opmaak journal 4 - Prince Claus Fund

Contents
Contenu
Contenido
p. 2 Organisation of the Prince Claus Fund
Organisation de la Fondation Prince Claus
Organización de la Fundación Príncipe Claus
p. 3 Editorial
p. 6 Avishai Margalit
Es la verdad el camino a la reconciliación?
p. 9 Pieter Boele van Hensbroek
Colloque à Beyrouth sur le rôle des intellectuels
dans la sphère publique
p. 13 Elias Khoury
Un double langage
p. 19 Paulin J. Hountondji
Tradition: Hindrance or Inspiration?
p. 23 William Kentridge
Overvloed
p. 28 Pepetela
Creating Spaces of Freedom
p. 31 Heri Dono
Art and the City
p. 34 Works of Art
Oeuvres d’Art
Obras de Arte
The Arab Image Foundation:
Collecting a History of Photography
p. 52 Goretti Kyomuhendo
Hidden Identity
p. 58 Activities supported by the Prince Claus
Fund Activités soutenues par la Fondation
Prince Claus Actividades patrocinadas por
la Fundación Príncipe Claus
p. 66 Recent publications
Publications récentes
Publicaciones recientes
p. 70 Adriaan van der Staay
A Second Look at Culture and Development
p. 74 In Memoriam: Arvind Das
p. 77 Contributing authors
Auteurs participants
Contribuidores
p. 79 The Prince Claus Fund
La Fondation Prince Claus
p. 80 La Fundación Príncipe Claus
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 1

Board of the Prince Claus Fund
Comité de Direction de la Fondation Prince Claus
Junta Directiva de la Fundación Príncipe Claus
HRH Prince Claus of the Netherlands,
Honorary Chairman
Professor Anke Niehof, Chair, Professor of SociologyoOrganisation
at the Wageningen University and Research Centre,
the Netherlands
of
Professor Adriaan van der Staay, Vice-Chair, the Prince Claus
Professor of Cultural Politics and Cultural Critique at the Fund
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands Organisation de la
Edith Sizoo, Secretary, International Coordinator of Fondation Prince
Réseau Cultures et Développement, Brussels, Belgium Claus
Professor Louk de la Rive Box, Treasurer, Director Organización de la
of the European Centre for Development Policy Fundación Príncipe
Management, Maastricht, the Netherlands
Claus
Ashok Bhalotra, architect and urban planner,
Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Professor Lolle Nauta, Professor Emeritus of Social
Philosophy at the University of Groningen,
the Netherlands
Office Bureaux Oficina
Els van der Plas, Director
Cora Taal, Executive Secretary
Vivian Paulissen, Policy Officer
Geerte Wachter, Policy Officer
Marlous Willemsen, Policy Officer
Bozzie Rabie, Policy Assistant
Fernand Pahud and Jacobine Schwab, Secretaries
Jacqueline Meulblok, Publicity Officer
Frans Bijlsma, Librarian
Marije Gerrist and Ianthe Sahadat, Trainees
2000 Prince Claus Awards Committee
Comité des Prix Prince Claus pour 2000
Comité de Premios Príncipe Claus 2000
Professor Adriaan van der Staay, Chair, member
of the Board of the Prince Claus Fund, The Hague,
the Netherlands
Professor Charles Correa, architect and planner,
Bombay, India
Emile Fallaux, script-writer and President of the
Hubert Bals Fonds, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Mai Ghoussoub, artist, writer and Director of Al Saqi
Publishers and Bookshop, London, UK; Beirut, Lebanon
Gaston Kaboré, historian and film director,
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Gerardo Mosquera, curator and art critic, Havana, Cuba
Bruno Stagno, architect and Director of the Institute for
Tropical Architecture, San José, Costa Rica
2 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
2000 Exchanges Committee
Comité des Echanges pour 2000
Comité de Intercambios 2000
Professor Lolle Nauta, Chair, member of the Board
of the Prince Claus Fund, The Hague, the Netherlands
Dr. Pieter Boele van Hensbroek, philosopher,
University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Arvind N. Das, journalist and editor, New Delhi,
India (d. 6 August 2000)
Professor Achille Mbembe, historian, University
of Capetown, South Africa
Anil Ramdas, essayist, the Netherlands
2000 Publications Committee
Comité des Publications pour 2000
Comité de Publicaciones 2000
Professor Anke Niehof, Chairperson of the Board
of the Prince Claus Fund, The Hague, the Netherlands
Professor Hilary Beckles, historian and Dean of
the University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Professor Leonard Blussé, Professor of the
History of European Expansion at Leiden University,
the Netherlands
Professor Ian Buruma, historian, London, UK
Professor Avishai Margalit, philosopher at Hebrew
University, Jerusalem, Israel
On 9 December 1999 the members of the Inter-
national Advisory Board of the Prince Claus Fund
met in Amsterdam to discuss the Fund’s policy.
This board is made up of the members of the
various advisory committees of the four programmes.
The Fund’s Board asked the advisors for
their visions on topics of the four programmes,
such as ‘Creating Spaces of Freedom’, ‘The Role of
the Intellectual in the Public Sphere’, ‘Truth and
Reconciliation’, ‘The Commemoration of Slavery’,
‘Cosmopolitanism and the Nation State’, ‘Beauty
in Context’ and ‘Urban Heroes’. These are topics
that have been examined in earlier volumes of the
Prince Claus Fund Journal, and that are found in
this issue as well: Avishai Margalit writes on ‘Truth
and Reconciliation’, Elias Khoury on ‘Cobra’ as a
case study of intellectual life in the Arab world,
William Kentridge and Pepetela offer a contribution
on ‘Creating Spaces of Freedom’ and Heri
Dono on ‘Urban Heroes’. There is also a presentation
of the Arab Image Foundation in the colour
section of this Journal, a survey of recent publications
and activities in the various fields of
interest of the Fund, and an article by Adriaan van
der Staay, Vice President of the Fund’s Board, on
the role of the Prince Claus Fund in modern
cultural developments in the world.
The members of the Fund’s International Advisory
Board recognised the importance of all of these
themes and proposed several lines of thought
and policy. At the same time they expressed the
importance of maintaining the Fund’s flexibility,
arguing that its overall area of interest, ‘culture
and development’, can best flourish in an eclectic
fund. Topics offer a tool for policy development
and for extending the network, but must never
stand in the way to new developments and an
alternative discourse. In the words of Arvind Das,
‘The Fund should provide ‘freedoms’ – in the
plural. The strength of the Fund is the possibility
to mediate between many aspects of life in many
parts of the world.’
eArvind Das was present on 17 July of this year at the
meeting of the Exchanges Committee of the Prince
Claus Fund in the Netherlands. An important
discussion item was the international conference
on ‘Cosmopolitanism and the Nation State’ which
is on the programme for February 2001; it will be
Editorial
The Prince Claus
Fund Journal
reflects the aims
of the Prince Claus
Fund and reports
on the outcome of
activities initiated,
supported and
stimulated by the
Fund. The Fund
seeks to publicise
the intellectual
and artistic results
of its activities and
to disseminate
these throughout
the world. The
Fund – and likewise
the Journal –
acts as an interested
listener, a
partner in discussion
and a catalyst
in cultural
innovation and
development.
organised by the Asian Development and Research
Institute (adri) in Patna, India. Arvind was the
chairman of adri and played a crucial role in the
preparations of the conference. En route to his next
destination, he had a heart attack while still in the
Netherlands. Arvind Das died on Sunday, 6 August
2000 in Amsterdam. Board members, director and
everyone in the Prince Claus Fund would like to
express their sincere sympathy to the family and
friends of Arvind.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 3

Le 9 décembre 1999, les membres du Conseil
International de la Fondation Prince Claus se sont
entretenus à Amsterdam de la politique de la
Fondation. Les membres des différentes commités
de consultation pour les quatre programmes de
la Fondation font partie de ce conseil. Le ComitéeEditorial
de direction de la Fondation a demandé aux
membres de ce conseil d’exprimer leurs points
de vues sur les thèmes des quatre programmes Le Journal de la
choisis par la Fondation, comme ‘La Création Fondation Prince
d’espaces de liberté’, ‘Le Rôle des intellectuels Claus reflète les
dans la sphère publique’, ‘Vérité et récon- objectifs de la Fonciliation’,
‘La Commémoration de l’esclavage’, ‘Le dation Prince Claus
Cosmopolitisme et l’Etat nation’, ‘Beauté et con- et relate les résultats
texte’ et ‘Héros urbains’. Ces sujets, déjà traités des activités lancées,
dans les précédents numéros du Journal de la soutenues et encou-
Fondation Prince Claus, reviennent dans ce ragées par la Fond-
présent Journal avec Avishai Margalit qui parle de ation. La Fondation
‘Vérité et réconciliation’, Elias Khoury qui tient à publier les
présente ‘Cobra, une étude de cas sur la vie résultats au plan
intellectuelle dans le monde arabe’, William intellectuel et artisti-
Kentridge et Pepetela qui traitent de ‘La Création que de ses activités
d’espaces de liberté’ et Heri Dono qui expose ses et à les diffuser dans
vues sur les ‘Héros urbains’.
le monde entier.
Par ailleurs ce Journal propose une présentation A l’instar de la
de la Fondation Arabe pour l’Image dans son Fondation, ce bulletin
cahier en couleur, suivie d’un compte rendu de agit en interlocuteur
publications récentes et d’activités concernant attentif, en parte-
les divers centres d’intérêt de la Fondation et naire dans les débats
enfin un article d’Adriaan van der Staay, vice- et joue un rôle
président du comité de direction de la Fondation, catalysateur dans
qui évoque le rôle de la Fondation Prince Claus l’innovation et le
dans l’évolution actuelle de la culture à travers le développement
monde.
Les membres du Conseil International de la
Fondation ont reconnu l’importance de chacun
des thèmes et tracé des lignes d’orientation en ce
qui concerne leur contenu. Ils ont en même
temps plaidé pour le maintien d’une certaine
flexibilité de la Fondation qui, avec un rayon
d’action défini comme ‘culture et développement’
peut s’épanouir comme une fondation à
caractère éclectique. Les thèmes sont des outils
qui permettent le développement de la stratégie
et l’élargissement des réseaux d’echanges, mais
ils ne devront en aucun cas empêcher l’ouverture
aux changements et à d’autres débats. Pour citer
Arvind Das: ‘La Fondation doit apporter des
‘libertés’ – au pluriel. La force de la Fondation
réside dans cette possibilité de servir de médiateur
entre les aspects les plus divers de la vie dans les
régions du monde les plus diverses.’
culturels.
4 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Le 17 juillet dernier Arvind Das participait encore
à la réunion du Comité des Echanges de la
Fondation Prince Claus aux Pays-Bas. La conférence
internationale ‘Le Cosmopolitisme et
l’Etat nation’, prévue pour le mois de février 2001
à Patna (Inde) et organisée par le Asian Development
and Research Institute (institut de recherche
et de développement asiatique) constituait
un thème important de cette rencontre.
Arvind était le président de l’adri. Son rôle dans
les préparatifs de la conférence était capital.
En route vers une nouvelle destination, Arvind a
été frappé d’une crise cardiaque alors qu’il était
encore en Hollande. Il est décédé le dimanche
6 août 2000 à Amsterdam. Les membres du
comité de direction, le directeur et le personnel
de la Fondation Prince Claus adressent leurs plus
sincères condoléances à la famille et aux proches
d’Arvind.
En diciembre 9 de 1999, los miembros del comité
de consejería internacional de la Fundación
Príncipe Claus se reunieron en Amsterdam para
discutir la política de la Fundación. La Junta Directiva
de esta indagó con los asesores sobre sus
visiones en cuanto a los temas de los cuatro proeEditorial
gramas, consistentes en ‘Creando Espacios de
Libertad’, ‘El Rol de lo Intelectual en la Esfera
Pública’, ‘Verdad y Reconciliación’, ‘La Conme- El Journal de la
moración de la Esclavitud’, ‘Cosmopolitanismo y Fundación Príncipe
Nación Estado’, ‘Belleza y Contexto’ y ‘Héroes Claus refleja los
Urbanos’. Estos son temas que han sido examina- objetivos de la
dos en anteriores volúmenes de la revista de la Fundación Príncipe
Fundación Príncipe Claus, y se encuentran en Claus y reporta los
artículos tales como: Avishai Margalit escribe resultados de activi-
sobre ‘Verdad y Reconciliación’, Elias Khoury en dades iniciadas,
‘Cobra’, como un caso de estudio de la vida patrocinadas o
intelectual en el mundo árabe, William Kentridge estimuladas por la
y Pepetela ofrecen una contribución en ‘Creando Fundación. La
Espacios de Libertad’ y Heri Dono en ‘Héroes Fundación procura
Urbanos’. También hay en la sección a color de la publicar los logros
revista, una presentación de la Fundación Arabe de intelectuales y
la Imagen, una panorámica general de publica- artísticos de sus
ciones recientes y actividades inscritas en varios actividades y difun-
campos de interés de la Fundación Principe Claus, dirlos por todo el
así como un artículo escrito por Adriaan van der mundo. La Fundación
Staay, vicepresidente de la junta directiva de la – y por consiguiente
Fundación Príncipe Claus, sobre el rol de ésta en la revista – actúan
cuanto al moderno desarrollo cultural en el como un escucha
mundo.
interesado, un com-
Los miembros de la junta de asesores internaciopañero en la discusión
nales de la Fundación reconocieron la impor- y un catalizador para
tancia de todos estos temas y propusieron diver- la innovación y el
sas líneas de pensamiento y política. Al mismo desarrollo cultural.
tiempo, ellos expresaron la importancia de
mantener la flexibilidad de la Fundación, argumentando
que esta area de interes total ‘cultura y
desarrollo’ puede depurarse de una mejor forma
en una fundación ecléctica. Los temas ofrecen una
herramienta para la política de desarrollo y un
discurso alternativo. En palabras de Arvind Das: ‘La
Fundación debe proveer ‘libertades’ en plural. La
fortaleza de la Fundación es la posibilidad de
mediar entre muchos aspectos de la vida en
muchas partes del mundo.’
Arvind Das fue presentado el 17 de julio de este
año en la reunión de los comités de intercambio
de la Fundación del Príncipe Claus en Holanda.
Un importante punto de discusión fue la conferencia
internacional sobre ‘Cosmopolitanism
and the Nation State’ (cosmopolitanismo y nación
estado), la cual está en el programa para febrero del
2001; esta estará organizada por Asian Development
and Research Institute (instituto para la
investigación y desarrollo asiático) en Patna, India.
Arvind fue el presidente de adri y jugó un papel
crucial en la preparación de la conferencia.
Camino hacia su siguiente destino, tuvo un ataque
al corazón mientras permanecía en Holanda. Arvin
Das murió el domingo 6 de agosto del 2.000 en
Amsterdam. Los miembros de la Junta de la fundación
Príncipe Claus desean expresar sus sinceras
condolencias a la familia y amigos de Arvind.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 5

Conferencia de trabajo en La Haya sobre el tema de
‘Verdad y Reconciliación’
Es la verdad el camino a la reconciliación?
La verdad es algo bueno. La reconciliación es algo bueno. Discutir contra la verdad y la
reconciliación es como discutir contra la maternidad y la amistad. Yo no voy a discutir en
contra de eso. El problema que quisiera abordar, y la duda que quiero plantear es sobre la
relación causal putativa entre los dos, soportado en la idea de que la verdad lleva consigo
reconciliación; o poniéndolo de una manera más cautelosa, de que la verdad contribuye para
la reconciliación.
Hay excelentes razones para buscar la verdad. La verdad es buena dentro y fuera de ella
misma. No existen razones excelentes para buscar la reconciliación en paises desgarrados
por la pugna y el sufrimiento. La salida, de cualquier forma, es entender que la verdad es una
buena herramienta para llevar consigo reconciliación.
Entonces, lo que propongo poner bajo el escrutinio es el lema de la Comisión Surafricana
para la Reconciliación y la Verdad (Truth and Reconciliation Commission): ‘Verdad: El
camino para la reconciliación’. El asunto es, creo, de gran actualidad, desde que el modelo
surafricano para llevar reconciliación a través de la verdad esta considerado por muchos
como un rígido modelo para manejar justicia transicional en muchas otras partes
problematizadas del mundo.
De la misma forma en que escribo esta frase, el escritor surafricano André Brink estuvo
siendo entrevistado en la televisión israelí, y la primera pregunta, fue si el formato de verdad
y reconciliación es aplicable al conflicto entre Israel y Palestina. Es por eso que tengo una
gran apuesta en poner a prueba este modelo, más allá de una mera curiosidad académica. La
fé en el poder curativo de la verdad es casi tan viejo como la historia del tiempo. Yo retomé
un intimidante espiritual como Nietsche, en el idioma de Nietsche, para ‘las fuerzas de vida’.
A pesar de Nietsche, la fuerza del poder tradicional curativo de la verdad nunca fue seriamente
cuestionada.
El sicoanálisis estuvo por entero sustentado en la creencia en la facultad emancipatoria de
llevar la verdad reprimida hacia afuera. Una vez esta verdad es revelada y admitida, su rol
subversivo y disfuncional esta obligado a detenerse.
Este modelo de liberar lo reprimido, el cual estaba destinado a servir como patrón para la
sicología individual, se fue extendiendo completamente – aún sin cuestionamiento – a la
sicología colectiva. De esta forma, dijimos por ejemplo, que los franceses reprimieron las
vergonzosas memorias de Vichy, con la ayuda de el Gaulle como arqueador de la censura , y
que todas esas memorias continuaron jugando trucos en el inconsciente subversivo de la
psyque francesa, de tal forma que llevaron a toda la nación hacia un neurótico estado disfunsional,
manifestado en las guerras en Algeria e Indochina. De cualquier forma, personas
valientes impulsaron la verdad en la sociedad francesa, asi que la historia se extendió y se
hizo confrontar su pasado vergonzoso de colaboración, el cual fue sepultado bajo el mito de
la resistencia francesa. Una vez la verdad dolorosa fue abierta hacia afuera, un proceso de
sanación comenzó a tener lugar.
Esta imagen de una nación sentada sobre el diván del sicoanalista, tan cruda como suena,
es una imagen contundente a favor del poder curativo de la verdad. Pero es una imagen, no
un argumento. Así que dejen que me extienda un poco sobre mi problema acerca de la
relación entre verdad y reconciliación. Para empezar una significante discusión de este
problema ordenadamente, debo entonces empezar con la verdad.
Ya había preguntado Pilatos, con un sarcástico tono de voz, ‘Qué es verdad?’ Pues bien,
por verdad aquí me refiero a destapar y revelar factores bochornosos, dolorosos y distractores
que la gente trata de ocultar de otros y de ellos mismos. Mucho se ha dicho sobre el
6 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Avishai Margalit
De izquierda a derecha:
Gavin Ruxton (consejera
mayor legal para la oficina
del fiscal, International
Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia), Lolle Nauta
(Profesor emérita de
Filosofía Social y miembro
de la Junta Directiva de la
Fundación Príncipe Claus)
y Elias Khoury
Gavin Ruxton y
Avishai Margalit
Mahmood Mamdani y
Albie Sachs
práctico sentido de la verdad aquí, y mucho más se debe decir, desde que la Comisión para la
verdad y la reconciliación) atestó la noción de verdad con ‘diálogo verdadero o social’, más
adelante adhiriendo ‘verdad narrativa’ que incluyó ‘historias y mitos’, y a la cabeza de todo,
reflexionando sobre ‘la verdad curativa’.
Yo creo entender lo que estaba tratando de hacer la trc con estas desafortunadas divisiones
en torno a la verdad, con las cuales aparentemente se relativiza la verdad más allá de
su admisión. La idea, si la entiendo correctamente, fue no solo capturar la proporcionalidad
en la relevancia del pasado, sino tambien hacer que el pasado viva, reviviendo la experiencia
y las emociones de sus víctimas. Para elaborar la revivificación del pasado, la trc invitó en
primera instancia personas responsables en éste, narrando las experiencias vistas y sentidas
por las víctimas en el momento en que sucedieron, aún cuando esas situaciones no fueron
entéramente precisadas por la perspectiva de un tercer observador.
La idea era capturar como era estar bajo el oscuro control del Apartheid – y parece que los
sucesos en esos testimonios estaban exactamente ligados a que eran ellos quienes narraban
estas experiencias. Pero entonces la idea de revivir el pasado cuando este resulta profundamente
humillante, tiene sus víctimas. No puedes revivir la humillación sin ser humillado
por ende. Las heridas de la humillación nunca están completamente sanadas, en especial la
humillación que viene acompañada de tortura.
Trauma, que es la palabra griega para herida, es una herida sangrante. El esfuerzo de la
trcpara promulgar el pasado parece devaluar la importante idea de sanar las heridas de este.
Y aquí voy con el segundo de los términos con los que estoy lidiando, llamado reconciliación.
Reconciliación, a diferencia de arrepentimiento, tiene una relación simétrica. Ambas
partes tienen que acordar y resolver sus más profundas diferencias aceptando y admitiendo
las acciones vergonzosas de cada lado como una forma de restaurar la armonía. Nadie puede
pedir reconciliación entre judíos y alemanes. No habia simetría entre la culpa de los Nazis
alemanes y los judíos. Todo estaba cargado hacia un lado. Cuando personas como Nolte
tratan de crear cierta simetría, culpando al ‘mundo judío' por haber declarado la guerra en la
Alemania Nazi y por ser una parte en el conflicto, esto suena de una manera escandalosa. En
el caso del Apartheid, el asunto de la simetría en las malas acciones es de una muy seria
importancia. Es cierto que en orden para contrarrestar los actos malvados del Apartheid, los
negros africanos recurrieron a la violencia y al terror. Pero puedo ver para cuantos de ellos se
resentía la idea de implicar la simetría que la noción de reconciliación envuelve.
Ellos ven su violencia como violencia de reacción, y no se suscriben a la doctrina del pecado
original de acuerdo a la cual hay una simetría construida entre todos los seres humanos, que
están todos condenados por el mal, por el simple hecho de que son todos humanos. Yo
retomé la autoridad moral de Desmond Tutu, con sus profundas convicciones religiosas para
reconciliar a la comunidad negra con la idea de reconciliación, lo que implica un conocimiento
del mal obrar de su parte también.
Tutu es como lo veo, quién confirió un significado religioso al acto de la reconciliación
como un acto de desagravio, para lo cual se requiere una confesión explícita de los pecados,
como una condición necesaria para restaurar la relación original entre el hombre y Dios.
En su punto de vista sobre el mundo, el desagravio juega un rol, y la verdad contada
por los perpetradores del mal es vista como una confesión que se convierte en un acto de
desagravio.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 7

