A Saudi Tale: Reading and Encounters In Search For Consciousness

«Can those populating the non-West synthesize their identities, culture, set of values and understanding of history with the all-powerful narrative of a Western world whose economy is capitalist, politics is liberal; and where the banner of the achievement oriented individual is highest? Do the conditions and challenges of overpopulation, poverty and harsh environment leave room for intellectualizing an alternative mode of defining life, social structure and a narrative all their own? Is it possible for the newly independent entities that had lived under centuries of foreign military, cultural, ideological and political domination, find a voice distinct and original, to shake off these decades of subjugation? Is a society of multiple languages, politically charged religious identities and multitude of ethnicities capable of crystalizing an example of synthesis?» —from Chapter Nine

«He could not but hear an echo of Protagoras (c. 490 BC – c. 420 BC) the rhetorical theorist and a sophist who is believed to have created a major controversy during ancient times through his statement that, «Man is the measure of all things», interpreted by Plato to mean that there is no objective truth; whatever individuals deem to be the truth is true. By man «Protagoras did not mean mankind at large. He meant the individual man. And by measure of all things he meant the standard of the truth of all things. Each individual man is the standard of what is true to himself. There is no truth except the sensations and impressions of each man. What seems true to me is true for me. What seems true to you is true for you.» —from Chapter Seven