Yasmina Khadra has written a heart-stinging and challenging successor to previous novels The Swallows of Kabul and The Attack. Set mainly in Iraq, it goes straight to the crucial issues and moral debates of our times, which most of us manage to ignore. It begins with violence against the innocent in Iraq and ends with similar violence planned against the perpetrators where, once again, the innocent will be most affected. And the reader begins to be aware of the question: Does ignorance make one innocent?
The protagonist remains unnamed throughout. He is an intelligent young Bedouin from the town of Kafr Karam who goes from being a gentle and devout person to becoming desperate and determined to undertake a suicide mission of revenge, something The Sirens of Baghdad (Heinemann) illuminates with subtlety and insight.
It reads fluently and Khadra’s portrait of village life is full of interest and humour so that the reader comes to appreciate and enjoy the people of this hamlet. These are humble but not stupid people trying to come to terms with life pre- and post-Saddam. The war has not yet reached the remote village, but the inhabitants’ luck changes and there are three incidents of mindless and extreme violence perpetrated by the invading United States troops. Nauseated and shocked, the young protagonist is propelled into wiping out the offence and humiliation with blood. Khadra never overtly questions this eye-for-an-eye mindset, the avenging of honour, but it is implicit throughout the story.
The narrator goes back to Baghdad where he had been a student before the US invasion. Isolated and devastated, he is casting about for the right path. Khadra creates a wonderful cast of characters illustrating the complexity and nuance of Iraqi society — in this he clearly challenges the idea of the faceless, genericised but dangerous Arab. His characters show a wide range of points of view. Most specifically he examines the question as to what the real battle in Iraq is about. Is it within the Muslim elite, between the intellectuals and the radical imams, or is it between Aryan and nonAryan peoples?
The two who slug it out on this are old friends: Dr Jalal, a Westernised academic now turned against his former Western friends, and a novelist, Seen. Another character, Omar, occupies a position between radical commitment and total rejection of the continued resistance. An interesting subplot weaves itself around the youth from Kafr Karam and Omar in that both inadvertently contribute to the demise of the other.
Once the narrator is in Baghdad it becomes plain that Khadra abhors violence. The resistance guerrillas with whom the youth falls in are as contaminated and coarsened by terrible deeds as the GIs. Nonetheless, the reader is left in no doubt that Kahdra considers the invasion of Iraq and the continued occupation absolutely without justification.
This is a gripping story that keeps you breathlessly involved till the very end. Speaking of Dr Jalal, the youth says: ”The accuracy of his analyses and the effectiveness of his arguments are a joy to consider.” He could well have been speaking of this novel. It is an important book for us at this time, but the author understands the reader’s human frailty well enough to have made it a wonderful read.
Yasmina Khadra is the nom de plume of the Algerian army officer, Mohammed Moulessehoul, who took a female pseudonym to avoid submitting his manuscripts for approval by the army