Jay GW
12-03-2004, 08:59 PM
America has its Founding Fathers; the modern nation of Iraq has a peculiar kind of Founding Mother.
Or maybe she was a national nanny. For Iraq's Founding ... Someone ... was not Iraqi, but a red-haired, Oxford-educated mountaineer, an honored poet and opponent to suffragettes, an Arabist and proud British imperialist named Gertrude Bell.
Gertrude Bell designed — literally drew onto the map — the country that America is now trying to (perfectly Orwellian term) "rebuild." She did so via her mastery of Arabic, Persian and Turkish; her deep knowledge of the Arab tribes and friendships with their sheiks; through the immense influence she carried with the leadership of the British Empire.
She was one of the world's most powerful women at the beginning of the 20th century, a key shaper of the version of the Middle East over which our soldiers are killing and dying, for us, right now.
Gertrude Bell crossed Arabia when that land was largely a blank patch on Europe's maps. She traveled alone, it's said, but that's not counting the train of servants, from cooks to armed guards to muleteers, all Arab, who followed her across the desert over more than a decade. Miss Bell, as she was known formally for her 58 years, dined on china even when she traveled by camel. And she always sent for the latest fashions from London even after she had lived as Khatun, a particular kind of great lady, in Baghdad for many years.
http://www.theava.com/04/0526-gertrude-bell.html
Or maybe she was a national nanny. For Iraq's Founding ... Someone ... was not Iraqi, but a red-haired, Oxford-educated mountaineer, an honored poet and opponent to suffragettes, an Arabist and proud British imperialist named Gertrude Bell.
Gertrude Bell designed — literally drew onto the map — the country that America is now trying to (perfectly Orwellian term) "rebuild." She did so via her mastery of Arabic, Persian and Turkish; her deep knowledge of the Arab tribes and friendships with their sheiks; through the immense influence she carried with the leadership of the British Empire.
She was one of the world's most powerful women at the beginning of the 20th century, a key shaper of the version of the Middle East over which our soldiers are killing and dying, for us, right now.
Gertrude Bell crossed Arabia when that land was largely a blank patch on Europe's maps. She traveled alone, it's said, but that's not counting the train of servants, from cooks to armed guards to muleteers, all Arab, who followed her across the desert over more than a decade. Miss Bell, as she was known formally for her 58 years, dined on china even when she traveled by camel. And she always sent for the latest fashions from London even after she had lived as Khatun, a particular kind of great lady, in Baghdad for many years.
http://www.theava.com/04/0526-gertrude-bell.html