1 of 3
Rarely will something as personal as a memoir ably locate the individual experiences of the memoirist within a larger historical context. Too often, we are treated to an inward-looking exploration of a tiny familial or social circle—a narrative which, if not completely oblivious to the ferment raging without, audaciously presumes that regional and global events merit little significance when compared to the writer's own tribulations. Yet with Teta, Mother, and Me, Jean Said Makdisi comes close to chronicling the modern history of her part of the world through delving into her mother's and maternal grandmother's rich and varied lives. And this, even though Makdisi has for years struggled to overcome a gnawing feeling that she falls "outside history," a fate she cannot escape.
by Jean Said Makdisi Norton, 2006 404 pp., $25.95 |
Essentially three memoirs in one, the finished product effectively juxtaposes Makdisi's recollections of childhood and adulthood with those of her mother (upon whom she impressed the necessity of passing on her reminiscences before it was too late), supplemented by a surprisingly substantial quantity of mainly research-derived information about the life and times of her Teta, or grandmother. This book, which covers Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, spanning the period from the late 19th-century until today, probes the effects of "modernity" on the women of Makdisi's family. Teta's life, which straddles the traditional and the modern, provides the basis for many of the author's observations and criticisms concerning Western missionary schooling, village versus city life, the nuclear family, and even the carving up of the Ottoman Empire by Western colonial powers—in short, modernity, Middle Eastern-style. Sadly, Makdisi's Teta and mother are both "defeated by modernity," which, among other affronts, strips them of the matriarchal role to which they would have been entitled in the old system. A desire on Makdisi's part to investigate the socio-historical reasons for this loss in status occasions a complex reappraisal of the legacy of missionary schools in greater Syria, and their conflicted relationship with their surroundings. Indeed, according to Makdisi, "whether she was aware of it or not, my grandmother was partly formed by the mutual hostility between local and missionary cultures."
Makdisi's own conflicted relationship with the Protestant missions makes for one of the most fascinating elements of this book. Though admittedly indebted to the schools and their staff for many of her values, her command of English, and a thorough acquaintance with everything from Western philosophy to music, Makdisi also properly berates these institutions for their puritanical social and sexual views, openly dismissive attitude toward "natives," and holier-than-thou posturing. Of the schools' effect on her grandmother, Makdisi writes, "It was the beginning of that alienation from their natural environment that was to dominate not only her life, but also the life of a whole class, a whole segment of the people."
The historical context of all this should not be overlooked. The missionaries, and the Western colonial powers with which they were sometimes affiliated, created
an entirely new caste of people in the Arab countries in which they operated. Divorced from their traditional culture and surroundings, yet never fully accepted by their mentors, who seemingly could not view them in a non-patronizing manner, the new caste came to inhabit the cultural equivalent of "no-man's-land." Bereft of the sectarian or ethnic characteristics normally associated with a separate social entity in the Middle East, this educated and worldly class failed to carve out a niche for itself, and gradually came to exemplify a tragic and cruel cultural experiment. Sometimes the tragedy and cruelty can best be seen on a personal level. Jean Said Makdisi is the daughter of an Anglican father and a Southern Baptist mother, both Palestinian. In fact, in 1890, a maternal great-grandfather became the first Arab Protestant minister ordained by the National Evangelical Church in Lebanon, while her maternal grandfather would later become the first Southern Baptist minister in Palestine. How ironic, then, that Southern Baptists should turn out to be such ardent supporters of Zionism, which resulted in the dispossession of Makdisi's family along with so many others.
share this page
RSS Feed
