Arab Hospitality

 Chai Nana - image:Nicholas Malfait

Abdullah Zahlan had arranged my meeting with the Minister the next day, so I found myself sitting on the leather sofa outside Harb Al Hashemi’s office, drinking a little gold-rimmed glass of thyme zaatar tea as I waited for the big panelled doors to open. When they did, a little grey-haired man in a blue-grey suit shot out, a pile of papers clutched in his arm as he paddled a fussy wave of effusive thanks and effendi’s to Al Hashemi’s crisp, efficient secretary, who ignored him.
   ‘You can go in, now, Mr. Stokes.’
Olives, Page 127

Formal meetings in the Arab World often still involve little gold-edged custard glasses of ‘chai’ in various forms, from ‘chai suleimani’, a sweet bronze-coloured infusion of tea, almost certainly Lipton to ‘chai nana’, tea with fresh mint steeped in it. And then there are the herbal and fruit teas you come across, most frequently ‘zaatar’, or thyme. I remember ginger tea waiting in Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s majlis, deep-pile carpets and mirrored walls all around me. And long, painful waits for short, painful meetings at the Ministry of Information in Dubai filled with a variety of teas brought to me in a procession of diuretic little delights. Those were the meetings back in the early ‘90s when I had fallen foul of someone with wasta, something that can’t, thankfully, happen in the same way to writers in the UAE today. Or to their kidneys.

In Saudi Arabia and Kuwait you’re just as likely to be offered ghawa, green unroasted coffee flavoured with cardamom and served in little cups from a long-necked brass coffee pot or, more likely these days, a long brass-necked coffee pot shaped thermos. It’s polite to accept a refill or, at most, two and then pass the cup back with a little waggle to signify you’re done. Two fingers over the cup will do instead of a waggle.

It's a little ritual that's tied into the age-old Arab traditions of hospitality that still dictate how you're received as a guest, whether it's sitting in a Jordanian government minister's waiting room or encountering a family while offroading in the Omani mountains and being invited into their home to share coffee and dates. Coming from a culture that's instinctually distrustful of strangers, it never fails to amaze me.

Arabian Nights

   His voice was matter-of-fact. ‘There are many blue cars in the world, Paul. There are many meetings between men at night in Palestine, because the Arabs love the night. They like to plot and scheme, to talk about ideals and the perfection of the world. Now and then their talk turns to action, but rarely. Mostly they talk and dream, drink tea and smoke argileh. It’s their tragedy, the Palestinians, to dream like opium eaters while their leaders fail them. They leave it to others to act and build better houses around themselves.’
Olives, Page 193

“The Arabs love the night.” I do like that, Father Vahan the Armenian Orthodox Priest being perhaps a tad harsh in his assessment of his neighbours and countrymen. It’s true, though – the Arabs do love the night, a time for families and gathering in places such as pleasure parks and corniches, small children staying up until all hours, running around and squealing as they play.

It’s a habit born, in part, of the hot summer months, when the evenings are cooler. And perhaps it’s a habit accentuated by the customs of the month of Ramadan, when the day is given to fasting and, properly, religious contemplation - as is the night, with prayers through the early hours. But the night also becomes a time of house visits, of food gifts and gatherings, the breaking of the fast at sunset giving way to the ‘suhoor’, a meal that takes place at varying times from about 9pm onwards, depending on who’s throwing it. Here rich foods are eaten, argileh smoked alongside endless custard glasses of chai suleimani and games of tarneeb, the card play that is a passion for so many across the Arab world, battles fought, won and lost every night. Some play for money, but We Don’t Talk About That.

In Jordan, Ramadan nights also become the occasion for performances – I shall never forget walking with friends into a burlesque by Lebanese female impersonator Bassem Ferghali in Amman, entranced by the sheer naughtiness of it all to a boy used to Ramadan in the Gulf, where the evenings are perhaps a tad less riotous.

I thought Father Vahan’s summary of the Arabs would get me into more hot water, but so far it’s just elicited rueful head-shakes. Then I hadn’t predicted any of the elements of Olives that would be controversial in the Arab world (never intended as the book’s original target market, I must say), so what would I know? The name of a fictional family, the morals of a fictional girl and actually talking about the alcohol that is so frequently consumed behind closed doors – these have been the biggies, not passages like the one I quote today.

Which, I suppose, is part of what I love about the region. It’s so bloody Quixotic...

The Mental Thing About Deir Yassin

   I spoke to Aisha but looked at Mariam, a strange triangular conversation. ‘How did they meet?’
   Mariam looked misty-eyed, gazing out of the window as she talked. ‘At a market in Nazareth. The families took a long time to come to terms with the fact they were in love and wouldn’t marry anyone else, Mariam says. My father was born here on the farm, in 1946. She says he cried all the time as a baby but when he was two they were forced to leave the farm and my father fell silent. She worried about him, he was so quiet and still.’
Olives Page 178

Many Palestinian families found themselves on the road in 1948, the year of Israel’s foundation. It’s not a story people like to tell outside the Arab World, the mass migration of some 700,000 people from their homes. Many were farmers, villagers – simple, traditional people who would have barely understood what was happening around them beyond the simple existential threat of men coming to drive them away or kill them.

They were encouraged in this by hearing tales of massacres – just over a month before April 16th, ‘Al Nakba day’ or Israel’s foundation day, depending on which side of the wall you figuratively stand, over a hundred villagers had been massacred by Zionist paramilitaries (or terrorists if you prefer to use the term the British authorities used to describe them. Your terrorist is my paramilitary!). The men from the Irgun and Lehi entered the village and systematically murdered the villagers, throwing hand grenades into houses and lining prisoners up on the heights of the quarry and shooting them to let their bodies fall into the quarry.

It’s an act that always brings the little town of Oradour to my mind, although the scale is different (ten times as many died in Oradour). But then I have always found comparing massacre as a numerical exercise is frighteningly inhumane. Call me squeamish.

Condemned by Jewish authorities, the Deir Yassin massacre undoubtedly struck fear into other Arab communities and is credited with being a pivotal event in the decision of the surrounding Arab countries to attack Israel.

And so the family in Olives took to the road, leaving their farm behind as they sought safety, taking their silent baby with them as they fled the killing and the clearing of land that was to take place and take away so many people’s homes.

The ruins of Deir Yassin were settled and apparently a few houses remain as part of a mental hospital today. An insane irony, perhaps.