2016 Reading Challenge book two – Finished!

My second book for the Modern Mrs Darcy Reading Challenge was From Beirut to Jerusalem by Swee Chai Ang. This came under the category of ‘a book chosen for you by your spouse, partner, child or BFF’. My husband selected this one for me, having read it himself a number of years ago.

It is one of the hardest books I have ever read. Not intellectually, not in the style of writing (which is very accessible), but emotionally it was so so hard. I normally whizz through books and a book of this size (302 pages) written in plain, straightforward language I would usually expect to get through in a few days. This was so difficult to read that I could only manage a chapter at a time.

I knew a little – a very little – about the conflict in Israel/OPT and the wider Middle East. I had heard of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982. I knew that Lebanon had for years, decades maybe, been pulled into and suffered from, conflicts affecting their neighbours. I did not know just how truly horrific it was. Probably still is. Dr Swee writes in a very unsparing way about the numbers of dead following the Sabra and Shatila massacres. She talks of – and indeed includes a picture of – piled up in alleyways. As an orthopaedic surgeon, she describes the horrendous injuries – and their long term implications – suffered by young and old alike.

I could go on but it is better to read it for yourself, to bear witness. One thing I learnt from the book is that as a result of her time in Lebanon, she helped to start up the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians which warmed my heart as a couple of years ago, a local event I helped to organise raised money for that charity amongst others.

This book is not an easy read. But I think that makes it all the more important. Reading about events of thirty years ago and then watching the news and seeing what is happening in Syria, in the wider Middle East, seeing how many refugees have been forced into an already overcrowded Lebanon, seeing the sheer chaos and agony that people are going through on the borders of a greedy bloated Europe, meant that this book resonated with me all the more. It is one of the few books I can truly say has had a profound impact on me.

Read it. And then read more. Watch the news. Inform yourself. Bear witness. It is the very least any of us can do.