Chapter 10 Independence and the red felt hat

Not long ago, I read an article by a certain writer.In this article, he became angry and protested against the captain and crew of a French steamer sailing from Syria to Egypt.Because the men had forced him or tried to force him to take off his red felt hat when he was seated at the table.As we all know, it is the habit of Westerners to take off their hats under the ceiling. This protest surprised me because it showed me how attached Orientals are to a certain symbol in their personal lives. I admired the courage of the Syrian as I once admired an Indian prince.When I invited him to attend an opera performance in Milan, Italy, he said to me: "If you invite me to visit Dante's Inferno, I will go with you. Sit where you smoke."

Yes, I am amazed to see an Oriental clinging to some of his creeds, even to a shadow of his national customs. However, this astonishment of mine will not and will never erase the vulgar facts behind it, which are connected with the nature of Orientals, Eastern tastes and sayings. For the writer who thought it was difficult to take off the red felt hat on a foreign ship, if he could think that this noble red felt hat was originally made in a foreign factory, then for him, no matter where Anywhere, on any foreign boat, it is a breeze to take off the felt hat. If our writer thinks that personal independence in trivial matters has and will depend on the two great independences of technological independence and industrial independence, then he will obediently take off his red felt hat without saying a word. .

Suppose our friend thinks that a nation which is enslaved in spirit and intellect cannot by her dress, her customs, become a free man. If he had thought of this, he would not have written his protest article. If our writer thinks that his Syrian grandfather sailed to Egypt in a Syrian ship wearing clothes woven and sewn by Syrians, then our hero of freedom can only wear domestic clothes and travel in A Syrian ship with a Syrian captain and a Syrian sailor at the helm went to Egypt. The misfortune of our brave man of letters is that he opposes the effect without noticing the cause, and so is seized by chance before he has attained the essence.This is the case of most Orientals.They don't want to be Orientals, except in trifles, while at the same time they pride themselves on what they imitate from Westerners, which are neither boring nor trivial.

I want to say to our writers and all those who wear red felt hats: why don't you make your red felt hats with your own hands, and then put them on the deck of the ship, or on the top of the mountain, or in the deep valley, To consider what to do with your red felt hats? God knows!These words are not written for the red felt hat, or whether the red felt hat is taken off or worn under the ceiling or under the Milky Way.God knows!These words are written for a question older than all red felt hats; a question that hangs over every head, over every quivering body.