al-majus

I sometimes feel despondent when I think about Al and how obsolete it is making writing as a profession – a craft which many of us have spent decades and fortunes honing (a privilege in itself, I know).

It’s painfully obvious returning to social media after just a short hiatus that Al is everywhere – in creative writing, in academia, in journalism, even casual political discourse. Those of us who stay away from it often feel our voices are being drowned out, even more so perhaps than before, when our major challenges in the arts were nepotism, cronyism, financial capital (or rather, a lack thereof) and celebrity.

There is still a place for the dāstāngo, the storyteller, the local Scheherazade. And once again, I am reminded: the answer was never in professionalism, it was in amateurism.

Amateurism, from the Latin amare – to love. How capitalism has denigrated this beautiful word! We snort and sneer at it in favour of some vague, lofty concept of professionalism, which when you strip it down is nothing more than, what really? Art, craft, labour prostituted for money.

Written by Alaleh Mohajerani