Ma Jian's follow up to Beijing Coma is powerful expose

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(note to readers: this piece is still looking for a publisher.; any hints or constructive criticism would be appreciated)

The Dark Road

By Ma Jian

NY: Penguin Publishers 2003/published June 13, 2013

360 pp.

You have to hand it to Chinese novelist Ma Jian – for a writer in exile it’s as though he’s never left. The author of the ultimate novelistic takedown of a tyrannical government, Beijing Coma, Ma is still on the case, tracking the same culprit. And despite his distance, he’s amazingly tuned into today’s China – his novel equals or outdoes the lurid stories daily pouring out of China—detailing corruption, dystopic pollution and human tragedy on a scale that beggars belief.

Ma’s latest book also comes out almost to the day on the 24^th anniversary of the events that inspired that novel, the Tiananmen Massacre.

Yes, up to the minute topical it is, but more than that it is an epic tale of human survival in conditions not much more propitious than in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It is also a far-ranging expose of the disaster China has become – at least its rural sector --under predatory pseudo-Communist capitalism.

The tale sets off with a violent government raid on a peasant village in Hubei Province that just happens to be the home town of the great sage Confucius to whom quite a few of the townsmen owe allegiance. Ma portrays the insurrectionary spirit of the peasants with verve, reminding us of the student uprising in Beijing Coma. They are quickly crushed however, by bonus-crazed government thugs (“family planning officials”) who punish them with beatings, forced abortions, fines and imprisonment. The heroes of the story, Kongzi, a poorly paid school teacher and his wife Meili (they also have daughter) decide to flee downriver in a boat to seek reproductive freedom and a better life.

The Dark Road is indeed an intense, bleak journey into the heart of a modern totalitarian nightmare but one that never flags in its boisterous narrative energy. It puts you in the skins of its tormented protagonists as they suffer and endure through a disturbingly amoral, violent and smelly landscape. I didn’t say it was a pleasant book, but it’s still hard to put down due to Ma’s storytelling zest. Ma’s narrative technique is varied and resourceful. Most of the time we are in the breathless  present tense in which the story moves inexorably forward.

The resourceful but unlucky characters never fulfill their dream but their tumultuous journey reveals a country, or at least the countryside, seriously run amuck. While the cities may provide a semblance of good living to Chinese nowadays, rural China is shown to be chaotic, criminal and dystopically corrupt.

In their flight, the persecuted family meets numerous communities of like-minded souls – refugees from the family planning laws – living in temporary riverside slums in southern China. Through them we learn how general the problem is and how difficult it is for the unprivileged poor to cope with the drastic conditions. Unfortunately, the only system that functions well is the police state with its well-paid agents, escalating fines and work-camp prisons.

Both Meili and Kongzi are astute and practical, discovering many lucrative trades as they head toward “Heaven township.” But the trouble is their illegal status doesn’t allow them to remain long in any one place. The other problem is the toxic nature of the environment itself which threatens to poison their poultry and offspring.

From the banks of the newly industrialized Yangtse to the electronic waste (“ewaste”) camps of Guangxi and Guangdong (Guiyu is the actual city Ma depicts), the desperate family manages to survive on odd jobs, native industry and wit. The adventures of the wife Meili are especially revealing after she is caught without a permit, imprisoned and –briefly—trafficked to a brothel. She comes to a deeper understanding of China and what her true place as a peasant is in it, accepts this and learns from her experiences. She is typically for a Chinese woman as tough as nails, has good business sense (as does Kongzi), and attracts helpful male authority figures (without betraying her husband); one sees she could easily realize her simple ambitions of living in a brick house with electronic conveniences, a big screen TV and fewer children.

Unfortunately, Meili’s dreams are undone by her biological destiny. It is her uterine anxiety that drives the story as government and husband compete for possession of her womb. Ultimately both pose about the same threat to her sanity and safety.

Her real difficulties begin when she is caught by the dreaded family planning officials and is given a forced abortion. This is probably the most horrific scene in the novel. Ma’s naturalistic observation of every gory detail in the operation including the gratuitous cruelty of the medical staff performing it, would make Zola proud. You are astonished that such an act can be legal anywhere in the world. Ma wants us to be morally outraged, and we are.

(Yes, probably a lot of non Chinese who approve of this policy out of concern for world demographics will have to rethink their position).

After this, Meili lives in a constant state of terror that a new pregnancy will result in the same life threatening state sponsored cruelty. A measure of her desperation is that she has an IUD fitted unbeknownst to her husband. When she inevitably does get pregnant again – husband Kongzi doesn’t give up his sexual nor his Confucianist tinged (a son!) obsessions easily—the embedded IUD causes brain damage and deformity. Cruelly, the father gets rid of the female child –“Waterborn” in a way never explained (we suspect sold to child beggar exploiters).

She hopes that after they reach their destination “Heaven Township” named ironically for its severe pollution that sterilizes women so they won’t conceive ( a ‘heaven’ to her) she will cease bearing, but this hope too goes for naught as Kongzi insists on his male right to copulate, procreate and finally produce a son in spite of all the chemicals.

Paterfamilia Kongzi, is less developed as a character, perhaps because as a member of the Kong clan he has a fixed position in Chinese society. He is after all the 76^th direct descendent of Confucius (and never lets you forget it). Still he has positive qualities, such as his high literary culture peculiar to China (that Ma no doubt sympathizes with). Exasperated by the disintegration of cherished traditional Chinese values; he constantly quotes Tang dynasty couplets and other literary masterpieces showing his adherence to an older, more cultured China that subsists despite the nearly universal degradation and prostitution. He also takes advantage of the neo-Confucianist trend recently publicized in China, and goes back to his job of schoolmaster although in an illegal camp.

