemporary Arab world.

We strongly urge all concerned colleagues to write directly to the
President of AUC to protest the campaign of terror and intimidation against
Professor Mehrez and to support the principles of academic freedom and a
liberal-arts education on which American universities stand, at home and
abroad.

Please email President Gerhart at jgerhart at aucegypt.edu, and cc. to Prof
Mehrez at samehrez at hotmail.com

If you prefer smail, the address is American University in Cairo, 113 Kasr
El Aini St., Cairo, Egypt.
If you need any more information on this matter, please feel free to
contact either one of us.
magda al-nowaihi                        muhammad siddiq
columbia university                     univ. of california, berkeley

Taoufik ben Amor, Columbia University
On behalf of Magda al-Nowaihi, Columbia University

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End of Arabic-L: 25 Jan 1999