Raising a Glass With an Arab Nationalist

Raising a Glass With an Arab Nationalist

Raising a Glass With an Arab Nationalist

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

The pianist was still droopy-eyed, her face as dark as
the keys they left her to press for half a century, though
she must have been white as an angel when they first
strung her up in the heavy frame on the wall.
Here amid the sighs of Umm Kalthum and the local wine of
uncertain vintage, I thought my courage might come through
that door next to the bar. While the garçon read his tabloid, and
I slid among my options like drop of dew on a bunch of grapes,
an Arab nationalist made an entrance, his hair all white as if he’d
just been fighting off an invasion of the midan down the street.
“The nation is on fire,” he said, instead of good evening, and
I started coughing from the smoke that suddenly engulfed me.
Intermittent barks from outside covered the sounds
of sighing inside. The garçon would turn up the volume
a notch for the Nightingale of the East, but the bitch’s
howling won the battle. Soon she’d give birth to a couple
of pups at least around the back of the building.
The garçon should really stop the 1943 Rivoli record.
Zakarriya Ahmad wouldn’t like this medley of oud, dog
barks, and coughing under a colonial-era roof.
I’d come back from a funeral that afternoon. A
surgeon, just out of school, was waiting for me in a
room he’d spent too much time tidying up.
But my courage never came through the door—the sordid side
door that separates the women’s room from the men’s urinal.

(Translated from the Arabic by Robyn Creswell)

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x