Particular cases

After a revision about his family tree: a Turk grandmother, an Egyptian Maronite grandfather, a poet and anticlerical grandfather and a great great grand uncle who was the first one in making a translation to Arabic of Moliere´s works... Amin Maalouf is convinced that ‘Humanity, whole it´s made by particular cases’ and that if one have to define his or her identity cannot only say ‘I am Arab’, ‘I am black’ or ‘I am Jewish’.

Our French-Lebanese writer is clear about a Serb is different to a Croatian or an Albanian, but he is sure that each Serb is different in relation other Serb and that each Albanian is different in relation other Albanian, and he writes that frequently you find into a Rwandan, Irish or Bosnian family, two brothers living in the same environment who have suffered different experiences and who react differently to politics, religion and even daily life, so one of them could be a criminal and a conciliation man the other one.

For simplicity, Mr Maalouf says, for comfort we are in the habit of including people with the same term and we attribute collective facts to them like ‘the Arab refuse…’, ‘the Jew confiscated…’, ‘the British ransacked…’ and we speak about a population that it´s 'hard-working' or ‘slothful’, ‘clever’ or ‘sly’…

A. M. is aware of that our expression habits cannot modify, overnight, however he believe that´s important we become aware that if we act this way we contribute to perpetuate a wicked prejudices.

From my Borstal

LDR

Les Identités meurtrières. Amin Maalouf. Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1998. Edition 13-mai 2009 Paris