I think Khadra displays good intelligence, lucidity and human understanding on this book, dealing with accountability, responsibility and other relevant society and cultural issues. This book is about how prejudices, dogmatism, judging too quickly, intolerance, not taking the time to look further and to understand differences, (on both directions, from the muslim to the western culture and vice verse) prevent us to see the "big picture", and the cathastrophic results that might imply. I found that on a blog, I think it describes well the message of the book:"What's important is why the story happens and how. It is information that we in the West have been turning a blind eye to for years. Instead of being willing to shoulder our share of the blame for creating these people or at least the circumstances that allows them to exist, we find it convenient to blame it on their religion. Until we are willing to accept the responsibility for our actions we will be at constant risk from someone who has been completely inured to violence and has lost all that he or she cares about." I read this book for a Book Club, which turned out to be an excellent reading choice because there was opposite views on the novelistic merits of the book. I am reproducing here some of the points discussed between the book club members. The book was particularly criticised for two reasons:1. The plot was seen as forced. My view : there is a clear purpose on all the dialogues, situations and characters of this book, continuously putting in parallel characters with different understanding of things. For me, that precisely makes more interesting and relevant this book, it eliminates the anecdotic. For me the right criteria to judge how good is this book is not related to the degree of surprise of the plot, which might just be a tool to expose views; but more about how relevant and accurate the ideas are presented, about how effectively the writer is putting all together to make his points. I think Khadra did really well. 2. The end was seen as unbelievable. My view : I don't think it is so important whether the end is absolutly believable or not, given the specificities of this book, but the message delivered. This is a psychologic book. The main character is correctly manipulated during the second part of the book to be persuaded to go on one direction, although his primary personality was one of a sweet and sensitive boy who hated violence and was loved by his family (first part : 'Kafr Karam'). Furthermore, he was suffering permanent contradictions during the second part of the book "Baghdad". He embraced the terrorist cause because he didn't have anything else to embrace, but on the other hand, he profoundly hated Yacine and his brutality. Did he know what he wanted, really? He just felt hate, "universal hate", I would say. For me it is acceptable anything might have happened at the end. I believe that changing his mind under a moment of lucidity, just before a crucial moment is absolutely human. The fact of watching a happy family, a couple in love, and then remembering his childhood and the people he loved in Karf Karam; and that vision having such strong emotional impact on him makes sense for me. His primary nature and his latent lucidity coming out at the last moment. 3. Lastly, another point that makes this book worth reading is that one can easily extrapolate to a broader context than the arabic culture and the iraqi war the mentality and emotional conflict exposed on this book. In particular I think the first part "Kafr Karam" brilliantly sets up an atmosphere. Personally, I can recognise Spain under the Franco regime, as a deeply catholic country, with all its strong principles about honour, family, and hierarchy. This is because at the end we are talking about intolerance, as a result of closeness, darkness and isolation, and this is universal.
We were poor, common people, but we were at peace. Until the day when our privacy was violated, our taboos broken, our dignity dragged through mud and gore ... until the day when brutes festooned with grenades and handcuffs burst into the gardens of Babylon, come to teach poets how to be free men ...We're honest by vocation.My father had suddenly turned into an old man. His village-elder aura had vanished; his look of command had no more vigor and no more range.The world is run by the forces of international finance, for which peace is equivalent to layoffs.It's true that we're reaping what we sowed: the fruit of our broken oaths. We remained candied in our little autistic happiness, gaping wide-eyed into space or twiddling our thumbs.A brute is still a brute, even when he smiles; the eyes are where the soul declares its true nature.You behave exactly the way they do. They stare at their navels; you stare at your biceps.I wasn't a weakling; I simply hated violence.... how flimsy our certainties.You don't pass from jubiliation to grief in the blink of an eye. LIfe, even though it often hangs by a mere thread, isn't a conjuring trick.Like a piece of wreckage, I let myself drift wherever the waves took me. There was nothing left to salvage.... he looked at me from the bottom of disgrace.If you haven't lost your mind yet, that's because you haven't seen very much."They think all Arabs are retarted ... Imagine: Arabs, the most fabulous creatures on earth. We taught the world table manners; we taught the world hygeine and cooking and mathematics and medicine."Dignity can't be negotiated."All they see in our country is an immense pool of petroleum, which they intend to lap dry, even if it costs the last drop of our blood, too. They're bonanza seekers, looters, despoilers, mercenaries. They've reduced all values to the single dreadful question of cash, and the only birtue they recognize is profit. They're ready to march over the body of Christ if they think it'll help fill their pockets. And if you aren't willing to go along with them, they haul out the heavy machinery.""All nations are victims of the avarice of a handful of multinational companies."If you want to avenge an offense, don't commit one.... galloping impoverishmentI was born again as someone else, someone hard, cold, implacable. My hands didn't tremble. My heart beat normally.It was the age-old story: When you can't make sense of your misfortune, you invent a culprit for it."I'd rather be satisfied with nothing than mess up everything. As long as my sorrow doesn't impoverish anyone, it enriches me. There's no wretch like the wretch who chooses to bring misfortune where he should bring life.""The light of my conscience. No shadow can obscure it."