Es así como pienso que cuando una comunidad sustenta su visión de mundo, esta es una
comunidad en la cual la verdad puede llevar sin lugar a duda a la reconciliación, porque aún
cuando un perpetrador recibe inmunidad en intercambio por decir la verdad, no es inmune
de ser responsable para Dios. Entonces la religión, en el caso de verdad y reconciliación
ayuda.
Pero qué pasa en esos casos donde la religión no ayuda, por que la comunidad no es
religiosa? Podemos ver facilmente argumentos a favor y en contra de la creencia en que la
verdad, en una sociedad secular, pueda llevar consigo reconciliación. Para empezar con algún
argumento contra esta creencia: cuando personas que sufren inmesuráblemente saben por
entero muy bién que sus verdugos saldrán libres, cambiando tortura y violación por contar
sus historias, aún si estos lo hacen entonces en menor medida como una forma honesta y
sabiendo exáctamente que perpetradores hicieron que, y a quienes, es más fácil reconciliarse
con el pasado. Y como para los perpetradores, esta es una verdad que esta contando un oscuro
secreto, lleva consigo un sentido de alivio, pero es un alivio vivido brévemente. Habiendo
narrado esta verdad, tú y tu familia estarán mancillados por muchos años.
Por otra parte, tu estás con las manos atadas para sentir resentimiento hacia esos que una
vez en tus manos, están pidiendo los disparos y forzándote a decir lo que estás renuente a
admitir inclusive para tí mismo. Estas son razones poderosas contra la creencia de que la
verdad es el camino a la reconciliación.
Qué cuenta entonces, para creer en esto? Un argumento poderoso en favor del poder
curativo de la verdad en los casos relevantes es la gran necesidad que tienen las víctimas para
que su sufrimiento sea reconocido. Negando, o ignorando su sufrimiento, este sufrimiento
queda desprovisto de su significado, hace a quien sufre sentir como si no contase para nada, y
niega la humanidad de quienes sufren. Entonces aún si las victimas sienten un fuerte impulso
por justicia retributiva, la necesidad por que su sufrimiento sea reconocido es aún mayor.
En comunidades en las cuales las primeras víctimas y los primeros perpretadores están
destinados a vivir juntos después de un periodo de transición, retribuir justicia puede ser
muy costoso o políticamente imposible. Lo segundo, y más importante, desde el punto de
vista de la sicologia de quienes han sufrido, es que el sufrimiento será al menos reconocido
por todos.
Confesión primero, entonces, no sólo se crea un sentido religioso, sino también un buen
sentido sicológico. Es así como el problema que tenemos para debatir es: es la verdad el
camino a la reconciliación?
Los resultados de otros debates sobre este tema seran publicados en
las siguiente entregas del Journal de la Fundación Príncipe Claus.
8 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Pieter Boele van
Hensbroek
Colloque à Beyrouth sur le rôle des intellectuels dans
la sphère publique
Ce colloque a été organisé par la Fondation Prince Claus,
en collaboration avec l’Université américaine du Liban (LAU),
les 24 et 25 février 2000. Pieter Boele van Hensbroek, membre
du Comité des Echanges de la Fondation Prince Claus, écrit:
L’avion rase une forêt d’immeubles: Beyrouth. Après avoir traversé un dernier désert en
marbre brillant, je me retrouve dans les embouteillages. La moitié des voitures sont des
Mercedes et les autres sont tout aussi grandes. Le code de la route semble un luxe superflu:
les imposants véhicules se faufilent les uns entre les autres. On ne se fait pas de concessions
mais l’agressivité n’est pas de mise non plus. ‘Les Libanais aiment frimer et profiter de la
vie’, explique le guide qui perçoit mon étonnement devant la profusion de boutiques, de
grands immeubles et de richesses sur le chemin qui me conduit à une conférence sur le
développement. Magnifiquement situé au bord de la Méditerranée, le Liban est un centre
économique et commercial qui offre un certain espace de liberté au Moyen-Orient. Presque
plus rien ne rappelle les dégâts subis par la ville au cours de cette guerre civile de près de
vingt ans (1975-1992) qui a complètement détruit la vieille ville et une large bande de
maisons et d’immeubles le long de la ‘ligne verte’. Les grands panneaux publicitaires montrant
des femmes en sous-vêtements donnent même à penser que la pudeur et l’influence
des fondamentalistes musulmans sont relatives.
Dans un débat sur le Moyen-Orient, les universitaires néerlandais ont vite l’impression
de se mouvoir sur un terrain glissant. Ne sommes-nous pas imprégnés de tant de stéréotypes
sur l’islam et le fondamentalisme que, dans la discussion, nous commettons facilement
des faux pas? L’amitié néerlando-israëlienne ne nous met-elle pas tout de suite sur le
banc des accusés? Dans l’ensemble, nous savons d’ailleurs bien peu de choses sur l’histoire
et la situation de ce pays. Je me rappelle à quel point lors d’un voyage en Afrique occidentale,
je me suis étonné de trouver la culture islamiste si détendue et si agréable: cette
surprise révélait bien des préjugés. A Beyrouth, la sécurité était une cause supplémentaire
d’inquiétude: moins d’une semaine avant notre départ, les Israéliens avaient bombardé
plusieurs centrales électriques libanaises et la police avait dispersé des étudiants qui
manifestaient devant l’immeuble de cnn.
La conférence intitulée ‘Le rôle des intellectuels dans la sphère publique’ (24 et 25 février
2000) était organisée par la Fondation Prince Claus. La fondation attribue chaque année les
célèbres prix Prince Claus à des artistes et à des intellectuels innovateurs. Elle stimule
également la production culturelle hors des pays riches occidentaux par des publications et
des projets, et en accordant des subventions pour soutenir certaines activités. Le choix
d’une ville cosmopolite non européenne, la diversité des participants et les sujets retenus
devaient empêcher que le débat ne soit dominé par la conception européenne de
l’intellectuel et de son rôle. Le cadre d’un débat original était ainsi posé et la fondation était
en situation d’étudier comment, en s’adaptant à la situation spécifique des intellectuels
dans les pays en voie de développement, éviter les sentiers battus en matière de politique de
subventions. Avec des participants venant de pays aussi divers que le Liban, l’Egypte, la
Tunisie, Cuba, la république de Guyana, l’Angleterre, le Nigeria, l’Erythrée, les Etats-Unis
et les Pays-Bas, la conférence s’annonçait prometteuse.
Dès l’ouverture de la conférence par Elias Khoury, éminent écrivain libanais et rédacteur
en chef du supplément culturel d’un grand quotidien, le Liban des brochures touristiques a
été battu en brèche. Khoury a parlé du rôle des intellectuels en analysant le scandale
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 9

provoqué par l’interdiction d’un journal intime tenu par le garde du corps d’un chef de
milice pendant la guerre civile, qui par la suite est devenu ministre. Le journal qui décrit
sans détour les pratiques cruelles et les excès du chef de la milice, de son garde du corps et de
toute la milice, est désormais à la disposition du public libanais grâce à Internet et aux
photocopies. Rien ne permet de supposer que dans les autres milices, les pratiques étaient
différentes. Leurs chefs appartiennent aussi à l’élite politique d’aujourd’hui. Ces révélations
mettent en cause l’intégrité de toute une classe politique et de toute une partie de la
population, en particulier les miliciens. Pour Khoury, cet ‘oubli forcé’ de l’histoire récente
qui a pour but de favoriser la stabilité du régime politique actuel, constitue une véritable
bombe au sein de la nation libanaise tout entière. Les intellectuels ont devant eux une
mission importante, celle de faire ressortir la vérité. En effet, la vérité est indispensable pour
une société: la vérité pour arriver à la réconciliation nationale, comme l’ont montré
l’Afrique du Sud, l’Argentine et le Chili.
Le débat qui a suivi ne portait pas sur la prétention de l’intellectuel à se poser en porteparole
de la vérité ou autres subtilités de ce genre: la censure et les violations de la vérité
sont en effet suffisamment claires et flagrantes. Le débat s’est orienté sur le risque d’une
fixation unilatérale des intellectuels sur la ‘vérité’, alors que la réconciliation, le risque
d’instabilité sociale et d’autres questions de même nature exigent peut-être un plus grand
sens des responsabilités de leur part. Ne faut-il pas parfois savoir sacrifier la vérité à la
prévention des conflits et à la stabilité sociale? La ‘vérité’ est-elle toujours l’instrument de la
‘réconciliation’? Les vérités trop cruelles ne peuvent-elles pas au contraire entretenir les
conflits? Ces questions ne trouvent pas de réponse absolue. En Afrique du Sud et en
Argentine, il y avait deux camps bien déterminés, chacun doté d’une hiérarchie des
responsabilités clairement définie: la structure en commando de l’agresseur était bien
identifiée. Au Liban, en revanche, il y avait toutes sortes de milices, et beaucoup de citoyens,
membres des milices, étaient impliqués dans le conflit. Ils étaient forcés, dans une plus ou
moins grande mesure, de participer activement à des actes criminels. Il n’est tout
simplement pas possible et vraisemblablement pas souhaitable de traîner toute une
génération devant les tribunaux.
Le cadre interculturel de la conférence a fait apparaître un autre obstacle à l’idée de ‘vérité et
réconciliation’. La stratégie d’un tel règlement de comptes avec le passé repose sur l’idée que la
vérité est dévoilée et que le coupable reconnaît sa faute sous forme d’expiation publique. Or, le
sociologue indien Arvind Das a fait remarquer que dans les cultures indiennes, les notions de
faute et de punition n’ont pratiquement pas de sens. La notion de vérité n’est pas non plus
forcément un bien inconditionnel; l’approche indienne est plutôt la suivante: ‘Dis la vérité,
mais dis une vérité agréable’.
La discussion sur la définition de l’intellectuel s’est révélée inévitable. L’emphase qu’a
revêtue cette question est intéressante. Un intellectuel n’est pas simplement quelqu’un qui,
par définition, milite dans la sphère publique, comme l’a suggéré Lolle Nauta, président de la
conférence. Ahmed Abdalla, journaliste et assistant social égyptien qui se bat contre le travail
des enfants, a proposé d’autres définitions liées à l’influence et à la pertinence sociale. D’autres
participants ont avancé qu’un intellectuel qui n’a pas de liens avec des mouvements sociaux
n’est rien de plus pour la société qu’une vaine décoration. L’idée d’un ‘intellectuel organique’
soutenue par Gramsci demeure pertinente. Selon Roger Assaf, acteur et directeur de théâtre à
Beyrouth, dans la société libanaise, il est inévitable que les intellectuels recherchent
activement des alliances avec la population. Sans un soutien de la population, les intellectuels
sont totalement impuissants face à l’Etat et à l’élite économique.
Bizarrement, pendant les débats, le danger que présentent les mouvements fondamentalistes
musulmans a été assez peu évoqué. On retrouve peut-être dans ce phénomène l’idée
de ‘l’intellectuel organique’, bien que plusieurs participants ne voyaient plus du tout
comme un idéal cette relation étroite entre l’intellectuel et les mouvements sociaux. Au
Liban, le mouvement radical islamiste Hezbollah n’est généralement pas considéré comme
une menace fondamentaliste mais plutôt comme l’un des mouvements politiques et
sociaux les plus actifs actuellement, trouvant de ce fait sa légitimité et méritant éven-
10 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
tuellement d’être soutenu. En réponse au Premier ministre français, Lionel Jospin, qui a
qualifié l’Hezbollah de ‘terroriste’, notre guide chrétien (!) parlait des combattants de
l’Hezbollah en termes de héros. Pour les participants à la conférence qui venaient du
Moyen-Orient, l’ennemi c’était plutôt l’élite politique, corrompue et oppressive, et non pas
les mouvements islamistes de leur propre pays.
Le fondamentalisme et la corruption ne sont cependant pas les seuls obstacles à la liberté
et à l’autonomie des intellectuels. Une émouvante biographie de l’écrivain libanais Dalal el-
Bizri raconte l’histoire d’une jeune fille qui se bat au sein de sa famille et de l’école par le
biais de ses relations amoureuses, de l’activisme politique et du parti communisme, et qui
se retrouve mère célibataire en pleine guerre civile. Son inlassable combat de femme et
d’intellectuelle de gauche, et son esprit critique la conduisent finalement à adopter une
conception très personnelle de la manière de vivre sa vie d’intellectuelle. Elle conquiert sa
propre ‘modernité’, suit son intuition; devenue une personnalité publique, elle montre un
flair surprenant et développe un style personnel qui lui permet de préserver son autonomie
dans une société complexe. Pour obtenir une autonomie intellectuelle, il faut lutter dans la
vie privée comme dans la sphère publique.
Les débats ont également porté sur le thème inattendu des conditions matérielles
nécessaires au travail intellectuel. A l’heure de la mondialisation, peut-on envisager un
intellectuel sans ordinateur portable? A ce propos, le journaliste nigérian Waziri Adio a
tracé un tableau attristant des intellectuels qui doivent se passer de presque tous les
équipements de base comme les bibliothèques, l’électricité, etc.
Les organisateurs s’étaient attendu à des débats animés sur le thème ‘La tradition: obstacle
ou source d’inspiration?’ Le fondamentalisme et, d’une manière plus générale, la mobilisation
politique de l’identité par l’Etat ou par les mouvements d’opposition sont d’actualité;
en outre, les chercheurs se penchent aujourd’hui sur la question de la culture propre et des
alternatives ‘africaines’ ou ‘islamistes’ aux conceptions ‘occidentales’ sur la démocratie, les
droits de l’homme, la philosophie et même la science. Cependant, la discussion sur ce que
les orateurs ont appelé ‘les dilemmes de la mobilisation et de la remise en cause des
traditions auxquelles appartient un intellectuel’ tournaient surtout autour des connaissances
indigènes. Mamadou Diawara, directeur d’un centre malien de recherche sur les
pratiques des connaissances indigènes, a introduit la notion de ‘nouveau Sud’. Ce terme
n’implique pas que l’on fixe par écrit et que l’on admire la sagesse traditionnelle, mais que
l’on retrouve l’origine des pratiques locales qui sont encore appliquées en agriculture et en
médecine, et qui souvent sont le résultat de la combinaison d’un savoir indigène et d’un
savoir occidental. La dynamique de ces connaissances locales, étudiées par un groupe de
chercheurs maliens, européens et américains, est particulièrement importante dans ce
contexte. Le débat sur la pertinence et sur les possibilités que peut offrir la science locale a
fait apparaître de profondes divergences d’opinions.
Les discussions sur l’introduction de la charia dans certains Etats du Nigeria, sur la
clitoridectomie et sur l’abattage rituel des animaux ont illustré le dilemme concernant la
‘tradition’. Selon Mai Ghoussoub, une artiste et éditrice libanaise, la question de la
clitoridectomie montre que la reconnaissance par les intellectuels du caractère universel de
certaines normes fondamentales est une nécessité absolue. Il faut par ailleurs que nous
soyons prêts à imposer ces normes dans la pratique. L’éditeur érythréen Kassahun Chekole
a posé la question de la mise en pratique effective. Les pratiques ne meurent que lorsque les
populations se rendent compte que c’est mieux ainsi. Pendant la lutte érythréenne pour
l’indépendance, qui a duré trente ans, les membres de la guérilla étaient traités de la même
manière quel que soit leur sexe, et les femmes ont voulu aussi supprimer les pratiques de
clitoridectomie dans les populations des zones libérées. Cependant, on a sciemment choisi
d’étudier d’abord les pratiques en détail et de les combattre en faisant appel au dialogue et à
la conscientisation. Toutefois, les ‘modernisations’ culturelles de ce type ne sont pas toujours
irréversibles: ainsi, les mariages célébrés entre personnes de religions ou de classes
différentes ont difficilement résisté à la pression sociale après la guerre. Ces dernières
années, l’idée de ‘modernité universelle’ a fondu comme neige au soleil au profit de la
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 11

notion de ‘localité’. Il est en effet plus logique d’étudier le contexte des notions que nous
utilisons couramment, ainsi que l’ancrage des conceptions et des connaissances dans les
pratiques localisées. Pourtant, de nombreux participants ont estimé qu’Annemarie Mol,
philosophe néerlandaise, allait trop loin dans le développement de cette idée qu’elle présentait
dans son style inimitable. Certes, ils adhéraient à l’idée qu’il ne sert à rien d’analyser
les différences culturelles en termes de ‘systèmes de connaissances’ qui semblent s’opposer,
d’autant plus qu’ils sont bâtis avec cohérence (moderne-prémoderne; occidental-islamiste/africain);
ils adhéraient également à l’idée d’analyser les différences en termes de
‘pratiques’. Mais est-il exact que l’eau ne bout pas partout à 100 degrés, qu’on ne peut pas
tout bonnement transposer les faits et que certaines notions ont leur origine à Paris
(intellectualisme) et d’autres à Athènes (sphère publique)?
Il convient de relever que le simple fait de mentionner les notions de tradition et de
modernité dans l’annonce de la conférence a provoqué une certaine confusion. Bien que ces
notions aient fait l’objet de critiques, elles continuaient à être utilisées, en particulier par les
participants originaires du Moyen-Orient. On essayait de diverses façon de mettre en place
une troisième position, en plus de la tradition et de la modernité. Les deux notions de tradition
et de modernité servaient en fait de tremplin pour tenter de définir une nouvelle position.
Dans cette recherche, on restait assez réservé sur le postmodernisme mais non sur la notion
‘d’universalisme contextuel’, présentée par le philosophe néerlandais René Gabriels.
Si le postmodernisme n’a pas remporté de nombreux suffrages à Beyrouth, il s’est
toutefois présenté des situations qu’on pourrait qualifier de postmodernes. Pendant qu’un
des participants faisait la grasse matinée pour se remettre d’une nuit passée à boire et à
fumer du haschisch en compagnie de la jeune élite artistique et fortunée de Beyrouth, je me
trouvais dans un camp de réfugiés palestiniens. Le camp, situé dans la ville de Sidon, a été
créé en 1948. Il est protégé par une haute clôture pourvue de tours de guet et il est entouré de
chars et de pièces d’artillerie – libanais – à moitié ensevelis et dirigés vers le camp! Un
nombre incroyable de personnes – quelque 60 000 selon mon guide – y vivent entassées
dans une zone peu étendue qui ne comprend que quelques rues. Les maisons sont si
rapprochées qu’il arrive souvent, paraît-il, qu’il faille porter les morts jusqu’à la rue pour les
mettre en bière parce que les passages sont trop étroits pour les cercueils. En Europe, quand
j’entendais que des ‘bases dans les camps de réfugiés’ avaient été bombardées, je m’imaginais
toujours un vaste terrain avec, ici et là, des bunkers à moitié ensevelis et des
combattants. Mais, dans ce camp, les bombes ne peuvent que tomber sur des habitations
pleines de gens; l’ancien bureau de l’olp, rasé par une bombe, a laissé la place à un petit
parking coincé entre les maisons. Au bout d’un demi-siècle de bombardements, de
restrictions imposées par les Libanais et de destruction du camp au bulldozer, l’absurdité est
devenue aussi banale que le bruit des chasseurs israéliens que nous entendions au loin et
auquel nous n’accordions aucune attention.
Ceux qui ont fui en 1948 (et à qui l’Etat palestinien dans les territoires occupés en 1967,
objet des négociations actuelles, n’offre pas de solution) ont, 50 ans plus tard, pratiquement
perdu toute raison d’espérer. Les Palestiniens ne peuvent pas travailler au Liban, si ce n’est
dans les emplois les moins rémunérés; ceux qui travaillent à l’étranger et ne renouvellent
pas à temps leur permis, ne peuvent plus jamais rentrer dans le pays. Les Libanais ont
manifestement l’intention de forcer les Palestiniens à partir. Cela m’a frappé tout particulièrement
lorsque, par la suite, mes amis palestiniens m’ont raconté leur dernière initiative
pour obtenir un ‘droit au retour’ pour ceux qui ont été chassés par la force. Ils ont donné
à cette initiative le nom de ‘A’idun’. C’est une magnifique déclaration invoquant tout un
éventail de résolutions de l’onu, de conventions internationales et de principes de droit
généralement acceptés.
L’universalisme en guise d’arme. Nous parlions du rôle public des intellectuels? A défaut
de principes universels qui soient inhérents à ce rôle, nous devons œuvrer pour que certains
principes deviennent universels et, mieux encore, pour en imposer l’application.
12 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Elias Khoury
Elias Khoury est romancier, critique littéraire et rédacteur du
supplément littéraire hebdomadaire du principal quotidien de
Beyrouth, ‘Al-Nahar’. Né en 1948 au Liban, il grandit dans le quartier
Ashrafiyyeh de Beyrouth. Il s’inscrit à l’université libanaise au milieu
des années soixante et devient un militant pro-palestinien. En 1976,
il quitte les rangs du mouvement armé palestinien, mais reste un
sympathisant convaincu de la cause palestinienne. Khoury a prononcé
le discours suivant lors du congrès sur ‘Le rôle des intellectuels dans
la sphère publique’ (voir aussi les pages précédentes).
Un double langage
Nom: Robert Hatem
Nom de guerre: Cobra
Fonction: chien de garde et ombre
Statut: exilé, quelque part en Europe
Exploits: tueur, kidnappeur, maître chanteur, etc.
Je voudrais commencer en vous racontant l’histoire de cet homme. Mais en fait, je ne la
connais pas. Ce que je sais, c’est le retentissement sur la société libanaise, d’un livre écrit par
un certain M. Hatem alias Cobra. Je vais d’abord vous parler de ce livre, intitulé ‘D’Israël à
Damas’ et publié par Pride International Publication en 1999, non seulement parce que le
ministre de l’Information l’a interdit au Liban mais aussi parce qu’il va me permettre
d’attirer votre attention sur le problème lié à l’écriture dans le Liban d’après-guerre.
Laissez-moi d’abord vous expliquer la situation, avant d’essayer de l’analyser. Hatem (ou
Cobra) était autrefois le garde du corps d’Elie Hobeika, ancien ministre et membre du
parlement libanais. Son livre est à la fois une confession et un moyen de faire chanter son
ancien employeur. Dans ce livre, il décrit une série de crimes, accompagnés de pillage et de
kidnapping, qui ont eu lieu pendant la guerre du Liban, à l’époque où Hobeika était l’un des
leaders des ‘Forces libanaises’.
Au moment où le livre de Hatem est sorti et où a été reproduit sur Internet, la vie
politique et culturelle libanaise souffrait déjà depuis un certain temps de l’impact causé par
la publication de ces scandales. La matière était donc connue. Pourtant le livre a été perçu
comme quelque chose de nouveau. Ce livre a été photocopié à des milliers d’exemplaires. Le
chapitre 34, qui donne le plus de détails sur les relations sexuelles de Hobeika, est devenu le
grand sujet de conversation du moment. Hatem a été interviewé par la télévision par
satellite Al-Jazeera. Au cours de cette interview, il a donné encore plus de détails sur son
ancien employeur. Cette émission est à son tour devenue l’affaire du moment ce qui a
contraint Hatem à répliquer dans une longue interview diffusée le samedi 20 février sur
Future television,.
J’ai commencé par mentionner un livre interdit, non seulement pour défendre la liberté d’expression
et de publication, mais pour illustrer un phénomène qui domine la scène culturelle
libanaise. Il s’agit de ce double langage qui traite les faits réels comme des rumeurs et
les rumeurs comme des faits réels. Ce phénomène est peut-être dû au fait que les récits
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 13

