Book Review:
Queen Noor, Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life
Norma Khouri, Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan
These two books were just published in February and March of this year, and I read them together. Since they both cover similar ground and became linked in my mind, I'll write about them together.
The Queen of Jordan is still part of the royal family of Jordan and so part of the government, and her book was probably checked by several censors, so I wasn't really expecting much in the way of revelations. Also, it may be impolitic to be too forthcoming with the truth, for any political figure, so I have to say I also took much of it with a grain of salt.
There really wasn't much of a need to do so, though, as the book was almost totally inoffensive, except perhaps for her version of the Arab-Israeli wars, told, of course, from the Arab POV with a certain liberality with the facts, so to speak (i.e. some of it is blatant lies). Also, she can't help throwing in some rather tasteless, shall we say, characterizations of Israelis/Jews e.g. the World Zionist Organization is inexplicably described as "well-funded," Israel exercises a certain "magical power" over the minds of Americans, AIPAC can get any bill through Congress they want, Israelis inexplicably adopting an "unhelpful" "fortress mentality," even though she herself mentions that the PLO's goal was and is to destroy Israel, everything is always Israel's fault...etc. It's subtle but the net effect wasn't very flattering to a woman who fancies herself progressive and open-minded.
ANYWAY...with that caveat, we can go on to the general content. The book is actually mostly about King Hussein, her husband of almost 21 years. Her 26 years of life as Lisa Halaby before meeting the King takes up only 35 pages in a 450-page book, and in the rest of the text the spotlight is always on the King (she calls him alternately "the King," "Hussein," and "my husband" and is hardly ever missing on a page). Unfortunately we don't get to learn much about Noor herself. Her activities, foundations, and charitable works are described with all the depth and detail of a PR statement (actually, those parts even sound exactly like blurbs from a pamphlet or fundraising letter). Her descriptions of meetings with other leaders are totally superficial and rarely do we get to find out what she really thinks of President So-and-So or of Mrs. So-and-So. No dirt or gossip here!
Despite her emphasis on her Arab roots (her grandfather was an Arab Christian from Beirut), Noor comes off as a thoroughly Western woman, with typically American liberal views ("liberal" in the sense of "what she might have got out of 4 years at Princeton"). She seems to have never left the '60s ("War is bad for children and other living things!" and her pacifist leanings). But all of that rings a little false when you realize just how repressive Jordan really is (you can be jailed for criticizing the King, political parties were banned for decades, no general elections from 1967 to 1989, martial law) which you really don't see at all in the book. How could a woman with her professed liberal, democratic views have simply taken all of that in stride? She does describe wanting a little loosening up of the press, but that's about it. And how can she claim that wars never solve anything given even her own history of modern Middle East history? Naivete or disingeniousness?
One of Noor's main goals in this book is obviously to make Jordan look as good as possible, so most of the unpleasantness is simply ignored or whitewashed (but what do you expect from a Queen of Jordan???). Honor killings, of which more later, merit about half a page, and there are supposedly only 25 a year, a ridiculously low number taken from the official statistics. Obviously admitting to more would do serious damage to Jordan's "modern" facade. There is no real sense of the grinding poverty affecting huge portions of Jordanian society, nor of lack of human or women's rights. Even the poor Palestinians rotting in refugee camps and exiled from their homeland, which she draws attention to at every opportunity, are hardly visible as living, breathing humans, only as a symbol of injustice and humiliation. What we're left with is a Jordan out of a travel book, exotic people plying their exotic crafts (the program Noor set up to distribute and sell native handcrafts is discussed at length), with fantastic sights and landscapes.
The oddest thing I found about the book was that Islam was discussed for a sum total of perhaps 2 or 3 pages. For all her claims about how she didn't convert to Islam out of convenience, she barely talks about it. There are a few scattered remarks about her conversion to Islam (the morning of her wedding) and about how Islam has great beauty and the Prophet said that "None of you is a believer unless he wants for his brother what he wants for himself." A couple remarks about Ramadan and praying at the King's grave, a brief discussion of Hajj and that's about it. I was curious about whether she prayed 5 times a day, attended Friday prayers at the mosque, read the whole Qur'an, her views about some Islamic laws, anything...but nothing was forthcoming. And especially her views on hijab! In all the pictures in the book, she is virtually always wearing Western clothes, hair proudly uncovered. The sole exceptions are: a shot of her and her daughter at the King's grave, a small white scarf tossed over her head, barely covering anything, and another of Noor dressed to make Umrah, where you can really see what all that cloth makes her look like! Not that I really care whether she herself wears it or not; it's just that hijab is such a heated topic in Islam I was hoping for maybe a comment or two, especially given the fact that every Islamic scholar I've read or talked to considers it to be a requirement for all Muslim women! I am left thinking she probably shares Queen Rania's stated postion that she doesn't think it's required.
For what it was (a feel-good portrait of an American-born Queen, her King and her love of her adopted country), it wasn't really that bad. I spent a couple of long nights reading it through, unable to put it down for long. But I'm such a book addict anyway... ;-P
The other book, Norma Khouri's Honor Lost, offers a glance behind the facade of modernity Jordan projects. The book, written by the author in an Internet cafe, describes her friendship with a Muslim girl, Dalia (she herself is Catholic), Dalia's love for a Catholic man she meets at the salon in Amman she and Norma run together, the lovers' clandestine meetings (perfectly chaste), and finally the tradegy that ensues when Dalia's family finds out and her father feels he must cleanse his family's honor by stabbing her a dozen times. Norma is finally forced to leave Jordan, knowing that she too is likely to fall to the same fate.
Although mostly a Muslim phenomenon, honor killings also affect Christians, and Khouri describes this as coming from the shared Bedouin Arab traditions that hold all Jordanians captive. She devotes an "Afterword" to the subject of honor killings, pointing out that it is in Jordan's interest to minimize the extent of the problem. After all, how "advanced" can a society be where fathers slaughter their daughters for "dishonoring" their families, just by meeting or even talking to a man? The official figure of 25 killings a year is far too low; the real number probably numbers in the thousands, since most are not classified as such, instead as "crimes of passion" or "suicide" or something else. And worst of all, the killers get away nearly scot-free--three-month prison sentences are common, often waived as "time served" out on bail at home. The laws explicitly permit this, and Parliament has no intention of allowing this to change--why, if a father can't protect his family's honor, the whole society will become degenerate like the West. Change is very slow in coming.
The book is a quick read, coming in at 211 pages of double-spaced text. The pace is quick and lively, and the slice-of-life details of middle-class life in Amman are engaging. At times the writing is a bit awkward and some dialogue a bit stilted, but that doesn't detract from the story, especially given the circumstances of its composition. The main characters are very much alive--Dalia, Michael, herself, even Dalia's unsympathetic brother Mohamed, assigned to chaperone the friends as they work in their salon, and ends up finding out about his sister's secret, leading to her death. Khouri mentions she went to English schools, thus explaining her very good command of English.
What I found refreshing was the lack of apologetics and justification for horrendous acts, a fault that plagues most books currently written about the Middle East. Khouri minces no words in describing the barbarity of honor killings, and she delivers some pointed barbs at Islam itself. She isn't afraid that her story will make Jordan look bad; it's a problem to be got out into the open and solved, an attitude unfortunately lacking in far too much writing about the region.
These books are available at Fine Bookstores Everywhere (tm), alas only in hardback as of yet.
