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| In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa – review | In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa – review |
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| Syria's second city is besieged in Khaled Khalifa's momentous third novel, which appears in English with a grim timeliness. "Bodies on both sides fell like ripened berries" in a city where death is "as commonplace as a crate of rotten peaches flung out on to the pavement". These passages may read like a description of today's Aleppo, in northern Syria, riven and bombarded. But In Praise of Hatred, first published in 2006 and shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008 (by which time it had been banned in Syria and republished in Lebanon), is set three decades ago, when President Bashar al-Assad's father was battling earlier opponents. | Syria's second city is besieged in Khaled Khalifa's momentous third novel, which appears in English with a grim timeliness. "Bodies on both sides fell like ripened berries" in a city where death is "as commonplace as a crate of rotten peaches flung out on to the pavement". These passages may read like a description of today's Aleppo, in northern Syria, riven and bombarded. But In Praise of Hatred, first published in 2006 and shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008 (by which time it had been banned in Syria and republished in Lebanon), is set three decades ago, when President Bashar al-Assad's father was battling earlier opponents. |
| That challenge to the regime of Hafez al-Assad in the late 1970s led to its confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood, and culminated in a massacre in Hama in 1982. Though the novel alludes to those killings, its setting is Aleppo's longer war of attrition between Islamist rebels and the Mukhabarat, or secret police, in a city once famed for cosmopolitanism and tolerance. Its timeliness lies partly in uncovering the roots of sectarian enmity in traumatic events that are still officially taboo. | That challenge to the regime of Hafez al-Assad in the late 1970s led to its confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood, and culminated in a massacre in Hama in 1982. Though the novel alludes to those killings, its setting is Aleppo's longer war of attrition between Islamist rebels and the Mukhabarat, or secret police, in a city once famed for cosmopolitanism and tolerance. Its timeliness lies partly in uncovering the roots of sectarian enmity in traumatic events that are still officially taboo. |
| The unnamed narrator is the youngest in a family of cloistered, well-to-do women in an ancient city of olive groves. The girl's rebellious younger aunts try to save her from the pious severity of the eldest (smoking "is horrible, but it's not haram", they insist). Yet, taught that women are "animated dirt", and swayed by uncles versed in political Islam, the pubescent narrator curbs her girl crushes ("desire rose in me like sap through a tree") and succumbs to hatred of the "other sect". Though unnamed, this Shia sect is the Alawite minority that dominates the ruling party with a self-serving veneer of secularism. The girl's family is of the Sunni majority. Her sentimental education is taken up by groups of women: tambourine-bashing Islamists; peers at school who mock her "penguin" attire as they pursue doomed affairs with torturers; and later companions in prison – whether desirous of turning the country Islamic green or communist red. | The unnamed narrator is the youngest in a family of cloistered, well-to-do women in an ancient city of olive groves. The girl's rebellious younger aunts try to save her from the pious severity of the eldest (smoking "is horrible, but it's not haram", they insist). Yet, taught that women are "animated dirt", and swayed by uncles versed in political Islam, the pubescent narrator curbs her girl crushes ("desire rose in me like sap through a tree") and succumbs to hatred of the "other sect". Though unnamed, this Shia sect is the Alawite minority that dominates the ruling party with a self-serving veneer of secularism. The girl's family is of the Sunni majority. Her sentimental education is taken up by groups of women: tambourine-bashing Islamists; peers at school who mock her "penguin" attire as they pursue doomed affairs with torturers; and later companions in prison – whether desirous of turning the country Islamic green or communist red. |
