Self-Censorship and Representation of the Other in Rifā’a Rāfi’ Al-TahTāwī’ s Travelogue (1826-1831)
An emblematic figure of the Arab renaissance in the nineteenth century, the translator, teacher and essayist al-TahTāwī (1801-1873) wrote a travelogue and a description of Paris (1826-1831) that convincingly illustrate the relation that binds translation and travel writing as an undertaking in the representation of the Other. One of a group of students enrolled in the modernisation programme launched by the khedive MuHammad ‘Alī, al-TahTāwī set out, in his travel writing, to paint a detailed portrait of the political and cultural life of France, and more specifically Paris, during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Our purpose is two-fold. First, we outline the development of this representation and the encyclopaedic project that involve a selection of facts to report, texts to translate and translation strategies to retain. Second, we examine the degree to which the translator’s preventive self-censorship, dictated by socio-cultural and political factors, played a significant role in this undertaking and was used to promote the acceptance of the Other. Beyond the contribution to history that this work represents—Egypt opening its doors to Europe and Liberal and Orientalist movements in France—, the syncretism effort that it evokes, and that is subjected to self-censorship and textual rewriting in keeping with various constraints (Lefevere, 1992), turns out to be particularly pertinent during a period when it is good form to talk in terms of “clash of civilizations.”