---7- li~elvi(crng~r I i y-Juuu y;-
Page 10-Sunday, October 15, 1978-The Michigan Daily
he cha enge,
of being
Anwar Sadat,
w."-,""
Bill Buckley:
Wine and words
from the right
By Sue Warner
By Gregg Krupa
IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY
By Anwar Sadat
.Harper & Row
343 pp. $12.95
T O STATE in matter of fact terms the
events of a life so extraordinary as
that of Anwar Sadat is a task that rivals
the challenge of actually living that life.
And yet it is in that style - a style
totally lacking of pretention, albeit
clouded by political expediency - that
Anwar el-Sadat tells of his search for
identity. Sadat is a man so at peace
with himself he feels no necessity for
self-aggrandizement.
He is a man so proud there is no need
to boast. The facts, as he remembers
them, tell their own story. And yet he is
so thoroughly a politician that he often
attempts to cover the tracks of his and
his country's questionable excursions
Gregg Krupa is co-editor of the
Dailv.
as they search for identity. Digressions
and qualifications abound in the book.
But Sadat's purpose is not to retain per-
sonal stature but rather to retain
political credibility for himself and
Egypt in the globar political arena -
perhaps most especially with the
United States.
The autobiography casts Sadat in
many roles, first as a country boy filled
with love for the land, his country, and
his family. Yet at the same time, he is
filled with hatred for the colonial power,
that kept him from calling the land and
the country his own. He longed to have
Egypt for the Egyptians as it had been
for centuries before the arrival of the
British and their voracious appetite for
global possessions.
At an early age he realized that an
alien force kept Egyptians from gover-
ning Egypt. He hated the British even
before he knew there were British.
See SADAl, Page 12 -
OU'RE WRONG, Buckley.
You're wrong, Buckley," bel-
lows a young man, standing
among the rows of empty seats. He
cups his hands around his mouth and
swivels slowly from left to right,
repeating his message in a rhythmic
drone. The rest of the crowd is filing out
of Hill Auditorium but the words of the
long-haired student continue to fill the
auditorium until workmen arrive to
clear the podium off the stage and lock
the doors.
But William Buckley cannot hear his
critic. He is cloistered backstage in a
sparse conference room, immersed in
the classical music he is pounding out
on an old piano.
The music seems to relieve some of
the tension Buckley has been under
while espousing his conservative
philosophy to this Ann Arbor audience,
made up of many people who think he is
wrong. Buckley's ideology is not
popular here, or, for that matter at
most colleges and universities where
the liberal doctrines he so detests
flourish. His political and economic
ideas, such as replacing the
progressive income tax with a propor-
tional one, are scoffed at here, but even
Buckley's most ardent opponents admit
that his eloquence and rationale are dif-
ficult to refute. It has become cliche for
liberals to dismiss Buckley, mumbling
something like, "I disagree completely
with what he says, but he says it very
well."
Sue Warner is co-editor of the
Sunday Magazine.
Yet Buckley cannot be dismissed
easily - as a bull-headed conservative
who fails to reason out his positions.
There is logic behind every statement
he makes and one can hardly avoid
those statements. Buckley is a prolific
writer and an articulate speaker. He
pops up just about everywhere,
national magazines, television, and on
this most recent trip to Ann Arbor, the
apartment of a graduate student.
After his speech, Buckley retreats to
this modern apartment to talk with a
group of 10 students. The host obviously
did not expect this visit, as damp laun-
dry is strewn throughout the living
room. The flustered student scurries
about, gathering up shirts and under-
wear, but Buckley isn't phased.
"How's the bar?" he inquires, while
slouching into the couch.
HE IS TRYING to fit in, sipping
white wine from a chemistry
beaker, but it is an odd
situation. Buckley jokes that
"something is rotten" because the wine
is "much too good for a graduate
student." Buckley makes a point of
remembering the students' names; he
shakes hands and autographs books but
the evening 'seems to become a stilted
exercise in civility. Everyone is very
cordial but the talk is far from lively.
As the conversation drifts from
Vivaldi to Jerry Brown to the almost
inevitable topic - television, Buckley.
alternates between states of animation
and lethargic disinterest while the
Pachelbel "Canon" plays on in the
background. "I bore easily," Buckley
remarks at one point. His eyes are
bloodshot and the demands of the lec-
ture earlier that evening have taken
their toll physically. And maybe
Buckley is bored.
He does most of the talking, and chat-
ters on even wien the whistle of a train
passing nearby completely drowns him
out. His audience has settled into a
semi-circle around him and Buckley's
eyes roam from face to face, main-
taining contact for almost uncomfor-
table lengths of time. His words roll out
over and over in the slow, east coast ac-
cent often associated with the very rich.
The anecdotes he tells, tales of talk
shows and phone calls from famous
people, are amusing but at times he
flies off on a tangent, while the students
smile and bob their heads.
