Their politics were valued for their ethics and measured the outcomes of their actions subjectively rather than objectively. They judged themselves in relation to their intentions as well as the results they achieved.
Theirs were the ethics of conviction, not the ethics of expediency.
Moral responsibility
No wonder those intellectuals embraced philosophies that married the requirements of history with the necessity of belonging, the absurdity of existence with moral responsibility, and the power of things with the power of words.
This may explain the incredible popularity of the existential concept of commitment among Arab intellectuals in the 1960s and later its Marxist variations.
It may also explain why the strength of their ideas that made the intellectuals the conscience of their times, the guardian of the oppressed, the bearer of the torch of truth, the defender of values, and the spokespeople for a generation and a culture.
We cannot easily envisage the suffering and the misery of that generation, when they realise the vast disparity between the future they fought for and how the present day actually turned out, with the homeland now only seen as a source of wealth.
In their time, there was no need to define terms like intellectual, or their parameters. There was not a series of discussions over their relationship to the authorities. And that was when their movement constituted a cultural power against the political powers. It was a movement embedded in society, guarding its dreams, expressing its desires, articulating its aspirations, and speaking its language.
Culture based on customs
Back then, culture was established by customs, modes of behaviour, prevailing attitudes and evolving tastes. It did not come from festivals, conferences, seminars and the prizes offered by competitions. It was creativity, criticism, and class struggle that developed and informed thought.
The best thing that official institutions did for that generation was to leave culture alone, not making it an institutional matter, allowing space for the intellectuals to develop their creativity air their differences, and even conflicts, in scholarly struggles.
Today, culture has become something that fills jobs and is organised from offices. It is even a career choice and a path to wealth.
All that has done is foster a fresh generation of so-called intellectuals who are unable to stand up to comparison to their forebears, let alone forge a better future by creating different and novel values.
