Author: Jerzy Rohoziński. Source: Nowe Książki, No. 1/2004. Date of publication: 2004.

Kapuściński can be liked or disliked. Those who value in a reporter the ability to discreetly “hide behind” the described matter, the art of allowing the reader an intimate encounter with the described world — those who, in a word, are bothered in Kapuściński’s reportages by the fact that there is too much Kapuściński himself in them — will, among the classics of Polish reportage, prefer the less self-absorbed Budrewicz. Those, however, who like the reporter to be the principal hero of his account, a guide, a moral authority, and an oracle, will worship precisely Kapuściński.

A Portrait of the Reporter was created undoubtedly with admirers in mind. For some time, indeed, every dicta and scripta signed with the name of Ryszard Kapuściński has been a real publishing hit. A veritable gold mine being worked by successive publishers. This time we receive a collage of excerpts from 48 interviews with Kapuściński, conducted mainly in the 1990s, mostly by the Polish press (only four are foreign), forming a kind of “catechism” of the reporter’s work.

Opponents of reportorial egocentrism, browsing through A Portrait of the Reporter, will wrinkle their noses. “My God, what tiresome confessions from a know-it-all.” They will bristle reading how Kapuściński maintains that he “is a good person” (that is precisely why he practises journalism), “does not write for success and money but has a sense of mission,” “brings new threads to Polish literature,” “is in possession of extraordinary knowledge unavailable to others” (hence his being pulled in every direction), and finally “considers himself a specialist in the broadly understood problems of the Third World, of globalism, or — philosophically speaking — holism” (more malicious observers might here note sardonically that when one knows nothing in particular, one “goes for the broader context”).

Admirers, on the other hand, cradling the cover in their hands, will eagerly and with a frisson of excitement begin their reading, wishing to learn the journalistic kitchen of their master. They will perceive modesty, passion, curiosity about the world, a strong psyche, and openness to others; they will perceive a “translator of cultures” by vocation, capable for instance of writing movingly about misery, about the dramas of the “silent and poor” of the Third World.

In everything, however, one must maintain a healthy sense of proportion and not lapse into wholly uncritical adoration. For it is terribly demoralising when one assumes from the outset that someone will say something very wise about every subject. It is not necessarily to the reporter’s benefit when he must suddenly step into the role of the sage. It is impossible to know everything — or even almost everything. And that is precisely what is now constantly expected and demanded of Kapuściński. The result? At times we encounter in the book reflections and assertions that are fairly superficial, comparisons and observations that are not especially apt. For example — as Bronisław Malinowski noted in 1912 (who, incidentally, conducted his research on the Melanesian islands, not Polynesian ones) — “there are no higher and lower cultures, all are equal, simply different.” When evolutionary orthodoxy prevailed, that may have been a bold statement; today it is only an insignificant platitude, the back-yard wisdom of sensitive sixteen-year-olds. Then, that “great literature has always been the description of stable societies.” Example? Mann’s Buddenbrooks. Really? Is not the erosion and defeat of traditional Protestant bourgeois ideals under the influence of “new forces” described there?

Since the nineteenth century, indeed, Western European literature has been fascinated to a large extent precisely by change, the fall of the “old world,” the birth of new orders. Finally, that “no one is capable of competently explaining to the public that the current of Islamic terrorism is nothing new. It was born, after all, at the time of the Crusades. The first such sect was founded in 1090.” Meanwhile nothing is more misleading than linking the founding of the Ismaili sect of the Assassins (for that is what is meant here) with the Crusades, and treating it as a prototype of Al-Qaeda engaged in underground resistance against “Frankish” occupiers. This extremely Shi’a sect, professing esoteric teachings heavily coloured by Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, treated with contempt and hatred by the Sunni mainstream for its antinomianism, began its expansion from Persia — not the region of the Crusades. Consequently its principal enemies were Muslim rulers, not the Crusaders, with whom it often formed alliances. Today the direct heirs of the Assassins are the Nizari Ismailis — a community of international philanthropists supporting development, progress, the technological revolution, and open society.

It is hard, then, to know everything. Even almost everything. And let us bear that in mind as we worship or criticise Kapuściński. Kapuściński himself seems aware of it. “Journalists often do not think about whom they are addressing, forgetting that whoever they address their utterances to may be much wiser and more intelligent than they” — he writes — “therefore we should approach our profession with a sense of enormous humility, with an awareness of our own limitations.”

Ryszard Kapuściński, A Portrait of the Reporter, Znak Publishers, Kraków, September 2003.

source: kapuscinski.info