Sailor

It is months since I wrote anything in my blog.

As a result of final work on the Dutch manuscript of my newest book CONTESTED LAND which is set in the Middle East in 1973, for months I kept track of the depressing news about the slaughter in Gaza and the injustices perpetrated on the occupied West Bank.

I still read the news, but I try to avoid it grabbing me by the throat, and probably the last thing you’re waiting for is another analysis about the injustices of the world. Those are common enough in the media and the talkshows. 

Writing is supposed to be fun, so let me share with you a short story which I wrote some time ago. It is about a sailor who found his way as a crew member on my sailboat. The story is fictional, because I don’t live aboard an old yacht, nor can I afford a resident crew, but let’s pretend for a while. 

 

Sailor is inspired by Boris, a wonderful cat we got from an animal refuge long ago. He was much loved and was part of the family until his death three years ago.

SAILOR

My best friend is an undocumented asylum seeker, or a stowaway if you like, a lazy black and white male cat answering to the appropriate name of Sailor. He accidentally came aboard, and I’ll tell you how it came to pass.

Due to circumstances best left unsaid, I live aboard an old sailboat, summer and winter, berthed in the harbour of one of the islands to the north. Even though I only live on a small income without a great deal to spend, funnily that doesn’t bother me. You might call me a tramp, but I live with nature and the tides, the islanders know me and I know them, in short I am alone but not lonely. My boat has worn sails that I patch myself, and I use old-fashioned paper charts and a hand-held GPS because I cannot afford expensive electronic equipment. Each year I try to save up for a summer cruise, and thus I crossed to the UK a few years ago.

 

Calais

 

I had been coast-hopping down to Scheveningen, Flushing and Ostend to arrive at Calais. There the wind shifted into the wrong quarter, and only after several days I managed to escape, crossing the shallows on the early morning flood and continuing to Chatham in one stretch. It was a long trip, crossing the shipping lanes before passing inside the Goodwin Sands to Ramsgate, around the corner at North Foreland and into the Thames.

 

Crossing the shipping lanes

You need to take care with the tidal height over the shallows - there is a bar off Herne Bay, but I managed to scrape across before catching the flood tide into the Medway, past the forts that Michiel de Ruyter captured from the English in 1667. At high water that evening I entered the Chatham marina in an old Navy basin near the Dockyard museum.

 

One of the Medway forts

That summer’s weather was atrocious - it was cold and wet, and one day I had walked through the rain to the Dockyard to gape at all that had been accumulated in the old construction sheds - ship’s boilers, steam locomotives and lifeboats. In the dry docks beyond are a few museum ships, and further on there is the largest rope walk still working in Europe - it is half a mile in length.

Returning along the river to the marina, I encountered a scrawny cat. He had the face of a rogue, one of his ears had apparently been chewed in a fight, and he sat looking dejectedly over the water. When I called him, he ran towards me and rubbed himself against my leg. He had no collar and, as I found later wasn’t chipped, so he was a tramp just like myself, and he was ravenous. He followed me on to the jetty, so later I gave him the left-overs of the fish I had for dinner. Promptly, he sat waiting for his breakfast the next morning, under my sprayhood.

As I slid open the companionway hatch and looked at the streaming rain, next to me I heard a deafening purr as he pushed a wet head against my ear. Such exhortation cannot be ignored, so I let him inside, where he found a warm spot near the heater under the table, on a folded old towel I had put down for him.

Ever since, Sailor and I have been inseparable. He eats with me at the table, has acquired sea legs and put on weight, does his duty in a tray of sand at the back of the cockpit, takes shore leave  in every port like a seasoned sailor, and always returns in time for our departure. Except once when we missed the tide because he overstayed his leave. I couldn’t bear leaving him behind, so I waited patiently till he finally turned up, his tail in the air like a flag. We had to sail against the tide - it took an hour or so longer than I had planned, but Sailor and I returned home without further mishap.

So if you ever visit our island and see an old sailboat berthed in the harbour, and a lazy black and white cat asleep contentedly in the sun on deck, then you’ll know it is him.

 

 

The Congress dances

Do you still understand today’s world? Or are you confused like I am?

Writing is fun, but not always. As an author I have to keep tabs on the daily news, just to keep in touch with what is happening around the world. But I’d rather avoid the news like many others I speak with - most of it is depressing and infuriating.

The Vienna Congress

The indecision and political backstabbing in The Hague and Brussels makes me think of the Vienna Congress of 1814-1815, where two centuries ago protracted negotiation took place on Europe’s future, following Napoleon’s demise in 1813. ‘The Congress dances, but does not progress,’ complained a diplomat from Hainaut in the (then) Southern Netherlands, Charles de Ligne, in desperation over all the diplomatic ballroom parties and the lack of result.  Only after Napoleon managed to escape Elba in February 1815 and grabbed power in France once again before meeting his match at Waterloo, the Vienna Congress woke up and finally managed to make decisions.

