Lady of the Arab novel Ahlam Mostaghanemi explicitly and Exclusively to Echorouk: “Singing is the shorter way to assassinate the large Arab issues”

She is an amazing woman and writer because she says words without embellishment or equivocation. She insists, as usual, on throwing salt on the depth of the wound, not for free sadism, but because she completely realizes that it is the only method of treatment.

She is the woman of a thousand issues, a writer who loves her Algerian dialect which protects her from the feeling of nostalgia. Away from her homeland “Algeria” she wanted to devote her works for a country that gave birth to both guns and pens. Proud of the Algerian musical inherent and icons, she criticized the “New” ones. She does not hide her deep pain of dwarfing our issues and how our tears become cheap and our wishes small.

Ahlam, who looks for the perfect in everything, as a narcissistic writer, was shocked by the decline of her TV work “Memory in the Flesh” in its second half. She fought to save what can be saved, and blamed the company of production for its disregard to the beauty of Constantine (East of Algeria) and Algiers.

As a writer, Ahlam Mostaghanemi cannot fragment details. You may not like her explicit talk, but you will agree later or at any other time that she is right.

In this interview, she left us with fragments of ideas, proverbs and different facts that she bears as a wound inside her heart.

Echorouk: Algerians become happy when talking to you, because they feel that you are carrying their identities everywhere and because you use their popular expressions. How comes that thirty years away from homeland and this quantum of Arab and Global success did not leave a mark on your personality or language?

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: The majority of Algerians ask me this question when they meet me in the Middle East countries. The first thing which attracts them is the Algeria popular words and proverbs that I use in my talk. They hold me with their affection because I love the Algerian origins which gather us, and live in our hearts despite years of exile. We always use the classic Arab language in the meeting with elites to prove that we are also Arabs, and in the daily life we use the Algerian dialect in order to prove that we are also Algerians. However, I was probably an exceptional case compared to those I see in Lebanon, for example of Algeria women in the spotlight who came there some years after me and some who just arrived, but they speak the Lebanese dialect fluently. I am unable to use the Middle Eastern dialect, although I lived thirty years there, and every time I talk to people in Lebanon, they think that I just arrived then they asked me how I found this country. I think that people’s dialect is their last protection away from homeland, and they have to defend it because it’s the language of blood, no one can change his blood or his brother’s…if he is really inherent.

Echorouk: But some Arabs do not believe that we master the Arabic in Algeria and better than them sometimes.

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: I always said that I am from a generation that boasts of learning Arabic in Algeria not abroad, just like some Algerian journalists who are stars and managers of large Arab TV channels. We are not better in Arabic knowledge, but in loving this language. Passion for this language is the secret of amazing Arab pens in Algerian literature of my generation.

Echorouk: As if you are fighting in a war in each word you say or write.

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: May be this true..As long as I hoped to prove that I belong to a country which do not only gave birth to guns but to pens that are used in fighting. Therefore, nations feel proud of their writers just like they do of their leaders and heroes.

Echorouk: This was in the past…Today you said in a famous article entitled “Country of Singers is my homeland” that homelands are attributed to their singers not to leaders. This article published in 2005, and recently raised controversy in many platforms. Is it still valid at the beginning of the 21^{st century’s} second decimal? 

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: Of course, because we are currently living in a time of singers… Unfortunately, today’s dreams of Arab youngsters are to become singers. For them, it is the shortest and simplest way to fame and wealth, rather than to learn and struggle to reach higher functions. The nation is ready to support this miserable option of today’s youth, simply because it is the shorter way to assassinate the large Arab issues.

Echorouk: What do you mean by assassination?

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: There is no longer a case…All cases have been murdered…Look, in our generation we were ready to die for what we used to see as an issue…Now no one dies for homeland or for a principle. Japanese die and do not cry and even commit suicide and do not cry, while the Arab cries in the queues in front of embassies to get a visa, or in queues to fill out a form to participate in Star Academy. Our tears have become cheap and our wishes small. What really hurts is the singer who becomes a star, a model and a teacher who graduates generations, and a reference in the fads of fashion.

Echorouk: But this singer has a message, regardless of his fashion?

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: Where is this noble message? Does Star Academy have a noble message? Tell me.

Echorouk: Cheb Khaled became famous at a time Algeria was isolated and you said he is silly and fool in your article. Don’t you think that it is a scathing critique?

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: I did not say he is stupid, I said his way of laughing is silly because he answers to each question with laughing and has only a laughing answer in every situation. As for becoming famous at a time Algeria was isolated, I think this was necessary to increase the sense of responsibility, but let me clarify that there are intellectual singers and I did not ask Cheb Khaled to become an intellectual, however, by virtue of his fame he becomes the image of Algeria, and this image do not reflects us. I watched him, years ago, in a French program; he put an earring in his ear and a dog in his lap, and I do not think that this is a model for the Algerian youth. On my days singers carried a noble message such as Abdelhamid Ababsa, Rabeh Deriassa and Ahmed Wahbi, they represented the Algerian art and they were Algerian men in appearance and enthusiasm.

Echorouk: So, according to Ahlam Mostaghanemi, today there are only singers who do not have a message. Is it the end of intellectual’s time?

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: Of course, we got to this time and countries have encouraged such people to vent the energy of youngsters. Fame is shared by singers and players, and thought became a secondary role, especially as culture in many countries has become just clowning because it do not depend on a policy for construction of new human being who can face the cognitive challenges of this time.

Echorouk: Your articles are as famous and popular as your novels. We rarely find an article that can be published every when and everywhere.

Ahlam Mostaghanemi: It is true; this article was a great success and has widely spread; this shows the power of technology. Internet has become scary and I expect more than a million Arab readers because fans visit my facebook pages.