Through a Glass darkly
David Gilmour
TRIBES WITH FLAGS: A JOURNEY CURTAILED by Charles Glass Seeker & Warburg, £16.95, pp. 510 Egypt is the only nation-state in the Middle East', a Cairene diplomat re- marked to Charles Glass; 'the rest are tribes with flags'. Although the statement appears mildly smug, it was made by a citizen of one of the world's oldest nations and he was referring to a region where the other countries were created barely two generations ago. Another nation-state might have emerged from the ruin of the Ottoman Empire, but it was thwarted by European ambitions. 'Greater Syria', its unity desired by the majority of its inhabi- tants and recommended by an American commission sent out by President Wilson, was divided into British and French man- dates. Thirty years later the imperial pow- ers had gone and the land was partitioned between five countries: Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. A sixth, Arab Palestine, was granted a fragment by the UN in 1947; it has yet to receive its share.
Charles Glass's intention was to wander all over Greater Syria, crossing its absurd modern borders, meeting members of its pennant-waving tribes, and trying to find out what binds them to a cycle of incessant warfare. He began in southern Turkey, travelled through most of modern Syria and Lebanon, and was eventually kidnap- ped by Shi'ite gunmen in Beirut. He never reached Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Territories, and this book is thus the narrative of his 'curtailed' journey through the northern regions. It ends with a striking and moving account of his two-month captivity in a Beirut suburb. His reliance on religious faith, his make-believe world of communication with his family, and his desperate attempts to attract rescue are described with sensitivity and without ran- cour.
Nine-tenths of the book, however, deals with his travels as a free man, listening to, talking and eating with hundreds of people from Syria and Lebanon. Perhaps he de- scribes too closely the minutiae of his daily life, buying newspapers, drinking coffee, making telephone calls; certainly there are too many recitations of Lebanese dishes, excellent though these are. But Glass is a good traveller, a sceptical observer and a man who can get on with anyone he meets: a belly dancer, a Yazidi, a publisher whose books are usually burnt or torn up, an old Lebanese peasant who thinks Crusaders came from Argentina. And he has a sense of the calamitous history of the region, of a world apparently ordained to repeat the tragedies of distant epochs.
The author, an American with Irish and Lebanese grandparents, worked as a journalist in Beirut before and during the civil war. He liked Lebanon and its way of life, the sea, the climate, the riverside cafés of Zahle, the long lunches with arak and half-a-dozen different salads. Yet no one can love Lebanon without also hating it, without despairing of the violence, the greed and the vulgarity. Glass wants to be a friend of everyone but even non-violent topics such as modern architecture or rubbish disposal (any stream will do) force him to criticise. He goes to Zgharta, where his ancestors lived, and finds that a four- line highway, lined with video shops and Benetton, has been driven through the old town. A veneer of sophistication has thus been added to its appearance, unaccompan- ied by any corresponding advance in civilised behaviour. While the author is in Zgharta, staying in the house of a former president, a ridiculous squabble erupts, causing the deaths of several people and the resurrection of an ancient blood feud. His description of this Maronite Carleone, with its rumours, its tension and its would- be mediators, is one of the highlights of the book.
In his meanderings among the tribes and their endless subdivisions, the author won- ders why their violence seems endemic. He marvels at the fantasies and conspiracy theories, the ambience in which truth is impossible to find, anyone might be a triple agent, and every incident is interpreted in a dozen different ways. What can you say when a former president of Lebanon sin- cerely believes that Arafat works for the Israelis?
Is there something inherent in the region that makes it the inevitable victim of tribal conflict? Or is the violence of over four decades the consequence of Great Power meddling, the fault of those who created the tribes and handed them their flags? This attractive book is not a political essay and its author, who writes in a spirit of enquiry rather than reproach, expresses no dogmatic conclusions. Yet he places much of the blame on those artificial boundaries and of French policies of 'divide and rule' during the mandate. Until recently it was possible to find old men nostalgic for the Ottoman Empire, men who were about to travel between Beirut, Damascus and Jeru- salem without crossing frontiers and with- out caring whether a stranger's religion was Jewish, Druze or Greek Orthodox.
The modern history of the Middle East illustrates the Turkish saying that each new ruler makes you long for the one before. In an era of momentous changes, it is perhaps the only region in the world where there is no reason for optimism. The tribes remain quarrelling, impervious to the currents of Eastern Europe. There seems little chance that a Gorbachov will emerge from the Arab dictators or that anyone as liberal as de Klerk will rule in Israel.
'I wonder if he'll ever pick up your stammer?'
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