Caravans, Cranes and War Without End, Part 2

James Michener's 1963 novel "Caravans" was one of his characteristically sweeping sagas, this time set in Afghanistan and neighboring countries in the period immediately following World War II. The movie based on this book was filmed in Iran and released in 1978, the year that HWMBO returned to the US after four years living and working in Iran. HWMBO departed barely ahead of the revolution that would transform Iran from 1979 on.

The story deals with a protagonist who is stationed at the American Embassy in Kabul who is given the assignment to discover the whereabouts and condition of an American woman who had married an Afghani exchange student several months previously and then seemingly disappeared. Given the time (mid to late 1940s) and the state of race relations generally in the US, any white American woman who married a foreigner, particularly one whose skin color was darker than lily-white, was already in the extreme avant-garde. Interestingly, nearly 20 years later, another avant-garde white American woman married another even more dusky-hued exchange student although she did not follow him when he returned to his native country. The current US President, whom I am very proud to support wholeheartedly, was born of that union in Hawaii, another Michener novel locale. Unfortunately, it does not seem that race relations in certain parts of the US have progressed much beyond the post WWII-period. To our eternal shame.

As anyone who reads the novel discovers, no harm has befallen the American woman, who is supremely independent and very much the mistress of her own destiny. But the scenario does provide Michener with the excuse to explore the extremely interesting complexes and nuances of the primarily nomadic cultures that he describes. In fact, even with that arguably sketchy and fictional background about Afghanistan paired with my own experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in an Islamic culture, I likely understood much more about the region than the majority of those in the Reagan Administration who hated anything Russian with fanatical zeal. Thus, as soon as they possibly could, and in defiance of any long-term logic, they hastened to arm the most fundamentalist Islamic Afghan groups and extensively trained in military tactics anyone who was willing, Afghan or not, to fight the Russians who invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Of course, as we have all seen since, many of those who were armed and trained by the short-sighted Reagan-era fanatics were the same people who would later conspire successfully to bring down the Twin Towers on 9-11. Many of those trained and their successors continue to fight - successfully - against our own troops today.

So, I was delighted when in late January I had an opportunity to meet with and hear some of the first-hand experiences of the Swiss-American journalist, Edward Girardet. Girardet, who has a home in Geneva and who wrote principally for the Christian Science Monitor during the 30-year period from 1979-2009, published a book, "Killing the Cranes," in 2011 about his experiences during three decades of war in Afghanistan. Here is one book review. It is my fervent hope that those in the Obama Administration will read it and take heed. In fact, I think that every American should read it. After our extremely ill-advised commencement of war there in 2001, we seem caught there in a morass that destroyed empires long before our own was even a gleam in the eye of civilization.

As Girardet tells it, the title comes from an experience in March 2004 when Girardet was spending the evening with an Afghan friend in Kabul. His friend remarked, "For me, the end of March has always been the time when you cannot hear your voice for the sound of the migrating cranes." He meant the Siberian cranes that every spring have flown northward from the southern wetlands of Iran and Afghanistan to the Russian Arctic and northern Siberia. The friend continued, "You know, I have not heard a single crane since being here." Shaking his head wearily, he asked, "Have we even killed all the cranes?"

In September 2001, Girardet was in Afghanistan hoping to interview Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Afghan leader who likely presented the main challenge to the then-Taliban government and thus a counter to the growing influence of Al Qaeda. As it would happen, Girardet had a commitment to return to Switzerland for his wife's birthday and could not stay later than 8 September. Because weather conditions were such that Massoud's helicopter could not land at his command post until after Girardet's departure, Girardet missed getting his interview. Fortunately for him, he also likely just missed being killed along with Massoud on 9 September. In the book, Girardet describes how all the journalists waiting to interview Massoud were staying in the same guesthouse. Staying in the room next to his were two Arabs posing as journalists who turned out to be Massoud's assassins.  Here is a link to a YouTube video of Girardet's conversation with Thom Hartmann.

Afghanistan has been in the headlines recently, but neither in the romantically exciting sense of "Caravans," nor in the vanished cranes symbolizing a similarly lost past. Now it is in the context of War Without End and commensurate atrocities. Thus, to tomorrow's post.

Velvet and Amethyst

Almost exactly a year ago, Friend D was visiting.  As I was showing her around this area, we stopped in the lovely little village of Céligny, and found the cemetery where the great Welsh actor Richard Burton was buried in 1984, after spending his last years living in this area.  I described that visit in this post.

