Mazen Maarouf: The Arab Dictators create their intellectuals

An Arabic poet Mazen Maarouf

He is one of the creative voices of Arab poetry. He worked for several newspapers in Lebanon as for some newspapers abroad. Belonging to a Palestinian 1948 refugee family, (b. 1978) lived and studied in Beirut to hold a BS degree in general chemistry at Lebanese University, Faculty of Sciences.

His latest collective poetry book titled An Angel Suspended on the Clothesline (Ed. Dar Riad-Al-Rayyes – Beirut) was published at the beginning of January 2012. The work was translated in French and published in Paris in March 2013. He had published two books in poetry The Camera Doesn’t Capture Birds (1st edition: Dar Al-Anwar – Beirut 2004, 2nd edition: Dar Al-Jamal – Beirut 2010) and Our Grief Resembling Bread (Ed. Dar Al-Farabi – Beirut, 2000). He has performed several poetry readings in Lebanon beside his participations as a poet in the international festivals.

Some of his poetry has been translated in English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Maltese, Icelandic, Chinese, Malay and Urdu. Some of his texts were published in literary magazines in France, Scotland, Iceland, Sweden, China and Malta.

Mazen Maarouf is now a writer in residency in Reykjavik city, Iceland. To get more information about the current state of Arab poetry and his latest activities, we had this interview:

First of all, let’s start from where you are. How does the Icelandic and French experience affect your poetry?

I think I don’t know so much about poetry. The poem sticks up with my back, so it is very hard to capture its variables which are related to literature and politics. In our lands, we are appealed to the complete knowledge of artistic structure inside our writings. We keep insulting works by our deep culture and what we have learned as readers or copiers. The poem’s lesion is demanding it to identify itself before we know it. I think poem comes before the poet himself and the poem is what we don’t exactly know. Improving merits of poem can be accomplished by technical and artistic friction with other cultures all over the world. Such friction can be mechanical. However, the poem can be modified inside such zone; which means dimensions, events and time where a writer, poet or artist lives in. it’s not necessary for such cube to expand in order to bound big problems and moral commitments. I think all of this affects my poetry, but I don’t know how. I owed to everything of life.

How can you describe the current state of Arab culture especially after The Arab Spring?

I think it is very early to divide the current state of Arab world into before and after. The Arab Spring redistributed writers, intellectuals and academic people over different newspapers, institutions, research centers and universities, but we are just at the beginning of the road. The problem is the content itself. The novelistic and poetic experience is not changed. The whole scene is narrow and does not open new horizons. Most of what is already being published suffer from quickness. The intellectual did not affect the mass mobilization.

Revolutions do not happen because of a book unlike ancient ones. Such revolutions started from regions and remote areas. These movements made a historical land for such writers to walk on. What I mentioned is not prohibited but the problem is (Cultural Discourse) itself. One of these problems is shallow vision. It does not provide a real criticism towards the writer himself. Did you hear about any intellectual -worked as a follower to a dictatorship- provided a transparent criticism into his works after the revolution?

We should not ignore that dictatorship machine affected the daily life of people. It affected the way of thinking, language and lifestyle in addition to political bodies, academic institutions and social activities. It is impossible to ignore that forty years of dictatorship can produce deep sediments which dissolve into society to role everybody.

The Arab dictators produce certain characters that were walking beside their shadows and imitating them in different aspects of small cultural squares. Such people got a lot of benefits during the dictatorship’s dominance. Some of intellectuals decided to face dictators after revolutions. These people are writing in a shameful way due to two reasons; benefits and exclusivity. They look like water surfers. The axiomatic question is: where were these people before and during the revolution?

The shape of cultural state in the Middle East is stable. It can’t get of the borders where language, life dictionary and thought of the dictators are the dominant. We need to cope up with such period according to cultural, artistic and modern way. And all of this does not have fixable features right now.

You are a poet. Your poems are related to a contemporary generation, written in a modern style. What do you feel about such generation?

There is an enormous activity by such generation. There is a vital communication between such young poets and all of this is positive virtue. Heading to new styles of poetry between youth looks like heading to a sculpted statue that will not be dried. The question is what can we do towards such great production of works? There are a lot of texts which I don’t feel familiar with. They are moving inside closed boxes of scenes and metaphors. Nowadays, most of these words are built on classic voices. I think that such interactivity can lead to getting rid of old styles and building special structures of young identities.

Why did you stop reading classic voices by depending on personal experience?

This is true. I stopped reading great classic voices for a long time. You should know this is a personal conviction in order to find something which can enrich my sentence. And my decision is not a negative decision towards them. These people founded a soiled land for the Arab poetry, and we learnt a lot from them. We have moved to somehow different spaces which demand different thoughts. If we try to compare the modern European experience of poetry to their classic voice, we will find many differences of commitment and being out of context.

Since seventies, a few number of Palestinian poets managed to write a poem out of its political, geographical and national perspective. These people managed to write a different poem, depending on the (ego). Such personal experience is the most influential and impressive. These last poems differ from what have been written in the form of (romanticism) and (Lyric).

You are interested in translation. What do you feel about translation movement in the Arab world right now, and how can it be developed?

Arabic has a serious problem where idioms and expressions have not been modified since the eighteenth century. The previous problem caused difficulties for the imagination of novelists.

We are in need of reading other cultures and literature. We should concentrate on the (mechanism of writing new sentence) and searching for these countries which modify their own language day after day (Ex: Iceland). Our Arab library suffers from serious poverty. There are millions of European and Asian books every year. And Asian works have a special way of narration which depends on ethnic culture and history. Our problem is translating such works from their native language. Most of these translations are weak. Arabic has a few numbers of translated woks due to different problems such as inability to be accurate in translating the original text. On the other hand, translator may have personal problems.

