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627 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
The details wilted, shrank and were forgotten, down to the very last one prompted in the memory by an act of will or a persistent ghost. Any attempt to recall the image of things and places that had been encountered an oblivion that spread like warm air and made them dreamlike.There is always something new to learn about dehumanization. There is always something new to learn about the combination of the stealing of land and the bleeding of labor, the sterilization of culture and the objectfication of class, categorized as "clash" and more truthfully a choke hold so long as one has what the foreign country needs. This first part of a trilogy stops at a point, but the headlines and the hate crimes and the pardoning of war crimes tells me the conclusion is nowhere in sight. Going by the multitude of other age old narratives of systematic oppression going strong today, I will not live to see the end of this.
It was a special kind of tragedy, like amnesia followed by long-belated remembrance in which the chaotic confusion and curse of things were made apparent.
Everywhere there was potential for endless quarreling, and many of the men felt, vaguely, that the fistfights and constant cursing were not always the result of mistakes or ill intentions and had little to do with the actual words spoken; they felt this even more since depression and homesickness and other damned "things" were still within them and tore them apart before the quarrels and the curses and the rest.A great deal of mutilation is committed in the name of oil. The treatment of the Chapel Hill shooting by US media attests to the financial interests of these brainwashers and finance, of course, is all. It is this social flensing of the self, cloaked in sheep skins of "materialism" and armor of "economy", that erases and enslaves and rewards in accordance to who holds the reins. The ultimate danger, however, does not lie in the action but how the act is continually spliced, making a violent other out of who in reality is represented far more by and than anything capitalism can conjure up. This is what makes the final turn from terrorism, to savior complex, to "developing" country.
They had come to work but here they worked and were killed at the same time.
Harran had not changed completely. As soon as the caravan arrived the people swarmed around it. much sooner than they thought, at the first looks they exchanged with the people, the two felt enveloped in an atmosphere and home and friends. The people crowded around them as if they had been away only on a short trip. Time had left its marks on all their faces, but these marks were dissolved by the emotions underneath, and these emotions revealed the inner strength which eliminated time and distance, returning their features to their original loveliness.Islam strongly runs throughout the entirety of Munif's tale, and as an atheist I will not belittle the whole for the sake of my personal theological preferences. I will, however, say that the humanity which held all these people together was beautiful, and the contrast to the distanced, corporatized, profit focused actions of the incoming Americans brought out the true horror show. People are tricked, people are starved, people are processed as a fuel of foreign potential, and the advice they are given in return is to scatter in hatred and no longer be a people.
"Do you want the truth? Ibn Rashed was a dog, a song of a bitch: greedy, selfish, and tricky; but he was a Muslim and an Arab. He knew right from wrong, and that was what ruined him, that was what killed him." Abdullah al-Zamel paused, took a deep breath and went on in a clear and even sharp voice. "The Americans are godless. They are infidels. They know nothing but 'Work, work, work. Arabs are lazy, Arabs are liars, Arabs don't understand.' Ibn Rashed never stopped for a minute. It was always 'Yes sir, yes sir, whatever you say,' and they treated him like a dog; they let him struggle and go mad and die. And not one of those sons of bitches, not even Sh'eira, Nusayis, who came to his funeral, so much as said 'God rest his soul.'"Even those in power have something to learn, for isolation, rage, and hollow despair are equal opportunists.