Two days ago, on Wednesday, Burton's ex-wife (twice), the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor, died in Los Angeles, where she had been hospitalized with symptoms of congestive heart failure for six weeks.  According to the local paper, there was speculation as to whether she would be buried here in Switzerland.  She is reported to have said, when she attended Burton's funeral in 1984, that she wished to be buried next to him.  Of course, later on, she stated that she would like to be buried next to Michael Jackson.  It is probably just as well that she had a change of heart.  Burton had originally purchased a plot for her next to his own.  It is reported that he ultimately cancelled the purchase.  No doubt such a threesome would not have been welcomed by Burton's widow.

All speculation ceased when it was reported today that her funeral, a small private service, took place yesterday and that she was buried in the cemetery where other screen greats such as James Stewart, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy lie.  In the end, she was buried closer to Michael Jackson, who also has his last resting place there, than to Burton.  Note: the story linked to erroneously reports that Burton was buried in Wales.

Elizabeth Taylor was an cinematic icon of my youth.  Who can forget her as the beautiful, feisty Velvet Brown, who rides her gallant horse to win the Grand National in National Velvet and then is denied the prize because girls were not allowed to be jockeys?  She was barely 12 years old at the time.  Thus began one of the most tumultuous screen careers of the 20th century, both on- and off-screen.  Married eight times to seven different men (Burton counts twice in the marriage statistics), the black-haired amethyst-eyed beauty accumulated two Oscars for Best Actress.  Among her many movies, two of my personal favorites are Giant and Raintree County.  Both are movies that I like to watch over and over again.  Each time I see them, it renews for me the age I was and the era I experienced when I first saw them.

I remember the shock we all felt to hear of the sudden death of her third husband, Mike Todd, in a plane crash.  I also remember the deep disappointment so many of us felt when she turned to the married Eddie Fisher, husband of her erstwhile friend, Debbie Reynolds, for comfort.  Soon after that, she and the ill-fated Fisher went to Europe for the filming of Cleopatra, where she met Richard Burton.  And that was that.  Yes, there were a couple other husbands after Burton, but Burton looms largest.  For those who might be interested, here is an interesting blog post about the various homes she resided in with her various husbands.

Elizabeth's leaving Fisher and the United States for Burton and the Europe of her birth happened around the time - just a bit earlier - that I myself left the US for Morocco.  Her turbulent years with Burton spanned several of my own turbulent years, not nearly as headline-grabbing or public, but important to me.  When I returned to the US with HWMBO in 1982, it was to a Washington scene where she was married to a Republican Senator, an incongruous marriage at best, given her own activism for causes like AIDS, not at all dear to Republicans.

Part of my early fascination with her dealt with her regal name, "Elizabeth," one she shared with the current English monarch, as well as with the first Elizabeth, the great Queen Bess of the Renaissance, and my own mother.  Rest In Peace, Liz, Velvet and so many other characters to whom you gave life!  Your work will live on after you - and so will the memories!

Kindness remembered

This afternoon, while surfing through various on-line sources for news about Switzerland, I chanced upon an article discussing a subject I had never heard about before.  Now it was not the first time such a thing has happened.  Nor, I am sure, will it be the last.  But this was a little footnote to history with a very human dimension, where one small subset of victims of injustice and inhumanity, who would otherwise have blended seamlessly into the overwhelming mass of those who were even worse victims of the horrific Nazi Regime, were treated with kindness, kindness they have remembered for more than 60 years. 

It is all too easy to forget that not all Germans were supporters of Adolf Hitler.  That is, in part, due to the fact that resistance or opposition groups in Germany, especially in the early years of the Nazi Regime, were for the most part disparate and had little communication, coordination or common goals among them.  Still, some sources report that more than 3.5 million Germans had been held in prison or concentration camps for political reasons from 1933-45 and approximately 77,000 Germans were killed for one or another form of resistance.  There was also more than one attempt to assassinate Hitler.  The best-known and most supported attempt, Operation Valkyrie, revolved around Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who after several aborted preliminaries, finally activated a bomb in a briefcase during one of Hitler's conferences with his military officers in July 1944.  After Von Stauffenberg excused himself and left the room, the bomb exploded.  Hitler survived, although several officers present at the meeting were killed in the blast. 

