this story, which i first found on Old Hickory's Weblog, has deeply captured my emotional imagination. partly because i am reading a novel called Crescent, by a writer named Diana Abu-Jaber. she has an earlier book, Arabian Jazz, which i will find as soon as i finish this one. the story to which i refer is that of the destruction, by our own armed forces, of groves of date palms and citrus trees owned by farming families north of baghdad. the story first broke (as have so many others) in the british paper, the independent. it has gotten little play here, and i thank you, bruce, for bringing it to my attention. the putative reason for this wholesale destruction is punishing the farmers who wouldn't inform on activists who might be living among them. i went to riverbendblog to see if she had any further information or an indigenous viewpoint to share. and of course, she has. i can't find individual links for her entries, but this one is a few posts down. not just an account of tree uprooting and hacking, it is a paean to date palms, a glimpse into their importance to the people, their culture, their very lives. it shows what an outrage this is, what a crude gesture of disrespect to an ancient and proud people. have we learned nothing in all the years of the israeli/palestinian conflict? actions such as these do not bend people into submission. they have quite the opposite effect. they generate hatred and sow seeds of determined opposition for years to come. i am afraid we have destroyed much more than trees by this ignoble use of our fighting forces.
and, oh yes, the novel. its title brings to mind the old nomenclature for the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the "fertile crescent" of our childhood history books. it is about a community of middle-eastern immigrants and students in LA, about love, food and poetry. the time is the period between the "gulf war" and whatever we are supposed to call this one. it is written in language so rich, so sensually evocative, that the print scarcely holds still on the page.
1 comment:
Arabian Jazz was a great book for me--I know that because of the warm feeling I got when I read the title in your entry, but oddly enough, I can't remeber why I liked it so. It seems a long time since I've read it...but I picture my dad when I think of the book. Perhaps it was about a father daughter relationship??? I know the cover was what caught my eye and fingertips...all smoky pink and blue and grit. I love gritty finishes on book covers.
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