Though touted as a novel with a cause, that of exposing the horrors of the one child policy in China (as laid down by Deng Xiao-ping), this is not, fortunately, a single issue book. Ma’s focus is on his earthy average Chinese characters who are richly observed and whose passions, follies and ambitions drive the story. That they occasionally serve as mouthpieces for his views is not a serious fault since he is breaking powerful government censorship that prevents ordinary Chinese from speaking out.  

Ma’s last book, Beijing Coma, was a rare achievement for a mere novel, an encapsulation of a part of Chinese history the Chinese government refused to recognize, the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. Writing the book defied the official Communist revision of the democratic uprising – and reading and owning the book gave each reader a subversive gift of censored knowledge. The Dark Road may not be on the same level of epic political masterpiece but does show that Ma is versatile in his selection of characters and theme and ingenious enough to convey precisely on skin level the China he has been exiled from.

Ma’s portrayal of modern China, though apocalyptic, is far from totally negative. Ma shows thru the survival of his imperfect yet sympathetic characters that there is something deeper and more enduring in China than the shallow money culture that is as pervasive as the pollution. Throughout the novel, Ma hints at aspects of China that transcend the crass materialism: the folk religious practices that Meili indulges in, her belief in Buddha, her husband’s stalwart Confucianism and love of Tang couplets that he teaches to his daughter show that sojmething of the Chinese spirit survives beyond the filth of their daily life. More simply, Ma shows how his wretched characters, no matter how poor, manage to feast together on their beloved deep-fried meatballs and dumplings.

Ma’s own view of his characters is rooted in non tragic Buddhism as he makes clear by allotting portions of each episode to the view of the “infant spirit” who after three tries is finally born successfully. The author combines cyclical and non cyclical visions of human destiny of his Chinese characters in a way some may find masterful, others simply puzzling. As for me, I remained captured by Ma's spiritual views of Meili and Kongzi since they provided a needed respite from the nearly unbearable harshness of his portrait of the monstrous dystopia China has become.

A Memoir by Madeleine Godard, Montpellieraine

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A friendly review of Memoire de l’Ombre: Une Famille Francaise en Algérie 1868-1944

By Madeleine Touria Godard

Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009. 301 pp. 29 Euros.

Quelle ne fut pas ma surprise, par un matin ensoleillé de découvrir dans ma boite à lettres d’Amsterdam, une envelope aux allures anonymes: elle contenait un portrait photographique ancien. J’avais reçu auparavant, d’une relation éloignée, un arbre généalogique de la branche paternelle de ma famille, obscure jusque là, mais je l’avais égaré sous ces monçeaux de papiers si soigneusement classés, qu’on ne les consulte qu’en de rares occasions. J’avais cependent relevé la fréquence de prénoms desuets et de patronymes aux sonorités germaniques, vraisemblablement alsaciennes, mais ces inconnus familiaux m’indifféraient alors, leur passé n’effleurant en rien mon présent.

So begins expertly the superb family saga Memoire de l’Ombre by Madeleine Godard, world traveler, poet and essayist (born in Algiers, Algeria).

(First a short confession!) This book has been on my shelves nearly three years! If I take it out now, can the reason be anything but guilt? I’ll confess there’s not a little of that quantity in my motives but also genuine interest in work well done that deserved more attention than I could give it when it was published. Unfortunately, these days, I have little time to read let alone review anything.

Now a short digression. It struck me this afternoon that what I really liked doing in my free time was thinking & talking about books, but hate sitting in my dreary hotel room trying to discipline myself into some boring routine—while fantasizing about the great outdoors – such as the fun to be had at the Hilton or Danat swimming pools – and so this afternoon, exasperated by my confinement in the drab Arab business hotel room -- I took Memoire de l’Ombre and my writing equipment to the Hilton, and after ordering a cool pint of Stella sure enough rediscovered my enthusiasm for this book. Indeed, how dreadful it is to read in a desolate, lonely Poesque chamber… how enlivening on the contrary to bring a text into daily life at its best – the Hilton family pool which in response to the first really scorchingly hot day of this not particularly cool “spring” was absolutely buzzing with joyous splish-splashing and other acquatic activities for which less clothing is de rigueur whether one’s dress code is Muslim, Catholic or protestant.

French culture is perhaps more lively than most precisely for that reason – that it allows a mixture of fun, work and play in the same place – the street café. Other countries have tried to imitate it but it only exists truly in France.

The fact is that Memoire de l’Ombre is worth one read at the very least and here I am giving it a second at the swimming pool. That must say something about the solid appeal of the tome.

First, why should I, why should anyone be interested in Memoire de l’Ombre? The fact is it is not simply a family memoire – of which we find so many these days – rather it is the narration of a long personal exploration by the author into (for her) mysterious wartime events suffered by her parents with the key event being the death of her father during WWII in Algeria. [This setting, or one just next door, produced one of the greatest romances of all time, Casablanca.] Godard who was born toward the end of that cataclysm has always nourished a huge amount of curiosity about the circumstances of that event which reshaped so much of the world – and not only her small part of it in France.

As she already knew, however, from her mother's lifelong silence on the question, participants of that era, whether military or not, are often reserved about discussing it frankly with those who didn’t experience it. Why this is so depends – but often it seems the horrors of WWII were so intense that they are indescribable to non participants, and upsetting to those who try to recount them.

The author moreover is not only interested in the personal stories of her relatives but also in the broader context of world history, such as WW II and French colonialism in Algeria, in which their destinies were worked out. Some of her most interesting material deals with how, when and why the French colonized northern Africa: the project began in the early 19^th century as a result of quite a few causes, but an important one was--an aggressive government colonial policy to allay unemployment in Alsace and restore national pride after the disasters of the Franco Prussian War.

