Everything has a beginning, a development and an end

It´s a small book that I found in one of those traveling stalls in a square in the city. For some time I had wanted to read the author of Leo Africanus, Samarkand and other works that are so well valued.

It´s a book that does not reach two hundred pages, but that, nevertheless, is pregnant with empathic thoughts about ‘what’ we are and ‘what’ others are; with observations such as: With what right could I say that the Taliban have nothing to do with Islam, that Pol Pot has nothing to do with Marxism, or the Pinochet regime with Christianity?

I agree with him that it´s not by accident, by simple accident, that these events occur and I believe that if something like this occurs it is because there was a certain probability of occurring.

Although it sounds somewhat conceited, let me tell you that A.M. and I think the same with regard to what´s mentioned above; but if Amin Maalouf is inhibited and doesn´t want to sentence that this or that behaviour is exaggerated and doesn´t fit with his vision of Islam, I –that I´m also outside of any belief system- will not be above him and neither will I opt for an affirmation that it wouldn´t end any controversy.

In another moment of reading one comes across with the affirmation that speaking of History; everything has a beginning, a development and an end.

And I say, if we are speaking about History as if we are speaking about any human experience, or don´t the three phases mentioned occur in any of our activities and relationships with others? Take, for example, friendship. My daughter says  —I had not realized until I heard her— that friendship, like yogurts, has an expiry date and that even old relationships —some with more than seven years— are diluted in time without there has been no previous conflict.

Mister Maalouf says that during Roman times, Syria was no less Roman than France (Gaul) and that North Africa was, from a cultural point of view, more Graeco-Roman than Northern Europe; that this happened around the Mediterranean, and that during the Roman Empire there were many cultures, races and religions in the same geographic space. Alas! Things changed radically with the successive appearance of two monotheisms.

Dear reader, if you want to have a firsthand knowledge and more accurate than I could give you, I suggest you read the second section of the second chapter of this small book. Pages 63-67.

From my Borstal

LDR

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