I bought his book on the sixth anniversary of his death, a couple of weeks ago.
I read it last night, sipping a cappuccino at the Madrid airport. Quite a suhur (breakfast), I tell you.
It’s simple, naively written, and probably heavily edited. A couple of hours is all it takes to get through it.
And I probably wouldn’t have read it if it weren’t for its unique context. To me, at least, it is unique.
See the author is Egyptian-French, went to a French grande école, then to Harvard. Oh, and he worked for the UN. He speaks a bunch of languages and has lived all over the globe.
I know.
Jean-Sélim Kanaan was killed, among many others, on August 19th 2003, when a terrorist drove a truck-bomb into the United Nations building in Baghdad, in what was known as the Canal hotel bombing. He was 33, and he hadn’t met his three weeks-old son yet.
His book, “ma guerre à l’indifférence” he wrote in 2002 during his brief time in New York, working for UNOPS at headquarters (as a P-4 at age 31, by the way. Damn). A tale of his decade on the field and a critique of humanitarian work as it currently occurs.
He was obviously itching to head back to the field. The rest of the story we know.
I knew of him because of the bombing, but was captivated by his life after watching Génération ONU, a documentary on young UN officials in the field which featured Jean-Sélim.
Heavily committed to the mission of the UN, good looking, witty and with a good sense of humour, a bit of a poster boy for UN humanitarian missions. With a career on the rise, he seemed to be what many of us aspire to achieve.
And now, he’s dead. Absurd, isn’t it.
Yet despite his life being cut short, I will always remember that he had achieved what few ever succeed in reaching: to be remembered, for what he had done, not for what happened to him.
Jean-Sélim was, and will remain an inspiration.
I read it last night, sipping a cappuccino at the Madrid airport. Quite a suhur (breakfast), I tell you.
It’s simple, naively written, and probably heavily edited. A couple of hours is all it takes to get through it.
And I probably wouldn’t have read it if it weren’t for its unique context. To me, at least, it is unique.
See the author is Egyptian-French, went to a French grande école, then to Harvard. Oh, and he worked for the UN. He speaks a bunch of languages and has lived all over the globe.
I know.
Jean-Sélim Kanaan was killed, among many others, on August 19th 2003, when a terrorist drove a truck-bomb into the United Nations building in Baghdad, in what was known as the Canal hotel bombing. He was 33, and he hadn’t met his three weeks-old son yet.
His book, “ma guerre à l’indifférence” he wrote in 2002 during his brief time in New York, working for UNOPS at headquarters (as a P-4 at age 31, by the way. Damn). A tale of his decade on the field and a critique of humanitarian work as it currently occurs.
He was obviously itching to head back to the field. The rest of the story we know.
I knew of him because of the bombing, but was captivated by his life after watching Génération ONU, a documentary on young UN officials in the field which featured Jean-Sélim.
Heavily committed to the mission of the UN, good looking, witty and with a good sense of humour, a bit of a poster boy for UN humanitarian missions. With a career on the rise, he seemed to be what many of us aspire to achieve.
And now, he’s dead. Absurd, isn’t it.
Yet despite his life being cut short, I will always remember that he had achieved what few ever succeed in reaching: to be remembered, for what he had done, not for what happened to him.
Jean-Sélim was, and will remain an inspiration.
2 comments:
I would have liked to meet you. I live in Madrid.. maybe next time :-)
Thanks, A. I was in Madrid for a little more than two days, so it was quite short.. next time for sure!
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