Dialogue: Saleh Al-Shammari 

Najib Al-Zamil is one of the most prominent opinion writers in the Kingdom, given the large follow-up his articles published in local and foreign newspapers enjoy. He is one of the few Saudi writers who cannot be classified within the trends that control the intellectually influential elites in the country, a feature that has made his articles published by newspapers on their websites a target for the discussions of youth of various inclinations, and an important measure of their views on the diverse issues that Al-Zamil is interested in presenting in his articles.

 Najib is one of the sons of the Al-Zamil family, which is considered one of the most important commercial houses in the Eastern Province. He works in a leadership position within a company belonging to his family. He is a semi-daily writer in the newspapers ((Al-Eqtisadiah)) and ((Al-Yaum)), and he maintains publication in more than one Arab and foreign magazine and newspaper, in addition to his active participation in specialized journals in anthropology. He was chosen as a member of the Saudi Shura Council in its last session. He is known for his great interest in various volunteer activities, and he established the ((Amtar)) cultural forum, which some consider the core of a cultural gathering that might be able to compete with the most famous cultural events once it finds interest from its founder, who admitted to us in our dialogue with him that his great preoccupation affected his giving during the recent period in the forum.

Many know Mr. Najib Al-Zamil for his special style in the distinctive informational narrative of the article, but few know the reference of this academic cognitive accumulation. Can you give us an overview of your years of cognitive attainment?

 I grew up from my childhood passionate about reading, and from the fourth grade of primary school, that passion reached the level of devotion and isolation... The beginning was in English picture books and written storybooks from the Aramco library, and from what American families t rid of in the Sunday markets.. At that time we were living in Ras Tanura - the labor suburb of Rahima, because my father worked as a chemist in the oil refinery. After that, my uncle Ahmed Al-Abdullah Al-Zamil traveled to Kuwait, who specialized in auditing accounting and was an intellectual in his time and had a popular column in the Dhahran newspaper, to work for a major company belonging to one of the elder relatives there and succeeded in making a giant company. He left a reservoir for me that was unbelievable. My grandmother Ruqayya Al-Khunaini, may d have mercy on her, collected all his books in what we call the "stairwell," and there I used to retreat like monks and read from the original Arabic and English books and t to know the major philosophical schools and the great opinion makers in the world.. The fourth year did not end before the doctor advised my family that I should wear glasses because of strain in my vision, and that I should reduce reading.. The first succeeded with me so I wore glasses since the age of childhood and still do, and the second resulted in nothing but a turbulent increase in reading.. Of course, that affected my childhood and I lived isolated from friends with my glasses and information and my peers did not accept me.. But my mother was always there, keen that I grow up as a normal child.. For my mother, I am still that child.

You write in more than one Arab and foreign newspaper, how do you reconcile your various works with writing?

Yes, everyone asks me about time, in my work in the family company, and in my scattered social works, and in the Shura and in my connections inside and outside the Kingdom, and my writings in more than one Arabic and foreign magazine and newspaper and participation in magazines specialized in research thought and anthropology. Perhaps the reason is that I exploit every time by the nature of the love of the things I do, and my maximum benefit from my mother's keenness to wake me up before dawn so I read before dawn and after prayer until eight or nine which is a period of general calm, and in the afternoon it is not my nature to sleep so it is the time of writing.. Of course, I admit that sometimes I feel like a poor circus magician who juggles several balls, so the balls slip away from him, and he slips away too.. but it also serves as a new awakening to start with discipline and dedication again.

A friend in ((Al-Eqtisadiah)) told me that Najib Al-Zamil is among the few writers who do not receive a riyal in exchange for what they write, but rather stipulate

transferring them to charitable societies, how true is that?

I asked myself and confirmed that the news may not be correct. But I like to participate in every place I am invited to without compensation so I can taste being a volunteer, which is a taste that whoever experiences it will not give it up.

The volunteer work that Najib Al-Zamil does and dedicates much of his articles to, tell us about the experience of volunteer work in Saudi Arabia from a close view of this world, and are there actually negatives to volunteer work as is rumored about young volunteers?

