Ravaged and scorched, Aleppo has become familiar to us because it is a bruised battleground in the ongoing Syrian civil war. While it is a city of ancient heritage and culture, it is now known primarily through the harrowing images posted in media reports across the globe.
The scenes have become background noise to our ongoing lives, and the numbers and statistics have lost their impact as we hear of more and more Syrian refugees desperately trying to escape the violence.
Christy Lefteri parachutes her debut novel into the sightline of our glazed, dulled senses and seeks to engage us with the horrific but human reality behind the reportage.
Within a couple of chapters, Aleppo is imbued with ebullient life and charm. We encounter the city through the eyes of a talented beekeeper, Nuri, and are enveloped into the living landscape, literally buzzing with bees, that surrounds him and his family. However, our beekeeper is narrating the account from his present location of a rundown B&B in England, where he and his wife are seeking asylum. The time frame and location shift frequently as we accompany this desperate family on their escape from their beloved country. With each shift and jolt in the direction of Europe, we become almost nostalgic for the lost beauty of Syria that the author deftly threads in and out of the horror of war.
While we mourn the loss of people and place with Nuri, every now and then we see the frayed ends and the beginning threads of beauty in other places, and amongst other people. Different, but hopeful. Hope that beauty, and therefore life, is still within reach despite the destruction that the Syrian people continue to experience and witness. That hope is epitomised for this family in the person of Mustafa, Nuri’s beloved cousin, who awaits them in England and holds out the possibility of regaining beauty and rebuilding what they had. We are almost able to imagine, with Mustafa, beehives amongst the lavender of a Yorkshire field. And beyond that, a rebuilding of the burnt-out hives in Aleppo.
Nuri, and his wife Afra, allow us to see beyond our news feeds and viral videos. The individual, with a voice, a livelihood and a family, is seen and heard. We cannot but weep with our narrator as he tells of the person-by-person destruction of his city. We feel his shock. We want to help him protect his family. We long to be able to give him his old life back in his beautiful country.
To be seen, to be heard, to be known. Lefteri’s novel floodlights those who we have pushed into the shadows and stopped seeing. She powerfully explodes the media’s one-dimensional presentation of refugees, and we grow in empathy and understanding as we read the book.
Seen, known, loved and secure
As Christians, we know what it is to be seen, to be known and to be loved. As David remarks, full of wonder, in Psalm 8, God is ‘mindful’ of man. All are made in His image, and so all are valued and loved by our mighty Creator. And all deserve the dignity of being acknowledged. What a reality to delight in amidst the barrage of voices that tell us we are valued according to achievement, beauty or accolade. Even when it feels like no one knows and no one sees, we are never out of the loving sight and knowledge of our Father in heaven. Our story matters.
While we praise God for the privilege of being known, we can also be praying that we might see those who God sees. This book challenges me to see the refugee, and to look beyond someone else’s generalising interpretation of their identity. But as a Christian, the challenge is greater – to see with the eyes of my loving, compassionate God. I’m challenged to hear those who have no voice, like the unborn child or the terrified victim of domestic abuse; to see those who have become invisible, like the homeless and the imprisoned; to empathise with those who suffer, like the persecuted Christians and the people burdened with mental illness.
Nuri’s hope rests in acknowledgement of the atrocities he has escaped, and the provision of a safe refuge where life can be rebuilt, and a form of beauty can be regained. For the Christian, known, loved and secure through to eternity in Christ, we can praise God for His grace and seek to acknowledge, listen to and love others, echoing His compassion.
THE BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO
By Christy Lefteri
Manilla Press. 384 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 838 770 013