Godard traces in detail the path of that side of her family who originated in Alsace, migrated to Algeria, established themselves and became part of the French colonial community. Her father Edouard Dard was the grandson of one of the original settlers. The other side of her family came from Brittany, not a colonial family at all –rather a normal middle class family that reluctantly approved of their daughter Anne’s decision to move to Algeria to teach in a French government school. The author’s parents met in Algeria, fell in love, got married and had two children (Paul-Edmond and Madeleine).

Using historical French military archives and voluminous family correspondence, Godard recounts both her parents’ courtship and romance and the wartime events flying thick around them.

She is motivated by a desire to uncover what was for her a deep mystery – the taboo her mother placed on speaking of anything concerning the war and particularly her father; more specifically the facts of her father’s death were kept from her. This is the “Memoire de l’Ombre” of the title. After her mother’s death in France, a relative who happened to be a historian contacted her with hints of the existence of archives – containing both family and French Colonial documents—that might be of interest to her. These documents included a complete record of her mother’s correspondence with her father.

The author in fact tells us in her foreword that the whole book is an endeavor to meet her father for the first time. What she discovers is that her father was in charge of an Algerian battalion, trained them (he spoke French and Arabic), was moved close to the battle-lines in France, but after the French defeat by the Nazis was sent back to North Africa. Edouard died of TB while being treated in a wartime military hospital. She has a faint memory of visiting him but of course didn’t understand what it was all about. 

She deals gingerly and with a light hand with the romance of her parents recounted thru the huge correspondence they sent each other. They reveal themselves as sensitive, literate (both were deeply interested in literature), optimistic, brave and humorous. She also uncovered the medical records of her father and is able to put together a painfully complete account of his final days.

Godard’s historical research is far from superficial to my mind – it filled me in on many aspects of history (recent and otherwise) I was totally ignorant of –especially the rich description of lives of both French and indigenes during the French colonial period in Algeria; secondly and just as gripping WW II’s disastrous affects on France and its colony Algeria, which France, after a bloody civil war, finally liberated in 1962.

In the aftermath of these cataclysms – Godard describes her own distanced feelings toward that period; though a descendent of the pied noir tribe, famous for their “ultraist” sentiments, she has never sympathized with the ex-colonial rightists; first, Godard didn’t live in Algeria long enough to remember it well; second, her parents, as we see here, were always on the liberal side of politics in Algeria. Edouard, in an internal wartime report, recommended Algerian Independence.

(If I'm any judge of French style) the book is crisply and concisely written; the author maintains a distanced point of view, keeping her personal comments to a minimum; yet when necessary does allow herself to enter the story. After all, as the daughter of the two subjects portrayed, she is a part of the story. Godard also shows herself the heir of her parents’ literary leanings, including a treasury of literary references, particularly of poetry produced during the resistance period.

As for the greatest mystery in the book at least for the author—the reasons for her mother’s strict censorship of all knowledge of her father and his death, the author comes to realize that part of the silence came from a touchingly human motive: her mother’s refusal to accept the simple fact of his death.

The Writers’ Market – evil conspiracy against quality or readers’ friend?

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(warning: unedited, may contain grammatical gaffes & unintentional boasting)

The phrase “writers market” seems to be set off a storm every time I mention it in Al Ain. I have seen dignified professors splutter incoherently or wax apoplectic when I mentioned that the writers market might not be all bad. So I fear I may make a whole lot more trouble by dealing with this subject again in greater detail, explaining why I think it’s not such a bad thing. First there are two views of the writers market, one amateur, the other professional. Amateur writers are unpublished or hardly published writers who may have sent in a ms or two, been rejected, and gotten dejected and given up. If they give up at this stage, then they may develop a grudge against those who are published and ascribe it to an unfair writer’s market that doesn’t care for true literature or the authentically individual values they represent.

Professional writers [or semi-professional among whom I count myself as a part-time free-lancer with over 100 paid publications] on the other hand, view the writer’s market differently; for them it is a fact of life that can be seen, alternatively, as a necessary evil, a useful challenge (like the sonnet form) or a positive good that rewards them. Writers’ attitudes toward the market probably vary wildly but one would imagine in line with their degree of publishing success.

What is the writers market? It is the result of the competition of writers for the limited attention of editors and the even more restricted publishing space they command (whether paying or not) in periodicals, newspapers and books. All serious writers want to get published, but there are almost always more ambitious writers in any given market niche then can be accommodated in available space; therefore not all can be published, and editors may have the luxury of choosing between more or less talented, prepared and dedicated contributors. From the standpoint of editors (where I have been), competition improves the product and is to be encouraged. Is the writers market good for the writers, you may ask. I would argue that the market is a great teacher of effective style (concision, directness and vividness), organization and dramatic presentation. Writers who incorporate these iconic (ever since Strunk & White) qualities in their prose and deal with significant subjects have an excellent chance.

What the writers market is not: simply crass commercialism or an evil conspiracy against quality. The writers market is more likely a sorting out device that eliminates a lot of unreadable slush from the bookshelves. Since the writers market is inevitable – the fledgling writer would do better to accept it & study hard the kind of writing he or she wants to do--in examples he most admires --and try hard to imitate and surpass that genre.

I remember in one of the first things I ever published, an interview with theater people in Madison, Wisconsin, the editor complimented me on the technique I used to summarize conversations. Well, I confessed, I got it out of your own magazine.

What do writers want? Most say they want people to read them. It’s actually much easier to get published then to be assured of a readership because after publication you never know who if anyone reads your stuff anyway. If you have a good and careful editor (these are increasingly hard to find these days) you don’t need another reader. One editor who reads, criticizes and accepts your work is enough.

