It began nearly a decade ago with an act of police brutality, followed by a grassroots campaign that resulted in huge public protests, a revolution that spread throughout an entire region of the world. The political landscapes of multiple countries were upended, leaders were removed, tyrants were eliminated. For many people in far-removed countries who knew little to nothing of the Middle East beyond a vague impression that it has been a troubled region for their entire lifetimes, the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings brought many struggling nations into sharp relief. The protests were on our television screens and computer monitors. We watched real people, beaten and bloodied, carried to safety by their friends, sometimes by complete strangers, but always by their fellow citizens. For some of us, it was reminiscent of watching news footage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. The cause of the strife may have had a different immediate source, but the result looked terrifyingly familiar. People who normally would not have been interested in such events suddenly began to pay attention. It was much more difficult to dismiss the images as belonging to “them, not us”. These were not just a shadow population of a far away land. They had become real people who had faces, who wore clothes with logos we saw in our own stores, who were frightened and angry and had earned a better life than they were receiving. They were human beings. Still are.
My first exposure to Robert F. Worth’s A Rage for Order was in the Spring of 2016 when it was featured on Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square program on CNN. I have always enjoyed Mr. Zakaria’s program and his global citizen view of the world and its problems. I even have a coffee mug with the program’s logo on it. I call it my smart mug. Shortly after the program ended, I visited my local bookshop and bought a copy of Worth’s new book.
And then it sat on a shelf for nearly four years.
As much as I try to pay attention to what is going on in the world, there has been so much worldwide negativity during my adult life, which has been a smidge more than half of my lifetime so far, that it is exhausting to keep up and keep it all straight. I reached my tolerance limit and backed away. With the coming of the new calendar year, I reignited by interested in world events and endeavored to make this book the first of my new effort. (Note: I wrote this more than a month ago before the COVID-19 virus brought the world to a standstill. So that’s one more negative global story to add to the pile. Had I not read the book prior to the pandemic, I probably would not have read it at all.)
This is difficult subject matter, but I appreciate the way Robert Worth chose to tell this story. Instead of just being a textbook explanation of the events, Worth chooses individual people as the lens through which we see these events unfold. We meet a Libyan rebel who comes face to face with the man who tortured and murdered his brother and we witness him struggle with vengeance or forgiveness. It is one of those stories that makes me really sit and think about what I might do in that situation. Later, Worth takes us to Egypt and introduces us to a doctor who suffers an existential crisis as his political loyalties and his medical oath conflict. The Syrian chapter tells the story of two young women, best friends since childhood, but from different sects of Islam and the wedge it drives between them as the uprisings turn violent. It is a heartbreaking story that illuminated the senseless nature of such squabbles. These are human stories about real people and the absolute awfulness they endure. The stories made me mad, made me sad, made me wonder if things will ever, can ever get better.
What the book did not do is give me any hope whatsoever that the region is on the right path. There was a moment there during those Spring months of 2011 when we saw a glimmer of hope, baby steps in the right direction, but since then we have continued to see stories about atrocities in the Middle East and so it seems the region is backsliding. It is still the one region of the world to which I have no interest in traveling. My perception is that it is still just too dangerous and not at all friendly to Westerners. That is such a shame. There is so much history and beauty there. My hope is that before I die, the region will experience a Renaissance, an Enlightenment, and people like me can experience the rich culture of the Middle East firsthand. Until then, I will have to continue to feel sorrow and despair every time the news shows me another blood-drenched and smoke-choked scene of death and destruction due to government brutality or religious extremism.
If you have A Rage for Order on your shelf, put it on your nightstand, in your backpack, carry it with you to your local coffee shop (after COVID-19 clears up — again, I originally wrote this over a month ago). Make time to read it. Despite the way it made me feel, I am still grateful for the opportunity to experience the stories Robert Worth shared and grateful to the subjects for allowing him to tell me their tales.