Laila Lalami

I had never heard of Hrant Dink until four days ago, when news of his brutal slaying in front of his office in Istanbul made world headlines. And then the information began to filter–Dink was the founder and editor of the newspaper Agos; he was Armenian and had written about the genocide of one million of his people in 1915 by the Ottoman rulers; and he had been the first journalist to be convicted under Article 301, that vile law that has already gotten Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak, and many other known and unknown writers and journalists into trouble. It was Dink’s conviction that brought him into the spotlight. Here’s what Orhan Pamuk said:

“We have killed a man whose ideas we could not accept,” Orhan Pamuk said, when he visited Hrant Dink’s home and office on Sunday.

“We are all responsible for his death, but above all those who still defend Article 301 and insist it should stay are guilty – those who launched a campaign against Hrant Dink as an enemy of the Turks and marked him out as a target.”

This is a depressing picture of Turkey, a country that wants to join the E.U., but cannot seem to let its writers and journalists speak their minds. But the spontaneous outcry and grief over Dink’s death makes me wonder if the people of Turkey will finally get serious about stopping the madness. For instance, the silent march today at his funeral, behind a banner that reads “We are all Hrant Dink. We are all Armenians.” is one step. But the road is long.

The February 15 issue of the New York Review of Books contains a letter by Gholam Reza Afkhami and over one hundred other Iranian intellectuals, writers, and artists, including Azar Nafisi, Marjane Satrapi, and Shahrnush Parsipur, contesting the Holocaust conference recently sponsored by the government of Iran:

We the undersigned Iranians,

Notwithstanding our diverse views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict;

Considering that the Nazis’ coldly planned “Final Solution” and their ensuing campaign of genocide against Jews and other minorities during World War II constitute undeniable historical facts;

Deploring that the denial of these unspeakable crimes has become a propaganda tool that the Islamic Republic of Iran is using to further its own agendas;

Noting that the new brand of anti-Semitism prevalent in the Middle East today is rooted in European ideological doctrines of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and has no precedent in Iran’s history;

Emphasizing that this is not the first time that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has resorted to the denial and distortion of historical facts;

Recalling that this government has refused to acknowledge, among other things, its mass execution of its own citizens in 1988, when thousands of political prisoners, previously sentenced to prison terms, were secretly executed because of their beliefs;

Strongly condemn the Holocaust Conference sponsored by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Tehran on December 11–12, 2006, and its attempt to falsify history;

Pay homage to the memory of the millions of Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and express our empathy for the survivors of this immense tragedy as well as all other victims of crimes against humanity across the world.

You can view the letter and its signatories here.

I came back home to Casablanca to news of Aboubakr Jamaï’s resignation from Le Journal Hebdo. Could things get any worse for the press in Morocco? Wait. Don’t answer that.

My review of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Chicken with Plums appears in today’s Boston Globe. Here’s an excerpt:

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to Satrapi’s many dedicated fans that she has mined her family’s rich history again. In “Persepolis,” she told of her coming of age in Iran, during the Islamic Revolution and the long, bloody war with Iraq. In “Persepolis 2,” she wrote of her teenage life in Austria, where her parents sent her so she could finish high school away from the constant harassments of the mullahs. In “Embroideries,” she recounted an afternoon tea party at her grandmother’s house, and used it to create an eye-opening portrait of sexual relations in modern-day Iran. Now she gives us the story of her great-uncle, turning it into a meditation on art and love, and the necessity of both to any life worth living.

You can read it all here.

Last month, I mentioned that the magazine Nichane had been banned, and its editor-in-chief and one of its journalists put on trial, all for a cover story on jokes deemed “insulting to Islam.” The case went to court in Casablanca on January 8th, and the verdict was pronounced yesterday: Three years’ probation for editor Driss Ksikes and journalist Sanaa Al Aji, a fine of 80,000 dirhams each, and a punitive ban of two months, meaning that the magazine would only be back on newsstands at the end of February.

This is very harsh. And it’s frightening that, compared with the verdict the prosecution was seeking — five years’ prison time; complete ban of the publication; ban of its journalists from practicing their profession — it sounds downright magnanimous. Still, the verdict is yet another wake-up call for those who thought that the tangible progress we witnessed in terms of press freedom over the last few years was a permanent gain. This hastily prosecuted case is a strong signal that there are still “red lines” (Islam, the king, the Sahara question) that cannot be crossed.

