MODELS FOR PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE AND EXCHANGE OF CULTURES IN ARAB EMIGRATION LITERATURE: FROM CULTURE AMBASSADORS OF NORTH MAHJAR TO MEZZATERRA OF A. SOUEIF
MODELS FOR PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE AND EXCHANGE OF CULTURES IN ARAB EMIGRATION LITERATURE: FROM CULTURE AMBASSADORS OF NORTH MAHJAR TO MEZZATERRA OF A. SOUEIF

Summary/Abstract: The tradition of peaceful and respectful cultural exchange has always been strong in Arab emigration literature, may it be written in Arabic, English, or French, and it has coexisted with the tradition of depicting cultural contact as a violent clash. The most notable “culture ambassadors”, who saw their aim or special mission as the reconciliation of the East and West, were the bicultural, bilingual North Mahjar writers in the beginning of the 20th century in the USA, including the world-famous Gibran Khalil Gibran (known also as Kahlil Gibran). Another powerful trend was shaped among the francophone Lebanese emigration writers, and one of its most notable representatives is Amin Maalouf, whose work In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (Les Identités meurtrières, 1994) contains his views on contemporary problems related to culture contact and identity formation. In anglophone Arab emigration literature, a bright example is presented by Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian British writer who describes the examples of complementary harmonious cultural identity hybridization formed in Egyptian professional and intellectual society about the mid-20th century. The writer herself represents this type of culture identity hybridization, and she enjoys the possibilities granted by globalization, such as international mobility, development of information technologies and communications. She feels at home both in Egypt and in the United Kingdom but understands that she is rather a citizen of the world who has a metacultural perspective. Continuing the tradition of Arab Mahjar writers, Ahdaf Soueif considers herself a cultural mediator whose task is to promote peaceful coexistence and mutual enrichment in culture contact, criticizing discrimination and prejudices, shattering negative stereotypes. Mezzaterra or “the common ground”, as described by Ahdaf Soueif, is an imaginary space where cultures come in contact and overlap, the place where multicultural people feel truly at home and where they belong. In this study, additive cultural identity hybridization as a positive outcome of multicultural identity crisis and adaptation to life in the contemporary globalized world is discussed, examining manifestations and representations of this model in Arab emigration literature during the last century.

• Details
• Contents