The Arab of the Future 2

I think the lasting impression I’ll have from Sattouf’s graphic memoirs is the bleakness of his life in Syria. He makes the land look bleak, the Syrian people look bleak, and finally he makes his home life look bleak. The only exception is the part where he visits his mother’s family in France, at least that gives him a window of hope. But everything else in the book is like being stuck at the bottom of a hole.

    In the previous book, Riad Sattouf begins life as a cute well-spoken blond French kid, the son of a French woman and a Syrian Arab academic. First they move to Libya (lousy) and then Syria (awful) where they’re trapped in a society of dirty fields, dirty streets, abused kids, and animal cruelty. His father, a follower of Ba’ath philosophy and Pan-Arabism, is completely delusional. He turns down positions at British universities to take a low-level professorship in Syria, all because of his Pan-Arabist fantasy. Meanwhile, his wife just tolerates it. The people are filthy, the relatives are awful, and the local children are abused at home and take it out on other children. As for Riad, the kids at his school are either abused at home or spoiled rotten.

    One of the most prominent things about the story is the difference in Syrian and French child-rearing practices. In France, the toys are all constructive, while in Syria the toys are all plastic soldiers and toy guns. The plastic soldiers are meant to represent Israelis, with reptilian features and nasty expressions. They have a white flag of surrender in one hand, and a knife in the other hand, hidden behind their backs. In France, the children are cared for, while in Syria they’re neglected and beaten constantly. The boys in Riad’s school all have burn scars on their faces, and the teacher sends more time hitting the kids than teaching them. The only ones who befriend him are the dirt-poor kids who are usually on the receiving end of their parents (or the teacher’s) beatings. The children of his father’s wealthy friends and relatives, however, are spoiled rotten and treat him terribly. I can really relate to this personally, because my wealthy friends and relatives were like that too, it was always “stand over there and don’t touch my stuff.” Back in school, the best friends I had were all dirt poor, and they’d give you the shirt off their backs.

    Nepotism also comes into play in The Arab of the Future, because in Syria (and probably in most developing countries) the best jobs are given to people with connections. Professor Sattouf has a degree from the Sorborne in Paris, but he’s given a lower-level academic job because he’s got no insider to get him into a better post. He’s from a poor peasant family, and the only member with an education, but nobody in Syria cares. It’s one of the reasons that the country was a mess then and has become an even bigger mess now. Keep in mind that Syria’s army officers all got their jobs through nepotism, and it led to Syria getting beaten by Israel in every war.

    Artistically, Riad Sattouf book is great, because he makes use of colors to convey they mood. In the Libya sequence, everything is yellow, so you get the feeling of a scorched desert. France is colored blue, which makes everything feel calm and balanced. While you might find the blue to be depressing, keep in mind that the French are shown as having greater self-control than the Syrians, who are portrayed as borderline savage. The Syrian part of the story is red, because firstly the ground is red from the iron, and secondly, red conveys anger.

    I’ll sum up by saying that this is a great book about a horrible life. By the end of book #2, it’s clear that nothing’s going to get any better, because the father is delusional and the mother can’t put her foot down. She can’t be bothered to walk her six year old son to school, and the father can’t be bothered to buy his son the right clothing. There’s also a sad scene in the book, where the mother is fascinated by a cousin’s collection of gold (nine pounds of it), a gift from her rich husband. I was fascinated too, because this is a woman who gets dragged by her husband to a horrible country, where the food is bad and she has nobody to talk to. What reward does she get? Nothing! Her husband hasn’t given her anything but a leaky roof over her head.