The magazine plans to appeal, but in the meantime the verdict is a Sword of Damocles hanging over the journalists’ heads. Any false step, any perceived insult, and all that needs to happen is for someone to sue them before they’ll find themselves at risk of firm prison time. Perhaps that’s exactly what the government wanted–putting them, and all the other journalists, on notice. In addition, the government gets to play the card of “protector of Islam,” thus defeating religious conservatives at their own game. But this is a dangerous game, because conservatives will only escalate the situation, attacking anything they perceive as offensive. It’s a sad day.

Related: Twenty Moroccan writers and intellectuals have signed a petition in support of Nichane; Fadoua Benaich and Jesse Sage have an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times; popular blogger Larbi continues to offer a forum for discussing the issue.

I had set my novel aside during the hectic move to Casablanca, and when I picked it up again a few weeks ago and reread it, I noticed a strong satirical element throughout. Then I was invited to the Winternachten literary festival, and I was asked if I could take part in a two-day workshop on… satire. It’s perhaps only a coincidence. But I think writing a novel is a bit like converting to a new religion; one starts to see signs everywhere. The workshop became a sign of something the universe was trying to tell me–that I should embrace the satirical element, maybe. It’s all a bit silly, really. Still, the first two days I spent in the Hague proved extremely useful, and made me see a bit more clearly what I am trying to do in my work. (The amusing bit is that we couldn’t even agree on a good definition of satire beyond “We know it when we see it.”)

After the workshop, I met with my Dutch editor, did a few press interviews, and hung out with a good friend of mine. I also read from Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits in front of a packed house at Theater aan het Spui. Abdelkader Benali was a great, tough interviewer, and he asked me questions about the book that I don’t think I’ve been asked at any of my readings in the US. I had a wonderful, wonderful time. I even managed to steal some time away to go visit the Vermeers that were on display at Maurithuis, a wonderful little museum in the Hague. The most inspiring element of the whole trip was being surrounded by so many Moroccan and Dutch Moroccan writers, poets, musicians, and artists. I felt so energized and ready to take on the world–or at least the rest of my novel.

I am now in Paris for a couple of days, doing some interviews for the French edition of Hope. More soon, I hope.

Tonight I’ll be reading from Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits at the Winternachten Literature Festival. This will be followed by a conversation with Abdelkader Benali. Here are the details:

9:40 PM
Reading and Discussion
Winternachten Literature Festival
The Hague, Netherlands

If you happen to be in town, come by and say hello!

I am awfully busy here in the Hague, and don’t have time to compose a proper post, so I give you instead a photo of the Moroccans present here. From left: Novelist and playwright Abdelkader Benali, me, and novelist and essayist Fouad Laroui.

I am in The Hague this week to take part in Winternachten. I’ve visited the Netherlands only once before, and I stayed mostly in Amsterdam then. I remember long afternoons spent walking along the canals, hours and hours spent at the museums (The Night Watch and The Milkmaid were on display), and the taste of those amazing Dutch pancakes. It is my first time visiting The Hague, a city about which I know next to nothing. I hope to find out more.

One of the pleasures of living in Casablanca is having easy access to books by Moroccan writers (or indeed by anyone who writes in Arabic or French or anyone translated in these languages.) So when I heard that Fouad Laroui had a new book out, an essay collection titled De L’islamisme, I popped into the Carrefour des Livres to pick up a copy. They were sold out. No problem, I thought, and I went over to Livre Service. They were sold out, too. I had to call two or three other bookstores before I could locate one copy (one!) at Gauthier Livres. (Coincidentally, the last remaining copy was set up next to a stack of The Caged Virgin by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.)

I stayed up until midnight last night to finish De L’islamisme. It’s enormously readable, it has lots of humor (just like Laroui’s novels), and it manages to bring a few fresh perspectives on a topic that has been beaten half to death. Laroui’s background in science also comes in handy as he deconstructs some of the ridiculous claims made by religious extremists, crackpot scientists, and other assorted imbeciles. My one complaint about the book is that it does not have source notes or a bibliography. For instance, Laroui writes things like “Voici ce que nous dit un commentateur,” but doesn’t always say who he has in mind, and I am not so well-read as to figure it out each time. I need names, dates, publications! It’s otherwise a very enjoyable book, a well-crafted mix of memoir and objective analysis that never gets precious or heavy.