A Leak In The Safe

The Orientalist by Tom Reiss (Random House, $14.95)

PART TWO

So what lessons can we learn from Lev Nussimbaum’s trek through the low lights of Twentieth Century history? Let’s consider the Bolsheviks who first shattered Lev’s idyllic childhood. Anyone who doubts that the Reds were criminals from the start, that Stalin was a continuation rather than a perversion of Lenin, needs only to read these pages to have those doubts irredeemably erased. The right in America has always been, well, right about the USSR, while the left was not always so, I admit, but it’s one of the few times before or since where that has been the case.

Look at the effect of a sudden, brutal war of "liberation" on a fragile, multi-ethnic area – in Lev’s time, as in our own, it quickly descended into anarchy. Of course I’m speaking about the parallels with Iraq, where as in the Bolshevik invasion of the Caucasus, a "pre-emptive" attack loosed the forces of violence, destruction and ancient enmity. The example of the new liberators was force, torture and indeterminate imprisoning – a fine recipe to create a new society. Rumsfeld was quite amused by the exuberant anarchy unleashed when the Iraqi social controls were smashed – he’s still grinning his rictus grin but the joke turned sick long ago. The idea of a "pre-emptive war," recently upheld by Bush, is frankly un-American, a sharp departure from the way ANY previous administration, Republican or Democrat, has pursued foreign policy. Given that WMD’s were not present and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 this war is being fought for some hypothetical utopia of the future – the end justifying the means – kind of like the way the Bolsheviks used to do things, isn’t it? War, as Sherman said, is hell, and should never be loosed on the basis of some neo-con theory or the mere desire to exhibit power, especially by men like Bush and Cheney who so assiduously avoided going to war themselves when they were young.

And what about Lev’s next to last stop, Berlin? It’s a rule of modern discourse that any comparison of the Nazis and the Bush regime is labeled at once ridiculous and seditious, but, as The Orientalist shows there are inescapable parallels between pre-fascist Germany and America today. Tom Reiss shows convincingly that the rise of Hitler, a thug from the start, was in part the result of an overwhelming fear of Communism. In order to defeat their own leftists the German government happily surrendered the rule of law and allowed one extreme to swallow the other – with the unexpected result that the monster they nurtured ended up consuming them too. Americans in their shock and anger over 9/11 have allowed their government to eavesdrop without warrant, detain unlawfully and even torture and murder in a purported fight against an amorphous foe labeled "terrorism." Daily and with a smug lack of apology the constitution and the laws of Congress are being flouted by an out of control administration. The idea that the draconian powers of the "Patriot" act are being used only against foreign terrorists has already been belied by the harassment and surveillance of American Muslims, opponents of the war and even a group committed to serving vegetarian meals to the homeless! We’ve allowed our fear of terrorism to threaten the very freedom we’re supposed to be defending. The experience of Weimar Germany shows that the slide to totalitarianism is slow and gradual and begins just like this. If don’t speak out now, if we don’t vote and support the moderate center and free speech we may soon not have the chance.

Another parallel is the "stab in the back" theory, i.e. that the war didn’t go as hoped not because of the ineptitude of our leaders, but because of lack of support and outright sabotage at home. This ridiculous assertion, much beloved by the Nazis about World War One, has been resurrected by the administration and their Fox mouthpieces. We now constantly hear that the electorate would feel a lot better about Iraq is only the darn liberal press would stop reporting the bad stuff that happens and just go find some good news, or rather just stick to what the government hands them. Sadly, news reports do not win wars, or else we’d have found a mountain of WMD’s and our troops would have long ago skipped home on carpets of flowers strewn by a grateful populace, as was guaranteed by the fair and balanced shouting heads of Fox news.

And what about the democratic example of both Russia and Germany? Bush has a firm, irrational belief that elections will solve all ills, that, once created, a democracy could never become a threat to the rest of the world. He must have been sleeping in class when it was revealed that BOTH Russia and Germany were democracies that slid into authoritarianism, despite their fair share of elections.

To close I’ll use a quote that Lev used in his work. It’s from Edmund Burke, the British conservative legislator, and it’s more than pertinent to Bush’s constant assumption of more and more arbitrary power for the executive branch, a power grab which is now being regularly rubber stamped by the newly packed Supreme Court:

"We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power is a thing which neither any man can hold nor any man can give. Those who give and receive arbitrary power are alike criminal."

SO WAKE UP PEOPLE! Look to the past and the present to save the future. Read The Orientalist today and you’ll be smarter than George Bush in no time.

YR PAL,

UBU

Think I’m being alarmist? Check this story out from today’s paper:

White House won’t rule out domestic spying

The Orientalist by Tom Reiss (Random House, $14.95)

I’ve just read a fascinating and informative book called The Orientalist by Tom Reiss. In one way it’s a literary detective story like A. J. A. Symons’s The Quest for Corvo or Hugh Trevor-Roper’s Hermit of Peking, where a determined biographer works backward from a startling written work to track down its disguised or obscured author.

In the case of The Orientalist the novel that piqued Reiss’s interest was a romance of the Caucasus called Ali And Nino by one Kurban Said, allegedly a Muslim prince. Kurban Said proves to be also known as Essad Bey, the author of several popular travel books and biographies. But, as Reiss discovers, behind all these veils stands a man born Lev Nussimbaum, a Russian Jew.

But solving the mystery of his identity doesn’t end the fascination surrounding Nussimbaum because, although he was not born a Moslem or a prince, he was lucky or unlucky enough to be present at some of the most crucial moments of twentieth century history. He was, in fact, from the Caucasus, born in 1905 in the city of Baku, an oil rich fringe of the Czar’s empire, which he presented later (mostly truthfully it seems) as an ideal multi-cultural land where Jews, Muslims, Armenians and various tribal entities co-existed in peaceful, funky harmony, far enough from Moscow to escape most imperial interference.

All that changed when the Bolshevik revolution arrived, unleashing a storm of haphazard executions and releasing the pent up energies of sectarian strife. Lev’s idyllic home became a charnel house as successive forces gained the upper hand in an endless cycle of slaughter and retribution.

Nussimbaum and his father fled to Constantinople, where the ancient Islamic Caliphate was on its last legs and European influence and "modernization" were to change the Muslim world for ever, creating enmities which still survive.

Next Lev landed in Berlin, just in time to witness the Nazi’s rise to power and descent to savagery. His pose of Moslem aristocracy became at one a way to distinguish himself from all the other Russian refugees, an expression of his nostalgia for his birthplace, and, increasingly, a disguise to obscure his now dangerous Jewishness.

Finally, in a depressing coda, he fled to Italy, where he was know as "The Muslim" and died a slow, painful death from a rare, debilitating disease.

What’s compelling about the book is not only Reiss’s detective work and the inherent drama of Naussimbaum’s life, but also his deft analysis of the political situation and history in each of the places Lev touches down, all whom resonate in the present day. Unfortunately all these lessons of history shine a cruel light on the ignorant and frankly evil policies of the Bush administration, a group who hold their "faith" above history, and have reaped the whirlwind as a result.

But we’ll get to that tomorrow. See you then.

Yr Pal,

UBU