Retribution, as can easily be imagined, was swift and terrible.  Von Stauffenberg and a few of the other plotters were executed almost immediately.  Others committed suicide.  The Gestapo rounded up anyone who had even the most remote connection to the plot.  All relatives of the principal plotters were also arrested.   It is estimated that some 5,000 people were arrested; many were tortured; at least 200 were executed; and some were sent to concentration camps.  Some few managed to escape.  Executions continued until the last days of the war.

This plot was the basis for the 2008 film, Valkyrie, featuring the actor Tom Cruise in the role of Von Stauffenberg.  In the film, as Cruise/Von Stauffenberg is being executed, there is a flashback to a farewell scene with his family.  And so, we arrive at last to these all unwitting young victims.  What happened to them after their fathers had been executed?  At least some of the older ones, together with their mothers, were sent to concentration camps.  Younger children were placed with families considered not to be involved in the plot or in group homes.  But after the war, those who survived had a small, but meaningful in retrospect, respite.

As described in the article I discovered this afternoon, dozens of sons and daughters of the executed members of Operation Valkyrie were taken to Switzerland from 1947-49 to recuperate from their trauma.   This action occurred apart from official Swiss relief efforts after the war.  The official efforts included "Swiss villages" that were set up in Germany to house and feed orphaned or abandoned children.  Food rations in the villages included fresh fruit, hard bread, chocolate and the staple of every Swiss pantry, Ovomaltine. In addition, thousands of the sickest children were brought to Switzerland to recover, and supplies of books were sent to German universities to restock their libraries.

This private effort was organized by a Bernese doctor, Albert von Erlach, who used his connections in the Allied sectors of Germany and in Switzerland.   Von Erlach was a controversial figure who had been closely associated with groups sympathetic to the Nazi Regime.  It is unclear what change of heart had occurred so that he would reach out to children of the Regime's opponents.  Whatever the reason, the children benefited.

In November 2009, forty of these now-grown children, returned to revisit the families in canton Bern who had hosted them as well as to revisit a children's home in the Bernese Alps where many were cared for.  Photos taken at the time can be found here.

"When we gathered on the first evening to talk about our memories of Switzerland as children between 1947 and 49, we realised how many emotions we still have and how thankful we are when we think of this period," said Hans-Manfred Rahtgens.  Rahtgens, currently chairman of the association representing the group, was born only months before his father, Karl-Ernst Rahtgens, was executed.  He himself has no recollection of his time in Switzerland as a three-year-old.  As described in the article, however, others had vivid memories of the trauma they had undergone before their Swiss experience as well as of their time in Switzerland. 

According to Rahtgens, the larger aim of the association representing the children of the German resistance is to "reach out to the youth of today."

"We must let them know what our fathers did and why they did it. Their resistance came too late and was a failure, but on the positive side it was enormously courageous of them to stand up to such an inhuman regime.

"If we succeed in convincing our children that integrity, respect and the rule of law are goals worthy of following, we can be safe in knowing that they will never be forced to take the kind of decisions our fathers did."

Let us hope that this message succeeds.  Those who do not remember the lessons of history are destined to repeat the mistakes that already have been made far too often.

RIP, Pete Postlethwaite!

In 2010, we lost a lot of good people, not simply "good" in the personal moral sense, but "good" human beings who actually inspired kindness, courtesy, diplomacy, compassion, thoughtfulness, humanity, goodwill and positive activism in others - exactly the kind of individuals one would like to emulate, at least somewhat, in one's own personal life.  Sometimes, one wonders just what the selection criteria are for being "voted off" Earth or "voted into" the Next Phase, whatever that phase may be.  Frankly, I would like to see more of the "good" ones retained here for a while longer.  We certainly NEED every one that we can keep.

British actor Pete Postlethwaite is among the first of these good human beings to depart this sphere in 2011.  He will not be the last.  Unfortunately.  His is a name that will likely not mean much to most Americans in the US, even though he nearly won an Oscar for his outstanding acting performance in "In the Name of the Father" in 1993.  In fact, I may never have noticed him myself, but for his excellent performance in the Sharpe TV series, of which I am a great fan.  There Postlethwaite played the unforgettably odious Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswell so well that one almost rose to one's feet and cheered when Hakeswell - at long last - met his well-deserved end, after wreaking havoc, misfortune, murder and despair everywhere he could, in every possible way.   Hakeswell's character was likely the antithesis of everything that Postlethwaite's was.  It is reported that Bernard Cornwell, author and creator of the Sharpe novels, specifically wrote Hakeswell's character in later novels to reflect Postlethwaite's characterization of him in the TV series.