We do not need to forget large projects of translation as Kalima (Word) which managed to translate a huge number of foreign works in contribution with professional translators. We need more of these successful projects in Arab countries.

You are a Palestinian poet who should have responsibility towards his homeland. Today, what can you say about (Resistance Poetry)?

I will be completely frank with you. I do not see any vital impact of (resistant poem) today. It has a temper tone towards status-co and it comes from the same well of classic voices with differences of techniques. Getting the Palestinian right will not need emotions anymore, but it has a documenting dimension which can be available for academic studies after hundreds of years.

You were the first to comment on (village of Sun Door). In your opinion, how can literature affect people’s destiny?

Palestinians were politically isolated. They were punished instead of their rulers, in addition to humanitarian difficulties, law deprivation and racism in some Arab countries.

They have a clear impact on literature movement. And they managed to know their identity from the literature itself as a tool of self-expression. The literature improved Palestinians’ position in fields of media and politics. Literature can deliver people’s picture into many classes of academies, institutions of political decision makers and research organizations.

There is a relationship between literature and people position all over the world. On the other hand, there is a relationship between imagination and realistic world. As you mentioned it is a clear example of Bab Al-Shams by Elias Khoury (Village of Sun Door).

You are not satisfied with your first book, unlike what comes next (The Camera doesn’t capture birds) and (An angel on a clothline), why?

My first book (As our sorrow is bread) is supposed to be an outcome of other classic voices I had learned from. Everyone read the first selection, can first such state. On the other hand, my next two books are completely different in style and ideas.

You are writing articles and criticism in different prestigious newspapers, how did you start journalistic career?

I did not study literary criticism in my university. I have a bachelor degree in general chemistry. I worked as a teacher of chemistry and physics for ten years. I had enhanced my criticism and literature writings by reading novels, poetry, plays and visual arts. I remembered that when I told a friend about my trail to write criticism about works, he told me to forget the matter due to lack of experience. Finally, I wrote a review about a play and it had been published. On the other hand, they told me to continue writing about literary works.

Have you read the Korean poet (KO Un)?

I read translated selections of his poetry on many websites. I’m not the only one who says that he is one of the greatest poets all over the world. His experience of being a monk, nature mediator and political activist formed his poetic experience.

His poem witnesses the surrounded world through scenes of exploring, cruelty, waiting, celebration and collusion between universe laws and personal small dreams. He has the ability to deal with the world data and competition of nature and time. He is moderate and brilliant. And he is one of the voices which encourage you to read for.

What is your comment about the Nobel Prize laureate (Mo Yan)?

I had not read Mo Yan before the Nobel Prize. My knowledge was based on watching his movie (Red Sorghum) in 1987 by Chinese director (Zhang Yimou). After the Nobel Prize, I read some of his works in English. I got astonished by his capability to extend his imagination in addition to his comic and political processing to the hunger’s tone. “Hunger is an essential part of his early life”. He is a great writer who can manipulate the realistic world as a solid land. Also he can surprise the reader with punches into his face. “He can pull the narcotized fingers of reader into unknown chambers of the novel.”

It’s the need for three meals a day which pushes him to be a writer. It’s the need for clothes to stop playing naked under the snow and the insistence on oriental form of the novel to resist the western impact. Mo Yan usually surprises you by saying that he is not coming from academic writing or stylish forms of fabricating stories. I think he selected his literary-name (Mo Yan) due to his mother, which means (Do not speak).

He kept practice on writing his oral stories. There are many people who still chained by hunger, poverty & lack of good education. There are a lot of intelligent people who do not take a shape in literary and artistic life. I think that Mo Yan is one of people who do not give up or follow a certain authority. We need such people in our society.

Is it possible to read your first novel soon?

Yes it is a fact. I’m working on my first novel and short-stories, but I think it is too early to talk about.

You are communicating regularly with friends on social media. In your opinion, what is the relationship between the poem and new media?

Social media allowed me to communicate with different people in different places and this matter was difficult in the past. The relationship between poem and Facebook is different; I don’t mean the way of writing the poem but the level of perception. It opens new artistic and visual paths which can be merged with pictures and videos. “Facebook reduces chances of writing empirical poem into zero”. And such issue needs a hall, not just a white virtual patch. The poem in Facebook is attached to such white rectangle which turns from vertical into horizontal. On the other hand, it looks like the ice cube where no poet can perform a vocal reading. There are trials of American and Asian poets to test their language and put their vocal features as an essential and flexible part of the poem. Such pervious features can be achieved only in a tangible space; well studied areas provide interactivity and debates among different features associated with the poetic text.

Social media websites provide the poet with a tangible reward. Also, it provides him with virtual rewarding. A reason of writing a poem is a daily and realistic issue. After that it can be turned into social media world (Facebook, Twitter…). The poem which walks into Facebook is supposed to be a virtual text.

What makes the Facebook a platform for many poets, is the negligence of Arab publishing houses for poetry in addition to the need of any poet to interact with readers to know more about his poetry. Facebook is a media where there are players who are connected and communicating about many issues. Such media are created to be used. A lot of people started to log into such virtual media before poets, and then poets started to use such space as a domain to interact in positive or negative way. The relationship between poet and reader is a complete collusion and exploitation. For example, the one who want to grab attention of readers should like the comments and tools of readers on Facebook without any type of criticism. In such way the poet gives his fans the valid interaction. These actions become a double reference; the poet is the reference of readers and vice-versa.

The poet gets his legislative land from the legislative admiration of readers’ poems. It is like (currency exchange).