véridiques et les expériences de guerre au Liban n’ont pas été consignés sur papier. Mis à part
quelques rares témoignages (comme celui de Joseph Saadé) et de sporadiques analyses sociologiques,
les seules références écrites à la guerre n’apparaissent que dans les romans libanais.
On peut aussi expliquer ce phénomène du double langage par la loi d’amnistie qui a clos
tous les dossiers concernant les crimes commis pendant la guerre du Liban sans avoir
aucunement tenté de mettre en place un cadre de compréhension et de réconciliation.
Enfin, troisième hypothèse, on peut placer ce double langage dans le contexte de l’amnésie
générale imposée à la scène politique de l’après-guerre; une amnésie qui a conduit à raser le
centre ville de Beyrouth (l’un des principaux théâtres de la guerre), emportés dans ce rêve
de construire une ville nouvelle et différente, un centre commercial international, une île
isolée du reste de la cité.
Avec son livre si mal écrit, Robert Hatem a pourtant réussi à lever le voile du silence qui
étouffait la vie culturelle libanaise. On peut aussi considérer ce qu’il écrit dans le cadre des
conflits entre les services secrets des différentes régions. Pourtant, je ne comprends pas
pourquoi son livre a été interdit au lieu d’être utilisé par la justice libanaise comme document
d’identification. Est-ce parce que la nouvelle classe dirigeante souhaite que le peuple du Liban
ne se souvienne plus de rien? Au point même d’ignorer des crimes comme les massacres de
Sabra et Chatilla en septembre 1982, lorsque quelque 500 réfugiés palestiniens ont été
massacrés devant les yeux – sous les phares – de l’armée israélienne qui occupait Beyrouth?
Des crimes sur lesquels Hobeika, le premier suspect, n’a jamais été interrogé au Liban?
Le seul interrogatoire de l’après-guerre a eu lieu lors du procès de Samir Geagea, le leader
des ‘Forces libanaises’, qui est aujourd’hui l’unique prisonnier de la période de guerre.
Pendant le procès, lorsque Hobeika a été appelé comme témoin, ce fut vraiment une
situation absurde. Cela m’a rappelé l’un de ces récits qui mettent en scène Geha, le héros
d’une série de contes populaires incarnant à la fois la sagesse et la bêtise. Une fois, Geha
rencontre un Qady, c’est-à-dire un juge, qui doit arbitrer une dispute entre un homme et
une femme. L’homme présente d’abord sa version des faits; le juge, convaincu par son
témoignage, déclare que c’est lui qui a raison. La femme vient ensuite exposer sa version; le
juge, convaincu aussi par son histoire, déclare qu’elle aussi a raison. Geha intervient à ce
moment-là et dit: ‘Monsieur le juge, si l’homme et la femme ont tous les deux raison, où est
la vérité?’ Le juge se tourne alors vers Geha et déclare: ‘Tu as raison toi aussi’. Cette histoire
illustre les difficultés auxquelles la justice doit faire face, et les énormes problèmes liés au
concept de vérité dans un pays comme le Liban. Un pays qui souffre encore des blessures de
la guerre et où les ‘non-dits’ dominent tous les discours. Je voudrais maintenant revenir à
Hatem et le citer: ‘Monsieur Hobeika a soudain réalisé que moi, Robert Hatem, connu
comme Cobra, comme son ombre et son plus loyal chien de garde, mais aussi comme son
homme de main depuis 20 ans, j’en savais trop pour vivre.’
Hatem donne trois définitions de lui-même; il était, dit-il, une ‘ombre’, un ‘chien’ et ‘quelqu’un
qui en sait trop pour vivre’. Je ne veux pas comparer le terme de ‘chien’ utilisé par
14 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
De gauche à droite:
Ursula Owen, directrice de
‘Index on Censorship’
(Angleterre); Zeina Arida,
directrice de la Fondation
Arabe de l’Image (Liban)
(voir aussi les pages 34-51 de
ce Journal) et Elias Khoury
Les philosophes Pieter Boele
van Hensbroek (Pays-Bas) et
Paulin Hountondji (Bénin)
L’écrivain libanaise Dalal
Al-Bizri; le chercheur malien
Mamadou Diawara; Lolle
Nauta (philosophe et
membre du Comité de
Direction de la Fondation
Prince Claus)
Le chercheur égyptien
Ahmed Abdalla; le critique
Desiderio Navarro de Cuba
Robert Hatem à la fameuse définition de Julien Benda qui caractérise les intellectuels de
‘chiens de garde’. Pourtant cette comparaison paraît inévitable quand on associe le terme de
‘chien’ aux deux autres étiquettes que Hatem se donne – ‘ombre’ et ‘quelqu’un qui en sait
trop pour vivre’– et qui suggèrent que la connaissance conduit à la mort. C’est là que réside
le paradoxe de l’accueil fait au livre au Liban. On ne l’a pas considéré comme un livre ou un
document qu’il fallait authentifier mais comme une rumeur. Or nous savons que la rumeur
n’a pas de limites. Bien qu’on ne peut considérer ce livre comme une œuvre sérieuse, il
contient bien plus que des rumeurs et la justice libanaise aurait pu l’utiliser comme
document dans l’investigation des crimes. Cela ne s’est pas fait: le ‘chien’ est devenu une
‘ombre’, et la connaissance a été transformée en une cause possible de menace et de mort.
On s’étonne de la réaction à la publication du livre de Hatem: le livre a été interdit et le
service des postes du Liban soumis à des contrôles stricts pour éviter que le livre ne
s’introduise par ce canal. Il devînt très difficile d’envoyer ou de recevoir des livres ou des
vidéos par la poste. En fait, le livre a servi de prétexte aux autorités pour imposer un
nouveau type de censure bien calculée, accompagnée de mesures sévères contre les
intellectuels. La chanson de Marcel Khalifeh, ‘Père, c’est moi Joseph’, et la production de
ballet de Maurice Béjart, ‘Oum Koulthoum’, en ont fait les frais. On peut trouver des
relations entre la structure des rumeurs et l’oppression qui expliquent peut-être la crise de
la vie intellectuelle dans le Beyrouth de l’après-guerre.
Ceci m’amène à la question des espaces intellectuels au Liban et dans le monde arabe. Je
dois faire remarquer ici que la crise qui touche la vie intellectuelle et le statut des intellectuels
est en fait une crise internationale. On peut en chercher la cause dans les grands
bouleversements qui se sont produits à la fois dans le domaine des connaissances et dans la
politique; ces bouleversements ont engendré un type d’intellectuel fortement médiatisé au
service des nouveaux dieux du marché et de la suprématie. Dans le tiers-monde, on peut
considérer la crise à différents niveaux: dans la globalisation de l’intellectuel, la domination
de la pétroculture comme le résultat de ses énormes possibilités, etc.
Mais mon propos est ici d’analyser l’espace intellectuel dans sa dynamique interne. Dans
cette perspective, je distingue trois éléments majeurs. Le premier se rapporte aux ‘non-dits’;
les exemples que j’ai pris dans le livre de Hatem peuvent nous aider à comprendre cette
notion. Les ‘non-dits’ ou le silence s’expliquent par différentes raisons, et ce phénomène se
manifeste sous différents aspects.
1. Des raisons et des aspects d’ordre social. Nous allons voir ici que l’Etat n’est pas le seul
appareil de répression. Diverses formations sociales peuvent aussi s’en charger, comme
au Liban où le consensus général qui a pu être atteint grâce aux différents groupes de
croyances et de religions d’une part, et à une police d’Etat semi-officielle de l’autre, a
abouti à ‘l’oubli’ de l’expérience de la guerre.
2. Des raisons et des aspects d’ordre religieux. Nous découvrons ici que, tant que le sacré joue
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 15

un rôle symbolique essentiel dans la vie sociale, le ‘non-dit’ peut être interdit. On
répliquera que les religions, en particulier le renouveau de l’islam, ont été une sorte de
réaction contre la dictature; c’est quand même une réaction qui a détruit toutes les
expressions de société (dans le cas de l’Iran et de l’Algérie par exemple). Bien que cela ne
soit que partiellement vrai, il reste un problème à analyser concernant la relation entre la
société et la religion.
3. Des raisons et des aspects d’ordre culturel. Nous devons considérer ici le système
d’éducation dans sa totalité, en particulier les relations entre l’université et la société.
Dans la dynamique interne de l’espace intellectuel, le second élément est l’oppression. Il est
facile de parler de l’oppression, mais bien plus difficile d’analyser ses mécanismes. On ne
peut pas la réduire à un simple coup d’Etat ou à une junte militaire au pouvoir: l’oppression
représente aussi une crise culturelle. Elle exprime un problème politique ou une impasse.
Elle peut prendre l’aspect d’un père, le père de la nation, le leader, etc., ou celle du
nationalisme. Souvenons-nous ce qu’il est advenu de ces ‘Damnés de la Terre’– pour
utiliser l’expression de Franz Fanon – en Algérie ou dans le monde arabe en général.
L’oppression enfin peut prendre la forme d’une force de modernisation: le modernisme
était le but poursuivi par les officiers égyptiens qui entouraient Nasser.
Dans la réalité du tiers-monde, il est facile de parler de démocratie mais très difficile de
mettre en place une société démocratique. Sur ce point, je suggèrerais de développer une
critique profonde du concept de volonté; ce concept basé sur l’hypothèse que seule la
volonté peut changer l’histoire et la société. Je ne me réfère pas ici à Gramsci. Dans la pensée
de ce dernier, l’optimisme de la volonté est associé à l’intellectuel organique utilisant ses
connaissances pour changer le statu quo. Mais la volonté présente dans les coups d’Etat a
généré un type de régime militaire qui utilisait les slogans de la modernisation pour créer
une nouvelle organisation de style Mamelouk qui a anéanti les structures sociales, les
remplaçant par le vide de l’oppression.
On trouve le concept d’oppression fondée sur des images du père dans la trilogie
romanesque de Naguib Mahfouz où le père mène une double vie et parle un double langage.
Le personnage d’Ahmad Abdel Jawad incarne différentes sortes d’oppression de femmes et
d’enfants, etc. Le mécanisme de l’oppression a détruit la vie intellectuelle (la liberté des
universités, la liberté des écrivains, etc.) et a engendré ce que j’appelle le double exil de
l’intellectuel arabe. 1. Un exil à l’intérieur de son propre pays. L’intellectuel est contraint à la
fois à se taire et à parler une absurde langue de bois. Bien sûr, il peut aussi choisir d’aller
droit au but; 2. L’exil hors de son propre pays; des milliers d’intellectuels n’ont pas eu
d’autre alternative que de quitter leur pays pour chercher refuge en Europe. Il faut réexaminer
dans cette perspective la destruction de Beyrouth comme centre de la culture
arabe. Avant la destruction de Beyrouth en effet, les intellectuels arabes pouvaient s’exiler
dans une autre société arabe; l’exil avait alors une autre connotation, cela faisait partie de la
16 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
De gauche à droite:
Le journaliste Dapo Adeniyi
(Nigeria) et l’écrivain libanais
Hassan Daoud
L’historien Abdeljelil Temimi
(Tunisie) et Els van der Plas,
directrice de la Fondation
Prince Claus
documents photografiques:
LAU
lutte pour la liberté. Je suis très sceptique sur le rôle que peuvent jouer les exilés à partir de
l’Europe, même si quelques idées très novatrices ont surgi de cet exil – citons le nom
d’Edward Said et le cas de Nasser Hamed Abou Zeid par exemple. Le troisième et dernier
élément dans la dynamique interne de l’espace intellectuel est la relation entre la vérité et la
justice. Ceci m’amène à la partie la plus compliquée de mon analyse: une hypothèse
lourdement chargée de problèmes et de malentendus.
Le problème dont je voudrais parler surtout est celui que l’on pourrait appeler le problème de
la ruse, ou de l’élégance intellectuelle. J’ai à l’esprit les noms de toutes ces entreprises
intellectuelles qui ont tenté de poser un pont entre le pouvoir intellectuel d’un côté, et la
société et la culture de l’autre: de l’écrivain Ibn al Muqaffah qui, au 17ème siècle, utilisait la
métaphore pour créer un lien entre le discours critique et le pouvoir politique, au poète
Majakovski pour qui le suicide était la seule position politique possible. Deux grands exemples
devenus des modèles d’authenticité intellectuelle. Je ne me réfère pas ici à ces intellectuels ou à
ces types d’intellectuels qui se sont mis au service des pouvoirs politiques et économiques. Il
s’agit là de trahison. L’élégance de Ibn al Muqaffah ne l’a pas sauvé d’une mort atroce puisqu’il a
été mis en pièces et brûlé vif sur l’ordre du gouverneur d’Al Basra. Lorsque la connaissance se
met au service du pouvoir, cela ne conduit jamais à un climat de liberté réelle pour l’activité
intellectuelle. Au contraire. Et la mort n’est peut-être pas la pire conséquence.
Le malentendu dont je voudrais parler est celui qui sous-tend la pensée dominante en
Occident concernant la Palestine. C’est à mon avis le malentendu le plus important. Il en
existe d’autres bien sûr. Les exemples sont nombreux: des approches orientalistes aux séries
de romans arabes qui traitent de ‘La migration vers le Nord’, pour citer le titre de Tayed
Saleh. Mais le problème essentiel vient de la relation entre la vérité et la justice. La question
palestinienne l’illustre parfaitement.
J’ai beaucoup de mal à comprendre comment les principales tragédies de l’histoire européenne,
comme l’antisémitisme, le racisme et l’holocauste, ont pu été utilisées, de manière
très ambiguë, pour justifier une injustice énorme: l’expulsion, par la force, du peuple palestinien
de son pays en 1948. L’intellectuel arabe qui arrive à comprendre cela se retrouve
dans une impasse entre vérité et justice. D’un côté, il entend bien que la vérité a plusieurs
visages. Mais il est aussi bien placé pour connaître la vérité de la tragédie palestinienne.
Cette vérité a déjà été falsifiée et brandie pour servir un projet colonial. Le sentiment que
vérité et justice ne peuvent être réunies en un concept unique engendre en moi ce que je
définirais comme une certaine amertume. Et l’amertume peut mener à la bêtise, comme on
l’a vu il y a deux ans, lors de la grande fête de bienvenue organisée pour Garaudy dans le
monde arabe.
La conscience d’un malentendu est un obstacle aux vrais echanges intellectuels. Un grand
nombre d’intellectuels influencés par le concept cosmopolite de l’intellectuel global, en
arrivent à embrasser une autre forme de bêtise qui se manifeste dans la mise en place d’un
double langage, l’un pour le monde extérieur et l’autre pour leur univers local (si du moins
leur univers local les intéresse). Ce concept de double langage nous ramène à la fonction de
la rumeur comme activité intellectuelle dans les sociétés en proie à une double oppression:
d’une part celle de la dictature, et d’autre part celle de la domination et de l’occupation.
Pour l’intellectuel, quelle attitude prendre face à l’oppression? Je ne suis pas assez naïf pour
penser que les efforts des intellectuels peuvent suffire à créer des sociétés démocratiques.
Mais je suis persuadé que l’activité intellectuelle est un élément essentiel de la lutte pour la
démocratie. Arrivé à ce point, je voudrais proposer deux concepts complémentaires de
l’espace intellectuel. Le premier concept est le marginalisme, le choix d’une position marginale.
On peut bien sûr aller à la recherche des limites de la marginalité qui doivent être
constamment remises en question. Mais je pense que le critère le plus évident pour définir
ces limites est la ‘décadence du langage’, pour citer George Orwell. La marge n’est pas un lieu
de repos. Au contraire, c’est un lieu de questionnement et de remise en cause. Et peut-être
que la question la plus importante restera celle du statut du travail intellectuel lui-même.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 17

Le second concept est l’opposition, et pas seulement dans le domaine politique. Cette
opposition exige le développement d’un esprit critique qui rebâtit la relation entre la vérité
et la justice; un esprit critique qui refuse d’obéir à la fois aux anciens et aux nouveaux dieux du
pouvoir, et qui s’efforce de sonder les falsifications et la structure de l’idéologie dominante.
Cette attitude d’opposition devra affronter toutes sortes de pouvoirs mais nous ne
devons pas oublier que le rôle de l’intellectuel est à la fois de servir la vérité et de créer un
langage libre à partir de l’expérience humaine de l’oppression.
Les deux espaces que je viens de définir sont difficiles à mettre en place. Mais pour les
intellectuels du tiers-monde, leur réalisation constitue le défi essentiel, puisque leur seule
alternative par ailleurs est d’accepter le langage oppressif du pouvoir.
18 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Paulin J. Hountondji
1.
Gobineau, Joseph Arthur
comte de; Essai sur l’inégalité
des races humaines, Didot,
Paris, 1853-1855, 4 volumes
2.
The French anthropologist
intended to oppose the basic
hypothesis of ‘the English
anthropological school’,
namely Tylor and Frazer.
The latter assumed, first,
that human nature was
identical everywhere and at
all times, and secondly, that
the facts and deeds of the
primitive man were based
on a particular philosophy,
that is a coherent and selfconscious
worldview. Tylor
called this particular worldview
‘animism’. To him,
animism was a philosophy
shared by all members of
‘primitive’ societies, and
the rationale for all those
customs, habits, rites, social
uses which seem at first so
peculiar to the European
observer. In view of this
theory, Tylor appears to
have been doing what we
call today ethno-philosophy,
while Levy-Bruhl’s refutation
amounts to substituting for
this ethno-philosophical
In co-operation with the Lebanese American University, the Prince
Claus Fund organised a conference on ‘The Role of the Intellectual in
the Public Sphere’. (See also previous pages.) Discussions took place
on 24 and 25 February 2000. Among the speakers were Elias Khoury
from Lebanon, Desiderio Navarro from Cuba, Ahmed Abdalla from
Egypt, Mamadou Diawara from Mali, Waziri Adio from Nigeria and
1999 Prince Claus Award laureate Paulin Hountondji from Benin.
Tradition: Hindrance or Inspiration?
Two temptations
In examining a given tradition, two temptations should be resisted: first, the temptation of
contempt, and second, that of overall justification. It was the fate of some cultures in the
world to have been systematically said to be inferior during centuries of Western domination
including, as far as Africa is concerned, a long history of slave trade and colonialism.
This sense of inferiority was unfortunately internalised to various degrees by the cultures
themselves. On the other hand, voices arose both from within these cultures and from within
the dominant, i.e. the European cultures, to resist that claim to superiority and put Western
civilisation back in its right place, a place far more modest than it pretended. African voices
were part of this new concert. The danger then, however, was to fall into the exact opposite
of the first attitude by idealising and romanticising non-Western cultures.
Cultural imperialism
The first temptation is that of cultural imperialism based on what might be called first order
ethnocentrism, as opposed to a defensive or second order ethnocentrism. Historically, its
most visible form during the last four centuries or so was the collective sense of superiority
developed within the Western civilisation by some of its ideologists. This form of ethnocentrism
is known as Eurocentrism. For centuries, a whole range of scholars have been for
centuries putting their intelligence and learning to the service of this prejudice. For instance
Gobineau, the author of ‘Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines’, thought he was engaged in
science. So obvious, however, were his racist assumptions, that nobody should have given
the slightest credit to his scientific pretensions. 1 Lévy-Bruhl’s theory of ‘primitive mentality’
seemed at first sight more consistent, though in the final analysis it was based on the same
kind of prejudice. 2 Levy-Bruhl’s work is a good example of how an accumulation of real facts
can be arranged, organised and interpreted in such a way to serve as a means to reinforce
sheer prejudice. Books like ‘Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures’ and the five
others which were to follow 3 are good illustrations of how false science is constructed. The
case is all the more eloquent since the author himself was to write a self-criticism published
posthumously as ‘Les carnets de Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’. 4 Mutatis mutandis, one dares to hope
that the authors of ‘The Bell Curve’, a book much talked about in America in the last five
years, which also tried to give scientific appearance to sheer racist prejudice, will rehabilitate
themselves before they die, for the sake of science and for their own personal dignity. 5
Cultural nationalism
The second temptation is that of an excessive and uncritical reaction to the former one. It
usually takes the form of an identification with one’s own tradition, as a result of self-defence
and justification. We are still facing this danger today. Most of the time, we develop a kind of
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 19

elation with our own cultures which is not so pure and straightforward as it would have
been normally, if we did not feel compelled to answer the challenge of other cultures at the
same time. For instance, because some of our ancestral uses have been or are still under
external (say, Western) attack, we would still today defend or seek to justify them as part of
our identity though we are conscious ourselves of how outdated and little adapted they are
to the present conditions of life. We would have certainly rejected these uses or fought for
them to be improved and better adapted if we had been alone together. In other words, our
relation as individuals to our original cultures is frequently biased, not to say poisoned by the
obsession of collective self-defence imposed on us by a hostile environment.
One of the most serious issues today, therefore, is how to get rid of this obsession of the
Other and develop again a free and critical relationship to our own cultures. In other words,
how can we revive this debate: in places or circumstances where the internal debate within
particular cultures has been slowed down or even stifled by external aggression? How can we
minimise the negative impact of racism and colonial contempt on the way people behave
towards their own culture? How can we mentally liberate ourselves from other cultures’
views of our own culture, in order to prioritise our own debate with and within the latter?
William Abraham, a Ghanaian (now Ghanaian-American) philosopher, wrote something
similar in ‘The Mind of Africa’: it has often been said, he argues, that the eyes of the whole
world are upon us; this is not true, we must get rid of this idea and behave just as we think we
have to (I cannot unfortunately give the exact quotation, since it is impossible to find the
book anywhere in Cotonou - which, by the way, is also part of the conditions of intellectual
work in our countries). 6
A secret complicity
People from dominated cultures are not the only ones, however, to react this way. Not only
are they strongly supported, but most of the time they are preceded and shown the way by
dissident voices from within the dominant cultures themselves. I called attention to this
point many years ago: the rejection of Eurocentrism came first from European intellectuals
themselves, namely the anthropologists. Some of them went so far as simply to invert the
imperialistic scale of cultural norms: whereas Western civilisation was usually valued for its
technical and economic achievements, Malinowski, instead, saw ‘a menace to all real spiritual
and artistic values in the aimless advance of modern mechanisation’. To him, the study of
primitive forms of human life was ‘one of the refuges from this mechanical prison of culture’
and ‘a romantic escape from our over-standardised culture’. I recalled the major role played
by the German anthropologist Frobenius in the intellectual development of both Senghor
and Césaire, the two poets of ‘negritude’. There is therefore, I suggested, a secret complicity
between the ‘progressive’ anthropologist in the West and the cultural nationalist in the
South. 7 The latter is often provided his arguments by the former. When these arguments
happen to be weak or inconsistent, the cultural nationalist tends unfortunately to take them
up as they are.
Let me give an example. In his overview of ‘African Religion, Spirituality and Thought’,
published 30 years ago, Dominique Zahan, a French anthropologist, mentions incidentally a
custom which was held sacred in some parts of Africa as late as the 19th century: at the burial of
King Ghezo of Abomey, now part of the Benin Republic, several dozens of his wives were
sacrificed to accompany and continue to serve him in the Beyond. Moreover, most of them
were said to be volunteers and to consider it a great honour to be chosen. Colonial ideologists
would have simply presented this practice as one more proof of how savage or primitive
Africans are. Instead, the modern anthropologist tries to identify the philosophy behind this
custom. To Dominique Zahan, this ritual only means that for the Blacks, there is no real
discontinuity between life and death: life flows from death, and death is but the continuation
of life. 8
This way of presenting things is a good example of how ethnophilosophy works: it refers to
some collective worldview or conceptual framework as possible justification for the most
unjustifiable customs. Cultural nationalism aims at the same goal: it seeks to justify all inherited
20 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
account, an ethno-psychological
account of non-Western
realities. To him, the rationale
for the primitive way
of life does not lie in any kind
of philosophy but in a ‘mentality’,
i.e., the bare fact of a
given psychic constitution.
The primitive’s behaviour is
not motivated by logical reasons,
but determined by his/
her psychological nature. To
that extent, no real understanding
is possible between
the ‘primitive’ and the ‘civilised’.
Levy-Bruhl’s story
amounts to widening the gap
between cultures and splitting
down the unity of humankind.
3.
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien;
Les fonctions mentales dans
les sociétés inférieures,
Paris, 1910; La mentalité
primitive, Paris, 1922; L’âme
primitive, Paris, 1927; Le
surnaturel et la nature dans
la mentalité primitive; Paris,
1931; La mythologie
primitive, Paris, 1935;
L’expérience mystique et
les symboles chez les
primitifs, Paris, 1938
4.
A good presentation of
Lévy-Bruhl’s thought and
development on primitive
mentality is found in:
Cazeneuve, Jean; La mentalité
archaïque, Armand
Colin, Paris, 1961.
5.
Herrstein, Richard and Charles
A. Murray; The Bell Curve:
Intelligence and Class Structure
in American Life, First
Free Press, New York, 1995
6.
Abraham, William; The Mind
of Africa (The Nature of
Human Society), University
of Chicago Press, Chicago/
Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
London, 1962
7.
See Hountondji, Paulin J.;
African Philosophy, Myth and
Reality, Indiana University
Press, Bloomington and
Indianapolis, 1996 (second
edition), p. 157-159
8.
Zahan, Dominique; Religion,
spiritualité et pensée africaines,
Payot, Paris, 1970,
p. 245
9.
Hountondji, Paulin J.;
‘Brainstorming - Or How to
Create Awareness of Human
Rights’, in: Mayor, Federico,
in collaboration with Roger-
Pol Droit (ed.); Taking
Action for Human Rights in
the Twenty-first Century,
UNESCO Publishing, Paris,
1998, p. 144-147
10.
This does not only apply to
Africa. Examples can be
taken from any other culture.
For instance, committing
hara-kiri has been said to be
part and parcel of Japanese
culture. The heroism of the
kamikazes who, during the
Second World War, sacrificed
their lives to destroy
enemies’ boats, appears to
be a modern illustration of
an age-old practice, deeply
rooted in the ancestral
culture. However, how
universally approved was
this practice? Who can
assert that there has never
been at any time, in any
circumstances, a secret
protest by a mother, a sister
or a lover, a discrete murmur,
a self-contained revolt
against the unwritten law
or the social pressure that
forced young and valid
people to commit suicide?
practices including the most unjustifiable. That is why ethnophilosophy, obviously an
invention of the West, has been so massively taken up by Third World intellectuals and
especially by African philosophers. Yet, as a matter of fact, no woman today, even from the
culture of King Ghezo, the Fon culture in present-day Benin, would like to be buried alive with,
or sacrificed in any other way for the sake of her husband, however prestigious he may be.
What is needed, therefore, in the present circumstances, is to get rid of this need for selfjustification
before the tribunal of other cultures in order to develop the internal debate
within our own cultures. We need to question our cultures from within, i.e. from our own
point of view instead of assuming that they can only be questioned from without. We need
to understand how such a ritual came into existence in the past, why so many princesses not
only accepted it but went so far as to offer themselves as voluntary victims. Zahan’s reference
to a certain conception of life and death is probably not false, but we need more: we need to
appreciate how strong the social pressure was on these princesses and the overall social
atmosphere in the context of absolute monarchy in a small size country. We need to
understand how this very philosophy of life and death came to develop and why it no longer
works today.
I wrote some time ago about brainstorming as a way to favour, from within a society, a
new awareness of values. Instead of trying to impose norms imported from other cultures, it
would be more effective, I argued, to draw upon the inner dynamism of every culture, the
inner potential for self-criticism and self-improvement. All cultures have developed social
practices in the past which common sense totally disapproves of today. What seemed
normal yesterday no longer does today. For instance, the Inquisition in Western Europe and
later on, the slave trade and the anti-Black racism in Western Europe and America. Second,
not only are cultures dynamic and bound to change over time; no culture admits just one
system of norms at the same time. Instead, in any given culture there are always several
systems mutually competing. Therefore, instead of taking for granted the claim for
universality of a given model at a given time, one should always look carefully beyond the
dominant social model for the wide range of secondary or marginal models. 9
Identifying murmurs
We are facing, therefore, two kinds of problems: a theoretical problem and a practical one.
We need, first, to develop new paradigms in the social sciences. Whatever the discipline,
whether history or sociology or economics or law or any branch of anthropology including
legal anthropology and religious anthropology, to quote just a few examples, so far in Africa
the tendency in the social sciences has been to frame out just one way of living, doing or
thinking that appears to express, in each case, the specificity of Africa. This search for specificity
is probably still relevant today. However, by calling attention exclusively to what
might be considered as ‘the African difference’, social scientists have overlooked so far the
internal pluralism of African cultures, the inner tensions that make them living cultures, just
as unbalanced and therefore, just as dynamic, just as bound to change as any other culture in
the world.
Greater attention should be paid, beyond the norms and social practices usually held as
characteristic of a given culture, to the wide range of marginal practices and norms. The
problem, then, is a methodological one: by what methods, through what theoretical and practical
tools is it possible today for the social scientist to identify these hidden models? How can
we best recognise, behind the brouhaha of the dominant culture, the stifled voices that tell
another story? To stick to our example, how can the anthropologist or historian of Africa today
identify and make evident all the critical murmurs, the stifled protest which were presumably
uttered or eventually suppressed, at the time of King Ghezo’s burial, by the princesses’
mothers, sisters, relatives, secret lovers (if any), or even by the princesses themselves, when
given the opportunity to speak off the record? What was the comment of the king’s jester or of
the authorised satirical singers? Such questions are based on the assumption that, beyond the
unity and specificity of a culture, it is important to explore its internal diversity and pluralism.
They invite new approaches and an important shift in the current scientific paradigms. 10
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 21

