The Economist - USA (2020-02-22)

The EconomistFebruary 22nd 2020 Books & arts 81

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I

n 1933,whenMauriceWilsondecidedto

pilotasingle-propelleraeroplanefrom

LondontotheHimalayas,crashlandona

14,000-footglacierandascendtothesum-

mitofMountEverestbyhimself,hedidnot

reckonontheforbiddingchallengeofBrit-

ish bureaucracy. After flying more than

5,000miles(8,050kilometres),theama-

teuraviatorandmountaineerwasdenieda

permit to cross Nepali airspace and

grounded in British India. Undeterred,

Wilsonsecretlyslippedacrosstheborder

intoTibetonfoot,disguisedasa Buddhist

monk.Thelastentryinhisdiary,found

nearhisbody2,300metresbelowEverest’s

peak,reads:“Offagain,gorgeousday.”

Persistently optimistic—and perhaps

completelymad—Wilsonsharedthedeter-

minedidealismoftheworld’sbestmoun-

taineers.Inhislivelynewbook,“TheWorld

BeneathTheirFeet”,ScottEllsworthpro-

files the single-minded climbers who

scaledtheHimalayas’tallestpeaksinthe

1930s.Withwaronthehorizon,teamsfrom

Britain, theUnited States and Germany

racedtoplanttheirnationalflagsonthe

“roofoftheworld”.

Bythe1930shigh-altitude mountain-

eeringhadbecomeasmucha sourceofna-

tionalprestigeasspaceexplorationwould

beinthe1960s.“Weoughtnottotreatthe

climbingofMountEverestasa domesticis-

sue,”argueda pieceinthe LondonMorning

Postin1936.“Itisanissue of National and

Imperialimportance.”In Berlin the Reichs-

sportführer demanded the conquest of

NangaParbat“forthe glory of Germany”;

Naziofficials wondered whether moun-

taineeringmissionscould facilitate high-

altitudeaircrafttestsover the Himalayas.

The 23 expeditionsundertaken between

1931 and 1939 invariably entailed extreme

trials—among them perilous icefalls,

poundinghailandfingers and toes lost to

frostbite.TheBritishEverest expedition of

1933 beganwitha 300-mile walk from Dar-

jeelingtoBaseCampin Tibet, where one

climberfeltthecold“must be that of inter-

stellarspace”.Notthat these efforts were

entirelywithoutluxury. The failed French

Himalayanexpedition of 1936 was weighed

downbyeighttonnesof supplies, includ-

ing 72 fillettesofchampagne and “count-

less”tinsoffoiegras.

Manyoftheseadventures ended in trag-

edy.Sevenclimbersand nine porters were

buriedbyanavalanche during a German

expeditiontoNangaParbat in 1937; it was,

atthetime,theworstdisaster in the history

ofmountaineering.But for those who suc-

ceeded,thepayoffwas astonishing. “The

horizonsurroundedus in one unbroken

ring,”wrotetheAmerican climber Terris

Mooreinhisdiaryafter reaching the sum-

mitofMinyaKonka,“and I fancied that I

couldseethecurvature of the Earth.”

MrEllsworthpresents a gripping his-

tory, despite the occasional cliché

(“Whetherornotmad dogs and English-

mencouldstayoutof the noonday sun

was debatable. But Englishmen...simply

couldn’t keep out of the hills”). He takes

care to describe the experiences and con-

tributions of Nepali sherpas—including a

young man named Tenzing Norgay—who

were hired to support expeditions. Even as

European and American mountaineers re-

lied on their expertise, they typically main-

tained strict divisions between sherpa and

sahib. Sherpas were nearly always allocated

inferior equipment and lodging.

When war broke out in 1939, the moun-

taineers were forced to abandon the Hima-

layas for the front. But the race was merely

on hold. In 1953, after seven failed attempts

by British expeditions, Tenzing and Sir

Edmund Hillary made the first successful

climb to the summit of Everest. From the

mountaintop, Tenzing waved the flag of the

United Nations. “I like to think that our vic-

tory was not only for ourselves”, he reflect-

ed, “but for all men everywhere.” 7

Mountaineering wars

Summit diplomacy

TheWorldBeneathTheirFeet.ByScott

Ellsworth.Little,Brown; 416 pages;$30.John

Murray;£25

Race to the top of the world

In the 1930s great-power rivalry played out in the Himalayas

“I

remember itwas so cold and raining

heavily,” recounts Osman Ahmed, “and

somehow in the mountains it was snow-

ing.” It was November 1985, and Mr Ahmed

was making an arduous journey that would

lead to an artistic one. He had been trek-

king across northern Iraq with Kurdish

Peshmerga, to escape Baathist persecution

during the Iran-Iraq war. Unusually for a

militiaman, he refused to carry a weapon

and was armed only with a pencil and a

sketch-book. Making it across the Iranian

border to Tehran, he discovered libraries

replete with images of European art. But

his subsequent efforts to reach Europe

landed him in prison and refugee camps;

reluctantly, he went back to Kurdistan.

It seemed to Mr Ahmed that no one was

documenting the horrors of the conflict.

He remembers his anguish, after returning

to the mountains with the Peshmerga, to

find that no radio station in the region was

covering the destruction of Kurdish settle-

ments. Then in 1988, during the last phase

of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal Anfal cam-

paign, government forces unleashed the

worst-ever chemical-weapons attack on ci-

vilians in the village of Halabja. “If I make it

through this war alive,” Mr Ahmed vowed,

“I will make sure that the whole world

knows about this.”

He has since become one of Kurdistan’s

best-known artists; his pictures, which

memorialise the suffering of his people,

have appeared in galleries across the Mid-

SULAYMANIYAH

An artist memorialises the experiences

of his people

Kurdish art

Remember,

remember