Still I hear aspiring, dissatisfied writers grousing: “Who needs an editor? If X or Z at the ABC Review doesn’t like my stuff, so what? I’ll circumvent, cut out and utterly forget about editors with their rotten commercial standards and incom-prehensible demands. By building my own community of readers.”

That actually may make some sense in this local and fairly corrupt environment where the publishing world is very circumscribed and limited and where neophytes will have a tough time getting started. I heard Alexander McCall’s slick & convincing presentation on building a community of readers. He has a chance of doing that since he is already published and has a readership.

For all the variations on self-publishing, I’ll only say this: is it really publishing? Once again, I’ll hold out for traditional publishing and state that you can’t say you are truly published until someone else publishes you. The reason for this is practical & philosophical. We almost never see our own creations clearly. Our children are always the most interesting, the most beautiful, the most intelligent; our story, our novel, our poem is the most moving, the most wonderful etc etc. Of course. The thing is though that because it is ours we can’t see it clearly. I always see on the page what I think is there, not what is really there. Whereas any editor worth their chili peppers can see much that I cannot.

Self-publishing means unedited, including this casual essay (I’m sure it’ll be obvious).

The intrinsic difficulty of the task of writing well and comprehensibly so as to truly inform & entertain a reader is often underestimated by beginning writers. It is in fact very hard to put together a piece of writing that succeeds on all levels, style, syntax, content, organization etc. Scratch “very hard” – say impossible. That’s why publishing has always prospered as an organization wherein some write, others copyedit and others research. This is why all writers even great ones need tons of editing.

Accepting the writers market and the need for editing to get your product to market (and not seeing those as bad words) is simply common sense and maturity for the professional writer who should be happy to find work in a creative, competitive field. IMHO the need to be read by millions, become famous and rich is a false ambition for writers who would do better in my opinion by looking for steady employment in his or her selected specialties and genres.

Lastly, I can sympathize with people who try to get started in this environment with its very limited chances in the English language press anyway, particularly in Al Ain. I have published in the main journals of Dubai and Abu Dhabi but don’t plan to much more of it. First, the limitations on content make writing the simplest thing a boring exercise in self-censorship. Then among editors, low standards, little competence and and not much interest in their job – so no meaningful feedback about what you write. I have only had one positive experience. To find out which editor it is, you can check my Mid East Books Blog website.
Finally, my recognition that self-publication is necessary in a corrupt or otherwise defective writers market -- ie. censored -- is shown by this email.

"Dubai Lit Fest" celebrates 5th annual book blast

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Dubai Lit Fest (Mar 7-9) –rough notes

The fifth edition of the Emirate Airlines International Literature Festival (whh I’ll call the Dubai Lit Fest for short) with its clever “Villain Vs Hero” motif was far too complex and multi-faceted to sum up in a few simple sentences. There was more of everything, more books, more publishing categories, more genres and subgenres, more events, more workshops etc. More nationalities and more people stuffing the rooms and aisles of the Intercon annex where the Fest is held. With as many as a half-dozen things going on at the same time from 9 to 9, the single spectator was hard-pressed figuring out what was going on and how best to spend his time. Yes, more of everything except a few minor amenities.

It all challenged one’s attention to the point of Hamletian indecision or, worse, nervous exhaustion. Meanwhile one's body--due to the lack of anything resembling a comfortable place to sip coffee, browse and schmooze--suffered more banal pains.

But what about the old charge against the Lit Fest that it emphasizes trash at the expense of quality literature? Is there any truth to this scurrilous rumor? Unfortunately, in my opinion, there is more than a smidgen. The clear stars of the show, as revealed by size of venue, audience numbers, and book stack dimensions (not to mention program cover font size) were the Archers, Rankins, Deavers, La Plantes et al. These giants of pulp fiction with their thunderous mobs of fans may have overshadowed the quality literature scene- but did not crowd it out altogether.

The Nigerian novelist-poet (and Booker Prize winner) Ben Okri was probably the most celebrated literary writer there and was featured in several sessions (that I didn’t see). A writer I knew of from a select literary magazine was there, Geoff Dyer, with an odd ball reputation (Yoga for People who can’t be bothered to Do it), but sadly got a small audience for a very droll session on his opposition to genre. A well –regarded young British novelist Chris Cleave, who writes on sports themes, made his second appearance. One enthusiastic fan gave him high praise (she was his wife).

Besides these we found many other types of literary, sub literary and non literary activities in nonfiction, (history), self-help, cooking (Italian, French, Asian & Lebanese), children’s books (as always splendidly represented), not to mention too many workshops (writing poetry, drawing, screen-writing etc). One major type that wasn’t present in force was original travel writing (only the copycat Steps of Thesiger).

News, newsmen & newswomen were very popular at the fete – The controversial American anchor man Dan Rather was there (touting his My Life in the News) talking to Nik Gowing, Abdel Bari Atwan and “Mrs Moneypenny” in the Breakfast News session and several others. Rather seemed to have plenty of compatriot fans who lined up to get a signature and something we rarely saw from the legendary newsman during his years on TV- a smile. His iconic voice, as I can attest, is entirely intact. [It occurred to me later, that Rather, with his checkered career may have been the perfect example of the Fest’s hero-villain theme.]

The international aspect of the fete was accentuated. Judging by appearances the DubLit Fest has always been mainly a British show – and if this is the case – more power to British publishers and authors for taking advantage of the opportunity. But where were the giants such as Barnes, Boyd, McEwan, Thubron and company? It would also have been good to see more major Yankee literary talent on display (e. g. Roth, DeLillo, McCarthy, Theroux etc.). Next in order are Arab and Arab Gulf writers & publishers followed by Indians and a sprinkling of French and other European countries. Overall, I’d say the fest had a more cosmopolitan character than in the past.