Breaking the walls of prejudice
However, it is not enough to develop a new reading of the past, a new comprehension of
tradition. Once it has been recognised that tradition is plural, the practical question is: how
can we promote the internal debate inside our own culture here and now in such a way that it
may itself develop new, and the best possible alternatives? I may not have perceived, in my
aforementioned article, how difficult it is to organise brainstorming in a social context where
very few people really want it; in a context where some people are used to manipulating the
masses and for that reason do not want the truth to become evident at all. A favourite
method used by these manipulators is to pour torrents of lies on their followers. More
exactly put, they deposit in their followers’ minds the seeds of lie and delusion in such a way
that these seeds grow by themselves without any need for additional intervention. Followers
internalise what they have been told, including the forbidding of all dialogue with other
sides and the conviction that the people in front are bad people.
I do not wish to elaborate on this. Let me just mention how harsh this refusal of dialogue
can be, not only in politics but even in such domains as religion. In my country we know of a
religious chief, a pastor of the Methodist Church of Benin, who was elected President of the
Church in March 1993 for a five years’ mandate, renewable once. In 1997, instead of organising
new elections to get another mandate starting from 1998, he came to the annual Synod
with a new draft constitution with the provision that once a President is chosen, he should
remain in office till his retirement. This gave birth to a deep crisis within the Church, the
deepest crisis ever experienced by this congregation which happens to be the first Christian
group ever established in Benin. 11
Time has not yet come to draw the lessons of this crisis, which has been stirring up all
religious communities in Benin, whether Christian or not, for the last two years or so. What
strikes me most, however, is how an issue which looks so clear, so simple, so limpid has been
confused so far by all means and through all kinds of methods by the man in question and his
staff. What fascinates me is the way they have exploited the ignorance and lack of information
of thousands of people in the Church. They rush here and there to whatever local church
they feel has not yet got the proper information to mislead the members and warn them
against any contact with the so-called ‘rebels’ or ‘dissidents’. They erect around them walls of
prejudice that incline them simply not to listen to any other explanation or information.
Despite this, however, some of these people sometimes come across the facts that the man
has been trying to hide. The charm then is neutralised and people are prepared, once again, to
face reality.
I myself happen to be part of this conflict - you can guess on which side I stand. Beyond this
specific fight, however, one question arises: how can the walls of prejudice be broken in each
case? How can people unwilling to discuss or warned against any questioning of the established
order be progressively brought to face reality and accept discussion? How can such people be
brought into the brainstorming exercise which is the condition for collective invention and
renewal? To me, the well known sentence of the Founding Act of unesco (‘Since wars begin in
the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’)
sounds like a paradox: if principles of tolerance, ideas of human rights and human equality or,
for that matter, the belief in the God of love are understood to be the defences of peace, piling
these principles and belief up in the minds of men will never be enough to create peace.
Specific actions are needed to deconstruct and, whenever possible, break down the walls of
prejudice erected by manipulators to prevent fair discussion and dialogue.
22 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
11.
The first Christian
missionary came to
Danhome in 1843 in the time
of King Ghezo, and he was
from the Methodist Church
of Britain, founded by John
Wesley in the 18th century.
William Kendridge
p. 24-27
William Kentridge
(1955, Afrique du Sud)
‘Overvloed’, 1999
vidéo fixe
avec la gracieuse autorisation
de l’artiste
Lors de la cérémonie de remise des Prix Prince Claus 1999, l’artiste
sud-africain William Kentridge a présenté ‘Overvloed’ (abondance),
une installation vidéo réalisée à la demande de la Fondation Prince
Claus sur le thème du Grand Prix Prince Claus 1999: ‘La Création
d’espaces de liberté’. L’œuvre était projetée sur le plafond peint
de la Salle des Citoyens du Palais Royal d’Amsterdam pendant la
cérémonie. On avait distribué des miroirs au public pour qu’il puisse
bien voir cette projection.
Overvloed
Le sujet de ‘Overvloed’ est la dislocation – essentiellement celle de l’horizon conventionnel –
qui survient quand on regarde un tableau ou une projection sur un plafond. Cette expérience
bouleverse notre perception habituelle du haut et du bas, du sol et du ciel. Face au tableau ou
à la projection sur un plafond, le spectateur s’efforce de découvrir un point ou une série de
points qui lui permet de trouver le sens. Cette façon de faire reflète de manière très large nos
multiples tentatives pour trouver un point de vue nous permettant de donner un certain
sens à l’univers.
De manière plus spécifique, ‘Overvloed’ évoque les relations géographiques et historiques
entre les Pays-Bas et l’Afrique. La construction du Palais Royal en 1648 coïncide avec la
colonisation hollandaise de l’Afrique du Sud (1652). Cette époque qui, par bien des aspects,
constitue l’apogée du Siècle d’or marque aussi le début d’un chapitre extrêmement compliqué
de l’histoire de l’Afrique du Sud. Trois cent cinquante ans plus tard, les résonances se font
encore sentir.
‘Overvloed’ est une œuvre en devenir, le point de départ d’une étude encore en cours sur les
projections de plafond. Elle procède du désir constant de l’artiste de découvrir des manières
non littérales de clarifier l’énigme de l’héritage européen en Afrique. L’œuvre comprend des
textes brefs dérivés de proverbes hollandais et d’Afrique orientale.
L’incertitude qu’entraîne le fait de travailler sur un nouveau support (le plafond) – avec tous
les aléas et les incertitudes qui en découlent – est une référence littérale à ces libertés essentielles
au bon fonctionnement de l’œuvre d’art: le choix de travailler à partir du doute, la
valorisation de l’incertitude, et la conscience que le projet peut aboutir à un échec.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 23

24 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 25

26 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
William Kendridge
p. 24-27
William Kentridge
(1955, Suráfrica)
‘Overvloed’, 1999
video fotograma
cortesía del artista
Durante la ceremonia de la presentación de los Premios Príncipe
Claus en 1999, el artista surafricano William Kentridge presentó
‘Overvloed’ (abundancia), una video instalación que realizó bajo
el requerimiento de esta, y en referencia al tema principal de estos
premios en 1999: ‘Creando espacios de libertad’. La obra fue
proyectada en el techo pintado de el Salón de los Ciudadanos del
Palacio Real de Amsterdam durante la ceremonia de premiación.
Se entregó a la audiencia espejos para ver la proyección.
Overvloed
‘Overvloed’ es sobre dislocación; en primeria instancia la dislocación de un horizonte
convencional. Esto surge cuando se observa una proyección sobre el techo. Nuestro sentido
habitual del arriba y el abajo, tierra y aire, se salen del equilibrio. Por cada pintura o proyección
sobre el techo, uno lucha para encontrar un punto, o series de puntos desde los cuales
esta tenga sentido.
En la forma más amplia posible, los espejos son el camino por el cual luchamos para encontrar
un punto ventajoso desde el cual el mundo tenga sentido.
Más específicamente, ‘Overvloed’ juega con las interconexiones geográficas e históricas
entre Holanda y Africa. La construcción del Palacio Real (1648) coincide con la colonización
holandesa de Suráfrica (1652), así que lo que en muchas formas fue el pináculo de la Era
Dorada holandesa, fue el comienzo de un extremádamente complicado capítulo en la historia
surafricana -de lo cual su resonancia y desarrollo siguen en juego 350 años después.
‘Overvloed’ es un trabajo en progreso, el comienzo de una investigación que se lleva a cabo
dentro de proyecciones en techos, y como parte de un interés en curso de encontrar formas
no literales de burlarse de la adivinanza del legado europeo en Africa. La pieza incluye textos
cortos derivados de proverbios holandeses y del este de Africa.
Lo incierto de trabajar en un nuevo terreno (el techo), donde incertidumbre y duda son
altos, se constituye en una evocación literal de esas libertades vitales para que un trabajo
artístico funcione – la posibilidad de trabajar partiendo de la duda, celebrando la incertidumbre
y reconociendo que el proyecto puede terminar en fracaso.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 27

On 8 December 1999, Angolan novelist Pepetela was granted a
Prince Claus Award. At the festive award ceremony at the Netherlands
Embassy in Luanda, Pepetela delivered this speech on the theme of
the 1999 Prince Claus Awards, ‘Creating Spaces of Freedom’:
Creating Spaces of Freedom
When I was informed by the Prince Claus Fund that my work had been chosen for one of its
awards this year, I thought of coming here only to say a few necessary words to express my
sincere gratitude. But afterwards I thought that, if this award is destined by such a prestigious
foundation to recognise the work of people who in some way or other have been highlighted
for their contribution to culture and development, I had to mention some present matters
related to this area in which I have a modest role. Therefore, I ask your indulgence for a little
bit longer, while I read this text which I promise will be as short as possible.
My gratitude goes first of all to Prince Claus, who by creating and developing his foundation,
has called upon the attention, first of all of the Netherlands and secondly of the world
in general, to current issues related to the relationship between culture and its social components,
who has provided the incentive through awards and other kinds of support to
creative people to take a more active participation in the life of their communities, and of this
planet which is so often mistreated. My gratitude goes also to the jury, for recognising some
merit in the little that I have done, and to the Ambassador of the Netherlands, who enthusiastically
organised this ceremony and gave prominence to this event.
With all this, I could not be silent in receiving this award which is not only literary, but is
also for something more, for citizenship. I could not be silent when I am preoccupied with
recent events that have affected culture in this country, and which have not received
sufficient and deserving explanations.
First of all, I refer to the right extended to me as a writer to treat any theme I want and in
the manner and style I choose. In brief, I have the right of freedom of creation. I presume no
one would dare deny me this right at the end of the 20th century. However, when it comes to
the expression of this freedom of creation, some obstacles may crop up. There is the editor
who for various reasons may not accept my text, a right that I cannot deny him. There are the
authorities who may limit the disclosure of the work, offering a varying degree of arguments.
Fortunately, I think we do not live in such a situation, but only in a similar one due to the
extreme debility of the editors, who, without any prodding by the State, have provided very
little publicity for local work. I said, and I repeat, that I have not felt any political pressure to
restrain literary freedom of expression.
However, there are winds which may be foreboding. The present climate of intimidation
of journalists by some backward sectors of the country may work to force us writers to the
other side of the psychological barriers which we involuntarily build in the process of
writing. And what worries me is not to have noticed, among the community of literary
people, and in general, among people involved in culture, a collective and firm public
position to call attention to the fossilised sectors, to the uselessness and ridiculousness of
their unjust attempts at intimidation. Times have changed, freedom of information is part of
the path of history, and no matter how difficult it is for many, we have to accept the publication
of negative criticism, even if highly biased. We as writers have to accept criticism that
may appear in the media about our books. And politicians have to accept criticism about their
acts. And businessmen about their businesses. Those who feel that they have been particularly
wronged can resort to the proper legal instruments. But, I insist that we, as writers,
we let the moment slip by to express full, public solidarity with our colleagues of the press,
out of self-indulgence, cowardice and omission. I humbly recognise this. The journalists are
28 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Pepetela
The Netherlands
Ambassador to Angola,
HE Mr. J.E. van den Berg,
presenting the 1999 Prince
Claus Award to Pepetela
courtesy Netherlands
Embassy in Angola
our ‘front line’ to use a rare expression nowadays, they are the ones taking the brunt of the
attack in this universal fight for the freedom of expression and communication of ideas. In
general, we writers hold back comfortably, waiting to see what will happen. We have to
change our attitude, take an approach worthy of the tradition of irredentism and rebellion of
the initiators and creators of Angolan literature. From this irredentism and rebellion the idea
of an independent nation was born and consolidated, in spite of the obstacles along the way,
and is a tradition of which we are proud today.
Even a few days ago we women and men of culture allowed one more collective omission,
one which a brilliant chronicler of this country called ‘the silence of the indecent’. In the face
of the savage onslaught against Angolan history and culture represented by the demolition
of the Dona Ana Joaquina palace, there has not been sufficient public indignation on our part.
We are witness to the rude arrogance of an arbitrary decision for which we do not even know
the authors of the decision, or their reasons. We do not know the objective of their crime, the
confessed and the hidden objective, because hidden objectives will always exist. Someone
has decided, will we ever know who? I would not be surprised if this was committed by
someone who has not been elected for anything, or even if he/she has a position related to
the historic patrimony or the city... we live in a country of parallels, where each structure or
official process has its clandestine copy, which is often the one that takes charge, in the
shadow of anonymity. We, women and men preoccupied with the country’s paths, who
know that often the underlying reasons for the wrongs of today are to be found in the past,
we have the right and duty to demand clear explanations, and to accept no false arguments.
Enough doubles, replicas, parallels, whatever we want to call them. We want to know who is
‘the alligator stirring the mud in the bottom of the river to cloud the water of our
understanding’, to quote one of our country's sayings. We have the duty not to let this issue
die, so that tomorrow we will not regret the fact that our Iron Palace has been sold in pieces to
some antique market in Paris, or the Fort of S. Miguel has been exported to some oil island, or
that the black stones of Pungo Andongo have been used to decorate the private gardens of
Japan or Texas. And that we are dispossessed of our collective memory, so that we can be
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 29

etter dominated, like colonialism once tried to do. We have the right and the duty to
demand a public inquiry and to have its findings published in the shortest period of time.
And let the criminals be punished, whoever they might be.
Dear friends,
Forgive me my harsh words. But accept the sincerity of the person expressing them. I do not
wish to gain any notoriety from them. Besides, in that respect life has given me more than I
ever desired. Personally, I have only one regret today, that I do not have next to me at this
moment the two most important people in my life, my wife and my daughter, both absent
due to unavoidable circumstances.
But I do have a collective ambition and that is to see definitive peace in Angola, to see
Angola no longer walking in the path of agony, but on a real road of progress and equal
opportunities for all its children. For this reason, the women and men of culture have to
make themselves listen, must defend just causes, even if sometimes, like our forefathers, we
feel we are crying out into the desert. Even in the desert of intolerance and arrogance there
will always be a listening ear. And future generations will be witnesses and judges.
30 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Heri Dono
In the year 2000 the Prince Claus Fund focuses on ‘Urban Heroes’.
The aim is to identify and recognise creative solutions conceived and
implemented by the inhabitants of rapidly expanding cities in Africa,
Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The issue of metropolitan
problems and cultural innovation inspired 1998 Prince Claus Award
laureate Heri Dono, based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to write the
following reflection.
Art and the City
At the present time in Indonesia many people feel distanced from culture. The buildings
exist for preserving and presenting art and culture. The problem is that many intellectuals
and government people have institutionalised anything connected with art and culture, and
people feel there are no important reasons for them to visit a gallery or museum or concert
hall. From their point of view, art and culture have very little to do with their daily lives.
This is the picture of urban life: everything is cut up and put in cultural boxes resulting in the
nightmare of living in a labyrinth. And newly rich bought the land in the countryside. The
villagers lost it and many of them made their exodus to the big cities. (The dispossessed
villagers built very poor housing. At the same time, the newly rich constucted their houses in
the countryside, copying the architecture of the cities. Everywhere became like the cities then.)
Cities contain many facilities like entertainment areas, hotels, hospitals, motorways,
banks, schools, tourist areas, golf links, shopping centres, movie theatres, restaurants, etc.
mostly for the middle and upper class of society. The ‘have nots’ have no money for
breathing. Their salary each month is probably depleted in ten days. For them, the glamour of
life of ‘city people’ remains only a dream: their ‘urban myth’.
In a Third World country like Indonesia, the purpose of art is not solely as a vehicle for aesthetics,
beauty, but more importantly to awaken people to the reality of their life, awareness.
Art is a language of communication as well as a witness to the times in which the artists live.
Artists gather inspiration from phenomena of human life and nature; furthermore the
responsibility of artists is to return this inspiration to people, as an original art form and expression
of cultural belonging. Art becomes a sustainable cultural resource for future
generations. The artist is the conduit.
A few years ago, the military used the city, as if it were the jungle, as a staging ground for
manoeuvers. And by the end of their urban war game, people realised that protesting
students had been the victims. In the aftermath, artists resurrected the space in the city as a
gallery. The city itself, including slums and marginal village areas, became space for art,
including guerilla art, and informal happenings. And the people became more familiar with
and gained respect for this kind of art, and contributed their involvement in the process.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 31

32 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
1-4
Apotik Komik group
Sakit Berlanjut, 7 July 1999,
in Jalan Perwakilan,
Yogyakarta
5
Apotik Komik group
Tangkapan RI for Anti-
Militarism, April 1998,
near Gedung DPRD
(Representative House),
Yogyakarta
Yogyakarta-based
Cemeti Art Foundation
and the Prince Claus Fund
will publish a book on
contemporary Indonesian
art, as part of the new
Prince Claus Fund Arts
Library. Apotik Komik
group will be presented in
this book (2001).
6, 7
By students of the
Indonesia Institute of the
Arts in Yogyakarta, Anti
Dwi Fungsi ABRI, April
1998, at Wirobrajan,
Yogyakarta
8
Taring Padi group
Humanism Universal, 1998,
at Gedung Ajiyasa, ISI lama,
Yogyakarta
9, 11
Tolak Pengendalian Bahaya
GAM, July 1999, in front of
KOREM Headquarters of the
Military Commando,
Yogyakarta.
10
Sanggar Suwung group
Anti-Militarism, August
1999, in the corner of
Gondomanan, Yogyakarta
12
Anak-Anak Jalanan
Malioboro group
Festival Kesenian
Yogyakarta, May 1998, at
Malioboro, Yogyakarta
13
Taring Padi group
1000 Posters, April 1999, in
Gampingan street,
Yogyakarta
photo 1:
courtesy Cemeti Art
Foundation
photos 2-13:
Padma Witana
courtesy Heri Dono
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 33