"Does anyone remember Poujade?"
Buckley interjects abruptly.
"IUmmm, uh, not really ...
So Buckley leans forward and delves
into the story of Poujade, a Frenchman
who led a tax revolt in that country
during the 1950s. But when he com-
pletes his monologue on Poujade,
Buckley is met with blank stares. He
changes the subject.
THERE ARE some in the room
who do not share Buckley's
opinions,,but they are unwilling
to challenge him. Who would? His
Obsession with the Jewish past
A JEW TODAY
By Elie Wiesel
Random House, Inc.
290 pp. $10.00
H E TELLS a story as if possessed by
an unbreakable force ordering him
to reveal the truth. This force rules him
day and night, continually reminding
him of his duty to let the young Jewish
generation know what happened. In
each story the message is broadcasted
loud and clear: Jews have suffered and
they continue to suffer.
He is Elie Wiesel, the well-known
Jewish historian, author, prophet and
spokesman for the Jewish people. And
if anyone has a story to tell, it's him.
Wiesel is a survivor of the Holocaust,
the Nazi crusade to annihilate Europe's
Jewish population in the early 1940s.
As a teenager, he suffered through a.
year at Auschwitz, the concentration
camp where the Germans gassed to
death thousands of Jews each day.
In his latest book, A Jew Today,
Wiesel summons many of his most bit-
ter and sad memories and explains why
they still haunt him 34 years later. He
says he can never again trust mankind,
because they stood by passivelyhtowat-
ch the Germans commit the most
horrible crime of all - genocide.
The book is a collection of short
stories and essays mixed beautifully to
Michael Arkush is a Daily day
ed it or.-..E
By Michael Arkush
of the future. He reveals his inner
struggle for freedom to escape his har-
sh view of reality that Jews are both the
most blessed and cursed of all peoples.
In one of his stories, Wiesel talks
about his grandfather who practiced
Judaism every day until his death, even
though he was imprisoned in a concen-
tration camp.
His grandfather remained strong
right under the noses of the Nazi.
soldiers. Refusing to bend down and
plead for mercy, he stood silent and
stared them straight in the eyes. The.
soldiers kept laughing and taunting the
old man but he did not once change his
expression. Wieselcalls it another kind
of resistance to the Hitler troops.
Assuming his second role, Wiesel
says he is afraid of another Jewish
tragedy. He denies any future event
could remotely approach the
ramifications and everlasting effect of
the Holocaust; but he says the anti-
Jewish propaganda rapidly increases
each day, with no apparent end in sight.
He explains: "In October 1973, while
the Israeli army was experiencing
grave, -almost fatal reverses, Western
Europe, with only rare exceptions,
refused to help and, much worse;,at-
tempted to sabotage America's aid.
"Is a posthumous victory for Hitler
conceivable?" he asks.
He 'also expresses fear that right-
wing scholars might become successful
in blotting the memory of the Hitler
atrocities out of history books. He men-
tions the pamphlets that circulate
around Germany which call the
Holocaust the "hoax of the century".
And he worries that these lies may at-
tract more supporters.
Wiesel reveals for the first time why
it took him ten yearsuntil the mid-
1950s, to begin to tell his story.
"So heavy was my anguish that I
made a vow, not to speak, not to touch
upon the essential for at least ten years.
Long enough to see clearly. Long
enough to until the language of man
with the silence of the dead," he ex-
plains.
But he couldn't hold the truth in any
longer. He realized that it is the world's
right, and especially the right of every
Jew, to know each aspect of the
Holocaust, to know so that it won't hap-
pen again, to know to understand man's
potential for destruction. To know and
to repent forever.
Yet, man hasn't learned the lesson,
according to Wiesel. Three decades af-.
ter the event, man continues to destroy,
and persecute, and remain unconcer-
ned when tragedy strikes at the other
end of the globe.
See WIESEL, Page 12
hallmark ar
is debate. I
the room ar
ber the 1966
Buckley an
national TV
once aske
refused to a
program Fi
"Why does
der?"
Buckley a
one of the s
point out ar
Buckley's
philosophy,
rebuttal. In
that since
Americans
dropped fro
"But," th
have becor
isn't that dr
"Nope,">
pulls out a!
he seems tc
figures sust
graph (indi
has stalled
per cent oui
nine per cer
"Oh, I s
Although
exaggerate
has a well-
society. In
liberal, eas
Buckley an
magazine b
in-chief sin
country's f
servative ti
"I'm a c
unofficial r
And Buck
It has beer
the broad
famous as
ponents. I
assuming a
says he c]
because he
language.
to substitu
forfeit som
"capacity
ween parti
to make"p
He prat
See]
suit Wiesel's double role. First and
foremost, he is an historian who tells
the facts, fears, and prayers which ac-
companied the Jews during their
struggle to live..-
Secondly, he is a prophet who refers
tohistast asjutificatioA for his fea
I