- Cox, Joseph.
The City on the Heights.
Modiin, Israel: Big Picture Books, 2017.
ISBN 978-0-9764659-6-6.
-
For more than two millennia the near east (which is sloppily
called the “middle east” by ignorant pundits who
can't distinguish north Africa from southwest Asia) has exported
far more trouble than it has imported from elsewhere. You need
only consult the chronicles of the Greeks, the Roman Empire, the
histories of conflicts among them and the Persians, the
expansion of Islam into the region, internecine conflicts among
Islamic sects, the Crusades, Israeli-Arab wars, all the way to
recent follies of “nation building” to appreciate
that this is a perennial trouble spot.
People, and peoples hate one another there. It seems like whenever
you juxtapose two religions (even sects of one), ethnicities, or
self-identifications in the region, before long sanguinary conflict
erupts, with each incident only triggering even greater reprisals
and escalation. In the words of Lenin,
What
is to be done?
Now, my inclination would be simply to erect a strong perimeter
around the region, let anybody who wished enter, but nobody leave
without extreme scrutiny to ensure they were not a risk and
follow-up as long as they remained as guests in the civilised
regions of the world. This is how living organisms deal
with threats to their metabolism: encyst upon it!
In this novel, the author explores another, more hopeful and
optimistic, yet perhaps less realistic alternative. When your
computer ends up in a hopeless dead-end of resource exhaustion,
flailing software, and errors in implementation, you reboot
it, or turn it off and on again. This clears out the cobwebs and
provides a fresh start. It's difficult to do this in a human
community, especially one where grievances are remembered not just
over generations but millennia.
Here, archetypal NGO do-gooder Steven Gold has another idea.
In the midst of the European religious wars, Amsterdam grew and
prospered by being a place that people of any faith could come
together and do business. Notwithstanding having a nominal established
religion, people of all confessions were welcome as long as they
participated in the peaceful commerce and exchange which made the
city prosper.
Could this work in the near east? Steven Gold thought it was worth
a try, and worth betting his career upon. But where should such a
model city be founded? The region was a nightmarish ever-shifting fractal
landscape of warring communities with a sole exception: the state of
Israel. Why on Earth would Israel consider ceding some of its
territory (albeit mostly outside its security perimeter) for such
an idealistic project which might prove to be a dagger aimed
at its own heart? Well, Steven Gold is very persuasive, and talented
at recruiting allies able to pitch the project in terms those needed
to support it understand.
And so, a sanctuary city on the Israel-Syria border is born.
It is anything but a refugee camp. Residents are expected to
become productive members of a multicultural, multi-ethnic community
which will prosper along the lines of renaissance Amsterdam or,
more recently, Hong Kong and Singapore. Those who wish to move to
the City are carefully vetted, but they include a wide variety of
people including a former commander of the Islamic State, a self-trained
engineer and problem solver who is an escapee from a forced
marriage, religious leaders from a variety of faiths, and supporters
including a billionaire who made her fortune in Internet payment
systems.
And then, since it's the near east, it all blows up. First there
are assassinations, then bombings, then a sorting out into ethnic
and sectarian districts within the city, and then reprisals. It
almost seems like an evil genius is manipulating the communities
who came there to live in peace and prosper into conflict among
one another. That this might be possible never enters the mind
of Steven Gold, who probably still believes in the United Nations
and votes for Democrats, notwithstanding their resolute opposition
to the only consensual democracy in the region.
Can an act of terrorism redeem a community? Miryam thinks so, and
acts accordingly. As the consequences play out, and the money
supporting the city begins to run out, a hierarchical system of courts
which mix up the various contending groups is established, and an
economic system based upon electronic payments which provides a
seamless transition between subsidies for the poor (but always
based upon earned income: never a pure dole) and taxation for the
more prosperous.
A retrospective provides a look at how it all might work. I remain
dubious at the prospect. There are many existing communities in
the near east which are largely homogeneous in terms of religion
and ethnicity (as seen by outsiders) which might be prosperous
if they didn't occupy themselves with bombing and killing one
another by any means available, and yet the latter is what they
choose to do. Might it be possible, by establishing sanctuaries,
to select for those willing to set ancient enmities aside? Perhaps,
but in this novel, grounded in reality, that didn't happen.
The economic system is intriguing but, to me, ultimately unpersuasive.
I understand how the income subsidy encourages low-income earners
to stay within the reported income economy, but the moment you cross
the tax threshold, you have a powerful incentive to take things off
the books and, absent some terribly coercive top-down means to force
all transactions through the electronic currency system, free (non-taxed)
exchange will find a way.
These quibbles aside, this is a refreshing and hopeful look at
an alternative to eternal conflict. In the near east, “the facts
on the ground” are everything and the author, who lives just
128 km from the centre of civil war in Syria is far more acquainted
with the reality than somebody reading his book far away. I hope his
vision is viable. I hope somebody tries it. I hope it works.
December 2017 