Arab Existentialism: An Invisible Chapter in the Intellectual History of Decolonization

Yoav Di-Capua is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches modern Arab intellectual history. He is the author of Gatekeepers of the Arab Past: Historians and History Writing in Twentieth-Century Egypt (University of California Press, 2009). He is currently at work on a new book, tentatively titled Transnational Arab Thought and the Global Culture of the 1960s. His research is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Texas Humanities Research Award. In May 1944, when the Egyptian philosopher ʿAbd al-Rahman Badawi defended his dissertation on existential time, Taha Husayn, the doyen of modern Arab letters, declared it the birth of modern Arab philosophy. The defense was a national event, and the widely distributed Egyptian daily al-Ahram immediately shared the news with its readers.1 Six years later, Badawi announced that he had devised a new philosophy for “our generation.” He called it existentialism (wujudiya), and though it shared the name of the European movement, it was not simply a carbon copy of it, but rather a series of formulations and adaptations that collectively sought to create a new postcolonial Arab subject: confident, politically involved, independent, self-sufficient, and above all liberated. Whether in its Heideggerian or its Sartrean form, we normally think of existentialism solely as a chapter in European intellectual history. Yet in the context of decolonization, Arab intellectuals processed the ideas of Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre into an entirely new intellectual tradition that was European in origin and Middle Eastern by design. What began as an esoteric experiment on a philosopher's desk grew into a decentralized yet influential intellectual movement with meaningful global connections. By the early 1960s, Arab culture was dominated by the language, assumptions, and politics of existentialism. Yet this story has thus far remained an invisible chapter in the intellectual history of decolonization. The emergence of Arab existentialism as a major category of Arab thought coincided with the worldwide process of decolonization and the rise of the first generation of Third World regimes.2 Between the end of World War II, when pro-colonial Arab monarchies teetered, and the 1967 Six-Day War, when the revolutionary Arab states that had replaced the monarchies were defeated, a young generation of Arab intellectuals employed variants of existentialism in order to meet the multiple challenges of decolonization: cultural contradictions, uneven development and the consequent social injustice, a struggle for full physical liberation, and the derivative search for an alternative Cold War political space. This process triggered a set of pressing questions: Who is the Arab subject in the wake of the colonial experience? Can this subject think of himself or herself in terms and language that would be organic to his or her history? Can Arabs have an authentic existence, and is it possible for them to become modern on their own terms? On the eve of decolonization, in the Indian subcontinent, Africa, and East Asia, a host of intellectuals, writing in multiple languages, were asking the same questions.3 These concerns conditioned the work of Badawi's existentialist generation, people such as the Egyptian Marxist critic Mahmud Amin al-ʿAlim, the journalist Lutfi al-Khuli, the Lebanese man of letters Suhayl Idris, the Iraqi poet ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Bayati, and hundreds of other intellectuals were in the early Yet a later, the of the 1967 War and of the Arab existentialism was for the that existentialism was to decolonization, it is that is that the intellectual generation of Arab the global context of their This is of a be called the intellectual history of decolonization. Third World intellectuals and their ideas decolonization, and in were by it, is an yet it in of a of on decolonization and On the of it that have this on decolonization on the of as a process that the to the in the of the of of this work of the of this was not simply but in by This process was in terms of and political and have as rather of with that was and it The of the of this be in of the of the of decolonization for research on the subject of decolonization to of the an of and and to a have with the that the history of for the of ideas this postcolonial a that has a of the of the has to thought and its global it an to on as as a of the of the the of the of colonial with the of the of a and far that as the for all of we with the that was by the process of decolonization. postcolonial with and a of it has to by of a and of people their as on Third World and is to new the of intellectual history to This in the Arab intellectuals in a existentialist tradition that the of with its on physical and a of Arab existentialism thus a it decolonization as a process with an cultural and intellectual the of modern Arab and the and culture the of to the politics and culture and the and on this it to create a new intellectual rise to an Third World Arab Arab existentialism as a for and cultural and was an in with the global In it to the of a new Arab a new Yet it was to with all of Arab existentialism not as a and but as a intellectual the of existentialism was not the of a or but rather a process in European existentialism its at the same in it was with Arab thought and of this Arab existentialism as a and at thus be not as a of an European but as a of thought as in ideas cultural and and not intellectual to In with this the story of Arab existentialism with Badawi's to the Arab the of colonial culture by European existentialism with philosophy. with the of Suhayl and Mahmud Amin to a revolutionary and of existentialism and it to the In the 1960s, Arab intellectuals existentialism as a to with the global culture of as it was as a Arab such as and Iraqi it to a of the Arab of the of Arab existentialism was to to its by such this intellectual tradition would be to its by other Sartre On the eve of the 1967 War, he and their to the philosopher his his Arab and with his name with and his was to as a multiple existentialist variants new on decolonization to people on the and thought to it and in the history of Arab existentialism that and the of decolonization have a meaningful intellectual history of in the philosopher and the to with the in Egypt with the he for as a of philosophy at where he had for years the a and of was on the of this young and at with of the European and to the in search of his in began with ʿAbd al-Rahman an work would the and of existentialism in the Middle in the this in European for with to the in by had the of with we and with of by the of at the of to in had a of in He thus as a and and and He was a of that of would not a new of the development of philosophy but would the for an entirely new of his to intellectuals to a and a the in this and were and was a with and was for and Heidegger to was an and the first of and and other for Sartre to and was a of this that not entirely in for his first in the in the of He with to Egypt a with the and philosophy. his a to Badawi was to in a had to he a new of Martin and These the rise of Arab and Badawi that is not simply an that at the end of but rather an that of the of the with He began to think in Heideggerian to in terms of and to it a in it is not or but and In other Badawi to of the of a is or her is the of his or her and is of the and the that is Yet by the Badawi had to this new of had Egypt for where he would himself as a of an of the had an to What he was a of a himself and Badawi with his to modern and the was new to the Arab and was the name to a existentialism and Badawi his He was for his His to philosophy at the was not in Badawi's titled that is 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