As one of those who is a living demonstration of the saying "too soon old and too late smart", I still would like to offer the following observations.
I find that there is more understanding of other cultures to be gained by reading one good novel than from all of the think-tank, op-ed, CROSSFIRE, commentary through which our understanding is MEDIAted. One of the more interesting examples of this was "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. I highly recommend it for anyone trying to understand what has happened, is happening in Iran.
But that is not my current theme. I have just finished reading the novel "Links" by Nuruddin Farah, a novelist from Somalia, now living in S. Africa. Farah sets this novel in Mogadascio several years after the events so graphically pictured the book/movie "Blackhawk Down". This is a picture of Somalia in the aftermath of the UN intervention there and includes a retelling of the events pictured in "Blackhawk Down" from the Somalian point of view.
The narrative is carried by the results of clan rivalries, clan warfare, the personal demands by the accident of clan membership, and the manner in which some used that for profiteering. It touches on the fractionated ethnic state and the mixed role of religions leadership.
If you translate the scene from Somalia to Iraq, you could have predicted that the results of American intervention would have been what they are.
Some of the multifaceted reflections:
The arrogance of well-intentioned Americans who did good out of sense of social superiority.
The use of pronouns, especially me, we, they. Who do you refer to as we or they and what is the effect of sometimes including someone in the "we" and at other times excluding them with the "they".
I recall one of the events early in the invasion of Iraq (maybe day 2 or 3) when a major media figure (Brokaw?) managed to get a Professor from Baghdad University on the phone. That professor ridiculed the US dependency on the advice of Ahmad Chalabi and accused Chalabi of being a white collar criminal. Today, the Iraqi government issued a warrant for Chalabi's arrest on charges of counterfeiting. We all should know that Chalabi's organization was the source of much of the counterfeit information regarding WMD.
Maybe someone should have sent copies of Farrah's book to Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Posted by at August 9, 2004 02:15 PM