Dear All,

Most of the world is now watching the theatres of war on television or social media. Following Hamas’s attack on an Israeli Kibbutz on October 7, we watch – as helpless spectators – while Israel ‘defends itself’ by effectively destroying Gaza and bombing civilians. A death toll of hundreds (including many children) nearly every day doesn’t seem to be much of a consideration for Western regimes who stand by, complicit as Israel continues the killing and the siege. The United Nations has been reduced to a toothless tiger. All it can do now is plead for humanitarian assistance to reach civilians in Gaza. Some Western countries have added their chorus to the humanitarian appeal but without pressing for either a cessation of hostilities or a reprimand of Israel for its disproportionate response to the Kibbutz attack.

Apart from the daily news reports of this war, there is a wider context: the story of superpower conflicts in which other countries and people get caught up. Caught up and then used. Used and then disposed of. I recently watched a screen dramatisation of a novel set during the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. It brings home the truth of the callous reality of superpower war games. The Patients of Dr García is the story of a Spanish Republican (socialist) supporting physician in Madrid who lives through the civil war and then the brutal, fascist Franco dictatorship. The political polarisation and cruelty that is depicted will resonate with many people who have lived through repressive regimes and times of tyranny and political repression. It will even resonate with people who are now afraid to speak up against what is happening to Palestinians (lest they are labelled as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘Hamas sympathisers’ and effectively cancelled in a new sort of witch hunt).

The Netflix series (10 episodes) is based on the book by Spanish novelist and columnist Almudena Grandes. It’s a gripping story: the main character is an idealistic young doctor whose work is to save lives. Suddenly, he has to focus mainly on saving his own life. One of the patients whose life he saves is a wounded spy who then saves the doctor and their lives become intertwined in their struggle against fascism. In an atmosphere of fear, distrust and danger, they attempt to fight the regime where they can. They become involved in infiltrating the network run by fascists in Spain to smuggle Nazis and war criminals to Argentina but are ultimately betrayed by (you guessed it) the USA on the basis that Franco is useful against the Communist threat – so never mind about the fascism and repression.

The story spans several decades and ends in the mid-1970s after the consolidation of military dictatorships in Argentina and Chile (dictatorships, you may recall, which were actively supported by the US). But this story is not polemic; it’s a powerful tale of human lives and the political realities they must navigate no matter how hard they fight for a cause. It’s a story that shows that at the end of the day, all that remains is loyalty, love, friendship, human kindness and whatever good one is able to effect in one’s lifetime.

I haven’t read Grandes’s book, but I have to say the screen version does bring powerfully the experience of living through political repression, aerial bombings and war. It also plays with the idea of identities and being undercover in order to survive and it evokes vividly the decades it portrays. And the fact, as usual, is revealed to be more jaw-dropping than fiction – one of the most shocking characters in the series is a powerful German-Spanish woman, a die-hard fascist called Clara Stauffer. Stauffer is, in fact, a historical figure – she was an influential personality, a Falangist, a propagandist for the dictatorship and a key person in the ‘ratline’ network, i.e. the systems of escape for German Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe after 1945. She was never extradited despite being on the Allied Control Council repatriation list of individuals in Spain wanted for their involvement in Nazi crimes.

I expect that this screen dramatisation will also serve to inspire a generation of youngsters unfamiliar with this chapter of Twentieth Century history to now go and learn more about it. The series is very atmospheric and, despite the fact that the lead actor is extraordinarily handsome, a lot of it seems very real.

The Patients of Dr García is just another example of the power of fiction to shed light on history and politics. It is what you find in Manto’s short stories, in Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumar’s Khamosh Paani, in Hany Abu-Assad’s film The Idol, in Linda Grant’s When I lived in Interesting Times, in Susan Abulhawa’s Against the Loveless World, and in so many contemporary Palestinian writers’ work.

In this context, the recent decisions by international organisations to ‘cancel’ Palestinian writers by withdrawing invitations/ withholding awards are particularly disturbing. Writers must be able to tell their stories and we must be able to read them – critically as well as empathetically.

Best wishes,

Umber Khairi