| The aunts are gloriously vivacious and nuanced creations, from Maryam, at war with her own "filthy and rebellious" body, to Marwa, a Juliet figure, chained to her bed to prevent her marrying an officer of the other sect. As party spies multiply, a geography teacher has her clothes torn off for failing a pupil from a Mukhabarat family. In the siege of Aleppo, a fugitive throws himself into a red-hot bakery furnace rather than risk torture. A secret police chief modelled on the president's brother is a chilling cameo. | The aunts are gloriously vivacious and nuanced creations, from Maryam, at war with her own "filthy and rebellious" body, to Marwa, a Juliet figure, chained to her bed to prevent her marrying an officer of the other sect. As party spies multiply, a geography teacher has her clothes torn off for failing a pupil from a Mukhabarat family. In the siege of Aleppo, a fugitive throws himself into a red-hot bakery furnace rather than risk torture. A secret police chief modelled on the president's brother is a chilling cameo. |
| The regime and its enemies appear to feed off each other; in quashing the freedom to question, dictatorships stoke the fanaticism of their opponents. There are atrocities on both sides, from the killing of raw Alawite cadets, to the desert-prison massacre in which the girl's brother is killed, when troops "cold-bloodedly opened fire on the prisoners, whose brains they splattered all over the walls and ceilings … More than 800 prisoners had been killed in less than an hour." | The regime and its enemies appear to feed off each other; in quashing the freedom to question, dictatorships stoke the fanaticism of their opponents. There are atrocities on both sides, from the killing of raw Alawite cadets, to the desert-prison massacre in which the girl's brother is killed, when troops "cold-bloodedly opened fire on the prisoners, whose brains they splattered all over the walls and ceilings … More than 800 prisoners had been killed in less than an hour." |
| While sectarian thinking is revealed as brainwashing, the girl's viewpoint makes for a relentless narrative. At times I wished that Khalifa, a successful screenwriter, had given freer rein to his gift for dialogue, to allow the lesser characters more air. Yet relief comes in the final section, set in women's prisons, when the narrator's delusions are stripped away. Marxists and Islamists share dry bread and "lewd talk" with prostitutes, who pity the politicals – their scars from "whips, electrodes and cigarettes would remain as tattoos, which even henna patterns couldn't hide". Most moving is the young woman's dawning understanding of her father, a despairing dissenter against "sectarian fever", who packed his bags for Beirut. He "spoke of torturers and corrupt statesmen who belonged to our sect and, in contrast, of men from the other sect who had defended our right to speak the truth". | While sectarian thinking is revealed as brainwashing, the girl's viewpoint makes for a relentless narrative. At times I wished that Khalifa, a successful screenwriter, had given freer rein to his gift for dialogue, to allow the lesser characters more air. Yet relief comes in the final section, set in women's prisons, when the narrator's delusions are stripped away. Marxists and Islamists share dry bread and "lewd talk" with prostitutes, who pity the politicals – their scars from "whips, electrodes and cigarettes would remain as tattoos, which even henna patterns couldn't hide". Most moving is the young woman's dawning understanding of her father, a despairing dissenter against "sectarian fever", who packed his bags for Beirut. He "spoke of torturers and corrupt statesmen who belonged to our sect and, in contrast, of men from the other sect who had defended our right to speak the truth". |
| If her hatred is born in part of self-loathing, the novel hints at a tolerance that flows from self-acceptance – and has women's freedom firmly at its heart. As Robin Yassin-Kassab notes in a perceptive foreword, the author had his left hand broken by "regime thugs" at the fraught funeral of a murdered musician in Damascus earlier this year. Fortunately, as Khalifa has pointed out, he writes with his right. | If her hatred is born in part of self-loathing, the novel hints at a tolerance that flows from self-acceptance – and has women's freedom firmly at its heart. As Robin Yassin-Kassab notes in a perceptive foreword, the author had his left hand broken by "regime thugs" at the fraught funeral of a murdered musician in Damascus earlier this year. Fortunately, as Khalifa has pointed out, he writes with his right. |
| • Maya Jaggi is chair of this year's Man Asian literary prize. | • Maya Jaggi is chair of this year's Man Asian literary prize. |
| • This article was amended on 27 September 2012. The translator's name, Leri Price, in the fact box was misspelled as Levi Price. This has been corrected. | • This article was amended on 27 September 2012. The translator's name, Leri Price, in the fact box was misspelled as Levi Price. This has been corrected. |