Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb - book review

I just finished reading Camilla Gibb’s book “Sweetness in the belly” with sort of mixed reaction. As most of you are aware by now, the author lived in Harar for one year (1994-1995) to do her post-graduate work in social anthropology focusing on the Harari way of life. For those of you who have read the book and are moderately familiar with Harar, I am quite sure you will find a lot that is common, intimate and brings so many memories about the life we left behind. But there are certain points that are mentioned in the book about Hararis that I was not either aware of, or to be blunt, not true, if memory and history serves me right. But a word of caution here about the nature of the book is warranted; the book is categorized as a novel which the English dictionary describes as “A fictitious tale or narrative, professing to be conformed to real life; esp.” Another sub-category of a novel, namely romans a clef is defined as a “ novel in which actual persons, places, or events are depicted in fictional guise.” And from the experience I had in reading the book, I believe the latter definition is a fitting description. Having said that, at times, I find it difficult to differentiate which part is fiction and which part is the real because Gibbs made the lines blurry in an effort to tell the story.

For the most part, the book is a good narrative of the lives of Hararis and to smaller extent Oromos in the early 1970’s. It is not hard for most Hararis who came of age in that era to identify with some of the fictional characters depicted in the novel. The author did a good job of intermingling reality and fiction to make the book an interesting read. There are bits and pieces of data scattered throughout the book that made me think and question its truthfulness. In the epilog of the book, the author thanks so many Hararis and non-Hararis by name and that led me to believe that the book was adequately researched. And I am sure it is wrong on my part to assume that most of the people who assisted Gibb on her book knew beforehand the final version.

The part of the book that I had difficulty to believe is the relationship the Hararis have with their immediate neighbor, the Oromos, as portrayed by Gibb. She repeatedly tried to depict it in a narrow and somehow far from what the reality is. Gibb’s portrayal of Hararis as the oppressor and the Oromos as the oppressed people is a very simplistic and a very easy definition which does not take into account the fact that the two ethnic groups are intertwined in more than one ways and their history runs both in conjunction with each other and parallel to each other. I will site the following three passages from the book to drive my point home. These references summarize Gibb’s understanding of the relationship of the two peoples which is not how Hararis perceive the facts to be. The first quotation is a conversation between Dr. Aziz, a leading character in the book, whose father is a Sudanese and his mother a Harari, and the main protagonist in the book, Lily, whose parents are Irish but who has adopted Islam and the Harari way of life by way of upbringing.

“ … Hararis have enjoyed centuries of privilege – their wealth comes from the exploitation of peasants. Harar was one of the biggest slave trading markets in East Africa. The Hararis would trade black people like me for goods from the Orient. A black man for a bolt of silk from China. My father was bought for a vat of gunpowder.”P299

In the second quotation, the author took the liberty in explaining the role of one of the characters in the book who is an Oromo striving to be a Harari.

“Gishta began life as a servant in a Harari household like most Oromo girls in the vicinity of the city.”

And the final quotation in this category comes from the mouth of Lily during the Ethiopian revolution of 1974. She is expressing her fear to what the future holds for the Hararis and her own life.

“ … That would mean taking away land from the Hararis,” I realized aloud. The Hararis thrived under feudalism; it was the basis of their economy, though to admit this would be to indict themselves as beneficiaries of the emperor’s corrupt system.”

If we dig a little deeper as to the truthfullness of the first quotation, it is obvious that for Hararis that is an absurd assertion. It is just a simple matter of history that Hararis were basically and equally involved in farming and trading throughout their history until just recently. The farming part was a means of survival for a part of those Hararis who used to live in Harar and its surrounding and the trading part of livelihood was extended wherever Hararis went beyond the borders of their homeland. And up until recently, it was the Hararis themselves that were tilling the land with marginal help from their Oromo neighbors. As Hararis started to leave their homeland in search of modernity and better fortunes elsewhere, the number of Hararis who were involved in farming eventually decreased and those who stayed on the farm sought the help of the Oromos on an equal footing to share the bounty. To boldly assert that the Harari wealth came from the exploitation of the Oromo peasants is not only baseless, but laughable at best because the income generated from the farming was very negligible and barely sustained the Harari farmers let alone make them wealthy.

It would be very easy to fault Gibb for her interpretation of these relationships, but we have to remember that she went there to further her studies and she obtained all the information from those who helped her on her book. I can not for a moment believe that Hararis will be the source of such distortion of history, but it will not surprise me if such notions are entertained by other ethnic groups who have a beef to grind..

