L'Homme rompu (L'Uomo corrotto) è un romanzo di Tahar Ben Jelloun, scrittore marocchino di lingua francese, pubblicato nel 1994. Mourad è un ingegnere edile che lavora al servizio dello stato marocchino che esercita un certo potere, dato che può accordare o rifiutare i permessi di costruzione. I suoi capi e colleghi sono tutti corrotti, ma Mourad ha sempre resistito con ostinazione e con coraggio, pur di condurre una vita semplice, senza sfarzo. Mourad è un uomo onesto e semplice che vive circondato di gente priva di virtù, disonesta, che ignora i valori di semplicità e di costante dedizione al lavoro; di gente che ama il lusso e i piaceri del denaro "facile" - le bustarelle che ricevono sono, infatti, così consistenti da permettere di condurre una vita agiata senza lavorare assiduamente e tenacemente. Mourad rimane inflessibile, severo con gli altri e con se stesso, ma il suo comportamento eccezionale è deriso e disprezzato da tutti, persino dai suoi familiari - in particolare moglie e suocera - che vedono nella sua onestà un ostacolo al miglioramento del tenore di vita. Le tentazioni si fanno sempre più forti, il denaro diventa sempre più allettante per Mourad, che vilmente cede alle "avance" del denaro seduttore. Accetta le bustarelle, comincia a gustare i piaceri del denaro acquisito con tanta facilità - occorre semplicemente una sua firma, un suo consenso alla realizzazione di un progetto edile che la bustarella scivola nelle sue tasche. Mourad s'inizia alla corruzione, si convince dei vantaggi dell'uomo corrotto, comprende che la corruzione è una moda, un autentico stile di vita. Mourad è attratto dai piaceri materiali che il denaro riesce ad appagare e cerca di entrare in questa "tribù". Ben presto, Mourad è accusato, minacciato, intrappolato, tutti sospettano di lui. La corruzione esige un talento particolare che Mourad non ha, richiede un cinismo di cui egli è completamente sprovvisto. Mourad non è adatto alla corruzione, non ha l'indole dell'uomo corrotto, egli incontra difficoltà ad entrare nella "tribù" degli uomini corrotti. Mourad è atterrito, ha degli incubi, è quasi la catastrofe... Alla fine, Mourad è accolto nella suddetta "tribù" dai suoi capi e colleghi. La sua iniziazione dura finché non sarà accolto dai veterani. Il romanzo ci comunica qualcosa di veramente desolante: il motore di ogni nostra azione è il denaro, un bene conosciuto ovunque, il principale interesse dell'uomo. Viviamo in un'epoca in cui il denaro ha occupato il posto dell'onestà; occorre pertanto fare una scelta: o si è dentro o si è fuori la "tribù"! L'ONESTA' è incompatibile con la CORRUZIONE e ovviamente è respinta in un mondo dove il denaro è tutto ciò che conta. Una visione manicheista s'impone dinanzi a noi: all'onestà corrisponde il BENE, la corruzione è associata al MALE. In breve, la corruzione, ben lungi dall'essere una moda, uno stile di vita, è semplicemente una calamità, un male che affligge l'essere umano, avido di denaro e povero di valori, spinto a dar sfogo alle proprie velleità e noncurante dei bisogni spirituali ben più importanti per la propria redenzione.

I picked this book up from the libary and entered a world where untold cruelty and human suffering were a daily part of life. I finished this book about a week ago, and it is still affecting me. No longer do I complain or feel sorry for myself. It is a story that needed to be told. Put this on every American's "to read list" as after you read it, you will never be the same.

This fascinating novel, which can be read in one short sitting, portrays corruption at every level, from the individual to the international. Provides a lot of interesting food for thought about stresses of modern Moroccan middle class life and moral choices that all bureaucrats face. Corruption is one of the best easily readable Moroccan novels in years, investigating a core issue facing all North African societies.

The author has written a book for older children and young adults which attempts, by use of a question-and-answer format, to explain Islam in fairly simple language; it was written in French in response to the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, and has been gracefully translated by Franklin Philip. Tahar ben Jelloun is a French writer of Moroccan origin whose earlier book, 'Racism Explained,' used the same approach. It purports to be a dialogue between his young daughter, who asks questions, and himself, who supplies answers. The book traces the history of Islam, starting with a brief outline of Muhammad's life and the tenets of the religion, then focuses a good deal on the Golden Age of Islam - about 900 years ago - before he comments frankly on the 'decline' of Islam as a unified culture in the ensuing centuries. He implies that the current situation, with fanatical and violent people 'claiming to be' adherents of Islam, is due to the long slide of Islamic culture (as opposed to the Islamic religion itself) into 'decadence.' He goes further to decry the current atmosphere of terrorism and violence as a corruption of the idealistic principles of Islam and denounces it forcefully.

I read the book primarily because I knew very little about Islam and earlier attempts to read more scholarly books on the subject couldn't hold my interest. I do think it might be helpful as a source of information for young people or adults like myself who have no background in the religion. It is by no means the last word on the subject, but might lead readers to further study.

