Update: in Andrew Zolnai Private Blog, two mid-2026 posts on Middle-Eastern religious regimes compared here, and Climate Change and the Old Testament here.
Having a pinched shoulder nerve forced me off both mobiles and socials... so I read a book "Le défi de Jerusalem" (Google books) by French author E-M Schmitt. On his tour of the Holy Land, this second volume follows "Nuit de feu", where he embraced his faith at Foucault's retreat near Tamanrasset in North Africa. This book was given to me by my Mum, who welcomed me back to the Catholic fold after 50 years.
Fifteen pages into 215 Schmitt says: "Young, we believe that we create. Mature, we understand that we observe. Old, we know that we obey"... what a start! It ends with a postface by none other than Pope Francis.
He then goes on to say, "if you think you understand anything about Jerusalem, then you weren't told enough". He gives an even-handed, though of necessity Christian perspective (see the end of this post for where I come from on that topic... as well as the title of this post!).
At the infamous Wall on the West Bank, Banksy's "Target Dove" - carrying an olive branch in its beak, wearing a flak vest and being a target - the artist's reported interaction with a bystander sums it up:
Bystander: "Your work beautifies the Wall"
Banksy: "Thanks"
Bystander: "No, we don't want it beautiful, we don't want it at all... go home!"
Thankfully the graffiti still stands (ResearchGate, below):
I'll let you read the book if you're interested - in French only as it's recent, but most of Schmitt's books get translated eventually - but I took exception to one item. His depiction of sisters (nuns) in the monasteries he stayed at, is enthusiastic but smacks of sexism: it probably comes from not knowing monastic life, as a successful author who had other things to do. He correctly depicts their evident joy and lack of decorum - in a way only a Frenchman will describe women even in the habit - but I think he misreads their girl-like skipping! I happen to have stayed at monasteries as a youth at Tournay and recently in Lourdes at an alpha.org class - all in So. France where I grew up, among many places, and returned to briefly - and I had asked... not knowing how à-propos it would become so soon! It turns out they're so much fewer in numbers and their workload ever increasing, that their "gadding about" is out of necessity not enthusiasm...
I caught a local author out, on a touch of entitlement if not sexism on the same broad topic of Middle-eastern politics. Mum and I attended at a local library (Facebook) book-signing of "Sabrina" by Bruno LeCun (Google Books). In it he describes how a well-educated French bourgeoise falls victim to ISIS (Daesh in France) recruitment. I took the opportunity of his talk before the book signing, to ask:
a) how he put himself in a young woman's shoes - wonderfully untranslatable "se mettre dans la peau" in French - and
b) had he had any feedback on a middle-aged man telling such a story in the #metoo era?
While the latter drew polite laughter from the audience I noticed was mostly middle-aged women, I discovered his charm afterwards at the book signing. I found he grew up briefly in Beirut, but spent his adult life travelling the world for work, until settling down to write upon retirement: you see the parallels with my brief stays in Algiers and Kuwait as a child & adult, and my peregrinations too. We found we engaged both as men having sought to explore their feminine side, and trying to encapsulate the various cultural tides tearing our world apart: we were both privileged to have ring seats to what most people will never experience directly.
So my whiff of entitlement I originally caught from a Frenchman on Middle-eastern affairs turned out to be a sincere - if facile amidst the privilege, which we're both aware of - and perhaps somewhat gauche effort: I feel entitled in turn to say that, as for example I'm still in touch with my best friend in Kuwait I worked with for over a year over a decade ago. Indeed as a Syrian national who sent his sons to Russian university, I see through him that Middle-East "from the other side", as I experienced it and shared it in this blog: that is looking west over Jerusalem, not looking east toward it as most westerners do...
Update: see my next post here for further thoughts on the varied tapestry of life we're part of, or not...
No comments:
Post a Comment