Postlethwaite passed away yesterday, 2 Jan, at the age of 64, after a long battle with cancer.  That makes me reflect more than a bit on my own mortality.  I had not realized that he was actually younger than I.   As with so many I have admired over the years, he began his professional career in teaching.  Today's Guardian on-line printed an obituary for Postlethwaite, a tribute from one who was inspired by his performances, and an article celebrating some of his most notable roles in film clips.  Please take a moment to stop by to appreciate the work of one whom we will see no more in person.

RIP, Mr. Postlethwaite and thank you!  You have positively touched more lives than you know.  That in itself is a real tribute.

Geneva - Crossroads of Intrigue

During our literary tour of Geneva a couple weeks back, we learned about many writers known to and influential in history who lived and wrote here, or who were inspired by events or scenery here.   The attraction has not yet worn off.  People still come here for a variety of reasons.  Many often write about their experiences here as memoirs.  Some of the more contemporaneous writers, however, especially those who came during the early third and mid-20th century, also found Geneva to be a wonderful setting or inspiration for novels featuring diplomatic intrigue, aka spying.  In fact, there are often glimpses of Geneva and/or Switzerland in some of the great spy flicks featuring James Bond or, more recently, Jason Bourne.   Part of this is due to Geneva's role in international diplomacy and as a neutral ground where East and West have traditionally been able to meet, both officially and unofficially.

Among others, our guide mentioned two authors well-known for their novels of intrigue who had spent time in Geneva, specifically, Graham Greene and Eric Ambler.  One of the latter's titles mentioned by our guide was "The Light of Day" which features - as is often typical of Ambler's novels - a protagonist who is a bumbling sort of anti-hero who manages to surprise himself - and the professional spies - by his decisive actions in a given situation.

Interestingly, soon after our tour, the 1964 film "Topkapi" - which was based on "The Light of Day" - was featured on the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) cable channel here.  For some reason, although I had read the novel in the 60s, I had never seen the film.  So I was thoroughly enchanted to see Peter Ustinov cast as Ambler's bumbling anti-hero, together with luminaries such as Melina Mercouri and Maximilian Schell. 

But our guide also whetted our curiosity by speaking about a real-life intrigue that took place in Geneva in the waning days of the Cold War: the so-called "suicide" of a West German politician named Uwe Barschel in a Geneva hotel in 1987.  The incident has resonated with her especially because her husband was at that time employed as a journalist (he is now retired) and had received word in the middle of the night that he should get to the hotel before the room could be "cleaned up."  Reports state that Barschel was found, fully clothed and lying in a bathtub in his hotel room.  His family has always insisted that his death was not a suicide.  Interestingly, this case (l'Affaire Barschel) was also featured as part of a documentary report on Zone d'Ombre ("Murky Area"), as recently as 27 October 2010 on the French-speaking Swiss channel TSR.  The truth of what happened is still not known but there is reason to believe that his death was linked to  his refusal to allow Israeli arms for Iran to be shipped from ports in Schleswig-Holstein. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel and the United States secretly armed both sides.  When will we ever learn?

The guide's personal link to this true mystery reminded me of another, also related to Geneva, that also has had many strange links to my own life throughout the years.  This mystery, which has always been a personal quest of mine, relates to the mysterious disappearance - and presumed death - of Moroccan left-wing politician Mehdi Ben Barka.  Ben Barka "disappeared" 45 years ago today in Paris, having travelled there from Geneva.  Why I have cause to remember that date is because on or about 29 October 1965, I myself was passing through Paris - my first visit to the "City of Light" - from Rabat, Morocco on my way home to give birth to No 1 Son some months later.  I was horrified by Ben Barka's disappearance at about the same time - ships passing and all that.

Ben Barka was someone whom many young Moroccans who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s admired.  When he was forced into exile in 1963, shortly after the accession to power of King Hassan II, after the unexpected death of his father, King Mohammed V who was considered more friendly to liberal causes, many of these young Moroccans felt that their vision of an independent country based on a parliamentary monarchy had been betrayed.  Hassan II was indeed more repressive than his father had ever dreamed of being.

As an exile, Ben Barka met with and knew several of the great revolutionary rebels of the period.  After meeting Che Guevara, Malcom X and others in Algiers, he travelled to Cairo, Rome, Geneva and Havana, trying to unite revolutionary movements of the Third World.  He was lured to Paris for a meeting, and there was abducted.  Although there is still no one clear theory of what happened to him, most have concluded that he died at the hands of General Mohamed Oufkir, who was the Moroccan Interior Minister at the time.  There have been recurring but so far unverified reports of both US and Israeli complicity in this death as well.

