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Recently Published: An Invitation to Laughter
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An Invitation to Laughter, by the late Professor Fuad Khuri is "three
in one." In introducing the book, Khuri suggested that it is a professional
autobiography, yet it is also a superb prologue to the structure of interaction
in the Arab world, as well as a salient introduction to anthropological
research.
In reporting about his personal observations and daily interactions, Khuri
takes the reader on a stimulating tour of the happenings of his life through
injecting sharp observations about Arab culture and using anthropological
research methods. The book was in draft form when Professor Khuri passed
away in 2003. His wife, Sonia Jalbout Khuri, completed its editing and
the University of Chicago Press published it in 2007.
Khuri's personal memoirs introduce the reader to a Lebanese villager from
Akkar who struggles to finance his education in a high school in Tripoli,
then at AUB and at the University of Oregon. He informs the reader about
collecting his PhD data through surveys, as well as about his observations
in West Africa, about joining the AUB faculty for over twenty years, about
conducting field work in Bahrain and Yemen, about heading a philanthropic
institution in Lebanon, and about living in England. His account is full
of insights regarding the cultural practices in places he visited. What
made Fuad Khuri a great Arab anthropologist was his probing mind and his
skill at combining observations that help one understand the changes occurring
in the Arab world today.
He proposed that freedom of self-expression is not a 'public right' in
the Arab world and that the 'free' stand in opposition to the 'bound'
or the 'enslaved', that is, to freedom from domination. According to Khuri,
if democracy is to establish roots in Arab countries, it will have to
be linked to the concept of justice more than to the confusing ideology
of freedom.
Freedom in Arab culture, he contended, is "like honor, women, and
family" and is a confidential matter that belongs to the private
domain. When a person wants to speak his mind on a pressing issue, that
is, to exercise his freedom, he looks over his shoulder and introduces
his speech with the catchphrase, "Between you and me."
Khuri also suggests that the emphasis placed by the warring factions during
the Lebanese civil war on tactics rather than on substance contributed
to the prolongation of the war.
His book is full of witty observations, such as: "The dry, drab culture
of Arabia, so apparent in public life during daytime, was offset by colorful
activities, often held in private houses at night. It was much like women's
dresses: a black robe on the outside covering colorful satin underneath."
Or he remarks, "Because the sexes remain separate, love and making
love need not go together. Arab males love to make love and hate to love.
'Making love' signifies power, potency, and masculinity, whereas 'love'
signifies femininity and weakness. Arab men do fall in love, but their
love is for the country, the motherland, the nation, the birthplace, the
clan, or the tribe, not for women."
Explaining the tendency of the Arab press to be guarded, Khuri observes
that "matters we talk about, we do not publish." He explains
that the written form in the Arab world is tightly constrained, while
the flow of oral information is unrestricted. "In consequence, as
far as the daily press is concerned, the Middle East is a scandal free
society. Even when widely known, events that would elsewhere be deemed
scandalous may not be regarded as scandals in Arab society…Although
the Lebanese were fighting a deadly sectarian war, writing about sects
was taboo."
In his concluding chapter, Fuad Khuri states: "The people we love
never die, they survive in our memory. To me, that is eternity."
How true.
"Writing about people scientifically, in the sense of using a standard methodology, is not very far from writing a novel. The difference is that in the novel, the writer's feelings and choices come unashamedly into the open. In scientific writing, they are kept hidden, begging objectivity. Yet we can be subjective in the choice of the topic itself, however objective the style of writing may be."
"Research, like language, is cumulative, the more research you do, the easier it is to carry on a new project, just as the more languages you speak, and the easier it is to learn a new one."
On AUB
"Freedom of speech, teaching, and research at AUB made this institution the pride of America abroad."
On His Cultural Arab Roots
"Being educated in an American-oriented high school and university in Lebanon, and then in America itself, had not altered my value orientation regarding women and sexuality. Nor had my travels throughout the world changed the basic ingredients of the culture I acquired in childhood."
"Religion varies with culture."
"In Arabic, 'it is written' might be used to indicate that something is 'divinely predestine,' 'beyond doubt,' 'well documented.' If something is written it becomes, ipso facto, correct."
"Female kin belong to the private domain."
On the Rich
"The rich Arabs are good tippers but bad contributors to purpose-oriented charities. Charity in Lebanon is a private matter, an extension of and means to social power. The exercise of politics is considered an aspect of celebrity, rather than a profession. The job of a politician in Lebanon is not to address public interests but to maintain, reinforce, and expand his own asabiyya, the in-group solidarity he controls. This is usually accomplished through the process of confiscating 'public goods' and redistributing them to followers and supporters."
"The Lebanese consider the possession of money to be of a higher moral value than the method of making it."
by Nabil Dajani