The Vienna Congress dances. Source: Wikipedia

The Hungarian disease

Our own version of the Vienna Congress - our Parliament in The Hague - is in summer recess till September. In great haste, following a week of crisis and some clever copy-paste work, in the small hours of morning before their holiday, they recently managed to pass a few anti-asylum laws through Parliament. These were originally devised by the recently ousted far-right Asylum Minister, mrs Faber. If the Upper Chamber of Parliament (equal to the UK House of Lords) passes this law in September, undocumented persons will be punishable, and even giving them humanitairan aid such as handing them a sandwich, or dropping a few euros into a beggar’s hand may cause the police to knock at your door. 

These are Hungarian style contrivances, undoubtedly related to the close friendship between the far-right PVV party leader Wilders and the Hungarian Prime Minister mr Orbán, who pioneered this kind of policy within the EU. And no doubt this will immediately solve our self-created asylum crisis. The National Police’s Chief Constable already condemned the plan as being unworkable.

Democracy at death’s door?

Meanwhile, all the headaches remain. Nitrogen deposit, housing, asylum, climate, environment, farming, health care, education, transport, defence. They are the legacy of decades of enlightened rule by our previous PM Mark Rutte and his predecessor, who let everything run to seed. A former top civil servant recently said that in this century, nothing remarkable had been achieved by successive Dutch governments.

During the past years we already had two General Elections. With the present Cabinet sent off, the third election is due FOUR months from now due to our antiquated election rules and the summer recess intervening, so by the time it takes place, everyone will conveniently have forgotten who toppled the Government and on what pretext, and more campaign lies will clutter the TV talkshows. Someone (I forgot who) recently said that democracy doesn’t suffer sudden death, it slowly and painfully passes away, month after month.

Another tidbit of news, quickly forgotten, was the initiative to create a Constitutional Court being shelved. The Netherlands is the only EU country that doesn’t have such an institute to check new laws against the Constitution. The millions reserved to create such a Court were diverted to the Prison Service, of all things. Evidently that’s considered more important than cross-checking hastily conceived laws.

As former American President Dwight D Eisenhower once remarked: urgent matters are often hardly important, but important matters hardly urgent.

Putin, Netanyahu, Trump and the ayatollahs

Let’s now consider our foreign policy, which condemns Putin’s bombs targeting civilians, but looks away from Netanyahu doing the same. The lack of sanctions against the killing of defenceless women and children in Gaza is mind-boggling. Words, mealy-mouthed words despite the clear majority of the Dutch population being in favour of sanctions against the Netanyahu regime, and the gigantic Red Line demonstrations in The Hague where over a hundred thousand people twice showed their horror at what is being perpetrated in that unfortunate strip of land. 

The Red Line demonstrations in The Hague

The NATO summit

Instead we received Trump and his acolytes with all honours in The Hague. The same Mark Rutte who led our country into slow decline, kissed the feet of the erratic real estate dealer in the White House, calling him ‘Daddy’, for crying out loud, to keep him on board and save NATO. Donald, who snuggles up to Vladimir, keeps Ukraine dangling on a string, and de-stabilises the Middle East by bombing the Iranian ayatollahs and allowing Netanyahu a free hand in Gaza. With such friends, who needs enemies? Brrr.

The Brussels death dance

The EU version of the Vienna Congress resides in Brussels, where it dances with death. Death of others, to be certain: migrants in the Libyan desert and women and children in Gaza. Brussels has turned words into the main product of a lucrative lobbycracy. How long did it take this spring to decide about European defence, because Trump proved to be an unreliable partner of Europe?

And how long did it take them to reply to the half-hearted request of our Foreign Minister, mr Veldkamp, to determine whether the Association Treaty between the EU and Israel should be cancelled? The reply was frustrated by Germany, which suffers from the ancestral sin of Auschwitz, Dachau and Sobibor, and by (predictably) the odd man out: Hungary. The Association Treaty will not be cancelled until further notice. They will talk about it once again on July 15. I hope.

Destroyed land. Source: UNRWA

Mr Veldkamp now at long last considers Dutch measures against Israel. But what kind of measures? He hadn’t yet thought about concrete steps, he admitted on July 2, which says it all. The commercial and political implications are huge, and Parliament is in recess, which buys him time. A two month holiday for the tender souls of our elected representatives, whilst the children of Gaza are being killed.

History will judge us all, I’m afraid.

Contested Land

A new book takes shape

A year and a half ago, on October 15, 2023, I described my horror at the (even then) disproportionate Israeli revenge action in Gaza, following the brutal attack by Hamas on the population in the southern border area of ​​Israel. Israel retaliated mercilessly with heavy bombardments on densely populated areas, a ground war and a blockade of humanitarian aid, which has now lasted for a year and a half and has all the properties of genocide and war crimes. It is no longer an act of revenge or defense, but an extermination war against the civilian population of Gaza. The numbers of dead and wounded and the actions of the state of Israel speak for themselves.

