Why did Lebanon not produce Fayrouz after the Fayrouz that we knew, and Egypt did not offer us a new Umm Kulthum, and Saudi Arabia did not compensate us for Talal Maddah, and why did Tunisia stop producing poets of the stature of Abi al-Qasim al-Shabi, and we no longer come across in libraries authors like Taha Hussein, poets like Sayyab, and writers like Ghazi Algosaibi? Does this indicate that the Arab nation has sterilized and dried up its wombs?
In the past, we traveled a lot to Taif on a road that no longer exists today. It was beautiful, pleasant and easy, but the disappearance of that road did not lead to the disappearance of Taif, but it became more beautiful and more advanced than it was in the old days. The simple features of that road were wonderful by our standards at the time, not by sacred standards, and when those landmarks disappeared, their aesthetics disappeared with them, and only memories remained of them, which are the same memories that those who want to bring back Umm Kulthum and Fayrouz mourn.
What was past is not now. If Ghazi Al-Qusaibi returns today, he will not find the position he deserved in his time. His issues are gone with him. Read one of his books. You will not find his theses that gave him value. The new generation does not know them, and they are not among his interests, and they are not present in his memory, and they no longer worry anyone.
Nostalgia in many of its elements is a struggle between what you used to be and a reality that leaves you behind. Your clinging to Umm Kulthum or Fayrouz is your struggle with your end and with your youth that has passed. This crackling, pattering, rickety poems, and the gossip of social media celebrities (insignificant!) that you hear from the new generation and condemn is not as bad as it seems to you, but it is building a new taste for a new world in the face of a world in which you are fighting to stay with your expired cargo, your world is collapsing and collapsing to start the world of others, this struggle between Generations is a reconciliation between a vibrant society and a society crawling towards extinction. Umm Kulthum and Fayrouz will not be repeated. This is true, but not because Umm Kulthum or Fayrouz are great and rarely accomplished. They were both great artists in the context of their day, the taste of their generation, and with outdated standards.
Those jogging down the Boulevard do not realize that they will fall into the nostalgic trap in which I fell. Every generation thinks that it lives eternal days. Umm Kulthum and Fayrouz were hostages to the tranquility that filled those days. When Umm Kulthum appeared in her infancy, there was no technology other than CDs and the radio that broadcast her songs.
The song today loses its value in a month or two, not because it is bad, but because the new technology consumes it. You can listen to it every moment and anywhere until you get bored, while Umm Kulthum's song you need to prepare yourself to listen to it either on a CD at home or wait for the programmer to broadcast it kindly on radio and television. You cannot hear it more than once or twice, let's say three times a day, like a hungry mouthful of food that you chew and lick in your mouth before letting it slide into your conscience, waiting for it to come to you again. Umm Kulthum and Fayrouz (and the artists of the beautiful time!) prevailed in the slow time.
The most beautiful thing about this trap that I fell into is that it awaits all generations. It gives you the opportunity to fight as if you will be victorious, but you are defeated and defeated.
Fate brings you and your generation together in the corner of the end and in a treacherous way extinguishes you one by one. This is with cancer, this is with a stroke, and that is with old age, then it comes and puts your place in the new end of those who have been equipped. He will resist as you resist in order to stay, but the day of departure creeps towards him as he crawled towards you steadily, until the hour comes when you come to the cemetery surrounded by weeping that you do not hear and tears that you do not see, strengthened and honored, carried on the necks, and the world is extinguished in your eyes forever, in the cemeteries there is room for everyone.
Abdullah bin Bakhit