What happened to Arab science fiction?
Nesrine Malik: Despite its many fantastical stories, Arab culture has produced few truly futuristic sci-fi works. Let's fill the gap
Thursday, 30 July 2009
When I was a child, I was an avid fan of science fiction. The Foundation and Dune series in particular were engrossing in their depiction of a human race trying to re-establish itself after upheaval. Despite its geeky stigma, sci-fi seemed to me a genre with a philosophical belief in the tenacity of humanity and the potential of the mind. I was disappointed to find that while Arabic and Middle Eastern literature seemed replete with fantastical anthologies such as One Thousand and One Nights where mystical creatures abound, there appeared to be a dearth of truly futuristic science fiction works rooted in Arab or Muslim culture.
During Ramadan, it is customary for most Arabic TV channels to show high-budget historical dramas focusing on some revered warrior such as Khaled ibn-al-Walid (known as the Sword of God) or medieval soap operas outlining the shenanigans of those cheeky Muslim caliphs and their concubines during the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad or the Umayyad period in Andalucia. While rich in culture, history and characterisation, these works went over familiar ground and fostered an identity fixated on a charismatic past.
It is understandable that in the absence of an Arab equivalent of a Neil Armstrong or Yuri Gagarin we must look for inspiring figures from the past, but this is part of a general malaise in a culture that harks back to the Golden Age when Arabs and Muslims were in the ascendancy, commanding an empire that stretched from India to Spain. The focus is on recapturing that, and not looking forward to a new modern incarnation. Add to this a sense of fatalism and helplessness inculcated by years of social and political stagnation and you have a recipe for suspended imagination; so little has changed in the Arab world over the past few decades that one could be forgiven for thinking that nothing ever will.
Isaac Asimov once said that "true science fiction could not really exist until people understood the rationalism of science and began to use it with respect in their stories". As Khaled Diab highlighted recently in an article for Cif, there is a discernible suspicion of science in the region, particularly when it sits uncomfortably with faith. In terms of science fiction, the genre could be viewed as an extension of a "foreign" heritage with its roots in Darwinism – one at odds with a monotheist world view. Those that have managed to reconcile the two have attempted to, according to Islam Online, use science fiction as a da'wah (proselytising) tool. In one particular book the mathematical structure of the Quran and obscure religious scriptures help avert the disaster of a swelling sun, reinforcing that Islam is the "ultimate revelation".
But this deprives science fiction of its inherently subversive potential; if there is a sense of despair and censorship, what better way to counter the former and circumvent the latter than engage in flights of fancy and imagination? To vicariously revolutionise and hope via a medium of fantasy? With Arab literature so focused on classical themes, an Orwellian allegory, for instance, would tackle the present and envision a future in a more clandestine fashion than a straightforward political attack.
Sultana's Dream is an example of such critique. Written in 1905 by a Muslim feminist writer and social reformer who lived in British India, it is one of the earliest examples of feminist science fiction, and is a sort of gender-based Planet of the Apes where the roles are reversed and the men are locked away in a technologically advanced future.
An indictment of the purdah system, it was much more than simplistic utopian thinking but a philosophically mature vision of a world where, following defeat in a crushing war, men succumbed to isolation in exhaustion and disillusionment with a world dominated by brute male force. It was also an extension of the author's frustration with the limitations imposed upon her by her own society.
Another such vision is long overdue. So let's start with some forward-thinking paradigm-busting ourselves. I'll get the ball rolling:
It is the year 2084 and an impoverished Saudi Arabia has run out of oil. After a period of reversion to decentralised Bedouin tribalism, a group of women has unlocked the secret to harnessing solar power and is winning back areas of the country by negotiating for land in exchange for solar energy, running their state in hippy-like communes.
The US government attempts to strike a deal with the burgeoning female authority by offering protection and security, asking only for a pipeline of cheap energy in payment. When rejected, the US identifies embittered descendants of the Saudi ex-royal family and with their help, gives its support for a male counter-revolution in order to gain control of the new-found technology.
To be continued, below the line …
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009