Why the past?

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.
~Pearl Buck

Tout y est

une triperie
deux pierres trois fleurs un oiseau
vingt-deux fossoyeurs un amour
le raton laveur
une madame untel
un citron un pain
un grand rayon de soleil
une lame de fond
un pantalon
une porte avec son paillasson
un Monsieur décoré de la légion d'honneur
le raton laveur
un sculpteur qui sculpte des Napoléon
la fleur qu'on appelle souci
deux amoureux sur un grand lit
un carnaval de Nice
une chaise trois dindons un ecclésiastique
un furoncle une guêpe
un rein flottant
une douzaine d'huîtres
une écurie de courses
un fils indigne
deux pères dominicains
trois sauterelles un strapontin une fille de joie
trois ou quatre oncles Cyprien
le raton laveur
une mater dolorosa deux papas gâteau
trois rossignols deux paires de sabots cinq dentistes
un homme du monde
une femme du monde
un couvert noir deux cabinets
deux petit'suisses un grand pardon
une vache un samovar
une pinte de bon sang
une monsieur bien mis un cerf volant
un régime de bananes une fourmi une expédition coloniale
un cordon sanitaire trois cordons ombilicaux
un chien du commissaire un jour de gloire
un bandage herniaire
un vendredi soir
une chaisière un œuf de poule
un vieux de la vieille
trois hommes de guerre
un François premier
deux Nicolas II
trois Henri III
le raton laveur
un père Noël
deux sœurs latines
trois dimensions
mille et une nuits
sept merveilles du monde quatre points cardinaux
1 2 3 4 heures précises douze apôtres
quarante-cinq ans de bons et loyaux services
deux ans de prison six ou sept péchés capitaux
trois mousquetaires
vingt mille lieues sous les mers
trente-deux positions
deux mille ans avant Jésus-Christ
cinq gouttes après chaque repas
quarante minutes d'entracte
une seconde d'inattention
et naturellement
le raton laveur

The World According to Americans, redux

Three years ago, I had a post "The World According to Americans". But time flies and creative people have kept working on the theme. Here are two newer versions. As usual, click to zoom and enjoy!

In the other direction, it appears that in 1976, the New Yorker had a cover which prefigured the style: "The World According to New Yorkers", I would call this:

Now, I have the case of this map which is called "Real Map of the World", but I highly suspect an American to be the author...

Sons of Terror

I recommend highly "Son of Hamas" by Mosab Hassan Yousef.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a founder of the Hamas, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, discovered when he was 17 that despite his loathing of Israeli occupation and despite his love and awe for his father, he could not allow innocent bloodshed and that Palestinians were not set free by violence, they were locked up by violence. The trigger to these realizations were both his reading of the Christian Bible and seeing in an Israeli prison how Hamas members could persecute and torture their own without an ounce of mercy nor justice. From around that time and for ten years, he collaborated with Israel to defuse Hamas's military actions - at the risk of being exposed and killed. Large parts of the book read like a thriller and all of it is compelling - a very instructive account of what happens behind the scenes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But I was also very interested in the father-son relationship. It is striking to see how Yousef the son describes Yousef the father: as a very sensitive man who would help his wife with the chores in the house, would be very kind with everyone and especially his children (he would never force them to pray, just give them desire to do so by setting the example himself, MHY explains).

In the epilogue, MHY explains that when he made public his conversion to Christianity after moving to the States everyone expected his father to "disown" him but he refused. "You are still my son. You are part of me, and nothing will change" he quotes his father as saying on the phone. A little bit later, MHY broke to his father the news that he had been collaborating with Israel. According to the book, his father remained silent. According to news report the father did issue a statement at that point in which he did disown his son but I was struck by the mild language (see here and here).

Separately, I read in the English Wikipedia article on Yasser Arafat,

Arafat's sister Inam, states in an interview with Arafat's biographer British historian Alan Hart, that Arafat was heavily beaten by his father for going to the Jewish quarter in Cairo and attending religious services. When she asked him why he would not stop, Arafat responded by saying that he wanted to study their mentality.

I was immediately reminded of the famous study by Alice Miller "Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?" tracing back the roots of Hitler's violence in his father's "rearing":

The Führer once told his secretary that during one of the regular beatings given him by his father he was able to stop crying, to feel nothing, and even to count the thirty-two blows he received.
In this way, by totally denying his pain, his feelings of powerlessness, and his despair- in other words, by denying the truth - Hitler made himself into a master of violence and of contempt for human beings.

I thought about how Hitler and Arafat were compelled all their lives to pursue a destructive goal although they could have pursued a normal life and even protected human life. And I thought about the phrase from the Pentateuch "פֹּקֵד עֲו‍ֹן אָבֹת עַל בָּנִים", "making the sons carry the sin of the fathers": some children are compelled to do harm because of the wrong that their fathers did onto them.

Now a quote from Mosab Hassan Yousef's epilogue:

Delivered from the oppression of Europe, Israel became the oppressor. Delivered from persecution, Muslims became persecutors. Abused spouses and children often go on to abuse spouses and children. It is a cliché, butit's still true: hurt people, unless they are healed, hurt people.

So my advice to terrorists is: beat your children. If you treat them too kindly, you never know, they may turn their back on terrorism.

Just a Picture

Rue de Varize, Paris, August 2008

"Stitches", by David Small

This is an article which is difficult to write. "Stitches" is a deeply stirring - disturbing, some would say - story. It's been actually five months that I've wanted to write it.

