"Zero reading score"
• On the “Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed” website this morning; The great Algerian writer, Wassini Al-Araj, published an article entitled “Zero Reading Degree,” which he began with shocking words to describe the writers, readers, and critics who did not like the novel “Hawariya,” which was recently crowned with the Asia Djebar Prize, whose credibility was contested. Wassini says: “What the cultural scene in Algeria is witnessing brings us back to Very dangerous questions, which we thought were irreversibly resolved with the defeat of terrorism.
Here it returns with all its terrifying tools, including persecutions and baseless accusations, distortion, inciting public opinion and playing on the easy trinity. Patriotism, religion and morals. It reached the point of trying to move some state institutions to legalize its terrorism. Such as Parliament, some ministries, the judiciary, threats and torrents of insults..))
In this beginning, Wassini links those who objected to Haouaria’s victory to the terrorism that Algeria witnessed in the 1990s, and he repeats that twice in a short paragraph, in a dangerous escalation that I thought the writer would not stoop to, especially after I heard from some colleagues that he had retreated from using obscene descriptions. In his first article, but I was shocked this morning as I read this article of his, which includes explicit incitement against everyone who disagrees with him, as if he were the leader of a political party waging a fierce election campaign, but rather as if he were the leader of a revolutionary movement sweeping major arenas to overthrow a regime, and as I claim that I have known Wasini for years I know his rational mind, his sobriety, and his lack of haste in taking difficult situations.
I was astonished at the last scene in which he appeared strongly advocating for Ms. Inaam Bayoud, who has controlled the Higher Institute of Translation since its founding in 2005. This is a position he did not take even in the uproar that accompanied his novel “Haizia,” and Asini, who remained silent throughout all the years in which the writers were crowned. The youth received the Presidential Award and he did not write about any of them. Today, we find him adopting the Hawariya cause without stopping. Rather, every day he adds a set of shameful descriptions with which to fight everyone who disagrees with him. Is this the failure witnessed by his last novel, “Haizia,” which was full of artistic weaknesses and linguistic errors? And whose publisher tried to inflate the number of its sales, or is it the relationship and interests that link him to Mrs. Inaam Bayoud?
We know very well that the writer Wassini Al-Araj has the upper hand in the Algerian Ministry of Culture and Arts, and has a presence in most of the committees there. He is more than an employee who crosses ministerial duties, and according to the custom of those in high positions, none of these people can fight a colleague of his, because there is a movement of interests and exchanges. It is utilitarian among them. It is not surprising that Wasini is running for Bayadh, as they both have power in their positions.
It would be naive for any young writer to expect from those who give away free copies of Wasini at the International Fair; It is naive for them to expect someone to write about them. Who are you? (According to the dictionary of the Libyan dictator: Muammar Gaddafi), Do you have luxury villas on the western coast of Algiers? You, young people, are just “insects,” according to the description used by Wasini’s friend, “Mohamed Randi,” son of the RND Party of Corruption and Fraud. To describe those who violate it,
The issue has gone beyond being a defense of freedom of writing, which is the slogan that Wasini is trying in vain to raise in his latest attack, because defending writing, literature, and freedom of opinion contradicts describing the violators as: terrorists, hypocrites, beheaders, enemies of art, insects, ISIS... “ISIS” is the word used by the heretic: Bashir Darais, who is drowning in the sea of the public treasury. There was no justification for the lame consolationist nor for anyone else to declare war just because of a simple novel that resembles a written expression for a teenager. We must abandon talking about this ordinary text and its exhausting story. And about the vulgar language it contains (which is a method used by the failed writer to stimulate the reader’s instinct instead of his mind),
We must raise our sights to lofty positions, to material interests, and here I am directing my speech to all intellectuals. And in general, followers who are not from the literary and cultural community, I mean to my dear ones: terrorists, ISIS, enemies of art, hypocrites, insects... You must rise up against these people’s control over the cultural scene. Do not stay in the rooms, do not accept this intimidation, be brave to say: No to corruption and favoritism, no to guardianship, and no to silencing mouths.
Source: websites