The Arab Image Foundation
Works of Art it did elsewhere in Europe and North America.
It is important to note that the introduction of
The Arab Image Foundation is a non-profit foun- Studio Fouad photography in the Arab world occurred in the
dation that was established in Lebanon in 1997. Mohi Aref
context of a larger modernising project whose ef-
The Foundation aims to promote photography in Van Leo
fects were felt in the social, political and economic
the Middle East and North Africa by locating,
life of the emerging nation-states. The geo-poli-
collecting and preserving the region’s phototical
re-mapping of the region after World War I
graphic heritage. The collections will be made
and the rise of nationalist liberation movements
available to the public at large in museum and
spawned a new consciousness of geography and
gallery exhibitions and in published monographs.
identity. In architecture and civil engineering, new
Material in the collections will date from the
ways of building were introduced along with new
early-nineteenth century to the present. The
materials and technologies. Modern approaches
long-term goal of the foundation is the preser-
to urban planning were implemented to accomvation,
documentation and in-house exhibition of
modate the new means of train, car, and plane
its photographic collections, the study of Arab
transport.
visual culture, and the promotion of contem-
The Arab world at the time also witnessed the
porary Arab cultural production and analysis.
emergence of labour and women’s movements as
The AIF bases the selection of photographs for its
well as modern disciplinary institutions. New liter-
collection on aesthetic, artistic, cultural and historary
and artistic forms certified that the question
ical criteria, regardless of genre. All images pro-
of identity was central to the emerging social,
duced by Arab photographers or residents of the
economic, and political reality that was unfolding.
Arab world are of interest. They shed light on
AIF’s collection traces these developments through
artistic and cultural currents that emerged in the
the history of the photographic medium, through
region during a period of intense social, econo-
a history of various practices and differing indimic,
cultural, and political transformation.
vidual and institutional relationships to photo-
From 1997, there has been research and acquigraphy.sition
of photographs in Lebanon, Syria, Israel/
The Arab Image Foundation is planning to open its
Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Iraq. The
Center for Photography in Beirut in 2001. The
collections acquired from these countries include
Center will comprise about 700 square meters in-
22,000 photographs and negatives covering the
cluding exhibition spaces, storage and archives,
time period of 1860 to 1960. The images and ne- p. 36
spaces for research, restoration, conservation and
gatives stem from family and professional studio Anonymous
training, a laboratory, a screening room and offices.
collections, and were produced by resident photo- From the Mardam Bey It will be located on the top floor of an old building
graphers and not by visiting European travelers. Family, no date, Syria in Bab Idriss, the old central district of Beirut.
Photography was introduced to the Arab world collection Hala
by European photographers who traveled in the Mardam Bey/Arab Further information from:
region in the early 1850s, taking photographs of Image Foundation Arab Image Foundation, 8, Chukri Assaly street,
archaeological and biblical sites. Towards the end p. 37
Achrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon, PO Box 13-6676,
of the 1860s, the young locals who had worked as Anonymous
telephone and fax: +961-1-336 820,
assistants to the European pioneers began produc- Asmahan and Fouad el e-mail: info@fai.org.lb, www.fai.org.lb
ing their own images. Local photographic pro- Atrash, 1935, Syria
duction intensified after Yessai Garabedian, the collection Faysal el
Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, held the first Atrash/Arab Image
photography workshop in the region in the 1860s. Foundation
In the years that followed, photographic produc- p. 38-39
tion expanded, especially after the massive exodus Hashem el Madani
of Armenians (many of whom had worked as (1930, Lebanon)
photographers) from Turkey to Arab lands. This Palestinian Resistance,
exodus provided the labor force necessary to ac- 1967, Saida, Lebanon
commodate an expanding appetite for photo- studio portrait
graphs, especially after the invention and export of collection Arab Image
Kodak box cameras in the 1880s and 1890s to the
Arab world. This phenomenon put photography in
Foundation
the hands of many, especially non-professionals, as all photos: courtesy AIF
34 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
La Fundación Arabe de la Imagen
Obras de Arte de la región después de la Primera Guerra Mundial, así
como el surgimiento de movimientos nacionalistas de
La Fundación Arabe de la Imagen es una fundación sin Studio Fouad liberación, produjo una nueva conciencia geográfica y de
ánimo de lucro que se estableció en el Líbano en 1997. El Mohi Aref
identidad. En Arquitectura e Ingeniería civil, nuevas formas
objetivo de la fundación es promover la fotografía en el Van Leo
de construcción fueron introducidas, acompañadas de
Medio Este y Norte de Africa, localizando, coleccionando,
nuevos meteriales y tecnologías. Modernas visiones de
y preservando la herencia fotográfica de la región. La
planeación urbana se implementaron para acomodarse a
colección estará disponible libremente para el público en
las nuevas formas de trenes, automóviles y transporte
museos y exhibiciones en galerías, así como en mono-
aéreo. El mundo árabe fue testigo también en ese tiempo
grafías publicadas. El material de la colección data desde
de la emergencia laboral y movimientos de mujeres así
principios del siglo XIX hasta el presente. La meta a largo
como de modernas instituciones disciplinarias. Nueva
plazo de la fundación es la preservación, documentación, y
literatura y formas artísticas certificaron que el problema
exhibición interna de esta colección fotográfica para el
de identidad era central en la nueva realidad social, econó-
estudio de la cultura visual árabe, asi como para la
mica y política que se desarrolló. La colección de la
promoción en la producción y análisis de la cultura árabe
Fundación Arabe de la Imagen traza estos sucesos a través
contemporánea.
de la historia del medio fotográfico, por medio de una
La FAI basa la selección de fotografías en un criterio
historia de varias prácticas así como de varias relaciones
estético, artístico, cultural e histórico, sin importar su tipo.
individuales e institucionales con la fotografía.
Todas las imágenes producidas por fotógrafos árabes o
La FAI está planeando abrir su Centro para la Fotografía en
residentes en el mundo árabe son de interés, pues dan
Beirut en el año 2001. Este centro cubrirá alrededor de 700
luces sobre el momento cultural que emergió en la región
metros cuadrados, incluyendo espacios de exhibición,
durante un intenso periodo de transformación social,
depósito y archivo, espacios de búsqueda, restauración,
económico y político. Desde 1997, la búsqueda y adqui-
conservación y entrenamiento, un laboratorio, un salón de
sición de fotografías tuvo lugar en el Líbano, Siria,
proyección y oficinas. Estará localizado en el último piso de
Israel/Palestina, Jordania, Egipto, Marruecos e Iraq. Las
un viejo edificio en Bab Idriss, el viejo distrito central de
colecciones reunidas de estos paises incluyen 22.000
fotografías y negativos que abarcan un periodo de tiempo
Beirut.
entre 1860 hasta 1960. Las imágenes y negativos tienen p. 36
Para más información: Fundación Arabe de la Imagen,
como origen colecciones de familias y de estudios profesio- Anónimo
8, calle Chukri Assaly, Archfieh, Beirut, Líbano,
nales y fueron producidas por fotógrafos residentes y no Propiedad de la familia PO Box 13-6676, telefax: +961-1-336 820,
por viajeros provenientes de Europa. La fotografía fue Mardam Bey, sin fecha, e-mail: info@fai.org.lb, www.fai.org.lb
introducida al mundo árabe por fotógrafos europeos que Siria
viajaron por la región a principio de los años cincuenta, colección Hala
tomando fotografías de lugares bíblicos y arqueológicos. Fue Mardam Bey/
al final de 1860, cuando los jóvenes locales que trabajaban Fundación Arabe
como asistentes de los pioneros europeos, empezaron a de la Imagen
producir sus primeras imágenes. La producción fotográfica p. 37
local se intensificó en la región después de 1860. En los años Anónimo
siguientes, la producción fotográfica se extendió, especial- Asmahan y Fouad el
mente durante el éxodo masivo de armenios (muchos de Atrash, 1935, Siria
los cuales trabajaban como fotógrafos) de Turquía hacia los colección Faysal el
pueblos árabes.
Atrash/Fundación
Este éxodo dió la fuerza de acción necesaria para acomo- Arabe de la Imagen
dar y expandir el apetito de fotografías, especiálmente p. 38-39
después de la invensión y exportación de las cámaras de Hashem el Madani
caja Kodak entre 1880 y 1890 al mundo árabe. Este fenó- (1930, Líbano)
meno puso a la fotografía al alcance de muchos, especial- Resistencia Palestina,
mente no profesionales, de la misma forma que sucedia en 1967, Saida, Líbano
Europa y Norteamérica.
estudio retrato
Es importante anotar que la introducción de la fotografía en collección Fundación
el mundo árabe ocurrió en el contexto de un extenso
proyecto de modernización, cuyos efectos fueron sentidos
Arabe de la Imagen
en la vida social, política y económica de las emergentes todas las fotografías:
naciones-estados. Políticamente, la redelimitación geopolítica cortesía de FAI
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 35

Born in Jaffa in 1926 and 1929 respectively, and
exiled from Palestine in 1948, Adib and Fouad
Ghorab Bendali settled in Lebanon. Here they
learned photography from their uncle Michel
Fakhoury, a photographer established in Jounieh,
15 kilometers to the north of Beirut. Soon they
rented a small room at the famous Odeon Cinema
in downtown Beirut, where they started working
on their own. They used that studio as a workspace
for their photosurprise business. In 1954,
they became the appointed photographers of
the Oriental lodge for freemasons and opened a
larger studio in Accaoui, which was known as
Studio Fouad. Over the years they became renowned
for their hand-coloured portraits.
They remained there until Fouad’s death in 1996.
In an interview given a year before his death,
Fouad explained his approach: ‘The work of the
photographer consists of controlling light and
knowing how to reflect it. I mainly concentrate
on essential features in the face, such as the eyes
and mouth, which are major determinants of
beauty in someone’s face. Then I work on details
that are particular to the model’s face, and light
the scene accordingly.’
Adib still practices photography in a small studio
in Bourj Hammoud. The Studio Fouad collection
is the first professional collection acquired by
the AIF in 1997.
AIF, March 2000
Studio Fouad
Adib and Fouad
Ghorab Bendali
Studio Fouad:
Fouad Ghorab Bendali
(1929-1996, Palestine/
Lebanon)
p. 40
Studio portrait, 1955,
Beirut, Lebanon
collection Arab Image
Foundation
Estudio-retrato, 1955,
Beirut, Líbano
colección Fundación
Arabe de la Imagen
p. 42-43
Studio portrait, 1950s,
Beirut, Lebanon
collection Arab Image
Foundation
Estudio-retrato, 1950s,
Beirut, Líbano
colección Fundación
Arabe de la Imagen
Nacidos en Jaffa en 1926 y 1929 respectívamente,
y exiliados de Palestina en 1948, Adib y Fouad se
establecieron en el Líbano. Allí aprendieron fotografía
de su tío Michel Fakhoury, un fotógrafo
radicado en Jounieh, a 15 kilómetros al norte de
Beirut. En poco tiempo rentaron un pequeño
local en el famoso Cinema Odeon en el centro de
Beirut, donde empezaron a trabajar por su cuenta.
Usaron este estudio como un espacio de trabajo
para su sorpresivo negocio fotográfico.
En 1954, elllos se convirtieron en fotógrafos oficiales
de la logia oriental de los libremasones y
abrieron un estudio más amplio en Accaoui, el
que fue conocido como el estudio Fouad. A través
de los años se convirtieron en fotógrafos reconocidos
por sus retratos coloreados a mano. Permanecieronen
ahí hasta la muerte de Fouad en 1996.
En una entrevista concedida un año antes de su
muerte, Fouad explicó su enfoque: ‘El trabajo del
fotógrafo consiste en controlar la luz y saber
como ésta se refleja. Me importa concentrarme
en los rasgos esenciales en el rostro, que son los
ojos y la boca, los cuales son los mayores determinantes
de belleza en la cara de cualquier persona.
Después trabajo en detalles que son particulares
en el rostro del modelo, e ilumino la
escena acordemente’.
Adib continua practicando la fotografía en un
pequeño estudio en Bourj Hammoud. La colección
del estudio Fouad es la primera colección
profesional adquirida por la Fundación Arabe de
la Imagen en 1997.
FAI, marzo de 2000
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 41

Mohi Aref was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1920. He
was introduced to photography during a workshop
at Al Jawiyya vocational school in 1935. He
was appointed as the official photographer of the
Ministry of Defence. He worked for the Ministry
from 1937 to 1945. The following year, 1946, he
opened his first photography studio in the Karkh
district of Baghdad. In the 1960s he moved to
another studio located across the street from the
first. Over the years, he has exposed over a
million negatives (glass plates, paper and gelatin
negatives) that are deteriorating fast due to a
lack of an adequate conservation facility.
AIF researchers met Mohi Aref in February 2000
during an expedition financed by the Prince
Claus Fund.
AIF, March 2000
Mohi Aref
Mohi Aref (1920, Iraq)
p. 44, 46, 47
Studio Portrait of a
Soldier, 1970s,
Baghdad, Iraq
collection Mohi Aref/
Arab Image Foundation
Estudio-retrato de un
Soldado, 1970s,
Baghdad, Iraq
colección Mohi Aref/
Fundación Arabe de la
Imagen
Mohi Aref nació en Baghdad, Iraq en 1920. Se
introdujó a la fotografía durante un taller en la
escuela vocacional Al Jawiyya en 1935. Fue nombrado
fotógrafo oficial del Ministerio de Defensa,
donde trabajó desde 1937 hasta 1945. El siguiente
año (1946) abrió su primer estudio fotográfico en
el distrito Karkh de Baghdad. En los años sesenta
se mudó a un nuevo estudio, localizado cruzando
la calle del anterior. A través de los años, ha
expuesto más de un millón de negativos (placas
de vidrio, asi como negativos de papel y gelatina)
que se están deteriorando rápidamente debido a
carencias que dificultan su conservación adecuada.
Investigadores del FAI se reunieron con Mohi Aref
en febrero de 2000, durante una expedición financiada
por la Fundación Príncipe Claus.
FAI, marzo de 2000
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 45

Levon Boyadjian was born in Jihane, Turkey, in
1921, to an Armenian family that moved to
Zagazig, Egypt, in 1924. In 1940, he enrolled at the
American University in Cairo, but soon left to
establish his first photo studio in his parents’
house. He had been trained as an assistant in
Studio Venus, owned by the photographer
Artinian. Levon’s brother Angelo, also a photographer,
joined him a year later.
In the early forties, Levon started experimenting
with self portraits of which he produced
hundreds throughout his career. Angelo and
Levon’s intimate ties to the entertainment
industry permitted them to produce numerous
portraits of local and foreign entertainers, both
renowned and not-so-renowned. In 1947, the
brothers’ partnership broke and Van Leo bought
what used to be Studio Metro at number 7,
Fouad Street. He worked under the name of
Studio Metro until 1950, when he changed it to
studio Van Leo, a name he derived from Levon.
The new location, also close to the arts and entertainment
world, allowed Van Leo to produce
many portraits of artists during the 1950s. After
an unsuccessful trip to Paris in 1961, where he
tried to work at the Studio Harcourt, Van Leo
returned to Cairo and continued working until
April 1998, when age and poor health forced him
to retire. AIF researchers met Van Leo in January
1998 in Cairo.
Currently, the larger parts of his impressive collection
are at the American University in Cairo
and the AIF.
AIF, March 2000
Van Leo
Van Leo (1921, Turkey)
p. 48
Dalida: Singer in Paris,
1986, Cairo, Egypt
collection Van Leo/
Arab Image Foundation
Dalida: Cantante en
París, 1986, Egipto
colección Van Leo/
Fundación Arabe de la
Imagen
p. 50
Mirvat Amin: Film Star,
1973, Cairo, Egypt
collection Van Leo/
Arab Image Foundation
Mirvat Amin: Estrella
de Cine, 1973, Cairo,
Egipto
colección Van Leo/
Fundación Arabe de la
Imagen
p. 51
Self-portrait as an
Aviator, 1944, Cairo,
Egypt
collection Van Leo/
Arab Image Foundation
Autorretrato como un
Aviador, 1944, Cairo,
Egipto
colección Van Leo/
Fundación Arabe de la
Imagen
Levon Boyadijan nació en Jihane, Turquía, en 1921,
proveniente de una familia armenia que se mudó
a Zagazif, Egipto, en 1924. En 1940 se inscribió en
la Universidad Americana del Cairo, pero se
retiró al corto tiempo para establecer su primer
estudio fotográfico en la casa de sus padres.
Estuvo siendo entrenado como asistente en el
Estudio Venus del fotógrafo Artinian. Angelo,
hermano de Levon, también fotógrafo, se unió a
el un año más tarde.
A principios de los años cuarenta, Levon comenzó
a experimentar con autorretratos, de los cuales
produjo cientos de ellos durante su carrera. Las
relaciones íntimas de Angelo y Levon con la
industria del entretenimiento, les permitió producir
numerosos retratos de personas del espectáculo
locales y foráneos famosos, y algunos no
tan famosos. En 1947 la relación como socios de
los hermanos se rompió y Van Leo compró lo
que solía ser el Estudio Metro en el número 7 de
la calle Fouad. Trabajó bajo el nombre de Estudio
Metro hasta 1950, año en que cambió a Estudio
Van Leo, un nombre compuesto que derivó de
Levon. El nuevo local, también centrado en las
artes y el mundo del entretenimiento, llevó a Van
Leo a producir una grán cantidad de retratos de
artistas durante los años cincuenta. Después de un
desafortunado viaje a París en 1961, donde trató de
trabajar en el Estudio Harcourt, Van Leo regresó al
Cairo y continuó trabajando hasta abril de 1998,
cuando la edad y un pobre estado de salud lo forzó
al retiro. Investigadores del FAI conocieron a Van
Leo en enero de 1998 en el Cairo.
Actualmente, la mayor parte de su impresionante
colección esta en la Universidad Americana
del Cairo, y en la FAI.
FAI, marzo de 2000
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 49

Goretti Kyomuhendo participated in the Time of the Writer festival
which took place in Durban, South Africa from 6 to 13 March 2000.
It was the third time that the Prince Claus Fund supported this
festival. On pages 60-61 of this Journal Goretti Kyomuhendo
reports about the festival. Below follows a story first published in
‘A Woman’s Voice’, a short story anthology by Ugandan women
(FEMRITE Publications Ltd, Kampala, Uganda, 1998).
Hidden Identity
I was born in Wangale, a small landing site on the shores of Lake Victoria. Wangale is
situated in the small township of Matana. This small township of ours could only be
accessed by a single creaking, dilapidated boat which plied the island only once a week. The
perilous journey was known to instill the fear of God in travellers more than the daily
preachings of the priests. They would promise God to become more obedient, compassionate
and faithful in return for their safety during the journey. It was that risky! Stories
abound of how often that boat capsized, killing all aboard, and how many sacrifices would
be offered before it could be put to use again.
The only thing that made me proud of being a native of this miserable island was that it
was surrounded by Lake Victoria, the largest fresh water lake in the world. I swam in this
lake, drank its water and ate fish bred in it. I was important!
In those days when I was growing up, mothers were the sole caretakers of the homes. This
meant that they would stay at home, tending to the farms, rearing the children and animals,
and making sure that the members of their families had food on their plates. The men, on the
other hand, would go hunting and come back late in the evening, with or without meat,
depending on the mood of the gods that day. If the gods were in a happy mood, they would
shower them with a bounty of as much as two animals, but if they were unhappy…
The men on coming back would order the young children to fetch water for them from
the well to wash their blood-stained or fatigued, bush-smelling bodies, before going off to
join the other men in beer-drinking clubs. (Some men did not participate in the hunting
exercise, the elderly, the disabled, or the outright lazy. Otherwise, all able-bodied young
men in the village were hunters). They would not come back home until past midnight
when they would demand the roasted meat they had left their wives to prepare.
I remember the hunting story my mother told us when I was about eight years old.
‘Listen to this story, my children’, my mother had began. ‘There was a woman who was my
friend and neighbour and whose husband was a hunter just like your father. In those days,
the men in the hunting party would send an advance party of one or two to go ahead and
inform their wives that the gods had been merciful that day. The wives would immediately
understand the message and do what ws needed. So one day one such messenger, who had
problems expressing himself because of a pronounced stammer, (the villagers had nicknamed
him Kibubu) was sent to deliver a message to this friend and neighbour of mine. On
this particular occasion, Kibubu was totally inarticulate, I guess because he was in deep
shock. Instead of telling the woman that her husband had been killed by a buffalo, he said it
the other way round. The woman subsequently set out the green vegetables she had
prepared for dinner and invited her friends to come and share in the feasting which was
bound to follow. It was so sad! The ‘party’ which followed was instead to mourn the dead
man’, my mother concluded.
52 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Goretti Kyomuhendo
Goretti Kyomuhendo
doing her speech at the 2000
Time of the Writer festival

My father was not a particularly good hunter, so the other men in the village said. They
always looked down on him for his cowardice and scorned him for being lazy. They said
that he could not even participate in the ferrying of the meat after it was cut into smaller
pieces. As a result, my father had very few friends, if any, in the hunting groups. But he
always defended himself by saying that hunters were like chameleons, never to be trusted,
especially after the kill. He said they were just envious of him. But my mother knew how
difficult and almost impossible it was for him to sustain any kind of friendship. Hunting
was, however, not his full time occupation and after a time, he quit it altogether.
I had long known that I was not my father’s favourite child. In fact, his feelings for me
bordered on hate. In my small mind, I suspected that it was due to something bad I had
done or said to him. One day, I asked my mother why my father felt like that towards me.
‘When you are a bit older, I will explain all this to you and you will understand,’ my mother
had replied. ‘Can’t you tell me now, mother? I really want to know, please,’ I had insisted.
It was raining heavily that day and we were all seated in the small kitchen waiting for my
father to come back so that we could eat dinner together. My mother had prepared dinner
early in order not to get caught in the darkness bound to envelop the whole landscape once
the rain stopped.
I peeped outside as I waited for my mother’s reply. The rain was still raging unabated and
I briefly wondered what my father was doing in this storm, alone, and in the dark. The
smoke still came from the heap of rubbish burning in the backyard, which we had weeded
from the gardens that afternoon, and I also wondered how the fire had survived in all this
storm. The heap of rubbish would soon turn into ashes and later my mother would plant in
green vegetables, which she would sell in the nearby market. The storm outside was
becoming stronger and my mother went to the corner of the kitchen and got a palm-leaf
which hung on the soot-covered wall. The priest had poured holy water on it the last Palm
Sunday and my mother believed it was blessed. She threw it in the raging storm and the
storm miraculously subsided.
When it became apparent that my father was not going to join us for dinner, my mother
decided to serve us. She wanted us to go in the main house where we would be warm and
secure. She had still not answered my question but continued to tell us stories, which both
frightened and excited us. My cousin who was also my age and my best friend was around,
having come to spend the weekend with us.
We finished eating and went in the main house to prepare for bed. The house was warm
and cozy, but my cousin and I were not particularly sleepy and we implored my mother to
tell us more stories. She did not refuse because it was a pastime for her too, as she had to
wait for my father to serve him his dinner before she could sleep.
‘I will tell you the story of Buchachi, a legendary thief who lived before the time you were
born’, my mother started. ‘Buchachi was known across the valleys and ridges for his bravery
when it came to stealing. Everyone loved and respected him here, for even though he was a
notorious thief, he had great respect for his fellow villagers. As a rule, he never stole from
them. Whenever he went on his stealing missions, he would come back with lots of
treasure which he would distribute evenly among the villagers. Children who had been
sent away from school for non-payment of school dues, people whose loved ones were
languishing in hospitals and prisons and needed money to bribe the authorities to release
them or clear hospital bills, or those whose stores were dwindling would all come to him
for help, and he would solve their problems. But of course, Buchachi was unpopular among
the security forces, to say the least. Whenever they tried to arrest him, no one was willing to
divulge any information regarding his whereabouts, or they would even alert him and he
would escape. He made them look like fools!
Another big problem for the security officials was that they did not know what the man
looked like. There were rumours that he was capable of switching identities whenever he
was in trouble. But the security officials had to do something! The man had become so
popular by vandalising people’s property. So they decided to bribe one of his best friends
and use him to catch Buchachi. This friend agreed to betray Buchachi. He lured him to his
54 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
house one night and at the agreed time the police came. Buchachi, being the thief he was,
immediately sensed danger when he heard muffled voices outside. He knew it was useless
to try and escape, so he waited calmly for whoever was outside to come and arrest him. As
soon as the policemen entered, he stood up and said, ‘here is the most notorious thief of the
century, when do I collect my reward?’ His friend and the policemen were confused and
starting moving about and struggling to arrest Buchachi. He managed to escape in the
confusion.’
‘What happened then, mother?’ I asked, fascinated. ‘Well, the police knew they had been
duped and felt even more foolish. But his friend did not survive the wrath of the villagers,
they lynched him. As for Buchachi, no one ever saw him again in this village.’
The story ended and we all went to bed except my mother. When my father finally
returned, he was drunk as usual and I heard his drunken insults as he abused my mother.
She kept quiet as she normally did on such occasions, not wanting to trigger off his violent
temper. He demanded his dinner and she dutifully brought it. He tasted a few mouthfuls
and declared it tasteless. He continued to stuff food in his mouth and munch away rather
noisily until he had finished the last morsel on the plate.
It was a great wonder that I did extremely well in class despite the tense environment I was
living in at home. My father continued to treat me as if I were a piece of cow-dung and hit me
whenever he had an excuse, or even when he did not have one. I was his punching bag.
I still remember one ghastly incident which occurred around the time I was twelve years
old. My father was going to visit his brother, and I wanted to go with him because I wanted
to play with my cousin, my best friend. He told me sternly that he would not take me, but I
insisted and began following him. When he turned and saw me on his heels, he picked up a
big stone, and hurled it at me with all his force.
‘Go back, you bastard,’ he shouted at me. There was a gleam in his eyes which I had never
seen before. It was a mixture of anger and hatred. I stood there, tears of frustration rolling
down my cheeks. I meekly went back home and narrated the sad incident to my mother.
She did not make any comment but I could see she was greatly disturbed. I was lucky I had
dodged the big stone, otherwise, I would have been dead meat. When I was fifteen, my
mother called me aside and told me why she thought my father treated me as he did.
‘When you were born, he denied having fathered you. He claimed I had got you from
another man.’ I stared at my mother in stunned silence. ‘What is the truth, mother?’ I asked,
with great difficulty. ‘My son, I would never lie to you. You are your father’s son.’
I believed my mother. She had not shifted her gaze while saying it. It did not help me to
know the truth because I was powerless. I though of confronting my father, but what good
would it do? He still paid despite everything and at the moment that was what mattered.
With this disturbing knowledge, my relationship with my father continued to deteriorate. I
couldn’t imagine where he had got the crazy idea that I was not his son. I tried to compare
myself with the rest of my siblings, and found no great difference. Even the teachers at
school said I resembled my cousin, and he was my uncle’s son, brother to my father.
I asked my mother if she knew the basis of my father’s allegations. She told me that when
I was born, I did not possess the ‘famous’ protruding chin which was like a birthmark
among my father’s clan. I could not see how this had alarmed my father. I was naturally a fat
boy and the baby fat around my cheeks was still visible. So how could one tell if I was going
to have the protruding chin or not?
I finished secondary school and passed well. I was admitted to Higher Secondary School
and I had to leave home and go to another town. It was a welcome relief in my life, but I
missed my mother immensely. I knew she was the only person who really cared for me. My
relationship with my siblings was strained. I knew they had heard of the rumour that I was
not their real brother from our neighbours who talked about it quite openly. I vowed to
spend the two years it took to complete my higher level without going back home. I never
went back until I started university so that I would not have to ask my father for school fees.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 55