I will answer you briefly here: It is absolutely necessary that there are mistakes in the work performed by workers, and those who do not make mistakes are those who do not work in the first place.. So the mistake is proof of work, on one hand, and on the other hand, people cannot learn and acquire experiences and expertise and overcome these problems and employ expertise except from the mistakes they fall into.. Therefore, workers must listen to criticism if it is sincere and correct their work in its light, and if it is criticism just for the sake of criticism as Taha Hussein said ((Those who do not work and are upset that others work)) it is also beautiful because it makes you alert, like someone who pokes you in your side to hurt you, but he wakes you up so you don't sleep while you are driving on the long road.

The youth group from 20 to 35 years is considered the segment most reading Najib Al-Zamil, through a count of the comments that come to your articles on the internet, to what do you attribute that?

I attribute it to the youth themselves, they are the group that reads more.. Then they love to read something practical and understood that they can perform, not to listen or read for thought sunk in theorizing and pedantry, or hurling opinions that create cracks in the wall of the nation's unity.. The youth prove that they are more aware and mature, whenever you treat them as such, that is as they actually are - you win their love and respect and they reward you with encouragement and following.

The other side of the life of the writer specialized in nourishing society's awareness with his interesting style, can you give our readers an overview of it?

Najib is an ordinary person to the point of boredom, no wall of privacy, no secrets, and no rituals.

You find him in tourist trips or in public places, mixing with people and loving them and traveling for them whenever they invite him, and he only cares that they are people who honored him when they invited him... he has little presence at celebratory occasions when the task is just mere attendance.

((Amtar)) ..the beautiful forum that brings together cultural elites and covers an important side of Najib Al-Zamil's dreams, some accuse you that your interest in it has decreased significantly compared to the beginnings?

True, and you are right. The beginnings were great and successful and the elders who attended from all fields benefited us, and so was the Al-Zamil forum in the Eastern Province.. Now I am trying to restore the luster of ((Amtar)) anew and it will have programs for honoring and celebration even outside Riyadh.. and soon I hope you will hear joyful news.

What has Najib Al-Zamil achieved from ((Amtar)) so far, and what does he want to achieve?

I am a person who walks without an agenda, and I am keen on that. I know that people are extremely intelligent and sensitive towards agendas, especially utilitarian ones, and they know them from the first moment. Therefore, I did not find it appropriate for Amtar's activity to be under a family name or commercial promotion for the family or its works, so the name was ((Amtar)) as an omen of cognitive odness. It is also not a periodical; whenever I see a person or a working group benefiting society, and putting their arm to build cognitive, practical and scientific advancement, I run after them so they would favor me by accepting the forum's invitation to speak through the limited place to the whole society.. they are always with us, and they are indeed the ones who made the forum successful, the media men who seek the same concern.

Gandhi says: Man should open the windows of his house to the winds coming from all directions provided they do not uproot him from his roots. How can we harmonize between maturity in presenting cultural work and standing at the distance of customs and traditions if we agree it does not contradict religion?

I believe in anthropological knowledge; rather I believe that anthropology is not only a science but a justification and a cause for human coordination throughout history, and the secret of peace on earth when peace prevails, because it is the science that gives knowledge that makes you be in the place of the other so you think in his way - not that you believe in his way or the ways of his beliefs or thinking - and therefore you understand his actions and reactions, and the chronic cause through the ages in the emergence of conflicts of all kinds ends: which is poor communication due to poor understanding.. Here knowledge is not a wind

as the wrong proverb in the question depicts, nor does it affect from near or far the deep rooting and religious firmness of the individual in particular.. and windows here only need to let in fresh air, so that air stagnation does not corrupt the brain..!!

What is the definition of an intellectual from your point of view?

The true intellectual is the spontaneous one, like the sun rising every day and spreading warmth and life, while she did not intend that and does not know that.. and she doesn't care to know!

Observers of the cultural affair in the Kingdom believe that the intellectual and cultural movement, whose pace has escalated recently, benefited from incoming cultural trends without merging into them. How do you see it with all its contents and figures?