What do You think about The Sirens Of Baghdad (2007)?
It was a thrilling page turner. I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated his exquisite detailing and how he made readers enter into the world of the narrator. It also opened my eyes to the realities of the Arab world. Being an outsider to the War in Iraq, I would have only seen what is shown on the Western media. But this book explores the very experiences of those innocent Arabs whose only intention was to live a normal, unperturbed existence yet are sucked into a nightmare. Nothing could justify the actions of the radical Islamists and the book clearly brought out that perspective. At the same time however, the book allows readers to understand the anger these men feel. The humiliation, shame and gruesome violence they're subjected to had pushed them to limits unimaginable, changing them completely and resulting in them succumbing to radical influences. Desperation ultimately pushes one to think and act differently, radically. The book thus gives an objective view and it forces readers to think of larger issues, to take in different perspectives. To understand but not to empathise. An extremely refreshing read. The only disappointing aspect of this book would have to be its ending. Other than that, I'd recommend it to anybody interested in a fresh perspective into the ongoing War on Terror.
—Sha
El último de Khadra y el que cierra la trilogía sobre tierras torturadas del islam. Cuenta la ocupación yanki de Irak desde el punto de vista de un chico de una aldea de beduinos en medio de una pobreza que se transforma en miseria con la invasión y que poco a poco pasa a estar en zona de combate. En un principio narra la tediosa vida cotidiana de la aldea, con su total falta de perspectivas y escasez, donde nada se mueve. También la importancia de una tradición que se pasa de una generación a otra a sangre y fuego. Luego llega la violencia a la aldea, primero con la boda que salta por los aires tras un ataque de aviación y luego por la lucha de la resistencia.El cataclismo para el protagonista llega con la humillación a la que someten a su familia unos soldados norteamericanos que registran su casa y vejan a su padre. La única salida en su tradición es la venganza. Y a ello se presta. Huye a Bagdad para unirse a la resistencia y encuentra una ciudad sumida en el caos más absoluto, con pandillas de críos sin hogar dedicadas al pillaje, atentados indiscriminados y crueldad a raudales. Por fin se une a la resistencia y le encomiendan una misión: volar a Londres desde Beirut para extender un virus mortal que llevará en su cuerpo. En Beirut conoce a un intelectual desencantado que tras su paso por Occidente se ha transformado en un radical antioccidental, pero que en un arrebato de cordura intenta convencer al protagonista de que no cometa locuras.Está bien. Como siempre, se lee de maravilla el habitual lenguaje descarnado y las historias de crueldad que cuenta. Está bien reflejada la evolución de la situación en la aldea del protagonista: desde el conocimiento de lo que ocurre en el país en la distancia hasta el bombardeo de la boda y la participación de jóvenes de la aldea en la resistencia y los asaltos a los hogares que lleva a cabo el ejército americano. Bien retratada también la mentalidad tradicionalista a ultranza del protagonista, el caos del Bagdad de la posguerra, la conversión de un joven en resistente y luego en terrorista tras ver profanados sus valores más básicos, la radicalidad por haber fracasado en Occidente del intelectual…
—Julián
This is a compelling look into Muslim fundamentalist terrorism, seen through the eyes of a nameless character, a small village Iraqi Bedouin, who goes to university in Baghdad to study, but is forced back to his village when war breaks out, with the expulsion of Sadam hussein. When the war touches the village, the village fool is killed by American troops, who then enter the Bedouin`s home & deeply humiliate his father in front of the family. His world shatters & he flees back to Baghdad to join the fundamentalists who are fighting the coalition. His misadventures there lead him to reconnect temporarily with a villager, an ex-army officer, who lives in a gay relation, is a drunkard,and who swears & was therefore despised in the village- but who puts him up, and then connects him with another villager who is running a terrorist cell. He is gradually increasingly involved & ultimately picked for a mission which will put 9-11 to shame. He will be infected with a highly infectious, rapidly mutating virus which he will carry to London & spread as widely as possible. Shortly before that, the rabid terrorist propagandist professor, who used to espouse a liberal antifundamentalist viewpoint & then turned to the very opposite philosophy because of bitterness at having his abilities underrecognized in the West, is again rocked in his attitude by a visiting Arab novelist living in Paris, who has a pacific tolerant philosophy. The professor is fully acquainted with the virus plot&tries to talk the student out of doing it, but the latter hits him with an ashtray, nearly killing him, and goes ahead to the airport, where he observes families & lovers about to fly to London, and then realizes they don`t deserve to die. He sits in the departure lounge for several flights, is picked up by the terrorist cell, and the novel ends as he sits on a height overlooking Beirut, refusing to move.
—Charles
