Jackals and Arabs

"Jackals and Arabs" (German: "Schakale und Araber") is a short story by Franz Kafka, written and published in 1917. The story was first published by Martin Buber in the German monthly Der Jude. It appeared again in the collection Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor) in 1919.

A European traveler from the North, accompanied by Arab guides, is camped in the desert. When night falls, and the Arabs are at a distance, the traveler is accosted by talking jackals. The jackals speak of an age-old hatred for Arabs, whom they associate with uncleanliness. They relate a belief passed down from their ancestors, that a man such as the protagonist would be the one to "end the quarrel which divides the world in two". The jackals attempt to enlist the traveler's assistance in destroying them, offering him old rusted scissors with which to slit the throats of the Arabs.

At this moment an Arab happens upon the discussion, and cracks his whip, "laughing cheerfully". He declares the fondness of Arabs for jackals, and the Arabs bring out the carcass of a camel that had died in the night. The jackals begin to feast on it uncontrollably, and the Arab whips several of them as they tear at the flesh of the carcass, until the European interferes. The Arab agrees to stop, and the story ends: "We’ll leave them to their calling. Besides, it’s time to break camp. You’ve seen them. Wonderful creatures, aren’t they? And how they hate us!"

Walter Herbert Sokel describes the role of the European as a Messiah figure to the jackals, observing that the jackals at times refer to the protagonist with the words "Oh lord" and "oh dear lord". The jackals' need for a Messiah is an "admission of helplessness", which ultimately "links the parasitic with the religious." Sokel finds Kafka's tale reminiscent of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality:

The sovereignly cheerful mockery and the ultimately good-natured tolerance exercised by the contemptuously benevolent figure of the Arab stands in remarkable contrast to the irrational and murderous hatred of the ascetic spiritualist. Evil, the monstrous product of impotent hate, exists only for the ascetics, the jackals. "The hell" they see in the Arabs is their point of view, their fabrication. For the dominant Arabs, who, thanks to their strength, feel secure and free from jealousy, there is no evil. Their archenemies are nothing more than cause for amused astonishment.

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