No, the intellectual and cultural craft has not developed in the Kingdom, sorry to say. We are still narrative prose writers interested in the writing flood more than the yielding fruit of attainment. Most of those who write in the cultural sphere are those who were not created by deep cultural thought through diverse scientific reading and deep absorption of diverse global intellectual literatures and reading archaeological history in particular, so a class arose that writes only on ordinary affairs with ordinary emotion and meets an equivalent response from people so it thinks it is popular, but we lack the intellectual craft that advances nations as Rousseau, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Trotsky did in qualitative cognitive shifts or as the Angry Young Men movement did in America or Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, and Al-Akkad, Taha Hussein and Al-Hakim in Egypt. The first introduced the doctrine of primary thinking in verification and called for it on the idea of Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd before Descartes.. or Al-Akkad who transferred the novel and poetry and published deep and cold Anglo-Saxon rational philosophy, and Tawfiq al-Hakim who transferred the French theatrical artistic spirit to Egypt... There are no true thinkers for our nation, but rather those who tried to be thinkers and raised more dust on the scene than they enriched the cognitive value in the society that aspires to be cultured.

 How do you evaluate the media environment in all its forms, especially since we live at this time in a state of media freedom in presentation and also a great noise in dealing with this freedom?

The greatest current myth is that there is a cultural milieu; perhaps there is a milieu that would like to be looked at as cultured. After the spill of information and ideas without borders, culture has become a global matter, like football, like politics, and all sciences.. Some of the readers who respond to my articles and what I read sometimes in blogs of high cultures and an astonishing ability in style and linguistic and cognitive mastery amaze me.. so I ask myself: truly.. who are you?!

A trend has appeared among intellectuals to to court because of responses and articles. How do you see this phenomenon and its effects?

Intellectuals do not litigate!

You mentioned in your famous article: When I left prayer ((The secret of prayer is that it does not change the world, prayer changes us.. and we change the world)), wisdom, enlightenment and bearing Islamic concern were clear in that. Do you see that the writer who does not take upon himself the dissemination of , virtue and guidance fails his society !?

No never, he does not fail his society, but rather fails himself!

Najib Al-Zamil is an image of a cultured productive human being interacting with society and communicating with newspapers and lighting the cultural dome and simulating individual life affairs through articles and personal presence, how do you see him?

Is there anyone hearing us? Between you and me these days, our relationship, him and I, is not well... My friend, I don't like him. He must exert more and give more.

The article ((Salafism, is this its time)) by Dr. Ziad Al-Drees commenting on the Salafism forum had a wide echo. From your point of view, how do you see the forum?

The question: Does Salafism or any religious call need a planned conference.. I believe that you here are restricting a cosmic issue in the palm of a hand.. and the action and return would be for that hand.

Najib Al-Zamil is credited with not entering into intellectual conflicts with any trend whatsoever through his writings. Do you intend this? Why?

If I saw od in conflict, I would have bought entire warehouses and distributed them for free to spread od.. Conflicts only benefit by increasing and aggravating the wound like someone in quicksand and then carrying an extra rock which is conflict between his hands.. so he sinks more. In the wall of the nation there are cracks sufficient for us to work on for tens of years, so to those who incite conflicts we say: enough, give us a break until we restore those cracks, then ((it's okay)) start again, if this makes you happy.. The truth, my friend, is that those who are fond of conflict are those empty of thought, for they have no thought to present. Human schools of thought have long differed but without stoning and conflicts that split the nation into feuding, warring groups.. Furthermore, the ability to use language is the qualifying merit for the innate writer, for he can say his opinion strongly and frankly without resorting to conflict and shouting... Resorting to conflict expresses emptiness inside, and a defect in mastering the craft.

((Shura Council)) what about your membership in it, and do you think that the achievements of the members of the current session parallel your ambitions before the membership?

Look my dear, you cannot praise a place while you are in it, this is not only because it might not be believed, but I see it as a duty not to overstate praise for something you have a direct personal affair in. Also, you cannot publish a contrary opinion even if it is correct while you are in it because you have an opportunity for reform as much as possible because you are within the inside, and whenever you beyond that, it becomes defamation.. But about myself personally, I am not satisfied at all with my performance in the Shura.. until now. And ((now)) of course means most of the period as we are in the fourth year, so I hope my situation improves.

