Wednesday 18 March 2015 | 17
The CITIZEN
reviews Non-fiction
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East Robert Fisk (Harper Perennial, £9.99) Jorrit Donner Wittkopf 5B
The last time the UK ‘declared war’ on another country was against Siam in 1942. Since then, this phrase has cleverly morphed into an assemblage of press-friendly terms spouted by Western leaders. Obama sends his troops on ‘campaigns’ in faraway deserts, while Netanyahu claims the recent activity in Gaza was nothing but an ‘operation’. This normalization of ‘constant war’–as for instance in ‘the war on terror’–has some sinister connotations. The ramifications of our involvement in previous conflicts become greater and more grievous as time passes, shown by the rise of Islamic State in Iraq, less than five years after the Western withdrawal from Iraq, or the Taliban fighting the US with their own armaments. Not only does our state of ‘constant war’ often mean more and more of the taxpayer’s money is wasted on overseas conflagrations, but politicians more readily reject Aquinas’ concept of the ‘Just War’. Just like the deployment of drones decriminalizes the ‘casual’ killing of innocent civilians by an operator on the other side of the globe, Obama’s ‘campaigns’ and Netanyahu’s ‘operations’ legitimize interventions which enhance a politicians’ personal profile, a goal hidden behind a rhetoric of ‘humanitarian’ aims. For an extended period of time, Western intervention has become increasingly concentrated in the area which we refer to as the Middle East, namely Western Asia. During the Tehran hostage crisis of 1979, President Carter dismissed Western involvement in the Middle
East as “ancient history”. However it is clear that it is in fact an ongoing commitment, the scale of which is as tremendous as its repercussions. Robert Fisk spent over three decades in the Middle East as a foreign correspondent, for the Irish Times, the Independent and The Times respectively. With early stints in his whirlwind journalistic career covering ‘The Troubles’ in Ireland and the Portuguese ‘Carnation’ revolution, he came to the Middle East as regional correspondent for The Times. He is heralded as someone who “has turned a slightly dubious and overromanticised craft (foreign reporting) into an honourable vocation” (Phillip Knightley, Independent on Sunday). That is to say despite Fisk originally being drawn to journalism by Alfred Hitchcock’s film ‘Foreign Correspondent’ (a grave misrepresentation of a very taxing profession), his “lethally painstaking” ‘recherché’ technique has seen him rise in fame to become one of the most renowned foreign correspondents in Britain. Based in Beirut – the 'Paris of the Arab world', Fisk has covered every conflict in the greater Middle Eastern and South Asian area from the 1980’s to the present. This book can only be summarized as the expertly crafted testament of a journalist who holds more international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent. The book consists of ten chapters, each concerned with a specific part of the Middle-Eastern sphere and the events which Fisk covered while stationed there. Fisk expertly interweaves his own anecdotes with an informative and
impartial history of events in the localities concerned. From the antique synagogues and mosques of Jerusalem to the ultra-conservative desert hamlets of Yemen and Oman, we are transported across the Arab world by Fisk’s compelling story-telling and critical analysis. His investigative reporting “infuriates his foes and fascinates all” (Donald Morrison, Financial Times), whilst his beautiful imagery and diverse language makes his work easily accessible. I found his tone often calculatedly blasé and never boastful or self-indulgent. He retains this quality in his writing despite often finding himself in precarious and threatening encounters -for example he is dismissive of the risks involved during the first of three surreal meetings with Osama bin Laden by the light of a paraffin lamp on a remote Afghan mountain. Fisk is famously hands-on and his ‘alfresco’ approach sees him witness turning points in history which many of his colleagues never covered. He conveys to great effect the grief of the inconsolable Sunni woman who lost her daughter in a US air strike in the Libyan war of 1986, or the tale of a man who gave his unsuspecting pregnant girlfriend a bomb before she boarded a plane, convinced he was partaking in the ‘Jihad’. I found the chapters detailing the rise of Khomeini and the Iranian revolution particularly intriguing - the cold-blooded executions and flight of the Shah makes good reading. Fisk visits the scenes of Soviet bombing in far-flung Afghan provinces, a conflict we have almost forgotten despite a civilian toll of 1.5 million.
“We are transported across the Arab world by Fisk’s compelling storytelling and critical analysis.” In a particularly moving passage, he speaks to the wife of an Armenian farmer, who now lies in a mass grave in an abstruse field - such is the cost of war. Although the wars he witnessed were played out in mountain villages and rural townships, Fisk highlights that these local conflicts – although local in scope – in fact had a much wider, global impact. However, as I waded through this 1,328 page behemoth I also encountered humorous and uplifting passages. A particular favourite is when Fisk, to avoid the ban on foreign journalists in Afghanistan under the Russians, entrusted his articles to a bus conductor who would make the dusty 100 kilometre journey to deliver them to hotel staff in Lahore, who would in turn fax them to London – all in time for the next morning’s paper! The book reserves much criticism for the foreign policies of Western countries in relation to the Middle East and their responsibility for the wars which have ravaged the region – “A fierce indictment of Britain and the United States” (Sunday Times) and “the definitive summary of
what has gone wrong in the West’s foreign policies towards Arabia” (Scottish Sunday Herald) is how fellow experts judged his endeavour. Although arguably the USA and the Soviet Union are cited as the two major ‘Western’ influences in the Arab world post WWII, Britain and France, the former colonial powers, are not spared. Clearly, it was British and French Empires and their colonial aspirations, which de facto set the in motion many processes leading to today’s conflicts, (see also ‘A Line in the Sand’ by James Barr). Such an opinionated stance does not go unchallenged, as the less than flattering reviews of The Great War for Civilisation by certain self-assured critics harping on about miniscule details demonstrate. But whether “Muhammad’s nephew Ali was murdered in the 7th Century, not the 8th” and whether in “Farsi: laleh means tulip, not rose” (Oliver Miles for The Guardian) seriously “undermines the reader’s confidence” is debateable! Thus, I thoroughly enjoyed this non-fiction book presenting a wealth of detail on recent history. I found it an excellent introductory text to the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, a region rarely seen as anything but ‘troubled’. I agree that Fisk has produced “a history book which journalists, politicians and academics will turn to again and again in the years ahead to grasp the details of the Middle East” (William Graham, Irish News). It is most certainly a book of “unquestionable importance” for anyone trying to understand ‘war’ in the context of the Middle East and the current political climate.
Paddy fields in Guilin, Guangxi, China. Photo by Yu-Chao Ren (S6), a member of the CLS Photography Society. This striking image is to be included in an exhibition at the School.