Scott Morrison

Mister Ben Jelloun means to talk simply about racism, yet, he has a very one-sided view on this problem. Indeed, while he spends great lenghts in talking about europeans or Euro-american racism, he stays mostly silent about others people's racism.

Exemple one. Mister Ben jelloun mention black slavery in the americas, but he is much more reluctant when it comes to talk about slavery in Marocco. Better yet: he carefully avoids to mention that many slaves in North Africa, up to the early 1800's, were Europeans abducted at sea, on the mediterranean shores of France, Spain and italy. He doesn't mention either that slavery was widespread in africa.

Exemple 2. The author spends much time dealing with colonialism. There again, why wouldn' he mention the current genocide in tibet? The japanese colonial policy until WW2? The invasions of Spain during the middle age?

Exemple 3. Mister Ben Jelloun mentions the crusads in 1095, but describs them as solely motivated by the will of christians to kill muslims. That's a historical falsehood! However, his book was written while fundamentalist Algérian muslims made several bombs explose in France, killing and wounding tens of people; that's a matter he quickly waves off. How come he is so willing to talk about intolerance that dates back a 1000 years when it gives him an opportunity to trash Europeans, but he's so unwilling to take as example of religious intolerance the fundamentalit muslims who put bombs in France, who veil women in afganisthan or iran?

In most depictions of racists, Ben jelloun allmost allways present auropeans as racists: about 20 exemples show them as racists. This should be opposed to Arabs who are depicted as racists in only 3 exemples...

Ben Jelloun book amounts mostly to white bashing. It's very sugarcoated with lofty feelings, but when one closely reads the book, one cannot but notice that exemples are carefully, selectivelly chosen. It is very surprising that Mister Ben Jelloun is so knowledgeable about european racism, but so forgetfull about Marocco's own past as slave traders, about marocco's discrimination against jews, about marocco's history of religious discrimination.

I do not recommand this book at any rate. It will either leave you and your child with an undue feeling of guilt. It is very One sided. Any Man, regardless of his origins, racial or ethnic, can be racist. Mister Ben Jelloun's book totally fails to pass that message.

"Racism Explained to My Daughter" is a maddening read. Its creditable intentions and seemingly careful explanations draw you in quickly, and Ben Jelloun's economical prose has all the virtues of a well-prepared lesson with none of the overwhelming preachiness. And it is this patience of demeanor that makes this such a dangerous book, for Ben Jelloun's argument here ends up reproducing, with a gentle and seductive touch, the same limited and limiting mindset of the racism he sets out to "explain."

The topic is, of course, timely, and as acclaimed a writer as Ben Jelloun is perhaps more prepared than most to take on the task. He proceeds step by step with his clarifications, defining difficult terms in often sensible ways, all the while using a form of prose that has very long roots as an expository genre: the dialogue. This format allows the daughter's voice to anticipate the very questions and demands for greater clarity that are simultaneously arising in the reader's mind. And her father is happy to simplify.

And that's just the problem. Racism is not a simple thing. Ben Jelloun is to be commended for his attempt, but there is strength in not knowing, and greater strength in admitting that one doesn't know-just ask Socrates, the ancient master of the dialogue. Socrates would have paled trying to explain racism. To his credit, Ben Jelloun includes numerous critiques (letters sent to him from readers, things said by students during his tour of schools in France and Italy) of the earlier edition of "Racism Explained" and, while these afford an opportunity for showing the real complexity of racism, they also reinforce the poverty of his own argument.

And what's wrong with his argument? Ben Jelloun wants to break things down very carefully and be fair, and he gives every appearance of doing so, but it is only an appearance. The problem with this project ultimately revolves around the fact that, in order to discredit racism, Ben Jelloun relies on the same reductive worldview that causes racism in the first place, the same lack of vision that only sees things in opposed pairs: black/white, good/bad, us/them. Thus can his daughter, at the book's end, declare that "racists are b**tards [salauds]." She has learned well how to ignore multifarious causes and use instead blanket judgments. Substitute any sub-group for "racists" in her equation, and you've got the beginnings of hate: for Hitler, it was "Jews," for Falwell it's "homosexuals," etc. Racists are many things, but not all racists are one thing.

Ben Jelloun once said of James Joyce that Joyce's work is so revolutionary because it "works on language," and Ben Jelloun's own novels have performed this revolution often over the last decade. Sadly, when a fine author decides to take on social issues at a more explicit and obvious level, the humanity and nuance fade, and all we're left with is a choice between two worldviews: that of the reductionist explainers, and that of the racist b**tards.

Precisely because of its pretensions to fairness, sober-mindedness and tolerance, this could very well be one of the most dangerous books I've read. It gets three stars for the discussion that forms around the critiques included at the end (the only sustained dose of reality in the book) and for the discussion I hope it will provoke here in the USA.

Everyone must read this book. Especially people working with children, families and each other.