My favorite session on Thursday was the evening event “The English Language –Villain or Hero?” It was a lively, energetic and wit-sparking discussion of the dilemmas caused by the all-conquering English language, which has become for all practical purposes a world language. Leslie McLoughlin, a Harvard professor & well-known translator of Arabic moderated the session (his just published “Confessions of a Translator” was the subject of another session). The two major speakers were our own Abdulla Dabbagh, representing the literary critical point of view and Eugene Rogan, professor of history at Oxford and author of the recently published (and best-selling)“The Arabs – A History.”

Dabbagh, former chair of English Dept at UAEU and a widely published literary comparatist, described how “English has imposed itself on the world,” starting with this region in which Arabic and Arabic language studies are suffering but put the dominance of English in a “wider perspective.” He went through the history of world languages finding that at one point Arabic, French and Latin had all served this purpose. He also detailed the multiple attempts by scholars to invent a “universal language” that would serve the whole world. None of these, he commented, has ever truly caught on. In the meantime, English has continued to grow to the point where it would be hard to find a competitor.

Dabbagh described how once when Sigmund Freud came to the UN to give a speech, he spoke in German. Nowadays, he said, this would be unimaginable.

[Dabbagh also participated in two other events – the Lost in Translation?” discussion with four other speakers which dealt with the specific problems of putting Arab writers and texts into English and “Shakespeare and the Arab World,” a discussion with Dr Yousef Aydabi about the Bard’s debt to Middle Eastern ideas.]

The historian Eugene Rogan also described English as a villain “that threatens every language in the world.” “The beast is out,” he warned. He described how recently traveling to Ireland – where the official language is the charming Gaelic tongue – he heard none of this lilting language but only English. (Someone has calculated that as many as 500 languages are disappearing from the world every year).

As English becomes the required second language, Rogan warned, “the need to learn other languages will be reduced to nil.” As a result, those of us confined to English will “miss others’ views of ourselves… we won’t have a clue about how the rest of the world thinks.”

None of the experts however felt that English would become some kind of Orwellian monster (such as the evil shrinking dictionary in Orwell’s frightening 1984) that would exert dictatorial control over language or people. On the contrary, the ability of English to absorb and create new vocabulary (8,500 words per year on average) is probably one of its greatest strengths.

McLoughlin concluded with the point that he did not feel the rise and conquest of English as a linguistic phenomenon was identical to the aggressive political motivation identified by Edward Said as “Orientalism.”

A lively Q & A followed but as usual had to be cut short due to time constraints.

(second thoughts as I left the session were as follows: those “conquered by English” often get unexpected benefits; first as we see in India and the Philippines where sects and island have created mutually incomprehensible dialects – bridged by the lingua franca of English – and (in the case of the Philippines) an employable skill; second advantage is bilingualism considered to be improve the brain’s learning powers, and lastly a tactical advantage of the bilingual over the monolingual in competitive situations.)

In a excellent and well-attended session the next day, the American historian Eugene Rogan who teaches modern Arab history at Oxford, discussed his widely praised The Arabs – A History (Penguin, dhs 85) with a moderator whose name I can’t recall. Rogan described his youth growing up in the Middle East in family of professionals. Learning Arabic at an early age, Rogan immersed himself in the culture and languages of the region, especially Egypt and Lebanon. He described how in doing the research for this volume --which emphasizes the modern period -- he interviewed as many living witnesses as possible to accurately portray the point of view of the region. His purpose was to make history newsworthy and fresh, and judging by the critical praise he received, it seems he succeeded. On style, the historian explained how his editor helped him transform his academic style to a more readable style for the general reader that allowed a more personal point of view. “She taught me how to use strong topic sentences for each paragraph,” Rogan said, and maintain a personal tone throughout a long story. This volume has also been updated to reflect the events of the Arab Spring, which Rogan calls the “Revolutions of 2011.”

I ducked in briefly on one of Jeffrey Archer’s many sessions –to see what the pulp phenomenon {and the Lit Fest’s true headliner) looked like. I expected to be disgusted and was in fact turned off by the man, by his style and content alike. He recounted in broadly comic strokes the fate of his first novel (Kane & Abel), getting laughs for the tale of how his first interview on US TV flopped, but I kept hearing numbers in his speech patterns which always reverted to “millions” or “thousands” or “minutes.”

A man with a quick mind but with nothing in it, I mused.

Archer responded to Antony Horowitz’s questions about his work habits, and where he gets his characters from; the villains come from the political scene, he explained, and the strong women from his mother and Margaret Thatcher, his political mentor.

Ducking out just as quickly as I’d ducked in, breathing sighs of disgust and relief. But it inspired a refresher course in negative vocabulary: grossly insipid, jejunely trite?

Korky Paul must be one of the most deservedly popular figures at the Lit Fest – his delightful children’s series Winnie The Witch that he illustrates for the stories of co-author Valerie Stevens are some of the finest beginning books for kids I know. I didn’t go to any of his sessions, but saw him frequently out in the hall finishing his mural for the 5 year celebration of the festival. The middle-aged Brit was friendly and eager to hear his books were well liked. Later, seeing the long lines of 5-6 year-olds waiting to greet him at the signing desk, I realized what joy his books must give that readership. [I have to admit, I like them quite a bit too!]

William Dalrymple always seems to be a big draw at the Lit fest with his India themed travel and history writing. This year he presented and read passages from his new history of the British defeat in Afghanistan (“Return of a King”). A resident of India and heir of one of the participants in the disastrous campaign, Dalrymple had a vivid, well-researched tale to tell of British folly in a country still giving grief to its would-be invaders. Accompanied by beautiful period illustrations, the author just barely managed to finish recounting the suspenseful epic which left one survivor out of 18,000.

