Bringing various cultures together is one of the greatest tasks of contemporary times, says Lucie Němečková.

What is the level of interaction between Arabs and Czechs? Is Arabic literature written here different from the one written “at home”? Do Arabic and Czech literati communicate with each other?

I don’t really know the Arabic community as a whole. It is a very diverse and fairly large group. I know various people who are active in the realm of culture, literature or theatre but I don’t perceive them as "Arabs" even though they come from Algeria, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Tunisia or Lebanon... I consider these people to be my friends and artists who enrich our cultural milieu. Of course, the fact that they come from "somewhere else" plays a significant role in this. Equally important, however, are their Czech endeavours.

I don’t really know the Arabic community as a whole. It is a very diverse and fairly large group. I know various people who are active in the realm of culture, literature or theatre but I don’t perceive them as "Arabs" even though they come from Algeria, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Tunisia or Lebanon... I consider these people to be my friends and artists who enrich our cultural milieu. Of course, the fact that they come from "somewhere else" plays a significant role in this. Equally important, however, are their Czech endeavours.

Is it a closed community?
People like Adda Keddam, Rachid Rahma, Charif Bahbouh, Jafar and Sana Heddar, Marwan Al Solaiman, Saana Ramadan, Burhan Kalak, to name a few Arab poets, translators and musicians who live here, definitely aren’t insular. Quite the opposite, as far as I know, they initiate various projects and cooperate on their execution with Czechs as well as other Europeans, Africans, Americans, French and others who live in the Czech Republic. They are very open-minded, educated and cultured with a great sense of humour and an open heart and love for Arabic and Czech language; their own as well as their adopted country. This is manifested by the festival of Arab cultures in Pilsen, the activities of the Czech-Arab society, the festival Nad Prahou půlměsíc or this year’s Book World, which was dedicated to Arab literatures.

Do Arabs who live here reflect upon Czech reality?
Due to the fact that I tend to view the artists from Arab countries with a permanent residence in the Czech Republic – same as Czech Africans – as Czech artists, I consider their work to be part of Czech literature in its new guise. Alas, so far it has remained marginalized, underrated and largely unfathomed. Some of the Arab artists have been drawn to the Czech Republic because of the country’s cultural reputation, such as Adda Keddam. He used to work on children’s theatre in the Algerian city Oran and moved here because our theatre has a good name in his native country and he also wanted to broaden his horizons in theatre. Initially, he acted in English at the Black Box Theatre which was followed by the French at Divadlo na voru and his current engagement in Czech at Divadlo na Prádle among others. Keddam even started to write poems here – in Czech! His first collection should be published this year in Charif Bahbouh’s publishing house Dar Ibn Rushd. Bahbouh is the only local publisher who consistently explores the Czech-Arabic cultural relations (aside from Roma, Indian and other issues). Prague in particular has become a great inspiration to many poets – not only Al-Jawahiri and Charif Bahbouh, one of whose poetry collections is entitled Nad Prahou hořký půlměsíc (A Hot Half Moon Above Prague). Other writers such as Jafar Hedar, who had an illuminating lecture on Arabic calligraphy at the book fair, have also written fondly about the Bohemian capital. Then there is the Yemeni poet and playwright Al-Sharafi who was an ambassador here between 1964 and 1998 and who still returns to the Czech Republic from time to time. Some of the poems of Adda Keddam explore the topic of love across two cultures – Arabic and Czech.

What other activities do you pursue here in terms of Arabic literature aside from the festival Nad Prahou půlměsíc (Hot Moon Above Prague)?

I have been running a festival focused on theatre and drama of African lands entitled Tvůrčí Afrika aneb Všichni jsme Afričani (Creative Africa: We are All Africans) for ten years. My Arab friends had always encouraged me to set up a festival that would be dedicated to Arabic culture. Thus the festival Nad Prahou půlměsíc was born named after Charif Bahbouh’s aforementioned collection. This autumn, it will be its third year and the festival will take place in several locations – Prague, Brno and perhaps even Hradec Králové. There has been a growing interest in Arabic culture. At the same time I still also have to face preconceptions, even from "educated and cultured people". People are intimidated by Arabs, scared of their religion and culture. Constantly bombarded by messages from the media, they are made to believe that every Arab is a terrorist, each Muslim a fundamentalist and each Arab woman a submissive housewife. These are all irrational cliches that we have thoughtlessly come to accept. We are manipulated into the game – us vs. them.  The Isreali-Palestinian conflict, for instance, divides our society. When you are dealing with Arab cultures, you get branded as an anti-Isreali person by default - and vice versa in the sense that The one who is not with us, is against us even though this is completely irrational and untrue.

A play by a leading Arab author has been declined solely because of his origin even though he is a globally recognized figure, a non-Muslim who denounces fundamentalism. It was very difficult to hire out theatres for a quiet show about Arabic poetry, for instance. The evening turned out well in the end, a woman from the audience even came to thank me.  She said she had been very scared of a terrorist attack and thus came to check out those who are generally portrayed as terrorists – the Arabs.  She really loved the evening, which was full of delicate poetry and humanity, and asserted that this encounter was truly "explosive”.

I’ve been increasingly interested in various cultures being interconnected with each other. This year’s festival will thus not be purely Arabic, but also Persian, Afghan and Turkish… We would like to host an Israeli-Palestinian evening at the next year’s edition. Interconnecting and encountering various cultures is the greatest task of contemporary times. Hopefully we’ve been making at least some progress in this respect.

 

Interview by: Jan Lukavec

Photo: J. Lukavec