Susan Abulhawa: Since publication of The Almond Tree, the author has hired a Palestinian actor to “play” Ichmad in an interactive website, effectively commercializing Palestinian misery and humiliation. Even irrelevant details are offensive. Only in the most orientalist imaginations would a Palestinian groom lift the veil of his bride with the tip of a sword. And only in the mind of a white American socialite does a poor brown Palestinian college student have only “homemade clothes” and must borrow someone’s bellbottoms to wear to a party – as if “homemade clothes” are cheaper than a cheap pair of jeans; as if his family ran a sewing machine from their tent; as if residents of shantytowns the world over don’t wear store-bought clothes. An excellent review by Vacy Vlazna details other ways in which this racist, orientalist novel serves to make a hero of a self-loathing obsequious Palestinian cartoon of a man, and makes a pitiful villain of his brother, Abbas, who opts to defend his family and people by whatever means necessary. Vlazna also points out how the “bad” Palestinians are of darker skin colour in this novel. Her review, however, is a lone voice in a sea of praise extolling this novel. The Huffington Post predicts it will be the greatest seller of the decade. Sadly, they may be right, and, like The Help, it will eclipse authentic accounts of what it means to inhabit a world that considers you a lesser form of human. Thus, a people’s narrative is commandeered. When we are robbed of everything, broken and humiliated, the false saviours step in, colonise our wounds and bring our pain under their purview. And they profit from filling our cultural legacies with their racist assumptions, orientalist distortions and inglorious heroes of small subservient character. Teju Cole: “The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening.” More here.