The annual Orwell lecture was delivered by the Indian diplomat and litterateur Shashi Tharoor. Recently considered for the position of UN Secretary General, Tharoor is also the author of numerous novels such as the satirical The Great Indian Novel. Dressed in a tie-less Nehru-style suit, Tharoor was eloquent, witty and charming –winning over his large audience with an optimistic vision of the contemporary world that relegated Orwell’s main worries about individual freedom and the threats of tyranny to the background.

Tharoor didn’t completely dismiss totalitarian threats (Islamism for example can be seen in that light) in the contemporary world but generally painted a rosy picture in which, yes, social media and the Internet have loosened up controls over expression.

Tharoor cited India’s multicultural society with its traditions of tolerance as an example of how countries can overcome binary thinking, in which Muslims, Hindus and Christians generally live peacefully side by side; he also feels India’s rich culture and history help Indians maintain their identity and resist the pressures of globalization and cultural colonization.

Thanks to these factors, India doesn’t have to fear globalization. “We will never be ‘cocacolonialized,’” he quipped.

In the brief Q & A session, Tharoor revealed he was a cricket fan --  and the last question dealt with cricket. A bit ironic in a lecture that supposedly dealt with Orwell?

As he was rushed out by handlers, I elbowed a quick query: “Sir,” I asked, “while it’s true that in this country, we do not live in extreme Orwellian repression such as [that of] Big Brother… still the conditions of human rights & freedom of expression are far from perfect…” As Tharoor was disappearing into the wing, I insisted, “Sir, couldn’t you say something about that?” Tharoor replied as he retreated: “I can’t because I work for the government!”

Reeling in shock, I wandered back to the signing desk area trying to comprehend.

An idea formed in my befuddled mind, and I got in line. When the line of fans finally dwindled to me, I asked with as friendly a smile as I could muster, “Sir, with all due respect, if you are someone who can’t speak his mind, should you be the one giving the Orwell Lecture?”

The elegant, youthful-looking diplomat looked up at me with just as friendly a smile, and spreading his hands in the classic  “Helpless” position he said, “I would be very happy to talk about that under different circumstances.”

When I told this story to another book maven, a UK citizen working in Saudi Arabia, he said, “The Orwell Lecture has never really worked all that well at this event, has it?”

When I told it to Geoff Dyer, he quipped, “You’re a dangerous person. We should call security.”

A more serious criticism--it would be nice to have a few more amenities such as a sitdown coffee shop for browsing and schmoozing.  Yes, they have one for “friends of the Lit Fest” but it would be nice to have one for the hoi polloi as well. Also I wonder if the organizers of the Lit Fest view book fans as entirely spiritual beings with few biological needs such as for food and drink and with legs and spines so solid as to never need a chair or seat to rest on. The price of dhs 60 is not exorbitant but a bigger student discount would be neat.

A special thank you to “Kelly” in the press section who kindly gave me press credentials so I could attend so many of these sessions.

Drones memo comment Reedited Read this one.

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Comment sent to NYT forum on Jan 7 article “Congress to See Memo Backing drone Attacks against Americans”

I’ve felt ambivalent about the drones for a long time, refused to condemn the one that killed Anwar Al Aleki  – and was once asked by a co-patriot debater how I’d feel if Obama sent a drone missile at me, an American citizen living abroad. I replied that I didn’t expect he’d aim one at me since I had come abroad simply to do a humble university job and not join an organization that was at war with the US and had a long history of massacres against Americans. As far as I’m concerned if you join such an organization whose aims are to destroy the US, attack its interests and kill its citizens, you can’t count on your citizenship to protect you. Al Awleki obviously gave up his citizenship with its rights & privileges when he joined al Queda, the organization behind 9/11 and with which our government was officially at war. Plus Awleki's string of misdeeds, fatwas issued against American cartoonists and suspected involvement in even more dangerous plots, justified force (Farouk said that Awleki sent him). Yes, it would have been better to arrest and put the man on trial, but in Yemen, from everything I could tell, this was clearly impractical. I’ve read that al Queda’s goal in starting a war with the US was to lure American soldiers into the desert and mountains where Bin Laden thought they could be easily slaughtered. Viewed in this perspective, the drones are probably the better alternative though still morally dubious with all the "collateral" deaths. Nevertheless, that the issue is being debated publicly shows that the US gov’t is still accountable to its people and the world (esp. Pakistan & Yemen); hopefully, the secrecy charge will no longer apply, and the moral, political and military issues will get finally an airing. Actually, this incident reassures me about the basic integrity of our system despite its many failures, especially in foreign policy. Perhaps after deliberation the drone program will be cut back, cancelled or better regulated. The drones certainly are a horrible evil but the evil that gave rise to them has to be fully gauged as well. (Of course you may dismiss these views as the ramblings of an expatriate badly out of touch with opinion in the USA!).

