Shakespeare and Intellectual Castration in the Arab World: Hamlet as a Detached Arab Intellectual in Jawad Al-Assadi's Forget Hamlet

Ziad Abushalha

doi:10.32996/ijllt.2022.5.1.28

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the crises of the Arab intellectuals under the policies of some Arab regimes. It analyses Jawad Al-Assadi's Forget Hamlet as an example of this political oppression that targeted Arab intellectuals in the Ba'athy Iraq, headed by Sadam Hussien. The study discusses the theme of the neutral Arab intellectual who kept a silent position in a time of political crisis. It traces how Hamlet in this adaptation was dramatized as a hapless and inactive intellectual to mock those Iraqi intellectuals, in particular, and Arab intellectuals, in general, who succumbed to power and avoided speaking truth to the oppressive regimes. After analyzing the scope of intellectualism in the play, the study discusses how Hamlet became a signifier to reflect the Arab intellectual crises in a time of political oppression.

Highlights

One of the political aspects that the Arabic Hamlets commented on is the massive oppression and the silencing policies enforced by Arab regimes on many Arab intellectuals
| ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating the crises of the Arab intellectuals under the policies of some Arab regimes
Jawad Al-Assadi[1], the author of Forget Hamlet, was one of those Iraqi academics, journalists, clergymen, and artists impacted by the undemocratic Ba'athy regime

Summary

Introduction

One of the political aspects that the Arabic Hamlets commented on is the massive oppression and the silencing policies enforced by Arab regimes on many Arab intellectuals. Al-Assadi had fled Iraq to Bulgaria immediately after the Ba'athists got a grip over Iraq in 1966. He earned a PhD in Theatrical Studies in Bulgaria and kept his 25-year exile working in Eastern Europe, Syria and UAE before settling in Iraq after the demise of Sadam Hussein's regime in 2003 (Carlson, Litvin and Arab, 2016, 227). Represents Hussein's oppression of the Iraqi intellectuals, and Hamlet's searching for serenity and spirituality instead of stopping Claudius' "guillotine" that "has crushed people near and far" (Al-Assadi, 2016, 271), is a mockery of the Arab intellectuals who remained neutral and silent against Hussein's brutality It has bilateral political allegories: Claudius targets "the scholars and wise people" (Al-Assadi, 2016, 271). represents Hussein's oppression of the Iraqi intellectuals, and Hamlet's searching for serenity and spirituality instead of stopping Claudius' "guillotine" that "has crushed people near and far" (Al-Assadi, 2016, 271), is a mockery of the Arab intellectuals who remained neutral and silent against Hussein's brutality

Objectives

Conclusion