Samir Kassir (1960–2005)

I'm not sure why I'm drawn to histories of cities from the former Ottoman empire, but this is the fourth one I've read in the past two or three years. All of them are heartbreaking: cosmopolitan paradises destroyed by sectarian violence. Beirut may be the most tragic because the end was so swift and so recent. This book has added poignancy in that the author was assassinated by a car bomb outside his home shortly after completing it.

The main focus is the era from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the eve of the civil war. The book traces all aspects of the city's growth and captures something of the feeling of what it must have been like to live in the city. The author does an admirable job explaining how the different regimes added to the character of the city and does as good a job as possible outlining the various forces that lead to the division of the city in 1975. Interestingly enough, it passes over the war itself, treating it as something of a coda to the city's life.… (mehr)

No es recomendable ser árabe en nuestros días. Da igual cómo se mire: desde el Golfo Pérsico al océano Índico, el panorama es sombrío. Sin embargo, esa «desgracia» no siempre ha existido. Hubo un tiempo no muy lejano en que los árabes, sujetos de su propia historia, podían encarar el futuro con optimismo. Un tiempo en que las palabras «árabe», «modernidad» y «universalismo» no eran incompatibles. ¿Cómo se llegó al marasmo actual que hace creer a los árabes que no tienen más porvenir que el señalado por un milenarismo enfermizo? ¿Cómo se logró despreciar una cultura viva y profesar el culto a la desgracia y la muerte? Acogido como un hito en el pensamiento árabe, este ensayo recorre la historia contemporánea para arrojar una nueva luz sobre las causas políticas e intelectuales del mal que gangrena a las sociedades árabes y sugerir, de paso, algunas posibilidades para superar la crisis. Considerado uno de los más brillantes intelectuales del mundo árabe, Samir Kassir fue asesinado el 2 de junio de 2005 en un atentado con coche bomba en Beirut.… (mehr)

An oddly moving narrative history which reads like Kassir's swan song or sacrificial offering. Beirut, city by the sea, consumed by fetishes of glamour, beautiful in makeup, its mercantile spine dislocated again and again by the spasmodic leanings of confessionalism and nepotism... This history gives my childhood context where there was none, and corrects many dangerous assumptions I might have made out of ignorance. Pedantic and lengthy (and gorgeously translated from the French), with a focus on the 19th and 20th Centuries, Kassir's book sweeps summarily over the Ahdath and civil war before ending on a hopeless, almost bitter note which will forever transform how I think of recent efforts to restore the city. Kassir's powerful author's voice is consistent, but his devotion to the various periods in the city's history isn't, resulting in a jerky trip through time. Ultimately well, well worth the effort.… (mehr)