Meritocratic spring: ‘New Yorker’ runs Hisham Matar piece mentioning ‘Palestine’

Writes a friend: Goddamn! Riding the Metro home from work I continued to pore over last week’s New Yorker. The week before, I’d taken note of a short memoir, published in the Talk of the Town, by the Libyan writer Hisham Matar. The language lilts and describes and exudes emotion. Then today, with last week’s issue, I found another column by Matar in the Talk of the Town — it was even more wonderful. I think you’ll really like it. (Unfortunately, it’s for subscribers only, so you gotta check it out in the print edition (9/12) or punch in your own user ID and password.) It’s about freedom and oppression and foreign interference and even gives a shout to “Palestine.” Not the Palestinian Territories or any such. It’s very frank about all these things, and it’s about the Arab Spring, and it’s in the New Yorker. That’s right, America — even the liberal Jewish establishment at the New Yorker — is waking up to the Arab desire to be free, and falling in love with the Arabs experiencing it. Read it as soon as possible.