Social networks confirm that Al-Zamil is a renewed writer, who benefits from technology to attract people through information. What do you say about this experience, especially since you are one of the Saudi writers who most attracts the interests of users of these networks?

In social sites you are exposed before people as you truly are.. you are in a public council that does not accept posturing, nor does it accept haughtiness, for people all have the same right whether you liked it or not, so no place is higher than another, and no place is lower than another. You don't prevent an opinion, and no one prevents your opinion. Everyone pours what is in the heart directly or this is what it should be.. So whoever does not have the capacity for instantaneous spontaneity, and a broad and welcoming heart, and love and acceptance of opinions and not just accepting them, and considering that opinions might be better than your opinions, or vice versa, then you will only be an isolated island in those sites.. and I will tell you something also, that a large number of followers may be a false indicator and never indicates the person's genius or cleverness.. Put the name of an artist or entertainer and choose the silliest.. and be sure!

You are considered one of the writers who care about transferring the literature and ideas of other nations to Saudis. Someone interpreted this interest as reform while another interpreted it as Westernization. What do you say?

I say if the ((House of Wisdom)) in the days of Al-Ma'mun, which transferred Indian, Persian, Chinese and Greek thought to the river of Arabic knowledge, and which is still the object of admiration of high global intellectual circles, is Westernization.. then let the two weights (men and jinn) witness that I am the first of the Westernizers!

Do you see that we need greater firmness regarding intellectual and literary theft?

Let us leave verbal affectation; you are simply asking: do we leave the thief without punishment? what do you think? I give you a definition of a thief: he is whoever steals a penny from a drawer, and whoever steals a bank, and whoever steals a state, and whoever steals a sentence, and whoever steals a book.. all are in the catery of thieves and what applies to thieves applies to them, and if the explicit thief has a reaction about him tailored according to his appearance or position then we have here put a fake mask on the thief from ourselves.. so we would then also be thieves.. don't be upset with me.

Is there an intention to issue specific books by Mr. Najib Al-Zamil? Why is your relationship with the Arabic book weaker than its foreign counterpart?

I have more than twenty manuscripts including a novel entitled ((The India Box)) about the adventures of a Najdi who went out from Al-Qassim to Kuwait and Iraq and witnessed the partition of the Indian nation in the year 1948 AD. And in the science of civilizations (anthropology) and in archaeological sciences, and in mathematics in particular, and in music as a mixture of sciences and in environment and health and in philosophy (in English).. I have a problem with publishing and I remember one day Asharq Al-Awsat answered the same question, as it wrote with a bold headline: ((Al-Zamil suffers from a psychological complex )).. I don't know! Some youth working on collecting the questions addressed to me with my answers convinced me and they will release them in a book soon entitled ((They Asked Me)).. it might break the complex!

By the way, why don't we see work on a program for anthropological and heritage scientific research that introduces Saudi human history, and establishing a national museum interested in the history of the Saudi people and giving a larger social movement?

Exactly, and this is what we were talking about in the previous answer, that the presence of major cognitive thinkers is sufficient for the underlying intellectual preparation for the whole society, but because the intellectual blood lacks the hemoglobin of knowledge in pursuit of the easy, instigating or exciting article away from the sobriety and rules of language, and away from deep thought, wide reading and broader vision, there was no time, nor a quality that allows the cultural society to be prepared for its major basic equipment through which knowledge will flow into all its veins.. Also, the entire society occupied itself with the prestige of achievement more than the subject of achievement.

Future of Saudi youth, how do you see it?

The previous generation provided works for the nation and they were not the object of hopes, so there is no choice before the current young generation except to be a stage for paving the road for coming generations so that the nation does not fail again.. otherwise as they blamed those before them severely, those who come after them will blame them harshly!

You have a deciding match and waiting fans and one female element you include in the match, in which position do you place her? (:

To protest the referee's decisions!

What is your relationship with cognitive periodicals? And what is your specific word for Ahwal al-Ma'rifa magazine?

My relationship with them is od.. and as for Ahwal al-Ma'rifa I say one word: Continue!