|
|
Executive Times |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
2008 Book Reviews |
|||
|
|
The Way
of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism by Ron
Suskind |
|||
|
Rating: |
*** |
|||
|
|
(Recommended) |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Personal Ron
Suskind’s new book, The Way
of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, is
something of a manifesto calling readers to recover our nation’s moral
authority one step at a time. In case a reader doesn’t see where that moral
authority has been lost, Suskind chronicles how actions over the past decade
have compromised our national values. Here’s an excerpt, pp. 282-285: "He’s
gonna die," Candace Gorman says. "He's just so sick." The two aides to Illinois
congresswoman Jan Schakowsky gaze on, solemnly. They listen intently for the
next fifty minutes as Candace tells the story of Ghizzawi, the baker from
Afghanistan, with a practiced rhythm, running through his medical condition,
the CSRT reversals, and his prospects of surviving another year. Peter Karafotas, thirty-one,
deputy chief of staff for Schakowsky-a liberal Democrat from the Chicago suburbs and
mentor to Obama--finally asks, "What can we do?" It's not
dismissive or resigned. He really
wants to know. Candace says that Schakowsky,
who is both her congresswoman and a member of the House Intelligence
committee, should look into Ghizzawi's case in her official capacity. Her
status on the committee allows her to see classified materials. She starts loading down
Karafotas and his even younger legislative aide with documents: the famous
Abraham Declaration; another declaration, out last month, from an anonymous
tribunal judge who sat on nearly fifty panels and arrived at similar
conclusions; and her filings to the Supreme Court, which detail her client's
medical woes and claim violations of basic protections. "How, again, do you know
the congresswoman?" Karafotas asks, and Candace tells a funny story of
how Schakowsky helped sponsor a show that she organized with some other
detainee lawyers in April 2006. The cast of a British production, Guantanamo:
Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, was
flown to the United States to perform their edgy play of lawyers and
detainees in the Foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building. "At the
start, I asked Jan, can we really do theater in Congress, and she said,
'Absolutely, sometimes it seems like all we do here.' All I can say is, we
had a great turnout for the show." The aides say they'll pass
everything along to their boss, and she'll bring up Ghizzawi's case on the
Intel committee. But Candace isn't hoping for much. While everyone waits for the
seminal habeas corpus case to be argued before the Supreme Court in
December—with a ruling probably not coming until June of 2008—there are no
fundamental rights for Schakowsky, or any lawmaker, to grab hold of. It's all
just political theater. Then Candace is out the door,
her smile gone. She has other offices to call on in the House and Senate.
"I feel like I'm going door to door, doing a one-woman show," she
says archly. In her briefcase, giving it weight and giving her a sense of
righteousness, are letters Ghizzawi gave her during her last visit, on
September 25. He had, essentially, written up his will and put it in an
envelope. He
looked worse than ever then, and he told her he didn't expect to live much
longer. One note elucidated all that had been done to him—the deprivations
and torture—and requested compensation for his family. The other was a note
about the disposition of his personal effects and his hopes for his daughter
and wife. He
showed Candace two pictures of his daughter—one at two months old, when he
was still with his family, the other when she was just a little older, in a
snowsuit. He said he'd received other photos—pictures taken during the years
he's been gone—where she's older, mugging for the camera, or jaunty, hands on
hips. They were of a girl he'd never seen, and whom, he was now convinced,
he'd never meet. "It was too painful for me to look at," he said,
"I had to tear them up." Candace
said if he died, she'd do her best to help his family. He thanked her, and
she pulled some documents from her briefcase. They were copies of various
Supreme Court filings related to the habeas case soon to be argued. "The
injustices done to you, in a way, made this all happen," she said.
"You may end up helping a lot people and helping this country get back
on course." He
smiled wanly. "That's very nice," he said, with mild interest, He
saw his name. ABDUL HAMID ABDUL SALAM ALGHIZZAWI. "That's
not right. That's not my name." Candace
froze. Not his name? She'd filed dozens of legal documents to U.S. courts,
all the way to the Supreme Court, with the , wrong name? "Um,
well that is a problem,"
she said, wondering if she should give him a primer on basic legal standards,
dating back to ancient common law: that those who appear before a judge must
use their proper name. "What,
may I ask, is your name?" she said, feeling the chill wind of suspicion
she thought had long passed and would never return. Is it possible, after all
they'd been through, that she didn't know who he was? Was he really even a
baker, or a man who dreamed of his daughter? "Okay,
let me show you," Ghizzawi said, spinning the document around—her
document—so he could explain. "There, you see, my name is Abdul Hamid
al-Ghizzawi. Those other two words—Abdul
Salam—are
stuck in the
middle." Ghizzawi looked up. "That's the name of the man in the
cell next to me in the beginning, when I first came here. He's gone. He may
have died. I don't know. But they made us one person." She was speechless. That's why Candace Gorman—mom,
lawyer, soft-edged middle-aged American—is walking these halls, barging into
congressional offices to perform her one-woman show. She has no choice. Because in
September of 2007, she saw it, the kind of invisible bond, really, that
suffering or injustice or power, in its dark, punitive form, can create. What
happened is that she, the pencil-thin baker from Afghanistan, and the
vanished man in the next cell all became one person. Each individual
in The
Way of the World seeks a human solution. As Suskind says, (p. 397), “When
the world works, and it often has over the recent centuries, it’s because
everyone moves forward, in a kind of modest unison…. It is … about defining
human progress together, and making sure everyone advances, even if it’s just
one step.” Read The Way
of the World to find out what he means. Steve
Hopkins, October 20, 2008 |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times Archives |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the November 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The Way of the World.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