The second part of the quotation is the role of Harar as a slave trading center. There are anecdotal evidences that Harari nobles were in way or another involved in slave trade. I have read instances of Arab slave traders coming to the shores of Zeila in early nineteenth century, which was part of Imam Ahmed’s empire. Other than that, little is known about the slave trade in Harar as illustrated by the following quotation:

“When Burton arrived here in Absynnia, the city was at its peak as an important center of commerce and a way station for caravan routes, particularly in gun-running and the slave trade. (Up until the mid-19th century Western Arabs exported women and men even for the small price of rice and dates.

Little is known of the slave trade of Harar, but Burton in 1855 calls it “the half-way house for slaves.” The Amir himself took an active part in the slave trade and received some slaves in lieu of tribute and taxation. A slave caravan from Harar to Berbera in the 1850’s was said to contain about 500 slaves, However slave trade was not the most decisive factor in Harar’s economy.

The Egyptians embarked on a building program in Harar and erected a number of fine stone buildings, including a mosque and the city’s first hospital. The walls of the town were both heightened and strengthened and a new wall was erected a short distance to the northwest. The slave trade was officially abolished, and in practice at least greatly reduced.” Angie Eng.

Except for this anecdotal example such as the above quotation and Richard Burton’s personal observation, which was quite biased to say the least, I could not find any evidence to suggest that Harar was one of the largest slave trading centers in East Africa and to assert that Hararis “…would trade black people like Lily for goods from the Orient. A black man for a bolt of silk from China.” I am not quite sure where Gibb collected her information from, but since she had ample time to do her research in her Harar, she would have been surprised by evidences that would have contradicted her assertion if she really did a thorough research rather than regurgitate statements that have not been tested for historical accuracy.

The second quotation in reference for Gishta’s role as a servant in a Harari home is not something that is routine in a Harari household. Again, there might be some Hararis that employ Oromo children for household help in Harar, but that is not one experience in almost all Harari households as Gibb would like us to believe. If she had said the same thing about Hararis in Addis who overwhelmingly hire domestic servants of other ethnic groups, I am sure that would make sense because it is true. I am not sure the number of households Gibb had visited in Harar during her stay, but she would have noticed easily that the majority of Harari household could not even afford to hire housemaids unless she is telling us that the service is provided for free. And of course, that would not be a service, but a form of slavery. And my question to Gibb is did she encounter any Oromo slaves in a Harari household during her stay? I am quite certain that she can see the absurdity in all this. The few Hararis who remained in their farms have partnered with Oromos to work on their fields sharing equally the profits of their labor, but that is the extent of the service. Unless Gibb wants to advance the theory that Hararis indeed oppressed the Oromos in all aspects of their lives, as it was common to hear such phrases in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution, she would have noticed that there is no substance to her assertion if she really did her research properly.

The last quotation I chose from her book asserts that we Hararis thrived under feudalism because it was the basis of our economy. And the very question that comes to mind is, “what is the source of your information? And how do you substantiate that?” Of course, Gibb is just trying to establish the assertion that Hararis oppressed the Oromos in their neighborhood by telling the readers that Hararis were the beneficiaries of the emperor’s feudal system. I am sure that is real music to many Harari ears. We are told that we Hararis benefitted with the feudal system at the expense of the Oromos. As a matter of fact, Hararis were the ones who were burdened with feudalism and suffered together with the other Ethnic groups. All Hararis vividly remember their history and it was just a little more than a century since Hararis lost their empire to Abyssinian highlanders and started the tortuous journey of oppression under feudalism, fighting it every chance they get. But turning history on its head, Gibb is telling us that we were in cahoots with the emperor in oppressing the Oromos and getting wealthier as a result. Even a very short stay in Harar and around Hararis would not lead anyone to such conclusion, but Gibb stayed in Harar for more than a year and such is the result of her adventure.

I understand that I was a bit harsh with the author with some contents that are depicted in the book as real, but the book is part Harari history and way of life and I am afraid that people should not take the wrong message from reading it. As a bestseller in North America, the book gained a wider audience, and hence, the greater the chance for the misinformation. If she was really interested to tell the truth, Gibb should have provided her completed work to get a feedback before publication from Hararis, Oromos and others that have a stake in the story. Maybe she did that and no one saw anything disagreeable and, if that is the case, that is the greater shame.

Although I started with some factual errors in the book that should have been corrected, I would like to congratulate Gibb for venturing into a world that is rarely given any chance to be noticed and we should all be thankful for that. I would like to believe that she did her best to be sensitive to the subject matter covered in her book and did a superb job for someone who is an outsider. I noticed that Gibb had a talent to make the reader be a part of the story and live the life of the characters even for a short while. Reading the book feels like I could see vivid images of the places and events she was describing with minute detail. And as a Harari, it feels like the events in the book mimicked the life story of so many people most of us are familiar with. And I hope that many Hararis will take the time to read the book and make observations and learn a little bit of their history that is fading away as time goes by.

Surat