The Economist - USA (2022-02-26)

The Economist February 26th 2022 Culture 81

by theliberal media andbyDemocrats,

who had double standards over dirty

tricks. He disparages the incriminating

leaks from the fbi’s Mark Felt (better

knownas“DeepThroat”),and,hesuspects,

fromAlHaig,afuturesecretaryofstate.

Buttherealvillain,inthistelling,wasJohn

Dean, the White House counsel who

co­operated with the prosecution and,

maintainsMrChapin,wasthetrue“can­

cer”onthepresidency.“Theconventional

assumptionthatRichardNixonrepresent­

edevilandJohnDeanhonourorintegrity

isunquestionablya myth.”

AsforNixon,his resignationwasan

“extraordinary unfairness”. Mr Chapin

describes a leader who was not only

notoriously complex and brooding but

alsodecent,sensitiveandcaring.Aspresi­

dent,MrChapinargues,heaccomplished

farmorethanhistorygiveshimcreditfor,

athomeaswellasabroad.Whatofthenas­

tinessexposedintheWhiteHousetapes?

Thoseremarksweretakenoutofcontext

andgavea falseimpressionofthemanMr

Chapinknewsowell.

MrChapinwentontohavea careerin

public relations and consulting. But at

heart,it seems,hehasneverstoppedbeing

Nixon’sadvanceman.Heisstillpreparing

theground,attendingtoeverydetail,try­

ingtomakehisbosslookasgoodaspossi­

ble—thistimenotfora campaignstopor

foreignforay,butforposterity.n

Refugeesandreportage

His brother’s record-keeper

I

ntheautumnof 2016 twoyoungmen

were  deposited  in  Moria  refugee  camp

(pictured), a notorious detention centre on

the  Greek  island  of  Lesbos.  They  had  just

braved  a  dangerous  crossing  in  a  dinghy

from  Turkey,  on  their  way  from  Afghani­

stan to Europe. But the pair were not quite

what  they  seemed.  One  was  Afghan;  the

other  was  an  undercover  Canadian  jour­

nalist,  who  was  accompanying  his  friend

onhisperilousjourneytoa new life. 

Both were shocked by the squalor they

encountered,  the  result  of  a  fire  that  had

gutted the camp the previous week. As well

as  the  grim  conditions,  the  men  had  to

contend  with  souring  attitudes  towards

newcomers  across  Europe. More  than  a

million migrants and refugees reached the

continent  by  sea  in  2015,  but,  a  year  on,

countries  were  increasingly  putting  up

fences  and  closing  their  borders.  With

public  hostility  outstripping  sympathy,

the road to asylum became more difficult,

as the swelling number of detainees at the

camp on Lesbos demonstrated. 

Matthieu  Aikins,  a  journalist  partly  of

Japanese  descent,  had  been  working  in

Afghanistan for  seven  years  when  he

agreed  to  make  the  trip  with  Omar,  his

pseudonymous  companion.  They  had

developed  a  close  friendship  during  as­

signments  on  which  Omar  served  as  Mr

Aikins’s  fixer­cum­driver.  But  they  came

from  drastically  different  worlds.  As  a

child,  Mr  Aikins  played  ice  hockey  in  a

Canadian suburb; Omar grew up in exile in

Iran and Pakistan. From a young age he had

shined shoes, picked pistachios and taken

construction jobs in the Iranian city of Shi­

raz  to  support  his  parents.  His  family

moved back to Afghanistan soon after the

American invasion of 2001. 

By  the  time  Omar  left  Kabul  with  Mr

Aikins  in  2016,  his  mother  and  father  had

already  fled  their  war­torn  country  for  a

second  time.  Some  of  his  siblings  were

already  living  in  Europe;  the  rest  of  his

close relatives were in Turkey, hoping to go

west.  His  own  trip  had  been  delayed  after

he  fell  in  love.  He  eventually  sold  his

prized car, a gold Corolla, and steeled him­

self for the trials ahead. 

“The Naked Don’t Fear the Water”—the

title is a Dari proverb—is a chronicle of the

two  men’s  odysseys.  Omar  entrusts  him­

self to smugglers and risks his life to cross

mountains  and  seas;  Mr  Aikins,  who  as­

sumes  the  name  Habib  as  part  of  his

disguise,  is  his  companion  for  some,  but

not all, of the voyage. Unlike his friend, he

does  not  enter  Turkey  from  Iran.  Instead,

he  attempts  to  fly  in  from  Italy,  but  is  de­

nied entry at a time of heightened tension

after an attempted coup. So Mr Aikins tra­

vels by bus to Bulgaria before illegally slip­

ping across the Turkish border.

The hazards they share mask the gulf in

their circumstances—up to a point. Mr Ai­

kins, who passes as Afghan because of his

“black hair” and “wiry beard”, knows that,

when  push  comes  to  shove,  his  friend

must rely only on his luck, while he can al­

ways fall back on his Western citizenship.

The question of who has the right to travel

across  borders  looms  large  in  his  coura­

geous  reporting.  So  do  the  dangers  some

people  are  obliged  and  willing  to  take

along  the  smuggler’s  route  into  Europe.

Boys  stow  away  in  lorries,  families  board

unseaworthy  inflatable  boats,  men  and

women  cross  deserts.  As  they  near  their

destination, a border guard’s snap decision

can determine their future “in a heartbeat”. 

Mr  Aikins’s  wanderings  were  underta­

ken  as  a  journalist’s  project.  Omar’s  were

not. The author confesses that he initially

treated  the  trip  “like  another  assignment

where I was in charge”; but his sense of au­

thority  quickly  fades.  His  role  turns  pas­

sive, as he awaits his friend’s decisions and

documents  their  stories  and  those  ofthe

folk they meet. The result is a devastatingly

intimate insight into the refugee crisis.n

A journalist accompanies his Afghan friend on an odyssey to Europe

The Naked Don’t Fear the Water. By

Matthieu Aikins.Harper; 336 pages; $27.99.

Fitzcarraldo Editions; £12.99

The long road to a better life