Glenn Greenwald's Guardian Op Ed "Racism Drives the War on Terror" reprinted here in the Gulf News (31March '13) opinion section, is an impassioned but (I feel) misguided attack on the US rationale for targeting and killing Anwar Al Awleki last year (by a drone strike in Yemen). Greenwald takes a high moralistic tone in his argument that the reason Americans approved of the killing of Awleki but --as shown in a poll -- did not approve in general of the idea of assassinating American citizens abroad-- can only be ascribed to racism against Arabs and Muslims. Assuming the statistics & poll are correct, his assumption still seems unverified and unverifiable. Awleki stood out as an especially dangerous fanatic, and the decision to kill him was not trivially based on racism. First, Awleki belonged to and headed an especially virulent branch of Al Quede, an organization at war with the US; anyone who joins it can't be expected to be protected by their citizenship. As a declared enemy in wartime, he had to expect retaliation. Not only that, Awlaki was involved in or certainly connected to several murderous plots in the US: the most dastardly of these the Christmas 2011 attempt to bomb a passenger plane in Detroit by the Nigerian "underpants bomber" (name: Farouk somebody) was provably sent by Awlaki; Col Nidal Hasan's murderous outburst at Ford Hood killing 13 (he had corresponded with Awkeki) is suspicious at least. The (failed) Times Sq bomber may not have had a clear connection to Awlaki (this case still up in the air it seems). However, people forget that Awleki also threatened with death fatwas several American cartoonists, first the creators of South Park then a cartoonist in Seattle who defended them in a satirical harmless way. I don't like to say her name because she had to go underground and assume a new identity. To me this latter case is far from insignificant (though entirely forgotten now) because it revived the earliest Muslim assault on the whole world's civil liberties perpetrated by the Ayatollah Khomeini when he condemned Salman Rushdie to death. These are the common sense reasons -- and not any kind of racism-- why I approved of the drone attack that killed Awlaki, and I imagine most Americans felt the same. Why wait for a successful repeat of 9/11 or a Rushdie sequel to neutralize this dangerous man? It's certainly too bad his son suffered the same fate, but the father was clearly the more guilty of his son's death by putting him in harm's way.

Documentation: 
From My Northwest: "The FBI warned Norris [the cartoonist] they considered the threat by Anwar al-Awlaki, who has ties to the failed Times Square bombing attempt, serious."

Kurdistan Calling: the Turkish-Kurdish Conflict

BLOOD AND BELIEF:

The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence

By ALIZA MARCUS

New York University, $35.00 cloth, ISBN 978-0-8147-5711 6

2006

[originally published in The Bloomsbury Review]

For Americans, the Kurds may be simply one more “faraway people about whom we know little” and couldn’t care less. It is quite likely though that the “world’s largest stateless people,” as the author calls them, will, as the years go by, become a lot better known to us through the Iraq War. Whether we like it or not, we are involved in the destinies of this mysterious group whose calamity of being stateless no one can explain quickly and whose claim for statehood no one besides the Kurds seems to support with any vigor. For these reasons, reliable information about the no-longer-obscure Kurds and their problems should be a valuable commodity, especially to those who care about the implications of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Hence the value now of Alisa Marcus’ Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.

Submerged as the Kurds are in the politics of four different countries (Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran) and with Iraq undergoing violent transformation, Kurdish claims to our attention are indirect, depending on how they affect other issues that are more mainstream. The most notorious incident involving Kurds, of course, was Saddam Hussein’s massacre of thousands of Kurdish villagers by poison gas at Halabja in 1988. This event loomed large for Americans only when it was used to stir up support for the second Iraq War.

Still, many wonder: Is an independent Kurdish state (“Kurdistan”) desirable or possible? And will the Kurdish ministate in Iraq with its proclaimed capital city Kirkuk turn into such an entity? The problem with Marcus’ book is that if this is the only book you read about the Kurdish situation, you still will not have answers to these important questions. Nor does she provide much historical or cultural background of the Kurds before the outbreak of the events she describes. (Indeed this omission may be because this topic is as complex as present-day Kurdish politics.) Many readers would no doubt like to have, in an introduction to the subject, more than the storyline of one political party. The author’s self-imposed limitation to the PKK (or Kurdistan Workers’ Party), could make her vulnerable to the charge of bias.

Except in the most formal sense, however, this suspicion of bias is not justified. The picture of the PKK that emerges from @2Blood and Belief@1, though not particularly attractive, is that of a dedicated guerrilla group, which despite its blemishes has forged a kind of legitimacy in the face of official Turkish resistance to what are widely seen as justified Kurdish grievances—and as the only Kurdish group to pose an effective counterforce to the Turkish state. The PKK has also has a nonmilitary wing in the form of a series of legal political parties with representatives in parliament, but these have been subjected to repression and censorship at all stages.

In this account, the Turkish government is seen as not in control of the Turkish military, which calls the shots in its position as the guardian of the “secular state” and is deeply hostile to any non-Turkish configuration. The Turkish political establishment as a whole seems strangely blind to the most basic Kurdish demands for cultural autonomy (such as speaking and teaching the Kurdish language) and recognition of Kurdish identity. Its simplistic view is that “all people living in Turkey are Turks.”

According to Marcus, the problem is that Turkey, although it has made many gestures toward reform and recognition of Kurdish demands (Kurdish language broadcasts, for example) has in fact permitted very little real progress, and that mainly to appease European critics who could block Turkey’s entrance into the EU.

The story goes something like this: The PKK, starting in the early 1970s as a Marxist revolutionary party, grew enormously for about a decade nourished by real grievances, popular support in the Turkish southeast, and the government’s military blunders. Then in the mid 1990s, a new right-wing government in Ankara counterattacked the guerrillas effectively, and in a massive violation of human rights, evacuated some 2,000 villages in the Kurdish southeast along with an estimated 1 million Kurdish inhabitants. The PKK declined for the next decade, and, according to the author, never recovered its original strength--but wasn’t eliminated either. Marcus also details the bizarre career of the PKK’s personality-cult-afflicted leader Abdullah Ocalan who led the PKK from a base in Syria until expelled and captured by Turkish agents in 1999. Though he renounced his PKK ideals, and was imprisoned for life, he has maintained a tight and, yes, Svengali-like control of the group.

