Timesman Ethan Bronner has written a good response to As'ad AbuKhalil's critique of his obituary of Mahmoud Darwish in the New York Times. He points out that he does speak Arabic OK and that he has spurred the hiring of other Arabic-speakers and the promotion of Arabic education at the Times. Good for him. (Though AbuKhalil responds to Bronner that he hears he can't read a newspaper in Arabic, can't conduct interviews in Arabic. I once had a similar throw-down with Thomas Friedman. He mumbled that he never put himself forward as a great Arabic speaker. This was in the days before you could go thru a reporter's garbage on the internet.)
It is also a great thing that Bronner responded to AbuKhalil. It reflects the growing power of the blogosphere, also Bronner's being a thoughtful human being. Progress on all fronts.
That said, two things leapt out from Bronner's response. He said that it was not necessary to describe the circumstances of Darwish's family leaving its Galilee village in 1948, and that while he was not familiar with Darwish's poetics, he consulted with two Palestinian employess of the Times who do know his work:
I would agree that saying Darwish “left” Palestine doesn’t portray the situation in 1948. But I can’t believe anyone has any doubts about who razed his village and that struck me as a fairly weird reason to complain….In reporting the obit, I spoke with several Arabic scholars about his poetic language as well as with two of the three Palestinians who work for The Times here – Khaled Abu Akr and Taghreed el-Khodary. Both love his work. So I tried hard to get a sense of his poetics from those who care deeply about it.
Very interesting. (A little Arabic-name-droppy; I do the same.) First, it's actually easy to believe that many Americans have doubts about who razed Darwish's village and the circumstances under which his family fled. This was the most important event of Darwish's young life; wasn't this a perfect opportunity to talk about the Nakba? Just read Saif Ammous's direct and griefstricken obit to see how accessible those exotic oriental concepts can be to people who speak English. Ammous's description of the family's frenetic movements recalls stories about European refugees–stories we get in all their poetic glory say with a Wiesel or an Eva Hoffman. Bronner's letter also contains a tragic confession: two Palestinians work for the Times and love Darwish's work but didn't get to write his obit. Now maybe these Palestinians are just office workers, I don't know. But it is a common practice at the Times and other great papers to assign the obit of a literary figure to someone who reveres his or her work, who can quote from works he/she is familiar with with real feeling. Too bad that Darwish was not accorded that respect. Maybe these Palestinians aren't full-fledged reporters. But they know Darwish's poetics. Couldn't they have at least shared the byline?
When will Americans open their hearts and minds to the Arab world? Actually: When will journalists allow them to do so?
