Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2008, page 68

Books

Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry From the Middle East, Asia and Beyond

By Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar (eds.), W.W. Norton, 2008, paperback, 734 pp. List: $27.95; AET: $20.

Reviewed by Matt Horton

IN THIS AGE of information, poetry is perhaps the most efficient method of expressing grand concepts. Language for a New Century, a collection of contemporary poetry from the Middle East, Asia (including parts of North and East Africa) and its Diaspora, contains one poetic masterpiece after another. Complete with humor, love, anger, despair, confusion, contempt, sadness and joy, the poems open a window into the experience of the world’s most populous continent.

Lovingly compiled by its editors, who are towering artists in their own right, this collection of 400 voices from the “East” is the culmination of six years of research and collaboration with thousands of people in the 55 countries from which the works are drawn. The poems were carefully translated from their 40 original languages into English—many for the first time—by expert regional artists who have succeeded in expressing concepts and ideas often difficult to convey.

The poems contained in this massive volume represent some of the best in their modern craft, and stand in stark contrast to the disposable monotony we slog through in our daily search for truth. Evocative and provocative, familiar and shocking, the poets pose questions more often than they make pronouncements. Eliciting thought and reflection, they challenge the consumer of “information” to instead become an information producer.

Arranged around nine themes related to the human experience, the structure of the book itself combats Orientalism with humanity. It defies borders, many artificial, many imposed, reconnecting regions in a continent where, prior to Western imperialism, war and the modern nation state, identities, ideas and people interacted more fluidly. Events that have transpired in these regions over the past six years have only made the poems’ messages more urgent—and their publication that much more of a triumph. Indeed, Language for a New Century, and the regional networks developed through the work of its tireless collaborators, is likely to bring on a new age of enlightenment; if not for the world, then at least for the reader.

Matt Horton is director of the AET Book Club.

Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians

By Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, Nation Books, 2008, hardcover, 122 pp. List: $22.95; AET: $17.

Reviewed by Delinda C. Hanley

It can often take years for news of wartime atrocities to come out. Sometimes courageous soldiers speak out—like the Vietnam veterans who participated in the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971—but no one listens.

Will Americans hear the painful testimony of the 50 brave soldiers interviewed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and co-author Laila Al-Arian and recorded in Collateral Damage? Don’t hold your breath.

After seven months of interviews, Hedges and Al-Arian produced a cover story, published in the Nation on July 30/Aug. 6, 2007, entitled “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness.” NBC filmed a piece around the Nation’s article that never aired.

Troops battling an insurgency, surrounded by a hostile population, are placed in “atrocity-producing situations,” according to Hedges, who should know, after covering wars for 20 years. Soldiers fighting an elusive foe begin to define everyone—civilians and combatants—as the enemy. When American fighters feel afraid or angry after the death of a friend, they kill dozens of Iraqis.

The soldiers and Marines who tell their stories in Collateral Damage expose the true, if unintended, consequences of the war in Iraq on Iraqis and Americans alike. Many terrorized or killed Iraqi innocents in the course of home raids, convoys, patrols, detentions and military checkpoints. They point out that it will take decades for Iraqis to recover. As a result of the horrors they have witnessed or been a part of, these American veterans may also battle psychological, as well as physical, injuries for the rest of their lives. Both nations will be dealing with this war’s unintended consequences for generations.

It was not easy to interview these soldiers, Hedges and Al-Arian say. When the veterans broke down, the journalists turned off the recorders. Their book honors the courage of patriots who have the desire to tell the truth at tremendous cost. The book also honors the Iraqi victims that no one dares count. What we do with the truth is up to us.

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report.