All countries living on the edge overflow with paradox. Because of war or famine or internecine conflict or fratricide or the hell of it all, humanity gets to showcase its demons only to egg on the angels. Like that, destruction wrestles with creation, lunacy with sobriety, gunfire with poetry.
There is a name for it, this meandering existence: these blocks of concrete that line the sidewalks; those checkpoints that shield our suicide bombers’ favorite spots; the embassies impregnating themselves in the middle of bustling neighborhoods; the security barriers that usher you in and out of no-go zones wringing the houses of every other big chief.
After the 1967 catastrophe, several particularly mean jokes started making the rounds about Gamal Abd al Nasser. Even we, nappies barely dry, would throw them around laughing, as if to usher in the post-Nasser era.
The meanest of the jokes went like this:
After the ’67 defeat, Nasser stood, chastened, on the presidential balcony to deliver a speech to the throngs.
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