But I was summoned back when my mother was on her deathbed and wanted to see me. I
broke down when I saw my mother’s emaciated body. My elder sister told me that she had
had a miscarriage and lost a lot of blood and had not received proper treatment. I hugged her
frail body and she clung to me as if I was going to cure her. I blamed myself for not checking
on her regularly. The following day, she died. I was devastated and left soon after the burial.
I did not see any reason for staying, or for ever going back for that matter. I now doubted if
my father would continue to pay my school fees.
For five years, I lived without hearing much from home. I had finished university and got a
job in the city. Occasionally, I did get a letter from my elder sister telling me what was
happening at home, but that was all. If there was a death or a celebration, I would stay with
my cousin and his family.
Then one day, I was at the bus park where I had gone to meet my sister from the village.
She was with a man who looked haggard and sickly. When they drew nearer, I realised it
was my father. I was momentarily shocked by his appearance and that my sister had not
told me she would be taking him with her. She had only said she was coming to the city for
treatment. ‘Good evening,’ I said to him. He turned to me, startled. It seemed as if he did not
expect to find me here.
‘Do I know you?’ he asked, surprised. I knew he was not pretending. We had spent
almost seven years without seeing each other and I must have changed a lot in those years. I
said nothing. He took a few steps towards me and his eyes seemed to register recognition.
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. His lower lip began to quiver,
then fell. His eyes bulged, as if they would pop out. I noticed beads of perspiration on his
forehead which slowly began trickling down until they settled on the tip of his nose. He
took another step and this time stood directly in front of me. He reached out his hands and
began tracing the contours of my chin as if he wanted to commit it to memory.
‘You are my son,’ he whispered, tears glistening in his eyes. ‘My true son.’
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I am your son, Richard. Richard Kalenzi.’
56 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
a
+
p
Activities supported by the
Prince Claus Fund
Activités soutenues par la
Fondation Prince Claus
Actividades patrocinadas por la
Fundación Príncipe Claus
Recent publications
Publications récentes
Publicaciones recientes
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 57

Activities supported by the
Prince Claus Fund
Activités soutenues par la
Fondation Prince Claus
Actividades patrocinadas por la
Fundación Príncipe Claus
First Batapata International Artists Workshop
Zimbabwe, October 1999
The Prince Claus Fund provided Lilian Naboulime’s
airfare to enable her to attend the two week
Batapata workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe, which
was held at the Diocesan Training Centre in
Mutare, Zimbabwe. The workshop was followed
by a Public Open Day, giving the public the
chance to meet artists at work. The workshop was
to be followed by an exhibition of selected works Lilian Naboulime
which will tour all three national galleries in (Uganda)
Harare, Mutare and Bulawayo. The workshop in- Unity, 1999
cluded participants from Zimbabwe, India, Papua wood sculpture
New Guinea, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa. courtesy of the artist
A wide range of skills were represented including
ceramics, printmaking, painting and stone, metal
and wood sculpture.
Further information from: Lilian Naboulime,
University of Makerere, School of Industrial
and Fine Art, Kampala, Uganda,
fax: +256-41-230724/344785
58 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
aThe
described
events have taken
place or will take
place with the
support of the
Prince Claus Fund.
Lotusland. Installation by Dinh Q. Lê at
the Rich Mix–Slow Release Exhibition
UK, December 1999
Slow Release/Rich Mix organise exhibitions in
London, focusing on rich and exciting cultural Dinh Q. Lê (1968,
diversity. The Lotusland installation is the second Vietnam)
project by artist Dinh Q. Lê on the continuing Lotusland, 1999
effects of the chemical herbicide ‘Agent Orange’ installation
in Vietnam. Years of exposure to the toxic agent courtesy of the artist
have produced an alarming incidence of birth
defects and an unprecedented rate of conjoined
(Siamese) twins in Vietnam. Most of the conjoined
twins do not survive. Some Vietnamese believe
that after they die they become holy spirits in the
Buddhist legion of deities, gods and goddesses.
Lotusland interweaves the reality of ‘Agent
Orange’ and Vietnam’s Buddhist mythology into a
beautiful floor-based installation of painted figurines.
The installation consists of five pairs of
Siamese twins placed on lotus flowers and leaves –
symbols for purity and beauty that have emerged
from muddy soil – as a reflection of this poignant
situation. The success of Lê’s work lies in the
artist’s ability to represent the specific horrors of
Vietnamese history in a subtle and yet playfully
elegant and moving manner. Dinh has great
difficulty in exhibiting this work in Vietnam due
to its sensitive nature. The Prince Claus Fund
provided Dinh Q. Lê’s airfare to enable him to
attend the exhibition in London.
Further information from: Panycheat,
Shaheen Merali, Unit 20 Sara Lane Studios,
60 Stanway Street, London n16 re, uk
e-mail: slowrelease@clara.co.uk
‘Seeing Ourselves’: una visión en progreso
Suráfrica, 2000 - en curso
Nacido del deseo de explorar la historia, cultura y
producción artística de formas no convencionales
y generadoras de ideas, se realiza progresivamente
uno de los proyectos de ‘Seeing Ourselves’
(mirando hacia nosotros mismos), una iniciativa
consistente en un documental filmado que pretende
incrementar de la mejor manera posible el
entendimiento y la disponiblidad de información
sobre las prácticas artísticas desarrolladas en
Africa. Producida por la curadora, promotora artística
y facilitadora Susan Glanville, bajo el auspicio
de ‘the project room’, y co-dirigido hasta la fecha
con el artista-curador Wayne Barker, la serie
documental y los proyectos relacionados con esta,
estan asociados en fases subsecuentes que se
expanden e insertan actualmente hacia el sur de
Africa, el continente africano y la diáspora, así
como la promoción de artistas que trabajan en
estos contextos a través del uso de multimedia
como plataforma para llegar a diversas audiencias.
La Fundación Príncipe Claus financió la realización
de tres documentales de cinco minutos cada uno,
que perfila artistas surafricanos, como parte del
proyecto ‘Seeing Ourselves’.
Las metas promocionales del proyecto estan enfocadas
a contradecir una visión estereotípica de
Africa a través de la exploración dentro de las
prácticas artísticas contemporáneas en un contexto
de una perpetuamente cambiante dinámica
histórica. Los realizadores de imágines asi
como las imágenes mismas creadas en estos contextos,
definen una intersección fascinante de
historias y cultura que es geográfica y socialmente
localizable pero universalmente significante.
La forma y tratamiento de las series en sí
mismas están concebidas para reproducir en un
plazo indefinido el dinamismo del mundo visual.
La vida y trabajo de los artistas – articulados en
cortos, concisos e íntimos retratos filmados –
reflejan las complejas matrices de sus respectivos
mundos sociales y culturales, y presenta una
mirada perspicaz sobre la diversidad de sus procesos
y métodos. Con un énfasis autobiográfico,
esta primera y corta fase de pérfiles revela la
conexíón entre un contexto social, así como de
historia personal y el trabajo en sí. Preguntando
que hacen estos artistas y por qué, son ellos
mismos quienes responden. El resultado son
series que exploran – sin cohibirse a recurrir al
academicismo – cómo las imágenes definen el
mundo en que vivimos y como nosotros mismos
usamos estas para representarnos, constituirnos
y mirarnos.
De la forma en que se expande el proyecto de
‘Seeing Ourselves’, este creará idealmente una
corriente cultural construida a partir de la expansión
de alianzas – una red de puntos de contacto y
fuentes accesibles de información extendiéndose
a través del continente y la diáspora. ‘Seeing
Ourselves’ iniciará y facilitará proyectos fílmicos
en el continente, colaborando con productores de
cine cualquira que sea su enfoque.
Para más información:
Susan Glanville/Seeing Ourselves,
314 Broadlands, 16 Tyrwhitt Rosebank,
Johannesburgo 2196, Suráfrica
Poster annonçant
‘Against All Odds’
Video fotograma
de ‘Seeing Ourselves’,
1999: Mmakgabo
Helen Sebidi
cortesía de los
iniciadores
Against All Odds: langues et littératures
africaines au 21ème siècle
Érythrée, janvier 2000
Le congrès ‘Against All Odds’ (contre toute attente)
a duré six jours et comportait au total 42 sessions
entrecoupées de séances plénières, de films et de
spectacles culturels donnés par la compagnie
nationale de musique et de danse Sibrit. Les
thèmes traités étaient d’une grande diversité,
comme par exemple ‘Le drame et le théâtre
africain’ ou encore ‘Langage et liberté à travers
l’Afrique’.
Le journaliste érythréen Habtom Yohannes – qui a
reçu une subvention de la Fondation Prince Claus
pour participer au congrès – a présenté son intervention
au cours de cette dernière session.
L’organisation du congrès était entre les mains de
Red Sea Press (Kassahun Chekole), le front populaire
pour la démocratie et la justice (Zemhret
Yohannes, devenu depuis ministre de l’Information
et de la Culture) et l’université d’Etat de
Pennsylvanie (Charles Cantalupo).
Ce congrès a été très utile. C’était la première fois
que des Africains se réunissaient pour parler de
‘l’état des langues africaines’. Pour les écrivains
débutants, c’était vraiment très important de
rencontrer des vétérans du métier. Des écrivains
comme Ngugi wa Thiongó et Nawal El Saadawi
ont remonté le moral des Africains qui veulent
réaliser ce rêve d’écrire dans une langue africaine.
Pour les Africains qui ne venaient pas d’Erythrée,
c’était encourageant de participer à un tel congrès
justement dans ce pays. L’Erythrée est en
effet l’un des rares pays d’Afrique où la langue de
l’ancien colonisateur n’est pas utilisée comme
langue nationale. Voici un extrait de l’intervention
de Yohannes:
‘Lorsque j’ai lu pour la première fois le sous-titre
du congrès, une question rhétorique m’est venue
à l’esprit et m’a poursuivi. Qu’est-ce qu’une
langue sans la liberté? Qu’est-ce qu’un drapeau
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 59

sans pays? Oui, qu’est-ce que la parole sans la
liberté? C’est à partir de là que j’ai choisi le titre de
ma brève intervention: ‘La liberté, c’est la parole,
et la parole, c’est la liberté’. Je perçois la liberté de
parler ici comme un libre processus de réflexion,
de rassemblement d’idées, d’interprétation, d’expression
et de diffusion dans toutes les formes de
communication possibles; toujours et en toutes
circonstances. A mon avis, la liberté – ou la démocratie
d’ailleurs – est un processus en constant
devenir, sans stade final, qui permet à quelqu’un
d’affirmer qu’il a accompli quelque chose en
toute liberté. Si la voie de la démocratie, c’est la
démocratie elle-même; la voie de la liberté de
parole, c’est la liberté elle-même.’ A la fin du
congrès, on a procédé à la lecture de ‘La déclaration
Asmera sur les langues et les littératures
africaines’.
Pour plus d’informations, veuillez contacter
le bureau de la Fondation Prince Claus
60 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Screendump from
Nairobits
courtesy NairoBits
NairoBits: youngsters and computer art
Kenya, March 2000
NairoBits is a creative multimedia project which
uses the medium internet as a platform for
personal expression and cultural exchange. The
core of the project is a one year interdisciplinary
webmaster programme for 20 youths from
Nairobi. These youngsters received training and
started working to create their own website and
multimedia art projects. In March 2000 the
project ended with an exhibition of the results in
the National Museum in Nairobi, Kenya. The
Prince Claus Fund supported the logistics of the
organisation. The project will have similar followups
in other countries.
Further information from: www.nairobits.org
Journalisme et démocratie: colloque international
Burkina Faso, mars 2000
La Fondation Prince Claus a apporté son soutien au
colloque que Pierre Gomdaogo Nakoulima - philosophe
attaché à l’université de Ouagadougou au
Burkina Faso – a organisé en collaboration avec le
Mouvement pour le manifeste de la liberté. Ce
mouvement a été fondé après l’assassinat du
rédacteur en chef du journal L’Indépendant en
décembre 1998.
Pierre Gomdaogo Time of the Writer
Le colloque était consacré à la question du Nakoulima pronon- South Africa, 6 to 13 March 2000
fonctionnement de la presse comme quatrième çant son discours lors By Ugandan writer Goretti Kyomuhendo, who
pouvoir. ‘La presse tient son pouvoir de la fonction de l’ouverture du participated with the support of the Prince Claus
politique dérivant de la vérité qu’elle émet. colloque ‘Journalisme Fund
L’expression de la vérité permet de soumettre et démocratie’ There was the Canadian born writer, Nancy Huston,
l’activité politique au tribunal de l’opinion pu- avec la gracieuse who joined us later, two or three days after we
blique et donne à l’espace public l’occasion de autorisation de Pierre had arrived in Durban. What triggers off her
s’affirmer comme critique du politique. C’est Gomdaogo Nakoulima writing? Sparks generated by her conflicting
pourquoi le journalisme est consubstantiel à la
identities – English and French, books and children,
démocratie. Il fallait donc situer l’importance du
the need to wander and the need to have roots,
journalisme pour la démocratie, amener les pro-
words and silence.
fessionnels des médias à prendre conscience et à
Then there was the Zambian professor and writer,
assumer véritablement leur rôle, et à cesser d’être
Lazarus Miti. A long time ago, when he was barely
les ‘nouveaux chiens de garde’.
15, his teacher chased him out of class because he
Parmi les participants au colloque, il y avait: Pierre
did not posses a fountain pen and a bottle of
Bouda (Burkina Faso), Hamidou Talibi (Niger),
Quink ink. He was embarrassed! He could not tell
Christophe Yayet (Côte d’Ivoire) et Djigui Keita
his fellow students that actually his father was too
(Mali).
poor to afford the pen and ink. He took refuge in
Pour plus amples informations:
his dormitory and out of frustration, started
Université de Ouagadougou, département de
Goretti Kyomuhendo writing poetry. He has since written six books and
philosophie et psychologie,
doing her speech at published two.
Pierre Nakoulima, 03 bp 7021, Burkina Faso
the 2000 Time of the Aaaah! The South African medical doctor now
e-mail: Pierre.nakoulima@univ.ouaga.bf
Writer festival turned writer, Gomolemo Mokae, who has not
practiced medicine for two years because he has
to dedicate all his time to writing! I wonder what
happens to his patients in the meantime.
The tallest man in the group was Adriaan van Dis,
born in the Netherlands. A man who wanted to
be on stage, a man who was abused by his father
so much so that he decided to write, if only to
recreate him (his father) in his books. And also to
be on stage, with readers as his audience.
From England came Joanna Trollope. (What a
surname for a writer! She swore to be born with a
different one in the next life.) She has written
twenty books in twenty years. What inspires her
to write? How does she find the time? Maybe I
should have talked about her first, but the first
shall be last: the chronically humorous Icelandic
writer, Einar Mar Gudmundsson. First, he read a
poem in Icelandic, second, he came on stage
without socks on his feet and when someone
complained, he said he would come with only
socks and no shoes the following day. He refused
to remove his coat despite the scorching heat of
Durban at the time; after all he comes from
Iceland. With a primary audience of a mere
280,000 people living in Iceland, whom is he
writing for?
It was indeed a time for the writer! Organised
jointly by the Centre for Creative Arts, University
of Natal and the French Institute of South Africa,
the festival brought together 14 writers from
around the globe representing 13 countries. From
France to Uganda, via Guadeloupe to the Congo,
Switzerland to the Ivory Coast. As one speaker
correctly put it: for the past three years since its
inception, Time of the Writer has become a truly
international intellectual event, where imaginary
worlds of Africa and the rest of the world have
cross-pollinated.
Writing being a noble but isolating, lonely and at
times frustrating profession, the need for writers
to meet and share experiences, anxieties, fears
and successes cannot be over-emphasised. In
Africa, this does not happen a lot. For one, writers
who live on the continent are not well coordinated;
their books do not cross borders within
Africa nor outside of it. African writers who have
managed to penetrate international markets and
audiences were mostly published abroad and
now live and work in the diaspora.
The new (and young) voices from Africa need to
be heard, to be read and critiqued. They need to
be promoted and opened to wider audiences.
That is why the festival in Durban was special. It
brought together both the young and new voices
Claudia Roden in
Egypt during the feast
of Sham el Nessim,
May 2000
courtesy Claudia
Roden
(more photos on p. 76)
and the established old voices. Five out of fourteen
participants were from Africa! Highly
commendable. I have attended festivals in Asia,
and America, but at times, there is only one
participant from Africa! The cost of bringing in
people from Africa is too high. We need more
‘Durban festivals’, in Africa. This will enable more
African writers and their works to interact and be
promoted. (See also pages 52-56 of this Journal.)
Further information from: femrite,
Shimoni Road Plot 18, p.o. Box 705,
Kampala, Uganda, fax: +256-41251831
Claudia Roden on Egyptian Food
Egypt, 8 and 9 May 2000
Egyptian-born Claudia Roden received a Prince
Claus Award in 1999. The award was presented to
her by the Netherlands Ambassador in London,
where she currently lives. At the invitation of the
Egyptian Chefs Association, Claudia Roden traveled
to Cairo to lecture on Egyptian food at the
Netherlands-Flemish Institute and at the Cairo
Marriott Hotel. Over 80 cooks, restaurant owners
and experts from the Egyptian food industry
attended her stimulating talk entitled ‘The Revival
of Culinary Traditions’. Roden reports:
‘I was invited to lecture in Egypt. One of the
lectures was a seminar for the Egyptian Chefs
Association. Part of my mission was to convince
professional cooks that they had a cuisine worth
serving in the best of restaurants. I decided to
travel across the country, from Aswan and Luxor
all the way to the Delta and the sea, to discover
what regional foods there were. I was born and
raised in Egypt, and I felt like a fish swimming
back into home waters, with everything familiar -
the warmth of the air, the colour of the sky, the
smells and sounds. There is something about
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 61

Egypt, a certain joie de vivre, a special humour
and humanity that I have never found elsewhere.
I sometimes wandered in a village. Somebody
always popped out of a house and invited me in to
have tea. They would ask who I was, ‘Have you got
a husband? Have you got children? What are you
doing here alone?’ When I said I was finding out
about the cooking, they invited me to eat. Village
life is much as it always was, except that there is
television, and houses are not all made of mud
but also brick and cement. These seem unfinished
with metal poles sticking out of the top
so that another floor can be added when the
family expands.
While the gamoussa (water buffalo) is now in a
pen outside, goats and rabbits, ducks, geese,
pigeons, and turkeys are in the house or on the
roof. I found all kinds of foods being prepared -
okra stew, fried aubergines with garlic and
vinegar, lentils and rice with fried onions, beans
with tomatoes, roast peppers, vegetable omelets,
and stuffed pigeons.
The best food I had was at an eisba (farm) in the
Delta at Kafr el Rigalate in Kaloubeya, where I
stayed for three days. It belonged to Dr. Galal who
has a riding school and grows oranges, bananas,
potatoes and various vegetables as well as decorative
plants. Every day, Hannan the cook made
a variety of dishes, all of them exquisite. Among
them were stuffed vegetables and vine leaves,
veal stew with artichokes, a creamy courgette
gratin, rice with vermicelli, chicken marinated in
yoghurt, and gullash (filo pies filled with cheese
and with spinach). Hannan learnt to cook in wellto-do
families in Cairo.
In the cities there had always been a grand,
refined, sophisticated style of cooking in the
homes of the old bourgeoisie and aristocracies.
Some of it is still there although great cooks are
hard to find (they have gone to work in Bahrein
and Saudi Arabia). Because they share many
dishes with their neighbours, and because these
came with Arab and Ottoman rule, Egyptians
wonder if they can call any food their own, apart
from ful (broad beans), melokheya (a green leaf
soup), and falafel (bean rissoles), indeed any food
that wasn’t around in the time of the pharaohs.
But the foods introduced by the conquerors are
also part of Egypt’s culinary heritage and Egypt
has added its special touch. They have a different
quality from those in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and
elsewhere in the Middle East.’
Further information: through the office of the
Prince Claus Fund
62 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
New architectural
styles in Bangalore,
with increased use
of steel and glass
Ring road
construction,
Bangalore
photos: Clare Arni
courtesy Janaki Nair
Beladide Noda Bengaluru Nagara! Exhibition
of Photographs on Contemporary Bangalore
India, June 2000
Bangalore is at once the capital of Karnataka state,
the home of several large scale public sector industries
and their ancillaries – and more recently the
infotech and garment industries – as well as the
gateway to styles of global consumption. Thus,
the city has always been marked in very definite
ways by forces and interests that are regional,
national and global. From a town of tanks and
vineyards, low-walled compounds and walkable
distances in the 1950s, the city has spread in all
directions, unhindered by any natural boundaries.
The growing middle class thirst for building
sites has consumed farmland and villages, within
and beyond corporation limits, displacing thousands
from market-gardening communities, and
transforming the urban fabric. By the late 1970s,
the city found a new vertical orientation, apartments
and multistoried office blocks soon became
not just a necessity but a desirable address. In the
late 1990s, the metropolis has continued to expand
both upward and outward, the grid of the layout
marching on over farm and tank bed, while high
rise structures crowd out small lanes.
This exhibition is a project by Janaki Nair who
received a grant from the Prince Claus Fund to do
research on the project ‘Worlding the City: the
Futures of Bangalore’.
Further information from:
Institute for Social and Economic Change,
Visiting Fellow Janaki Nair, 422 Third Cross,
Indiranagar First Stage, Bangalore 560 038, India
e-mail: jnair@vsnl.net
Havanaviva.com: website para las artes y
culturas de Cuba, América Latina y el Caribe
Cuba, desde septiembre 2000
‘To be or not to be... en internet. Ese es el problema.’
Por Abelardo Mena, iniciador de Proyecto Rayuel@
En el mundo globalizado de hoy, existir también
significa estar en Internet. Sin embargo, esta posibilidad
comunicativa está sometida a los embates
del abismo entre norte y sur, así como las carencias
socioeconómicas de gran parte de la población de
los mundos ‘en desarrollo’. En la red de redes,
convertida en industria del entretinimiento alimentada
por grandes trasnacionales en fusión de
capitales y tecnologías, el arte y la voz de los
creadores e instituciones latinoamericanos no está
presente con el peso que su creatividad exige.
Y dentro del continente, hay países prácticamente
ausentes porque carecen del soporte tecnológico
adecuado. El Proyecto Rayuel@ de promoción
cultural iberoamericana con base en La Habana,
Cuba, decidió iniciar el proceso para crear el sitio
Havanaviva.com, que ofrecerá servicios gratuitos
de diseño, hospedaje y promoción de páginas
webs relacionadas con las diversas artes del
continente, sus artistas y colectivos, instituciones y
comunidades, así como su patrimonio cultural y
arquitectónico. Instrumento de comunicación
abierto a la participación de creadores y promotores
de la región, HavanaViva quiere convertirse en
testimonio eficaz y actualizado de la creatividad de
nuestras culturas, incluso bajo difíciles condiciones
económicas y tecnológicas.
Auspiciado por la Fundación Príncipe Claus, el
sitio contará con un directorio temático capaz de
buscar y localizar en Internet páginas institucionales
y personales relacionadas de alto valor
cultural con nuestra área. En HavanaViva.com, el
usuario encontrará también artículos y entrevistas,
publicaciones y proyectos, exposiciones
virtuales, imágenes animadas de conciertos,
presentaciones musicales y teatrales, notas sobre
becas, festivales y eventos, así como servicios y
productos de empresas y entidades del sector
cultural de Cuba y Latinoamérica, creados o
compilados por el equipo gestor y colaboradores
de todos los países. Aunque sólo en español en su
etapa inicial, el sitio ha sido proyectado para su
traducción al inglés y francés, para lo cual la
colaboración de voluntarios será bienvenida. El
diseño y programación ha considerado las realidades
tecnológicas de la región: la mayoría de los
usuarios no cuentan con tarifas planas de acceso,
conexiones de banda ancha ni computadoras
veloces; por ello el énfasis esencial recaerá en una
navegación amigable y sencilla sin plug-in, ni
sofisticados despliegues visuales.
En Internet, HavanaViva.com desea convertirse en
una red de difusión atractiva y ágil de nuestro
quehacer cultural; para el fin damos la bienvenida y
requirimos el apoyo de los creadores y gestores, así
como de las entidades no lucrativas y empresas de
todos los rincones de América Latina.
Para más información:
Proyecto Rayuel@, Abelardo Mena,
Calle 19 no.1164 apto 5 e/16 y 18, Vdo,
Hab. 4-10400, Cuba
e-mail: probiz@cubarte.cult.cu
Dense Death: an experimental documentary
Brazil, November 2000
The following text is written by Kiko Goifman,
director of the film together with Jurandir Müller:
‘It is clear that the motif of the serial killer has
played a major role on people’s lives. This project
aims at a dialogue, or even a confrontation with
the banality of such murders. Different from the
serial killer movie craze we see all over the world,
the main purpose of this documentary is to reveal
the meaning of death for those who have once
killed somebody at a certain moment of their
lives. One-time murderers. ‘Dense Death’ is an
experimental documentary that addressess this
subject. The project was supported by the Prince
Claus Fund. To carry out the documentary we
interviewed people who had committed one
murder and were meaningfully affected by it. We
are interested not only in the psycho-pathological
disorder aspects – the favorite target when
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 63

