Book: Passage of Tears by Abdourahman A. Waberi, translated by David and Nicole Ball

Pages: 216

Context

This copy of Passage of Tears was published in 2012, and after serving its community at the Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Kansas, it was sold to me by the Lawrence Public Library Friends & Foundation. All of this to say—support your public libraries!

Djibouti (capital: Djibouti) is a country I’ve always appreciated for making my compulsive need to memorize the world’s capitals a little bit easier. It’s also home to the lowest point in Africa, Lake Assal, the largest salt reserve on Earth and main source of trade for the native Afar nomads, Issas and later on the French. Lake Assal is like the rest of Djibouti—arid, uninhabitable, and severe.

A tiny country in the Horn of Africa, Djibouti has a coveted position with its proximity to the Middle East and control over trade passages past the Red Sea. Its geographical location has led to the constant presence of foreign players and their interests, which sets us up for the story of our narrator, Djibril.

About the Book

Passage of Tears is equal parts existential contemplation and historical record. It’s about exile, estrangement, and perpetual incompatibility with one’s origins.

Djibril is an intelligence asset on a mission in his native country of Djibouti, a place he has never considered home. A business trip and nothing more, he’s determined “not to feast at the table of nostalgia or reopen old wounds.” A statement made so early in the book that we know he was doomed from the start.

The self-exiled Djiboutian now works for a North American intelligence firm eager to weigh their opportunities in a region that has been “long-neglected.” His firm used to scout locations for movies but quickly realized that there is a lot more money in intelligence (a situation that reminds me of Swarovski being known for their crystals, as opposed to their state-of-the-art sniper scopes and Nazi-ness).

All around him, he sees the radicalization born of unemployment and lack of opportunity. A community with complicated allegiances in a country with no determined identity. Djibril’s exploration of the country’s situation quickly devolves into an introspective affair as his past haunts his every step. The barren, dust-filled roads remind him of his father’s pathetic life, the Siesta Beach reminds him of David, his only friend, and the oppressive heat reminds him of his stony, neglectful mother.

Djibril is a lover of all things not Djiboutian, but his disdainful perspective is balanced by our other narrator, a nameless prisoner who somehow knows his every move. The prisoner mocks Djibril’s return to his homeland, mocks the airs of superiority he has cast upon himself, and speaks of a world rid of the very things Djibril has come to represent.

The prisoner is also our main insight into the religious extremism that has gripped the region for decades. Through him we see the ideals, and through Djibril we hear those responsible for it. He mentions Hassan al-Banna, Shukri Mustafa, Mohamed Farrah Aidid as thought leaders for a misguided revolution.

The warring narratives between Djibril, the prisoner, and, oddly, letters to Walter Benjamin, show us the ideological battles being fought in a country surrounded by clashing interests and little sovereignty.

Beyond the Book

Passage of Tears felt like a Wikipedia article where every link insists on being clicked and every rabbit hole explored. There are so many names mentioned in passing that help paint a picture of a constantly embattled Djibouti. One of the many victims of the haphazard division of the African continent by European powers, Djibouti became independent with no national identity to tie it together beyond the established ethnic groups that have lived there for centuries. The Afar nomads, the Somali, and the Issa all continue to coexist within Djibouti and beyond its borders, albeit with considerable tensions among them.

As conflict has heightened in the Horn of Africa, Djibouti’s strategic position has allowed them a compromise — relative stability in exchange for opening their doors to foreign economic and military interests. Its un-arable land cannot provide agricultural abundance, but it can bring in money by renting it out to others. The USA’s only permanent military base in Africa is in Djibouti, and the UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia, China, Spain, Italy, and France all have military bases in a country barely bigger than New Jersey.

This seems excessive by any standard, but the country’s geopolitical influence is their only bargaining chip in international politics. Their landscape provides 1.2 million citizens with little resources to thrive; water and livestock are scarce, and unemployment was 26.26% in 2023, one of the worst in the world. Its relative stability has also made it a safe haven of sorts for refugees from their neighbors, with around 31,528 people flocking from Yemen, Somalia, and Ethiopia, according to the UNHCR.

I could go on for ages about the particulars of the Djiboutian sociopolitical situation, but Djibouti is so much more than a geopolitical pawn. It’s home to the naked mole rat, Lake Abbe—one of the most inaccessible areas on Earth—and a legacy of survival that only a place inhabited since the Neolithic age could boast.

Favourite quotes

“… the boiling sap of its own fires has kept the sun from growing old.”

“They all wear the same costume of a sad clown: they love to cry over their own fate.”

“I am part of that new elite with no permanent ties, at home everywhere, and foreign everywhere.”

“… it continues to undermine the country while never failing to remind everyone of its boundless generosity.” (about France)

“… you need the right kind of ears to hear such a prayer!”

“Our ancestors did not look kindly on the perspective of getting crucified here below for an uncertain happiness in the beyond…”

“Write, because you, at least, never gave up trying to understand the world.”

“They will live out their lives in the absence of being.”

“I am the son of that shame and I was to remain imprisoned in it until the end of my days.”

“Do you know that ghosts make their nests in the fractures of history?”

“… the palaces of mirrors and the artificial islands that vainly and endlessly try to imitate the golden age of a vanished Andalusia.”

Read if you liked: The Return by Hisham Matar and As Long As the Lemon Tree Grows by Zoulfa Katouh