Hamas is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and was originally an Islamic charity organization (Al-Mujama'al-Islami). Initially, the movement even had Israeli support, because Israel viewed it as an ally against Yasser Arafat's PLO. During the first intifada (1987-1993), Hamas emerged as a resistance and terrorist organisation. It won a (disputed) majority during the 2006 elections  in Gaza. Hamas not only fights against Israel, but also takes merciless action against dissident Palestinians, suppressing any opposition.

Writing triggered by horror

In 2023 I mentioned my own experiences in the Middle East in 1973, just after the Yom Kippur War. Writing a book about the atrocities in the Middle East wasn’t fun, as the title of this blog suggests. It was a release to my pent-up horror. The new book has the provisional title CONTESTED LAND. The English title is provisional, as there are several books about whose title has a similar ring. It is a direct translation of the Dutch title HET BETWISTE LAND. At the moment of writing, the Dutch manuscript is about 80% complete, although the work is progressing in fits and starts. Actual publication has yet to be arranged, following which translation into English will probably take a few more months. 

provisional book cover

The story begins with my own experiences as a young man on a November morning in 1973, when my ship, the mv Oostkerk, arrived in the Syrian port of Latakia. As the ship was approaching the quay, we were faced with a boycott and a massive demonstration ashore, probably orchestrated by the Ba'ath party of the Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad, following Dutch war support for Israel. The tugboats cast off and left us adrift in the harbour. A collision with a Russian frigate, tied up close by, was only just averted.

In the book, things really go wrong. We crash into the Russian vessel, with catastrophic results. The subsequent (fictional) adventures of the main protagonist in Syria and Lebanon are the subject of the new book.

The 1973-1974 episode tells of the prisons of Syria, an escape to Lebanon and a ruthless Israeli air attack, and the 1980 episode is in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, once again complicated by Israeli and Syrian meddling. I delved into the history of the Middle East for the background and, to be honest, the research opened my eyes. 

Beirut, November 1973, photo taken from the yacht club. The mv Oostkerk in the distance: the orange masts on the left.

Israel and Palestine

Especially today, during the barbaric massacre in Gaza, Palestine is a controversial subject dominated by ideology. Many would rather look away than engage in an honest conversation about it, and Western politics almost unconditionally support the genocidal acts of the Netanyahu regime. We can only guess at the reasons, but money, propaganda and geopolitics play an undeniable role. Critics of Israel are vilified and slandered.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict of today is the legacy of Zionism, which emerged in the 19th century following East European pogroms, of the simultaneous rise of Arab nationalism within the Ottoman Empire, of British intervention during 1914-1918 and mismanagement during the British Mandate period until 1947. This undoubtedly fitted the colonial Zeitgeist, but a hundred years later we are still confronted with the bitter consequences of the ideological and geopolitical choices of that time.

Because the new book is an historical thriller set against the background of the conflict, I have done in-depth research into its history. For those who want honest insight into it, the information is there for the taking. I am merely referring to the following Wikipedia articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Israeli–Palestinian_conflict 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes–Picot_Agreement 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Commission

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Israel

Lebanon

A second theme in the book is the Lebanese civil war from 1975 to 1990, a chaotic conflict with many warring parties. It is virtually impossible to get a complete picture of what happened from year to year. Ultimately, the conflict degenerated into a proxy war between Israel, Iran and Syria. Israel and Syria both repeatedly invaded Lebanon. 

Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared, Lebanon, 1960. Source: UNRWA

 

The battles in Beirut left the city badly damaged. There also was heavy fighting around the northern port of Tripoli and the nearby Palestinian camps of Beddawi and Nahr el-Bared, which are featured in this book. The country was largely destroyed in those years and the war led to 120,000 to 150,000 deaths.

One of the sources I found on the civil war was a declassified CIA report on Lebanon and the warring parties from 1987. This gives an interesting picture of that phase of the civil war and its run-up. For example, the report states that the Syrian-backed Amal militia blocked the supply of cement for the reconstruction of the Palestinian Shatila camp near Beirut, where a massacre was committed by the Phalangists in 1982, with Israeli support.

Other sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahr_al-Bared_refugee_camp 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNRWA

A good source that was sent to me late in the writing of this manuscript was De oorlog van gisteren (The War of Yesterday, a Dutch publication, ISBN 978-90-8321-088-9) by Jan Keulen, former war correspondent in Beirut, Cairo and Amman, and ultimately director of The Rights Forum, an organization committed to a just Israel-Palestine policy. Information from this book filled many gaps in my knowledge of the Lebanese Civil War.

Finally, in describing the devastation and chaos in Lebanon, I gratefully made use of the atmosphere described in the book Beirut Blues (ISBN 978-0-385-47382-8) by the Lebanese author Hanan al-Shaykh. She knows better than anyone how to portray the despair of the Lebanese about the demise of their country and the questionable role of local warlords and militias, who were often little better than bandits and lived off the drug trade.

Sunrise over the coast of Tripoli, Lebanon, November 1973