Fall 2007 Vol. VI, No. 1

An Invitation to Laughter

(University of Chicago Press: 2007). By Fuad I. Khuri; edited by Sonia Jalbout Khuri
"An Invitation to Laughter," by the late Professor Fuad Khuri is 'three in one." In introducing the book Khuri suggests 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.

Through reporting about his "personal observations and daily interactions" Khuri takes the reader on a stimulating tour of his life happenings, all through injecting sharp observations about Arab culture and anthropological research methods. The book was in draft form when Professor Khuri passed away in 2003; his wife completed its editing.

Khuri's personal memoirs introduces the reader to a Lebanese villager from Akkar who struggles to finance his education in his village, in a high school in Tripoli, at AUB, and then at the University of Oregon. He discusses collecting his PhD data through surveys and participant observation in West Africa, joining the AUB faculty for over twenty years, conducting field work in Bahrain and Yemen, heading a philanthropic institution in Lebanon, and living in England. His account is full of insights about cultural practices in places he visited. What made Fuad Khuri a great Arab anthropologist is his probing mind and his skill at combining observations with pointed insights that assist one in understanding changes undergoing the Arab world today.

He proposes that "freedom of self-expression is not a 'public right' in the Arab world. The 'free' stands in opposition to the 'bound' or the 'enslaved'-it refers, 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 contends, "like honor, women, and family, is a confidential matter; it 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 the warring factions, [during the Lebanese civil war] placed upon tactics, rather than 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, "[b]ecause the sexes [in Arab culture] 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 that 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." "…the Lebanese were fighting a deadly sectarian war, but writing about sects was taboo."

In his concluding chapter Fuad Khuri states that "the people we love never die, they survive in our memory. To me, that is eternity." How true: Fuad Khuri is loved by his colleagues at AUB and is surviving in their memory.

Nabil Dajani

On Research

"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, 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 Arab cultural 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.

..the behavioral restrictions that separate Muslims and non-Muslims in an Islamic state are the same as those that divide the strong from the weak, and men from women, irrespective of religious affiliations..

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.

Surrounded by yes men, by people dancing to their tune, the rich become intolerant of differences and disagreements; they abhor criticism and opposition.

The Lebanese consider the possession of money to be of a higher moral value than the method of making it.