This story has always fascinated me.  Its aftermath has had a tangential influence on my own life.  In 1972, just after I left Moroccan airspace after a brief visit there, the same General Oufkir led an assassination attempt on King Hassan II, unsuccessfully attempting to shoot down the King's private jet.  The King, known for his incredible luck at escaping such attempts, managed to escape yet again.  Oufkir "committed suicide" although the wound was in the back of his head.  Oufkir's family was held prisoner for some 17 years afterwards - a gross travesty of human rights.  The pilot who flew the King's plane and saved his life was thereafter named the Head of the Moroccan Air Forces.  Many years later, I would return to Morocco yet again to meet HWMBO there, at the time working on a commercial US contract under the direction of the Head of the Moroccan Air Forces.

And now we have come full circle.

Millennium man and his women

Among my reading favorites, I love well-written, well-plotted mystery novels.   Many of my favorite mystery authors are women, from classic doyennes of the genre such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, with their various sleuths, to the wit and flair of Josephine Tey, whose early to mid-20th-century novels were regrettably too few - every one a stand-alone classic - to more modern writers such as Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George and Minette Walters, where character and psychological studies, together with treatments of contemporary social issues, are interwoven so seamlessly that one hardly notices.  They are an integral part of the suspense.  While there are many authors whose latest novels I literally rush to read, it is more often those who have been writing for some time and whose work I already know to some extent.  When I do find a new author whose work resonates with me, it is sheer and utter joy.

This happened to me last summer.  I was browsing through the mystery fiction book section at a Maryland Borders bookstore when a helpful salesclerk asked whether I was looking for anything in particular.  I wasn't, but was willing to listen to what she had to say ... and I am so happy that I did.  She told me that, if I hadn't already read the work of Stieg Larsson, I should.  She proceeded to direct me to a copy of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and then informed me of the very regrettable fact that Larsson had died in 2004, so that his fiction work is necessarily limited.

In fact, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is the first novel of three referred to as "The Millennium Trilogy."   The "Millennium" referred to has nothing to do with the ten-century benchmark and everything to do with "Millennium," a fictional magazine with in-depth stories covering various social, political and economic topics.

I don't know what parallel universe I had been living in because I had totally missed the fact that Larsson's book sales had earned him the rank of second-best-selling author in international markets for 2008.  One reason perhaps is because it was only in 2009 that his works, originally written in Swedish, were published in English.  The titles in Swedish are also quite different from their English iterations.  I have read the first two novels already and am impatiently awaiting the third.  It will be distributed in the US this summer.  Film versions of all three novels have been released in Sweden.  "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" has been released in the UK, to critical acclaim.  It has also been released in the US, but with English subtitles.  It appears that a US version will eventually be made.  But I can't help thinking that the details in Larsson's book are so intrinsically Swedish that films set in the US will have difficulty creating anywhere near the same effect.

Larsson's own life story is quite similar to that of his primary male character, Mikael Blomqvist, an investigative journalist.  In fact, it was Larsson's career as a crusading investigative journalist that made him personally the target of numerous death threats, to the extent that his sudden death in 2004 caused suspicion that a death threat had actually been successful.  One sad effect of these threats was that he did not marry his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, who had collaborated with him for 32 years.  Because he died without leaving a valid will, his estate, including all rights to royalties, reverted under Swedish law to his father and brother, his only surviving family members.  Many have found this to be quite unfair in the circumstances, particularly because Larsson had not had much direct contact with either family member for years and Eva had co-written the novels in many ways.  Eva would have been completely left in the cold except that she holds the manuscript to the fourth "Millennium" novel, which gives her some leverage.  She describes the situation in her own words here and here.

"The Girl" referred to in the titles is an amazing new type of heroine named Lisbeth Salander.  Salander, as she is most often referred to, sets an international standard for strong women, although she herself has been shamefully brutalized.  According to Blomqvist, Salander is the "most moral person" that he knows.  To others, she might appear "amoral," even frightening, especially in her punk appearance.  But Salander certainly has a strict ethical code, lives by it fiercely, and has little to no tolerance for the hypocrisy and abuse that are rampant in the institutions surrounding her.  In many ways, she creates her own reality.

Larsson is someone whose work I admire.  We lost him too soon.  Thankfully, his writing will live on forever.