A Tragedy of Lost Genius [Archives:2001/06/Focus]

COMMON SENSE
By: Hassan Al-Haifi
One sees it everywhere one turns. For example: He is a poet, a sculptor, artist, engraver, a storyteller, a war hero, and a legend. So many talents does this man have that had he been in any country that embraces talent, innovation and free thought, he would be honored as the Intellectual of the Century. Yet, he is earning his livelihood by chiseling whitewash here and there for whatever anyone would give him. He would never bargain for his fees, although his work even in this menial art is second to none. He does not complain, although he knows that he can outdo anyone he might complain to in everything. He sees the world as merely a passage through which one must walk through, standing at times in amazement at the epitome of life in a land that wishes to see talent become extinct and the savage render all hope futile, because the wild have taken over just about every facet of society, dictating their own selfish desires upon a population that fails to understand that there is nothing to fear, but fear itself, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said.
There are many of the likes of Mohammed S., whom this observer has come to know in this country that has inspired geniuses over the centuries, with its majestic mountains and misty valleys and almost Tolkien like scenery, not to mention the beautiful virgin coastline and the untamed islands.We read about them as they struggled to nurture their genius, by literally having to spend nights and days copying whole books by hand, because they could not afford to buy the few books that were available. Many of them came out with literally hundreds of works, in the various fields of scholasticism: poetry, literature, religion, philosophy, civil order and even industry and economics. However, even in those hard times, people like Yahya Ben Hamza and Al-Showkani were able to produce hundreds of books yes hundreds of books in the finest literary feats of expression.They were the product of a hard knocks era with formal education the way we know it being only a figment of the imagination. Of course there was no Ministry of Culture and no foundations to cater to the development of institutional cultural endeavors. Nor to spread the drive for cultural enhancement to its farthest limits, leaving no stone unturned where genius may be hiding, being that someone, somewhere out there really appreciates innovation, creativity and the drives of the soul that produce output of the mind that appeals to multiple elements of our senses. Those were days when Yemenis knew that their country was poor in economics but rich in cultural momentum, that it needed very little motivation to never cease the continuous flow of genius, well documented in hand written manuscripts, now being traded by the elements of the wild that have come to take over and destroy everything that is good, pleasant and appealing to the taste. In a world of lost values, even national heritage becomes the object of sleazy pirates, who reject the notion that any good can come out of maintaining the treasures of our genius forefathers, to inspire the forthcoming generations of Yemenis to continue the flow of creativity and innovation. However, pirates have no mercy when it comes to things of culture. Pirates these days not only ignore cultural enhancement of themselves, they carry on with such rampages against the already existing treasures, robbing the products of past genius only for them to end up being for the enjoyment of curious museum goers in London, Paris or New York, who have no link with all this productivity that was so hard to come up with, making it even more enriched and saturated with genius being as it is the product of hard times.
Our dear Mohammed S. is a phenomenal genius. That goes without saying, but what is even more tragic is that the handful that really know him and recognize his immense talent are themselves powerless to find the avenues where such genius can be exploited to the full potential that may be reached. Instead they take pleasure in being among those lucky in the society to still be able to hear his fabulous narrative of his own poetry and the hundreds of verses he can quote from memory of all the great poets of the Pre-Islamic Period of Ignorance and the enlightened era of Haroun Al-Rashid, and the other enlightened Abbasid Caliphs, as ruthless as they were at times, where the State became the patron of the arts, literature and creativity in just about any field in which one wished to release the inner genius that freedom alone can launch to produce the remarkable feats of cultural enhancement crossing all the aspects of life and giving life that sense of appreciation for beauty in all its forms.
But alas, we are not living in the Court of Baghdad or amidst the splendid beauty of Andalusia, where millions each year are able to witness the hundreds of cultural implantments inspired by Islamic rulers who competed with each other for attracting the greatest amount of genius to their courts and where creativity was not only rewarded by generous prices for the output of genius, but where institutional development of cultural productivity was the rule of the day, as schools for handicrafts as well as the liberal arts and scholastic thoughts were able to influence many a genius that was to come from Europe to create the nucleus for the modern development of Europe after having gone through so many centuries of slumber, encouraged by a reactionary church that saw widespread knowledge as anathema to religion and of course dangerous to its rigid concept of theocracy and spiritual blindness.
Coming back to Yemen and, for that matter, to many of the other Arab and Moslem countries, we are really in a sorry state when it comes to cultural enhancement. In fact, it seems that any effort to reach out for creativity among the constituencies that make up the fragmented societies that have been enclosed by tight restrictions on cultural development and creative thought, is bound to encounter severe repressive measures to ensure that cultural creativity does not lead to the creation of the ugly reflection that repression is bound to create in the human genius that sees freedom as the only outlet for self-expression in the most beautiful form. Autocratic regimes, with little cultural output to claim for themselves can never be expected to think of nurturing cultural drive and creativity.In fact, they regard the thought of culture growth as dangerous to their tight hold on their people. In fact, the likes of Mohammed S., as humble as they would appear to the normal eye, are seen as the worst enemy to the kind of regimes these autocracies have imposed upon their destitute constituencies.
Mohammed S. it seems, will remain for the enjoyment of the few friends that know him and give their untiring ears and eyes to the serenity his voice inspires, as he rattles off story after story from the past, the present and the bleak future. Only the imagination, as well as the foresight, of genius, can reproduce in such splendidly beautiful terms, rendering the only chance for opening our mouths in amazement and awe at the inspiring magic of human genius, so rare in a social order that literally has killed genius and rendered it inactive as a dynamic mover of the people towards further strides to overcoming the challenges of social decay and fragmentation. Meanwhile, the wild and the heartless of the land create a society that is void of not only rich culture, but has closed the doors of relief from all the subtle, but obviously poisonous venom that has crept into society, killing genius wherever it is to be found and turning any and all hopes for cultural enlightenment in the future into unthinkable wishful thinking.What will happen to Mohammed Ss friends when the most culturally inspiring person in their midst disappears as all those friends of theirs they remember also had their potential genius hemmed in so severely that it has turned everything including culture into an enterprising sleazy social order fitting only for the wild and the pirates of the land.As for the geniuses of the land, they are to busy making ends meet, where there is just no end to the number of ends that must meet, except the end of genius.
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