When Mahmoud Darwish Works Get Banned

"Saudi book fair bans 'blasphemous' Mahmoud Darwish works after protest" stated "The Guardian", but I couldn't believe my eyes! What was exactly blasphemous in his works? Couldn't tell, and it wasn't mentioned in the article either. But I definitely know one thing for sure, and that is that the banning is as far as can be from the fair's theme of the year: “Books: An Arch-Bridge Connecting Civilizations”. What a way to ruin a fair's aim, and what a shame to go global for such an achievement! Meanwhile, a reader donated 6 million dollars to New York's public library. Ironic isn't it?

I believe the main reason why I and many book lovers all around the world are outraged by this news has nothing to do with Darwish per se. Even if I am more or less a fan of Darwish, what personally bothers me is that we don't realize that there is nothing more blasphemous than our lack of reading, and oppression of freedom of choice and expression. We, arabs, are among the civilizations that read the least in the world and we still don't get that "The fall of nations and empires begins with the fall of libraries" (Rawi Hage). We still don't get either that literary censorship has always been one of the worst and most dangerous forms of tyranny that societies had to face throughout history.


How is literary censorship dangerous and why should we oppose it one may ask. A detailed answer to this question can be found here. But if you're not in the mood of reading another long text, keep in mind that Socrates was sentenced to death for "his corruption of youth and his acknowledgement of unorthodox divinities" and that the Nazis and the Apartheid regimes among others censored books, I mean burned them in Nazi Germany including works of Einstein (or so I was told during my tour in Berlin). Still not dangerous enough for you to oppose it? Well, many authors have been also imprisoned, tortured or killed by these two regimes (and others), in addition to mass extermination of people proving German author Heinrich Heine to be right when he warned that "Burning books would end in burning humans". Stop the first, and you'll stop the second, it's as simple as that.
  

Of course, the internet nowadays makes it impossible to ban almost anything in the world. But just because we are comfortable knowing that nothing can be truly banned, does not mean that it's ok to sit and do nothing. There is one thing that should always be done and that is refusing to give up our most basic human right: "the freedom of choice". We can also let the people in charge know how we feel about it, and hold them accountable for their actions.


Yours truly,

 

"Beware beware of my hunger And of my anger"
Mahmoud Darwish

Carnival by Rawi Hage - Summary - The book to read people

Keywords: Book lovers, circus, taxi drivers, friendship, life

 

Summary: Fly was born in a circus. His mother was a trapeze artist and his father who came from the east, owned a camel and a flying carpet. When Fly’s father became a believer, he pinned his carpet to the ground and left him and his mother and never came back. To cope with her abandoning, Fly’s mother started having lovers whom Fly was aware of, and when it didn't help much, she put an end to her life. Fly was next raised by the bearded lady and he wandered with the circus through Europe before settling in the Carnival city where everyone is disguised: those who wear animal masks and those who don’t. Fly then becomes a taxi driver and the reader gets invited into his world which consists of his apartment, his cab and the restaurant where he often takes his meals. According to Fly, there are two types of taxi drivers depending on the way they pick up customers. He calls these two types: the Spiders and the Flies. Fly does not wait for customers at taxi stands like the Spiders; instead, true to his Fly nature, he prefers to wander looking for the wavers and the whistlers.

His apartment is more or less a library unique in its style. It is full of books that contain the world. Fly subjectively classifies his books in a very peculiar way that defies every methodology of documentation ever conceived. “I sit on books, sleep on them, breathe them. I arrange them by character, the colour of their skies, and the circumference of their authors’ heads” he lets us know. We also learn that Fly has a crush on his neighbor, the religious Zainab with whom he constantly argues about religion. When he's not picking up on Zainab or reading, Fly spend his time masturbating, a habit that has started when he first saw his mother and her collection of “bare assed lovers” making out.

In his cab, Fly meets all sorts of people: Drug dealers, thugs, lovers, sex addicts, prostitutes, priests, broken couples, abused women etc. Every day is a new adventure in the cab, or his boat as he prefers to call it.

In the restaurant, we get to meet Fly’s numerous comrades and learn about their personal as well as work related stories.

An important person in Fly’s life is Otto, his revolutionary friend with whom in the past, he shared an apartment and a now passed away girlfriend. Otto lives on the streets, and he is not very sane, mentally speaking. He gets Fly to help him in a mission targeted against a list of important people in the city that he has identified and judged as worthy of punishment. The awkward sentence he chose to impose on the people of his list is to force them to read selected passages while he, Otto, is disguised as a clown and pointing a gun to their heads. Apparently you should “Never underestimate a clown with a book”. Unexpectedly, Tamer, a kid practically raised by Fly and Otto ends up involved in the killing of some of the people from Otto’s list which makes Otto put an end to his life and drives Fly to fly away from the Carnival city.

 

You can also check my video on youtube so that you know how much I liked "Carnival" and what I thought about the writing, the theme and everything else.