David Small tells in his graphic novel "Stitches" the story of his childhood and teenage years, growing up in a destructive family environment, going through cancer and an operation to remove the tumor which left him with his vocal chords shattered and a huge scar; his struggle to overcome his fate in his teenage years through psychotherapy and to enter a successful adult life.

This account struck me so deeply that I will never be able to convey all my thoughts.

Instead, let me walk you through a few excerpts of the book, in the hope that you will understand what I felt.

The story starts when David is six.



He is a young boy who spends a lot of time alone, drawing.





Family life is a heavily loaded oppressive atmosphere, meals are rituals where silence reigns and the unsaid hovers its weight above the heads.



David is now eleven and neither of his parents has been noticing the growth in David's neck. It's a visitor who seems to be the first person to ever put caring eyes on the eleven-year-old boy.



Silence reigns once more, no one will tell David about what he has. As to medical treatment: his parents have other priorities.



When eventually - three and half years after the diagnosis - he gets an operation, still no one has been sensitive enough to offer him even the slightest information on what he is going through.



You would think that their son surviving a cancer would be enough of a shock to David's parents for them to change their attitudes. But not so. David's every move is met with just as harsh and just as insensitive an attitude from his parents as ever.





David will eventually have the opportunity to receive psychotherapy.



His therapist will be the first person in his life to show him kindness and comprehension. Through his help, David will be able to open his eyes on the truth about what he has been going through.



Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small

See a "trailer" here.

Read this interview, in which David Small declared:

"I see [my parents] differently now," Small said. "I better understand their impulses and their drives. It doesn't make me love them any more. It doesn't make me like them as people any more than I ever did. I don't feel the need to forgive them anything, but I think that understanding someone as a human being is just about the best kind of forgiveness there is."

That's all folks.

Le charme discret de la péninsule sinaïque

Les aventures de J. S. sur les traces de Moïse R.

Très chers amis,

Votre très cher et néanmoins modeste correspondant, le reporter J. S. de Jérusalem, est allé pour vous visiter la péninsule sinaïque, se faire rôtir sur ses plages de sable fin, tester les différentes herbes locales, admirer les coraux encore plus locaux et gravir le Djebel Moussa sur les pas de celui qui lui a donné son nom, le plus ancien des prophètes, j'ai nommé le célèbre Moïse R. de un peu partout qui a manqué son aliyah de peu, on vous racontera.

Et puis, heureux comme Ulysse, je suis retourné, plus chanceux que Moïse R., après cette équipée et un passage (frontière) à Taba, vivre entre mes compères juifs et/ou israéliens et/ou visiteurs, ma destinée en Terre d'Israël.

Les plages sont belles, les poissons délicieux, on y est reçu dans un hébreu bédouin quasiment parfait. Les coraux que j'ai vus avaient un peu mauvaise mine, sans doute est-ce faute de connaître les bons endroits pour dépasser ceux qui, trop près de la plage, ont souffert de pollution touristogénique. Les herbes : je ne suis pas expert, mais vu que mes compatriotes israéliens les fumaient avec délices du matin jusques au soir et du soir jusques au matin, j'imagine qu'elles n'étaient pas mauvaises. La mer est douce et belle. Les paillottes dans lesquelles on dort sont basiques mais le bruit du vent et du ressac vous y berce. On bouquine ou se dore au soleil, c'est le farniente. Les moustiques s'invitent quand la nuit tombe - prenez vos précautions.

Alors, le paradis ? Pour beaucoup, oui. Les bédouins charmants et accueillants qui accueillent les touristes israéliens dans leur langue même et font tout pour qu'ils passent de bonnes vacances, les petits prix (une paillotte pour deux coûte 40 ou 50 livres égyptiennes soit moins de 40 shekels, un petit déjeuner coûte 20 livres, un poisson grillé servi avec un repas complet coûte 50 livres, et pour 100 livres j'ai acheté mes souvenirs : quelques tissus et du thé bédouin).

Il n'y manque qu'une chose : la tranquillité d'esprit. Les attaques terroristes de 2004, 2005 et 2006 sont dans tous les esprits. Cette année, les touristes israéliens reprenaient confiance (hausse de 36 % par rapport à l'année précédente de la fréquentation du susnommé passage à Taba) puis ce fut une première semonce la veille de Pessah et une alerte aux avalanches de niveau 5 il y a quinze jours, le gouvernement israéliens demandant à tous ses ressortissants de rentrer illico.

Sur la côte, les checkpoints sont nombreux pour assurer la sécurité des touristes. La police note l'identité des voyageurs qui montent dans chaque taxi. Mais lorsque l'on se dirige vers Sainte Catherine, cela devient un véritable état de siège : une seule route y mène depuis la côte, la police et l'armée contrôle de passage puis l'entrée à Sainte Catherine. Une fois là-bas, que vous voulez-vous faire ? Cela tombe bien, vous n'avez pas le choix : vous prenez un taxi de votre guest house à à l'entrée du Monastère, vous montez avec un guide au Djebel Moussa, redescendez, et repartez aussi sec en taxi vers la côte. Si vous pouviez même repartir en Israël, on serait encore plus tranquilles. Et pour être sûr qu'il ne vous arrive rien sur la route, on vous colle un policier en civil (très civil : costume Armani, cravate, pistolet mitrailleur sous la veste).

Adoncques, la Thaïlande c'est mieux mais c'est plus loin et il y a des tsunamis tout le temps.

Nous vivons une époque modernne.

PS: Monsieur et Madame Conviens ont un fils, comment s'appelle-t-il ?