we talk about serial killers – but also in the perception
of the cultural reference networks and in
the construction and maintenance process of
social relationships of those people after their
first murder. Among these testimonies is one of a
young woman:
‘… I called the police and said: ‘I stabbed my
boyfriend.’ And then the people were around me,
holding my arm, pushing me, sending me away,
telling me he was already dead. I did not have the
courage to leave him that way. I held him in my
arms again and tore his shirt to see if the wound
was deep. And then I started to blow in his mouth
hoping he could breath. As I blew the wound
started making bubbles, and a jet of blood
spurted over me. I held him tight against my
body, rocking his body, kissing him and telling
that I had not wanted to do that.’ We illustrate
these testimonies with experimental images that
make reference to the feelings; they do not pretend
to be the reconstruction of a crime scene.
According to some interviews, murderers try to
save their reputation. The idea of the legitimacy
of their crimes results from their seeking to
restore their infringed rights. They support
themselves by values that justify their act. They
killed; they admit their mistake but they did so
because they needed to fix something that was
wrong in the first place. A body is marked forever,
with or without bloodshed. In this case, human
flesh is not sliced or swallowed as in a cannibal
ritual. This is a crime for morality. It is Sunday, a
man goes past a window and shoots. A precise
shot, and a brother, old friend, or partner is dead.
People have increasingly been killed in very trivial
situations. These are not serial killers, so they are
not spectacular. They are souls to raise and
bodies to bury.’
Further information from: Dense Death
fax: +55-11-2880715
e-mail: goifman@hotmail.com
Héros urbains: présentation des Prix Prince Claus
2000 et discours d’Ismail Serageldin
Aux Pays-Bas et dans les pays des lauréats, le
12 décembre 2000
Les Prix Prince Claus sont décernés chaque année
à des artistes et à des intellectuels d’Afrique,
d’Asie, d’Amérique Latine et des Caraïbes. Le 12
décembre 2000, le Grand Prix Prince Claus de
cette année d’une valeur de 100 000 euros sera
remis aux ‘Héros urbains’ dans le Palais Royal
d’Amsterdam. Le terme de ‘Héros urbains’
s’applique aux habitants des villes champignon
64 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Stills from the experimental
documentary
‘Dense Death’
courtesy of the
makers
d’Afrique, d’Asie, d’Amérique latine et des
Caraïbes, qui ont surpris leur entourage par les
idées novatrices qu’ils ont développées afin
d’améliorer la vie dans la cité. A cette occasion,
Ismail Serageldin, architecte et promoteur de la
dimension culturelle dans la coopération internationale,
prononcera un discours ayant pour
thème l’héroïsme urbain. Outre le Grand Prix
Prince Claus, le nom des lauréats de plusieurs prix
d’une valeur de 20 000 euros seront communiqués
à ce moment-là. Les bénéficiaires recevront
leur distinction lors de cérémonies organisées
dans les pays où ils résident et travaillent. La
Fondation publiera et diffusera un livre concernant
les Prix Prince Claus 2000. Ce livre sera disponible
à partir du 12 décembre 2000.
Pour plus d’informations, veuillez contacter la
Fondation Prince Claus.
South: an exhibition
Mozambique, 2001
José Ferreira is an artist from Mozambique, living
in South Africa. With the support of the Prince
Claus Fund, Ferreira started research in 1999 for
the purpose of curating a multi-media exhibition
in several countries with the participation of
artists from those countries. The selected countries
were at some point in history all colonised
by Portugal, and are characterised by a dominant
Portugese influence. The process of re-articulating
lives, of recovering cultural esteem is the
main interest of this exhibition. ‘South’ hopes to
facilitate consent between the public and
contemporary artistic creation within the designated
metropolitan centers. It hopes to
integrate previously homogeneous cultures and
the recently fragmented social fabric of the cities,
with artists’ works from a variegated diaspora. As
the project’s circuitous journey augments and
distends, the conceptual amalgam created by
artists with contingent histories will become the
focal point in the conjuncture of events.
Taking the form of a multidisciplanary show, the
exhibition project seeks to disseminate and disperse
video, photographic and performance pieces
throughout the cities. These projections will illuminate
buildings within the periphery of the cities,
fabricating an expansive landscape of imagery.
Supported by the Prince Claus Fund, the exhibition
project will start in Maputo, Mozambique in
January 2001.
Further information from: The South Foundation,
7 Strano Court, 14 Gleneagles Road,
Greenside 2193, Johannesburg, South Africa,
e-mail: jobrig@iafrica.com
Still from the digital
progress report of
‘South’, 2000
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 65

Recent publications
Publications récentes
Publicaciones recentes
New from the Institute of
International Visual Arts (inIVA)
Reading the Contemporary: African Art from
Theory to the Marketplace (1999)
Edited by Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor, highly
regarded writers and contemporary art historians
specialised in this field, ‘Reading the Contemporary’
provides an invaluable context for viewing
African visual art and culture. This anthology brings
together twenty-two essays in which key critical
thinkers, scholars and artists explore a wide range
of subjects including contemporary African art,
cinema and photography. They lay out a theoretical
and critical framework within the context of current
debate and the continent’s particular history.
Included are texts by: Kwame Anthony Appiah,
Manthia Diawara, Ima Ebong, Okwui Enwezor,
Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Salah Hassan, Sidney Kasfir,
David Koloane, Thomas McEvilley, Kobena
Mercer, V.Y. Mudimbe, Laura Mulvey, Everlyn
Nicodemus, Olu Oguibe, Chika Okeke, John
Picton, Colin Richards, Margo Timm, N. Frank
Ukadike and Octavio Zaya.
Olu Oguibe has taught at the universities of
London, Illinois at Chicago and South Florida,
Tampa, where he held the Stuart S. Golding
Endowed Chair in African Art. Okwui Enwezor is
the Artistic Director of Documenta XI, Kassel,
Germany, 2002, and is Adjunct Curator of
Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago.
66 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
The Prince ClauspThe
Journal also
Fund Journal con- seeks to draw
tains brief outlines attention to recent
and commentaries publications rele-
on publications vant to the debate
supported or pub- on non-Western
lished by the Fund. culture.
>
In 1997, he was the Artistic Director of the Second
Johannesburg Biennial. Both editors are also editors
of ‘Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art’,
which the Prince Claus Fund supports.
ISBN 1 899846 21 2 Price: GBP 20,00
The publication can be ordered from: iniva,
tel: +44-20-76361930 or www.iniva.org
New from the National Film
Theatre/The British Film Institute in
association with Visiting Arts
Life and Art: The New Iranian Cinema (1999)
In the last decade Iranian cinema has gained new
international recognition and boasts at least two
directors of world class stature. Yet even as audiences
around the world respond to this vibrant
cinema, it becomes ever more apparent how
little we know about it. This publication provides
an accessible and substantial historical and contemporary
overview of Iranian film, as well as sections
on individual directors and bio/filmographies,
which will enable viewers to increase their
understanding and enjoyment of one of the most
cinematically creative national cinemas of the late
twentieth century. One chapter is dedicated to
filmmaker Rakhshan Bani-Etamed, who received
in 1998 a Prince Claus Award.
Contributor Hamid Reza Sadr receives support
from the Prince Claus Fund for the preparation of
a publication on Iranian Cinema and Politics.
Edited by Rose Issa and Sheila Whitaker.
ISBN 0 85170 775 0
The publication can be ordered from the
National Film Theatre, The British Film Institute,
21 Stephen Street, London w1p 2ln, uk
New from Athlone Press/Oxford
University Press India
The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking
Through Theatre in an Age of Globilization (2000)
‘The Politics of Cultural Practice’ defies the homogenising
and anti-democratic forces of globalisation.
Refuting the assumption that the West is
everywhere, the book draws on the emergent
cultures of secular struggle in contemporary India
to engage with the volatile global issues of intellectual
property rights, cultural tourism, and the
marking of minorities on the basis of religion,
caste, language, gender and sexuality. A dazzling
analysis of life, politics and art in our globalising
world, this book demonstrates the power of the
intercultural imaginary to radically shape the
twenty-first century.
Author Rustom Bharucha received a grant from
the Prince Claus Fund to write this book.
ISBN 0 485 00417 8 HB/0 485 00614 6 PB
Price: GBP 45 HB/GBP 15.99 PB
The publication can be ordered from:
The Athlone Press, I Park Drive,
London nw11 7sg, uk, fax: +44-20-82018115,
e-mail: athlonepress@btinternet.com
Oxford University Press, New Delhi,
fax : +91-11-3277812
New from Greenwood
Publishing Group
Political Discourses in African Thought: 1860 to
the Present (1999)
New issues have arisen in African political thought
in the 1990s, such as democracy, civil society, the
nation-state, and the relevance of ‘traditional’
political institutions. This ‘democratic turn’ in the
1990s is seldom analysed against the background
of the history of African political thought. The
present book provides in-depth discussions of the
most important African political discourses in the
last 150 years and an analysis of dominant models
of thought in that tradition. This historical and
philosophical analysis allows for a critical inventory
of African political thought on the brink of the
twenty-first century.
Author Pieter Boele van Hensbroek is a member of
the Exchanges Committee of the Prince Claus Fund.
ISBN 0 275 96494 9 Price: GBP 47.95
The publication can be ordered in the USA toll-
Free: +1-800225-5800 or www.greenwood.com.
To order in Europe and the uk, contact Westport
Publications Ltd., 3 Henrietta Street, London
wc2E 8lu, uk, fax: +44-20-7379 0609,
e-mail: orders@edspubl.co.uk or
www.eurospan.co.uk
New from Hyperion
Memories of a Pure Spring: After the War is Won,
Another Struggle Begins (2000)
Duong Thu Huong’s accomplished new novel
takes place in the years immediately after the
great victory and is a continuing evocation of a
kind of post war despair among those morally
conscious enough to experience it. But it would
be a mistake to see Huong’s most recent book,
translated by Nina McPherson and Phan Huy
Duong, as aiming mainly to make a political statement.
One reads it certainly for its politics, but
even more for the depth and complexity of its
characters who strive to define themselves in a
world that still puts everything and everybody in
one category or another of ideology and national
aspiration. Duong Thu Huong wrote the keynote
essay on ‘Creating Spaces of Freedom’ for the
book with the same title to be published by the
Prince Claus Fund this autumn. (See the prepublication
of her text in French in Prince Claus
Fund Journal # 3, December 1999.)
ISBN 0 7868 6581 4 Price: USD 23.95
New from Curzon/European
Cultural Foundation
Alienation or Integration of Arab Youth:
Between Family, State and Street (2000)
It is within the triangle of the family, the state and
the street that modern Arab young people are
growing up. This triangle determines to a large
extent the process of integration and alienation.
Massive changes in the Middle East and North
Africa have rapidly eroded the traditional extended
family and have chipped away at the authority
of the father and the family. Western youth
culture has provided alternatives in lifestyles and
different norms and values from traditional ones.
Today Western media exert a considerable influence
on Arab youth, offering a host of alternatives
to choose from, to compare their situation with
and to criticise their surroundings. The amount of
information and the conflicting alternative role
models and modes provided by the street are also a
source of confusion and frustration, and form the
ingredients of an identity crisis. Arab youth are on
the move looking for new ways of finding meaning
for their lives. They are looking for new forms of
integration and community.
Among the 12 contributors are: Youssef Courbage,
Ahmed Abdalla, Hadj Milani and Mounia Bennani-
Chraïbi. Editor Roel Meijer holds a PhD in Middle
Eastern History from the University of Amsterdam
(1995) and teaches Middle Eastern history at the
University of Nijmegen, Netherlands.
‘Alienation or Integration of Arab Youth’ appeared
as part of the Diagnosis programme of the European
Cultural Foundation. ‘Cosmopolitanism, Identity
and Authenticity in the Middle East’ (1999) is
the title of the first book in this series, also edited
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 67

y Roel Meijer. In this publication leading Arab
intellectuals from countries from Morocco to the
Gulf, among them Sami Zubeida and Nasr Hamid
Abu Zeid, discuss their own highly diverse personal
and professional perspectives on cosmopolitanism
in the Middle East.
ISBN 0 7007 1248 8 (HB)/0 7007 1255 0 (PB),
Price: GBP 40/GBP 14.90
The publication can be ordered from Curzon
Press Ltd, 15 The Quadrant, Richmond, Surrey
tw9 1bp, uk, fax: +44-208-3326735,
e-mail: publish@curzonpress.co.uk.
Further information also from:
The European Cultural Foundation,
Jan van Goyenkade 5, 1075 hn Amsterdam,
the Netherlands, fax: +31-20-6752231
New from Amsterdam
University Press/Oxford University
Press India
Down and Out: Labouring under Global
Capitalism (2000)
This book, written by Arvind N. Das and Jan Breman,
calls attention to the conditions in which (poor)
labourers around Surat, India are forced to work.
‘Down and Out’ is the first book to provide a
visual report on the way people live and work in
India. With the inclusion of more than 150 colourful
photographs, an image is given of the lives of
workers in their villages, on their way to work and
at the workplace. The various industries are shown,
such as textile industries, the diamond trade, sugar
production, brickmaking and road construction
work. Jan Breman is a sociologist at the Amsterdam
School for Social Science Research. Arvind N.
Das was a sociologist and journalist in India, and a
member of the Exchanges Committee of the Prince
68 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Claus Fund. The photographs are the work of the
Indian photographer Ravi Agarwal.
ISBN 90 5356 450 0 Price: NLG 39.95
The publication can be ordered from:
Oxford University Press India , fax : +91-11-3277812
Nouveaud’Editions Le Fennec
Etes-vous vacciné contre le harem? (1998)
En tant que Marocaine, rire de l’arrogance de
l’Occident a toujours été un de mes fantasmes les
plus délicieux. J’ai commencé à le savourer en écrivant
ce livre dans lequel je décortique les archaïsmes
chez nos voisins européens. Archaïsmes
soigneusement cachés derrière le mythe de la modernité
occidentale. Les Européens nous disent
qu’ils sont modernes, mais… ils rêvent de
harems, comme les pires despotes de l’âge des
cavernes. Bon, vous m’avez comprise.
Une autre raison m’a poussée à écrire un livre
pour faire rire les Marocains. D’après les psychiatres
de Rabat que j’écoute religieusement,
rire est une des thérapies les plus efficaces et les
plus économiques pour se remonter le moral et
renforcer la confiance en soi. On en a besoin pour
se jeter dans la compétition qu’exige la globalisation.
Cependant, que se passera-t-il si le livre
ne vous fait pas rire? Eh bien, essayez de le
revendre à la Joutiya la plus proche. Recycler les
choses et les idées inutiles est une autre thérapie
très précieuse pour s’entraîner à surfer sur les
vagues de cette troublante globalisation qui nous
guette.’ Voilà l’introduction du livre par son
auteur, Fatima Mernissi. Sociologue à l’Institut
universitaite de rechercherche scientifique de
l’Université Mohamed V à Rabat au Maroc,
Mernissi est un auteur qui a déjà publié beaucoup
d’ouvrages.
ISBN 9981 838 88 8, Prix: MAD 75
L’Islam est-il hostile à la laïcité? (1999)
Cet ouvrage est le premier de la collection ‘Islam
et humanisme’ des Editions le Fennec, installées
au Maroc. La collection se propose de contribuer
à briser les liens entre religion et violence et à
permettre l’éclosion d’une nouvelle identité
culturelle enracinée dans l’héritage islamique et
ouverte à la modernité. Son objectif est de proposer
des textes courts et accessibles, afin d’atteindre
ceux qui en ont le plus besoin.
Le petit livre ‘L’Islam est-il hostile à la laïcité?’, est
né de la suggestion de publier séparément l’introduction
d’ Abdou Filali-Ansary à la traduction de
l’ouvrage d’Ali Abderraziq, ‘L’islam et les fondements
du pouvoir’ (Paris, Le Fennec, 1994). L’idée
derrière cette proposition ést de contribuer à faire
connaître un autre visage de l’islam contemporain
dont l’existence souvent n’est même pas soupçonnée
et que les effervescences actuelles, ainsi
que d’autres facteurs liés à la conjoncture politique
et culturelle, ont tendance à occulter. Il s’agit
d’attitudes et de projets qui cherchent à retrouver
le sens premier de la religion islamique, par-delà
les formulations qui lui ont été données dans
l’histoire des sociétés anciennes et médiévales.
Abdou Filali-Ansary est chercheur et directeur de
‘Prologues: revue maghrébine du livre’.
ISBN 9981 838 51 9, Prix: MAD 25
Plaidoyer pour un islam moderne (1999)
Ce livre de Mohamed Talbi est le quatrième de la
collection ‘Islam et humanisme’. Il répond à cette
curiosité pour l’Islam qui s’est développée en Occident
depuis quelques années.
De nombreuses publications ont paru, mais malheureusement
les ouvrages sont de valeur très inégale.
Ils manquent souvent de qualité, entre autres
parce que leurs auteurs sont rarement des croyants
musulmans. Le livre de Mohamed Talbi offre au lecteur
francophone l’occasion de mieux connaître
l’islam, tout en apportant des réponses aux questions
brûlantes. Mohamed Talbi est un universitaire
et un historien tunisien.
ISBN 9981 838 83 7, Prix: MAD 45
Initiatives féminines (1999)
Le thème ‘Initiatives féminines’ a été choisi pour le
neuvième ouvrage du collectif Approches, qui
publie une série d’ouvrages concernant des affaires
féminines . Ce n’est ni acte fortuit ni un acte spontané:
la réflexion sur ce thème a entraîné un grand
débat, surtout au moment où les changements
politiques au niveau national engendrent un processus
de démocratisation dont les femmes, en
tant que citoyennes, sont parties prenantes. Au
moment aussi où les mutations économiques à
l’échelle mondiale opérant une ouverture des
marchés et amplifiant les circuits de communication
mettent à contribution toutes les forces et
les potentialités nationales dont celles des femmes.
Collection dirigée par Aïcha Belarbi.
ISBN 9981 838 77 2, Prix: MAD 75
L’oeil de Drissi (1999)
Ce livre propose les commentaires de François
Devalière sur l’éclat des tableaux de l’artiste
marocain Mohammed Drissi (1946, Tétouan;
réside actuellement à Tanger). Drissi évite les
explications et cache derrière la représentation
ce qu’il affirme voir. Son regard d’artiste est une
invitation, il déniche l’invention et confronte le
spectateur avec une légère ironie. Chaque espace
a une forme; c’est à vous de jouer et de trouver
l’harmonie. Cette publication en anglais, français,
arabe et allemand, a été éditée en collaboration
avec Atlantica, France.
ISBN 2 84394 157 1
Qotbi dédié à la lettre (1999)
Ce livre présente des textes d’Adonis, d’Edouard
Glissant, d’Abdelkébir Khatibi et de beaucoup
d’autres auteurs connus, sur le travail du calligraphe
maroccain Mehdi Qotbi. Le livre présente
également une vingtaine de travaux de Qotbi luimême,
dont une dizaine a été créée en collaboration
avec d’autres artistes comme Ahmed
Sayed, Gérard Fromanger et Fernando Arrabal.
ISBN 9954 0 0020 8 Prix: MAD 150
Pour commander tous les titres présentés
ci-dessus : Editions Le Fennec,
89 B, bd D’Anfa, 20000 Casablanca, Maroc,
tel: 212 277702, e-mail: fennec@techno.net.ma
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 69

The people in the Prince Claus Fund are constantly discussing
the role of the Fund in current cultural developments in the world.
Adriaan van der Staay is Vice-President of the Fund and wrote the
following piece as a discussion paper for a brainstorming session of
the Board on 19 May of this year.
A Second Look at Culture and Development
The discussion on culture and development seems to have entered a new, more cultural
phase. It is nearly half a century ago that Margaret Mead published her ‘Patterns of Culture
and Technical Change’ (1955). In it she drew attention to the anthropological context into
which modernity was injecting itself. But nobody yet seemed able to imagine that
modernity could reach so far and so deep and that the new culture of modernity could
replace and wipe out cultural forms that had existed for centuries, if not millennia.
From the 1950s onwards culture would be seen as a factor of resistance, a formidable
opponent to change. The traditional way of life was an obstacle to be overcome by any
possible means, if one wished successfully to reap the fruits of modernity: wealth, health
and respect in an ever-widening circle of developed nations. Economic development could
be achieved as a matter of course by ignoring culture. Villages could be uprooted and
displaced, religious sensibilities counted for nothing measured against the promised gains
of development. Monuments as ancient and sacred as the temples of Abu Simbel in the Nile
valley could not stop new nationalist leaders from adopting Russian models of
development: flooding whole areas irrevocably and building dams for the production of
electricity. Europe, and the still mainly European unesco, tried to mitigate the cultural
consequences of ruthless development. In saving the temples of Abu Simbel, culture was
recognised as being important but also museumised. Culture could be saved as a legacy
from the past, but the future clearly belonged to development.
One cannot say that there was a fundamental change in this attitude, but the practice
became more sophisticated. The brutal eradication of existing culture, if it stood in the way
of development, seemed lacking in intelligence and efficiency. The costs were relatively
high. The disaffection of the population, even local resistance and revolt, told the developers
that the going was not that easy. Taking culture into account to a certain degree might
be advisable and smooth the path of progress. Could local customs and institutions not be
used, and harnessed to the yoke of development? Out of the studies of culture as an adversary
grew a new appreciation of culture as a factor in development. People and their values
might prove beneficial to the development process after all. This clearly was not a sufficient
change of heart. It left intact the paramount doctrine of development as an unquestionable
benefit in itself.
Yet out of this approach of taking account of people and their culture grew an awareness
that people mattered after all. In this, the insight of the Dutch development adviser, Prince
Claus of the Netherlands, struck a clear note. People, he told international development
organisations, cannot be developed; they can only develop themselves. This brought a
fundamental change of perspective to those who share his views. Not only were people
made interesting, and no longer seen as obstacles, or merely collaborators in development,
they were the originators of development. People and their cultures were not only recognised,
they were seen as the prime movers of the development process. This of course
tied in with the widespread movement of empowerment, starting in the 1970s, which saw
the giving of power to minorities as one of the tools of development. The poor, women,
ethnic minorities, sexual minorities had to be empowered to achieve their own liberation.
70 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Adriaan van der Staay
This article will appear
in Dutch translation in:
Tijdschrift voor Humanistiek
4 (December), SWP,
Amsterdam
Members of the Board, the
International Advisory
Board and staff of the Prince
Claus Fund, Amsterdam,
9 December 1999
photo: Fotobureau Thuring
This was at least the belief in progressive circles. It was a minority belief not widely shared,
and certainly not in the centres of power related to development, by governments, the
Monetary Fund or the World Bank.
However, the recognition of the importance of people and their values was a decisive
step forward in thinking about development as such. If people were to be empowered to
develop themselves, they should be given the right to impose their own values. Values
became important as an expression of self, of identity. If development was after all
something not imposed on people but wanted by them as opposed to the former dogmatic
top-down development, would not development have to take into account their diversity
of cultures? Indeed a number of more or less declamatory roads to development were
proclaimed: non-aligned development, Burmese development, Islamic banking, Asian
values supporting Asian Tigers, and so on.
This people-power reasoning led not only to a diversification of the meaning of development,
but also to the proverbial Tower of Babel, i.e. to mutual incomprehension and the
danger of relativism. Relativism is here meant as giving up any hope of finding common
values in the achievement of development. This relativist, even cynical approach to the
multifarious ways to development, in which development could be the means to any cultural
result, struck a deep hole in the centre of development. It meant that development
was no longer in possession of some guiding culture, Western or otherwise. Development
had briefly entered its nihilistic phase and had become in a sense valueless, without value.
An aim only unto itself.
This crisis at the centre of development philosophy was bravely tackled at a large conference
on cultural policies held in 1982. The Mexican hosts of this conference
(Mondiacult) may not have foreseen the wide-ranging implications of the reversal of
values that was embedded in its Declaration of Mexico. Basically, the message was very
simple. If economic development had lost its way, some central core of belief should be
reinstated. Culture should be the aim of development, not its means. On the global level,
values should be found to guide development. After all, if people’s lives were the aim of
development, the collective will of the people should guide the development process.
Culture beats economics.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 71

