1 - Political memoirs in the Arab republics

Summary

The practice of writing biographies and autobiographies has a long history in both Western and Arabic civilizations. Historians have been challenged by the subjectivity of personal memoirs since the days of chronicling the Romans. Commenting on the task facing historians of England, Benjamin Disraeli wrote: “Generally speaking, all the great events have been distorted, most of the important causes concealed, some of the principal characters never appear, and all who figure are so misunderstood and misrepresented that the result is a complete mystification.” Yet, given the lack of archival resources, the recollections gathered in memoirs of all types can help bring the past to life in remarkable ways. As one eminent historian put it:

We historians, too, have to go back and immerse ourselves into that same “conceptual climate,” to reconstruct what people – leaders and led alike – knew up to that point, the memories and experiences that shaped their fears, expectations and mentalities.

Elie Kedourie's seminal study about Arab political memoirs in the 1970s stated: “That they apologize, or palliate or embellish or suppress, in no way diminishes the value of what they write.” From ancient times, those engaged in political life recorded their deeds and accomplishments in personal memoirs. The motivation for “presenting one's life” was seen as an “act of thanking God and for others to emulate.” As Judith Tucker observes about the role of biographies in the Middle East:

The meaning of an individual life can thus be sought in its impact, for good or ill, on the past and present. It is here that biography and history are joined together as mutual influences, through their shared understanding of human agency and of the extent to which the meaning of an individual life is to be grasped only in the context of a community informed by a past, inhabiting a present, and anticipating a future.

Some modern historians in the Arab world looked to memoirs as an important research tool. One Egyptian scholar who examined memoirs of Egyptian politicians over a period of ninety years argues that they constitute an integral part of researching the country's political history. He rejects the notion that “non-objective” sources such as recollections, diaries, and memoirs are less valuable than “objective” sources such as archives, party manifestos, laws and regulations. Political memoirs fall within the comprehensive camp of historiography.