As a participant at this conference, I must admit having overlooked the far-reaching impact
of our Declaration and the watershed-like divide that this reversal of roles between culture
and development indicated. On the one hand, it was easily observable that power in the
world was still, as it is today, in the hands of the economic elite that gathers at the World
Economic Forum in Davos. The crowing of cultural luminaries like France's Jacques Lang
(then Minister of Culture and prominent at Mondiacult) could be constructed as a symptom
of weakness. Moreover, the failure of political hegemony over economic development
in the Communist countries did not bode well for a new attempt to ride the economic tiger.
All this made for scepticism. I returned from Mexico with the depressing feeling that we
had achieved not much more than the pitting of the word culture against the manifest
realities of economic development.
Somehow I was wrong. In the twenty or so years after Mexico the discussion of the
relationship between culture and development seemed to change, just as the triumph of
economic development seemed to become almost complete. Perhaps it was the very
success of economic development in certain countries that made obvious a hollowness in
the development process. Though the means might deliver the wished-for effects and
nobody seemed to wish to change course completely, world capitalism started to look at
itself in the mirror and did not quite like what it saw. It saw a world in many ways out of
control, with dwindling natural reserves, a devastated ecology, growing pollution and global
warming. It saw persistent inequities in the distribution of power, economic or
otherwise. It saw huge population shifts away from traditional agriculture into the brokenback
economy of megacities. It also increasingly had to cope with public opinion and critical
movements which rattled its cosy self-confidence. Most importantly, people all over the
world were worried. They did not reject the brave new world of economic development
and indeed were voting by their feet and flocking to the biblical fleshpots of Egypt,
wherever these appeared. But they felt worried nevertheless, not about the past, but about
their future and that of their children.
I think this is much the situation today. The twin regulatory processes of the market and
democracy have acquired great prestige, the first for its efficiency, the second for its
avoidance of insoluble strife and as a platform. If one wants efficiency and harmony in the
development process, one should clearly lean towards the market and democracy, and
forget about command economies or dictatorships. But both regulatory frameworks tell us
little about the future. At any moment the market or democracy may go haywire. Therefore
there is a great cultural challenge at the core of present-day thinking, to define the future of
mankind as a whole. How far can the population, indeed the economy, grow; can geosphere
and biosphere deteriorate; can cultural traditions disappear; can values be left out of
the development equation without courting catastrophe? These are important questions
which have to be debated.
There is no world parliament to effectively debate all this, since the structures of the
United Nations family of organisations is, as the word implies, an assembly of states,
sending their diplomats and occasionally experts to peacefully settle differences. The
United Nations is not a world parliament. Whatever may be globalised in this world, it is
not the will of the people. There is not a single forum for the vox populi. The world may not
be ready for this type of gathering; one would still be at a loss to assemble the founding
fathers for it. But the clear need exists to take into account the wishes of the people and
their values, if one wants to solve the battle between culture and development.
Within this wide framework of future construction, a small book (or rather a small part
of a medium-sized book) took up the challenge of answering the question as to which
values should guide development. The book was the result of a contorted process of
decision-making that started with the strangely heroic Mondiacult conference of 1982. It
goes under the innocuous title of ‘Our Creative Diversity’ and was the result of work by a
committee of international experts. It tried to act as an embryonic world parliament by
listening to countless shouts and murmurs in many corners of the world. It tried to define
the outlines of global ethics, a set of common values that should guide development. For
72 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
this we must thank the economist Paul Streeten, who conceived this non-economic approach
to development. In recent years the ethical approach to the process of development
has gained in prestige, while the status of the purely economic approach to the world’s
future has been questioned. The Nobel Prize awarded to the Indian economist Amartya Sen
has confirmed this alternative approach.
One should perhaps descend a little way from these Olympian heights and ask oneself
where this leaves a relatively small organisation named the Prince Claus Fund for Culture
and Development. If one takes seriously what was described above and considers culture as
the prime mover in the development process, at least for the time being, one should have
the courage to state a few obvious facts. People all over the world are struggling to find
answers to new problems. It is quite probable that certain answers will be more successful
in coping with these problems than others. The answers will not only be different from
those of the past but also not immediately widely known or respected. It behoves good
governance to make these good practices known as quickly as possible, and to discuss their
implications and values. This can only be done by intelligent scouting. There is no bureaucratic
formula for this scouting process. It depends on scouts in many parts of the world, a
network that carries the information, platforms of communication for testing the value of
these solutions, but of all things it depends mainly on the eyes, ears and noses of people to
discover them. It is this avant-garde, in a world of as yet virtual culture and development,
that the Prince Claus Fund should seek to befriend.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 73

In Memoriam: Arvind Das
Achille Mbembe
The first meeting I took part in as a member of the
Exchanges Committee of the Prince Claus Fund
was at the offices of the Fund in The Hague. I had
arrived from London the day before and was to
leave again immediately. One of the points of
order of the day was the preparation of the
conference on the role of intellectuals in the
public sphere – a conference that was to be held
in Beirut, Lebanon.
The most vivid memory I have of that first
meeting was Arvind. I do not know why that
memory has stayed with me all this time. Arvind,
whom I met for the first time, had arrived as he
would do so often thereafter: very unobtrusively.
But he had arrived with priceless gifts: a series of
issues of ‘Biblio’, the impressive book review that
he published in India.
I paged through a few issues of the review. And
very quickly I realised that the work was extremely
reliable and competent. I believe that starting at
that very moment Arvind and ‘Biblio’ became the
same person in my eyes. And that was the way it
stayed. At subsequent meetings Arvind would
arrive, his arms full of the same presents: ‘Biblio’,
that work of the mind.
That is how I think of Arvind, as an intellectual
who was constantly occupied with matters of the
mind. His eyes would light up when he would
start to think. His body would become animated
and a discrete smile would light up his face. He
liked to share that enthusiasm and that joy. As for
me, I took that joy and that enthusiasm as a gift.
That was how it was every time we met. The last
two meetings before his death were held in the
north of the Netherlands. We spent a few long
hours in the train. Sometimes he seemed to be
asleep, but I always suspected him of being deep
in thought. And indeed, as soon as the conversation
became more lively he would suddenly
wake up.
He had a delightful sense of humour, which he
used with moderation. And we were grateful to
him. He also had extraordinary patience. He
would explain something over and over again
with great tenacity. He spoke with the marvelous
accent of those who have perfect mastery of a
foreign language and instill it with the turns of
their own language. At such moments his eyes
would shine and his face would bear a slight smile.
It was last July. On that evening we returned from
the north of the Netherlands. We took a taxi
74 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Arvind Das
participating in the
meeting of the
International Advisory
Board of the Prince
Claus Fund, 9
December 1999
photo: Fotobureau
Thuring
together to the hotel. We said goodbye at the lift.
We knew we would see each other again in
October. We will not see each other again. But
Arvind will be there. He will be there for a long
time, I am sure.
In Memoriam: Arvind Das
Achille Mbembe
La première réunion à laquelle je pris part en ma
qualité de membre du Comité des Echanges de la
Fondation Prince Claus avait eu lieu au siège de la
Fondation à La Haye. J’étais arrivé la veille de
Londres et devait repartir aussitôt. L’un des
points à l’ordre du jour était la préparation de la
conférence sur le rôle des intellectuels dans la
sphère publique – conférence qui devait se tenir a
Beyrouth, au Liban.
Le souvenir le plus vivant que je gardai de cette
première réunion fut Arvind. Je ne sais pas pourquoi
ce souvenir me poursuit depuis lors. Arvind –
que je rencontrais pour la première fois – était
entré comme il le fera si souvent par la suite: très
discrètement. Mais il était arrivé avec d’inestimables
cadeaux: une série de numéros de ‘Biblio’,
l’imposante revue de livres qu’il publie en Inde.
Je feuilletai quelques numéros de cette revue.
En quelques minutes, je compris qu’il s’agissait
d’un travail extrêmement sérieux et compétent.
Je crois que, dès ce moment, Arvind et ‘Biblio’
devinrent, a mes yeux, le même personnage.
Et ce fut ainsi par la suite. Lors des réunions
suivantes, Arvind revint les mains chargées
des mêmes cadeaux: ‘Biblio’, ce travail de l’esprit.
C’est ainsi qu’à mes yeux se construisit l’identité
d’Arvind: un intellectuel passionné par les choses
de l’esprit. Ses yeux s’illuminaient chaque fois
qu’il s’agissait de réfléchir. Son corps soudain
s’animait et un sourire discret illuminait son
visage. Il aimait partager cet enthousiasme et
cette joie. Pour ma part, je recevais cette joie et
cet enthousiasme comme un don.
Ce fut ainsi chaque fois que nous nous revîmes.
Les deux dernières réunions avant sa mort se tinrent
dans le Nord de la Hollande. Nous passâmes
de longues heures ensemble dans le train. Parfois il
fit semblant de dormir. Je le soupçonnais toujours
d’être en train de réfléchir. Et de fait, dès que la
conversation s’animait, il se réveillait.
Il avait un sens exquis de l’humour. Il en usa
chaque fois avec mesure. Et nous lui en étions reconnaissants.
Il avait une extraordinaire patience.
Il expliquait, expliquait et expliquait avec ténacité.
Il s’exprimait avec l’adorable accent de ceux qui,
maîtrisant parfaitement les contours de la langue
étrangère, y introduisent les ruses de leur propre
langue. A ces moments-là, ses yeux brillaient et
son visage s’ornait d’un léger sourire.
C’était en juillet dernier. Ce soir-là, nous revînmes
du Nord de la Hollande. Nous prîmes ensemble le
taxi jusqu’à l’hôtel. Nous nous séparâmes devant
l’ascenseur, certains de nous revoir au mois d’octobre.
Nous ne nous reverrons pas. Mais Arvind sera
là. Il sera là pendant très longtemps, j’en suis certain.
En Memoria: Arvind Das
Achille Mbembe
La primera reunión en la que tomé parte como
miembro del Comité de Intercambios de la
Fundación Príncipe Claus, fue en las oficinas de la
Fundación en La Haya. Llegué proveniente de
Londres el día anterior, y partí de nuevo inmediatamente.
Uno de los puntos en el orden del día fue
la presentación de la conferencia sobre el rol de
los intelectuales en la esfera pública, conferencia
que tendría lugar en Beirut, Líbano.
El más vivo recuerdo que tengo de esta primera
reunión es Arvind. No se por qué este recuerdo
permaneció en mí todo este tiempo. Arvind, a
quien conocí por primera vez, y que llegó como
solía hacerlo; muy discrétamente, pero con regalos
invaluables: series de fasículos de ‘Biblio’, la
admirable revista crítica que publicaba en la India.
Yo leí algunos fascículos de de la revista, y rápidamente
pude darme cuenta de que el trabajo era
extremádamente fidedigno y competente. Creo
que a partir de ese momento Arvind y ‘Biblio’ se
convirtieron en la misma persona para mis ojos, y
esta fue la manera en que permaneció para mí. En
subsecuentes reuniones en las que Arvind
asistiría, sus manos estaban llenas de los mismos
presentes: ‘Biblio’, ese trabajo de la mente.
Así es como pienso en Arvind, como un intelectual
que estaba constantemente con la mente
ocupada. Sus ojos se iluminaban cuando empezaba
a pensar. Su cuerpo se animaba y una discreta
sonrisa iluminaba su rostro. El deseaba compartir
ese entusiasmo y ese júbilo. En lo que se refiere a
mí, yo recibí ese júbilo y ese entusiasmo como un
regalo.
Así era cada vez que nos encontrábamos. Las
últimas dos reuniones antes de su muerte, que
tuvieron lugar al norte de Holanda, pasamos un
par de largas horas en el tren. Algunas veces
parecía estar quedándose dormido, pero siempre
lo advertí pensativo. Y de hecho, tan pronto como
la conversación se tornaba más acalorada, él
despertaba de repente.
Tenía un agradable sentido del humor, el que
usaba con moderación. Y nosotros estábamos
agradecidos con él. Contaba también con una
paciencia extraordinaria. Podía explicar algo una y
otra vez con gran tenacidad. Hablaba con el
maravilloso acento de quien tiene una maestría
perfecta en lenguas ajenas a la suya, a las que
infundía giros de su propio idioma. En esos
momentos sus ojos brillaban, y su rostro develaba
una leve sonrisa.
Ocurrió en julio pasado. En esa tarde nosotros
regresábamos del norte de Holanda. Tomamos un
taxi juntos hacia el hotel. Nos despedimos
rápidamente. Sabíamos que nos veríamos de
nuevo en octubre. No nos volvimos a ver nuca,
pero Arvind estará. Estará presente por un gran
tiempo. Estoy seguro.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 75

76 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
Cooks at an eisba (farm)
near Kanater in the Egyptian
Nile Delta region
courtesy Claudia Roden
see p. 61-62
c
Pieter Boele van Hensbroek (1954, Pays-Bas) est
membre du Comité des Echanges de la Fondation
Prince Claus. Spécialiste de la philosophie africaine,
il a publié récemment ‘Political Discourses
in African Thought: 1860 to the Present’. Il est
également rédacteur de la revue philosophique
‘Quest’, pour laquelle il collabore avec des philosophes
et des institutions en Afrique.
Contributing
authors
Heri Dono (1960, Indonesia) is an artist work- Auteurs participant
ing in painting, sculpture, installations, perfor- à ce numéro
mance and music. Among many other exhib- Contribuidores
itions he most recently participated in the 1999
Yogyakarta Biennial in Indonesia, in ‘Cities on
the Move’ (touring) and in ‘Knalpot’ at Cemeti
Art House in Yogyakarta, a show that also travelled
to Museum Puri Lukisan in Bali, Indonesia.
Heri Dono received a Prince Claus Award in 1998.
José Henrique (Kiko) Goifman (1969, Brazil)
has directed several documentary works, such as
‘Clones, Barbarians and Replicants’ and ‘Tereza’
which was shown at video-festivals all over the
world and received a number of prizes, such as
Best Documentary at the vi Video festival of
Porto Alegre (1993), Best National Video at xvi
Guarnicêde Vídeo in the state of Maranhão,
Brazil, and Best Experimental Documentary,
VideoBrasil International Festival.
Paulin J. Hountondji (1942, Ivory Coast) is
Professor of Philosphy and is based in Benin. He
founded the Inter-African Council for Philosophy,
through which English-speaking and
French-speaking philosophers are brought together,
and where African-based philosphers
and African philosophers in the diaspora can
exchange ideas. He is the author of ‘African
Philosophy: Myth and Reality’ (1996 and 1976).
Paulin Hountondji was awarded a Prince Claus
prize in 1999.
Elias Khoury (1948, Liban) est romancier,
critique littéraire et rédacteur du supplément
littéraire hebdomadaire du principal quotidien
de Beyrouth, ‘Al-Nahar’. Parmi ses œuvres littéraires,
on peut citer ‘Ala Ilaat al Dair’a’ (sur les
relations du cercle) et ‘Al-Jabal al-Saghir’ (la
petite montagne) (1976) qui présente une série
de brefs ‘portraits’ de la guerre civile, basés en
partie sur l’expérience personnelle de l’auteur.
Goretti Kyomuhendo (1965, Uganda) is a writer
and the coordinator of Femrite in Kampala, the
Uganda Women Writers Association. In 1997 she
was awarded a fellowship in the International
Writing Programme of the University of Iowa,
USA. Among her literary publications are the
novels ‘The First Daughter’ (1996) and ‘Secrets No
More’ (1999), the ‘Best Novel of the Year’ of the
National Book Trust of Uganda.
William Kentridge (1955, Afrique du Sud) est
artiste. Ses dessins et ses œuvres d’animation
témoignent d’un profond engagement politique
et social. Il aborde par exemple des sujets tels
que la commission de vérité et de réconciliation
de son pays. Il a exposé aux biennales de Sydney,
de La Havane, de Johannesburg et d’Istanbul et à
la Documenta x. En 1998, le Palais des Beaux-Arts
de Bruxelles a organisé une grande rétrospective
de son œuvre.
Avishai Margalit (1953, Israel) es profesor de
Filosofía en la Universidad Hebrea en Jerusalem.
Es uno de los fundadores del movimiento Paz
Ahora en Israel y autor de La Sociedad Decente
(1996), así como de Idolatría (1992) junto con
Moshe Harberthal. Es también miembro del
Comite de Intercambio de la Fundación Príncipe
Claus, asi como del gabinete fundador de Verdad
y Reconciliación.
Abelardo Mena Chicuri (1962, Cuba) ha ejercido
como profesor universitario, crítico de arte
y promotor cultural. Actualmente trabaja como
curador de la colección de arte internacional del
siglo xx del Museo Nacional de Cuba. Trabaja
actualmente en la curaduría conjunta de las exposiciones:
‘Suite Erótica Cubana’, ‘Arquitectura
Cubano Contemporáneo’ y ‘Nueva York-Habana:
Arquitectura 1910-1970’.
Pepetela (1941, Angola) is a writer and Professor
of Urban Sociology at the university in
Luanda. He shows social and political concern
both in his literary work and as a participant in
the public debate in his country. Among his
literary publications are: ‘Mayombe’ (1976), ‘Yaka’
(1984), ‘Caluandas’ (1985) and ’Lueji e os Cães’
(Lueji and the dogs) (1990). Pepetela received a
Prince Claus Award in 1999.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 77

Claudia Roden was born in Egypt, 1936, lives in
London and is a 1999 Prince Claus Award laureate.
Roden is a food writer and has conducted research
on Mediterranean and Jewish cookery. Among
her books are: ‘A Book of Middle Eastern Food’
(1968 and 1985), ‘The Book of Jewish Food’ (1997)
and ‘Saffron and Tamarind (1999). Her writings
not only present many recipes, but set out a
history and anthropology of food combined with
many personal experiences of cooks and eaters.
Adriaan van der Staay (1933, the Netherlands)
is Professor of Cultural Politics and Cultural
Critique at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
In 1990-1992 he was President of the World
Culture Decade (un-unesco, 1987-1996). He held
the position of Director of the Social and Cultural
Planning Office of the Netherlands (1979-1998)
and of the Rotterdam Arts Foundation (1968-
1979). He is a member of the Board of the Prince
Claus Fund and Chairman of the 2000 Prince
Claus Awards Committee.
78 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
The Prince Claus Fund stimulates and supports
activities in the field of culture and development
by granting awards, funding and
producing publications and by financing and
promoting networks and innovative cultural
activities. Support is given both to persons
and to organisations in African, Asian, Latin
America and Caribbean countries. Equality,
respect and trust are the essential parameters
of such partnerships; quality and innovation
are the preconditions for support.
The Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development
was established to mark the 70th
birthday of HRH Prince Claus of the Netherlands
on 6 September 1996. It represents an
appreciation of his lifelong efforts stressing
the importance of culture in international
cooperation and of his achievements in this
field.
The Fund adopts a broad and dynamic approach
to culture, based on the concept of
constant change. Culture is those values and
processes which invest life with meaning
through professional artistic achievements
and academic work in the humanities. The
Fund’s chief interest is in the development of
ideas and ideals, the manner in which people
give form to these ideas and ideals and the
manner in which such ideas and ideals give
form to society.
The Fund stimulates exchanges between purveyors
of culture, notably in non-Western
countries, exchanges designed to push back
both national and disciplinary frontiers. Such
exchanges encourage critical reflection on
one’s own culture and that of others, and at
the same time generate cultural self-confidence.
The Fund also hopes to contribute to
a critical reflection on the cultural foundations
of international co-operation.
The Prince Claus Fund envisages a worldwide
platform for the intellectual debate on
shared values, in the form of meetings, discussions,
lectures and publications. All too
often this debate is dismissed as useless and
unnecessary. Appreciation and stimulation
will attract greater recognition and esteem,
facilitating the propagation of important
ideas.
The Prince Claus
Fund
La Fondation Prince
Claus
La Fondation Prince Claus encourage et soutient
des activités dans le domaine de la culture et du
développement, en décernant des prix, en subventionnant
et en publiant des ouvrages et en encourageant
la création de réseaux et des activités
culturelles novatrices. La Fondation accorde son
soutien à des personnes et à des organisations dans
des pays d’Afrique, d’Asie, d’Amérique latine et des
Caraïbes. Egalité, respect et confiance mutuels sont
les principes fondamentaux d’un tel partenariat;
qualité et originalité sont les conditions préalables
au soutien accordé.
La Fondation Prince Claus pour la Culture et le Développement
a été créé à l’occasion du 70e anniversaire
de SAR le Prince Claus des Pays-Bas, le 6
septembre 1996; il s’agissait d’honorer son œuvre
et ses efforts constants pour faire reconnaître le
rôle fondamental de la culture dans le cadre de la
coopération internationale.
La Fondation a opté pour une approche large et
dynamique du phénomène culturel. Elle part du
principe que la culture est en constante mutation.
La culture désigne les valeurs et les processus qui
donnent sens à la vie à travers des réalisations artistiques
et des travaux universitaires dans le domaine
des sciences humaines. La Fondation s’intéresse
tout particulièrement au développement d’idées et
d’idéaux, à la manière dont une société leur donne
forme et, inversement, comment ils la modèlent.
La Fondation stimule les echanges entre tous ceux
qui créent la culture sous une forme ou une autre,
notamment dans les pays non-occidentaux. Ces
echanges permettent de dépasser les frontières,
géographiques ou académiques. Ces echanges favorisent
une réflexion critique réciproque sur chacune
des cultures engagées dans ce partenariat et donne
en même temps naissance à une prise de conscience
culturelle. La Fondation espère ainsi contribuer à
une réflexion critique plus générale concernant les
fondements culturels de la coopération internationale.
La Fondation Prince Claus se propose de créer un
espace mondial pour un débat d’idées sur les valeurs
partagées, et ceci sous la forme de rencontres, de
discussions, de conférences et de publications
d’ouvrages. Ce débat est trop souvent considéré
comme inutile et superflu. Lui accorder une importance
permet au contraire de valoriser les différentes
cultures et de diffuser des idées fondamentales.
Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4 79

La Fundación Príncipe Claus fomenta y apoya actividades
en el campo de la cultura y el desarrollo y, con
este fin, concede premios, secunda y edita publicaciones,
promueve actividades culturales innovadoras e
intercambios interculturales. Presta ayuda a personas
y organizaciones en países de Africa, Asia, América
Latina y el Caribe. Igualdad, respeto y confianza son
los principios esenciales entre los integrantes de la
Fundación; calidad y perseverancia son las condiciones
mínimas de apoyo.
La Fundación Príncipe Claus para la Cultura y el
Desarrollo se creó con ocasión de los 70 años de
SAR Príncipe Claus de los Países Bajos, el 6 de septiembre
de 1996, con el fin de ‘fomentar el entendimiento
de las culturas y promover la interacción
entre cultura y desarrollo’.
La Fundación aplica un concepto amplio y dinámico
de la cultura, basado en el principio de que ésta
cambia permanentemente. La cultura no es solo la
manifestación de la forma de vida cotidiana, sino
también los procesos y valores que dan sentido a la
vida. El interés primordial de la Fundación es el desarrollo
de ideas e ideales y la manera de darles forma.
La Fundación fomenta el intercambio entre los contribuyentes
al desarrollo de la cultura. El fin de estos
intercambios es traspasar las fronteras disciplinarias y
nacionales. Se concede gran importancia a los intercambios
entre individuos portadores de cultura fuera
de los países occidentales. Tales intercambios incitan
a reflexionar críticamente sobre la propia cultura y la
ajena, lo que permite la formación de una conciencia
cultural propia. La Fundación también intenta contribuir
a la reflexión crítica sobre las bases culturales de
la cooperación internacional.
La Fundación es como una plataforma mundial para
el debate intelectual sobre los valores compartidos
por medio de encuentros, discusiones, conferencias y
publicaciones. Este debate es a menudo considerado
como inútil e innecesario. Darle valor y promoverlo
hace que se le reconozca y aprecie, facilitando así la
difusión de ideas.
80 Prince Claus Fund Journal # 4
La Fundación
Príncipe Claus