The main shock one gets from this book is the dubious nature of Turkey’s supposedly democratic political process in hock to a powerful military, which in the end has a lot more blood on its hands than do those of its tenacious opponents. One wonders how the Kemalist doctrines of a modern secular republic ever became so narrow in scope and so atavistically monocultural. One also feels gloomy about Turkey’s prospects for entry into the EU.

Marcus’ dispassionate recounting of events is impressive in its factual, documented style and avoidance of partisan shrillness. While never condoning any of the PKK’s excesses, she points out its one achievement: to have “put the Kurdish problem on the agenda in Turkey and in front of the world.”

Now with the success of the Kurds in northern Iraq as the focus of Kurdish ambitions, you would think there would be more options for Turkish Kurds and the PKK, which is still their chief political representative. But of course, the usual double-edged sword is in place: The U.S. intervention that benefits the Iraqi Kurds hinders the cause of their brethren just across the border (or close to it).

To the extent that the U.S. espouses self-determination and multiculturalism, it should do more to support these peoples. Yet the U.S. to appease Turkey is obliged to regard the PKK as a “terrorist” group, as is the EU. So Turkey’s Kurds may have to envy the lot of their Iraqi brothers a while longer.

Americans, whether opponents of the Iraq War or neo-isolationists, need to consider that one of the war’s outstanding successes is the creation of the Kurdish ministate.

I doubt, however, we’ll hear much in the coming months from our presidential candidates on this issue.

REVIEWER: James H. Dalglish

UAEU Drama Unit Produces Topical Play on Syria

OBEY II: The Ides of March: A Production by the Fundamentals of Drama & Stagecraft Class written and directed by Dr. James Mirrione. 13 June, 2012, Crescent Building Auditorium,  UAEU 

The Drama Unit rolled out its latest production OBEY II: The Ideas of March on an unpropitious night of pre-finals angst and pre-summer hints of increased thermonuclear activity to come that discouraged any effort, let alone the epic energies unleashed by this multi-media Arab-English hybrid of a play. At the end of the brief theatrical work (only 45 minutes) portraying Syria’s current miseries both cast and audience emerged moved and invigorated.

As we entered the theater venue, we were handed a small, empty (and puzzling) envelope whose purpose would be shatteringly clear at the end. The warm up tunes from a powerful sound system included Buffalo Springfield’s 60’s anthem Field Day for the Heat. A good choice I thought.

Obey II threw at the audience an expertly combined flurry of events and impressions accompanied by a heavy rock beat and effective lighting that bathed scenes of Syrian anguish in appropriately garish tints; on double side screens, newsreels from Syria (demonstrators and atrocities from the country in question) unrolled while stage center featured a series of skits depicting the tragedy of one Syrian boy who is arrested for sedition, tortured and killed (based on an actual character Hamzan Ali Alkhateeb).

Rather than trying crudely to mime this tragedy, Mirrione & students took a symbolic approach. Hamzan’s crime is drawing a picture of a Pegasus (a winged horse), which is condemned by the angry tyrant (Basil Muir) as a thought crime. The back projected image (drawn by the actor Fatima Kindi who played Hamzan) becomes a symbol of human freedom. To make sure we get the connection, documentary photos of the boy are seen on the sides.

In one of the best vignettes (modeled on the Greek chorus of chant and reply), we witness the Syrians ”waking up” to the necessity of contesting their freedom as each emerges from the crowd and recounts her personal tragedy usually of family loss by dictatorial violence. A spectator Mona Al Hamed later told me she had been moved by this scene and cried. A satirical touch occurs in an “eye test” ordered by the tyrant in which, from the scrambled test letters, the subjects all read “O...B....E....Y!”

The last scene however tops all by a simple yet powerful device. The Narrator (played by Norah Tamimi) tells us she is going to read out the names of all the children killed in the conflict and asks the audience to pull out the envelope given at the door. She then reads the list of all of the names of children killed in the conflict. By means of this well-planned strategem, everyone in the audience is drawn into the public act of condemnation the play has worked so hard to achieve. We spectators were as impressed by the humanity of the gesture as its ingenuity.

(The name on mine was Mahmud Swaid and I still feel badly for not reading it out – maybe this will expunge my guilt!)

Last year’s pioneering OBEY was based on the 14 days that it took to dislodge a former Egyptian president from office; the strong plot line was that of the (now legendary) Tunisian vegetable vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, whose suicide gave the story instant recognition and impacted powerfully all who saw it. The Syrian conflict on the other hand offers daily atrocities but no such legends. Mirrione and students as if aware of this, chose a mixture of indirect, symbolic and chorale forms of expression.

The nervous rhythm of the production came out of the deep theater culture of James Mirrione whose work is rooted in Greek drama, Brecht and a dash of 60’s street theater. And not to forget Shakespeare. The decision to add (readings from) Julius Caesar to the mix, was probably his as well, and is the only dubious part of the play, which in my opinion distracted from the central point. He defended his choice by pointing out that the young boy subject of the play had been killed on March 15, the “Ides of March” of the subtitle. A strictly aesthetic critique of the play however would miss the point. This was a community effort with a social message.

This was revealed most clearly in a brief chat with the cast after the play. Their faces glowing from praise by their director, who congratulated them as “the true authors of the play” and for their outstanding work, not only on that evenings work but in “planting the seeds for the future of the arts” at the university, they all expressed satisfaction in participating in something truly significant.

“I learned what it’s really like for people in another country who we see only in the news...” said one (Nouf). Fatima al Kindi who played The Boy described her research into his actual life and death. Norah al Tamimi (the Narrator) said that for her the message of the play was “to show people who are living in a safe country how other people are suffering to have their own rights.”

The production was also amazing in terms of uniting cross-campus-energies -- first of course those of the enthusiastic, hardworking cast of 20, but one also needs to add (and congratulate) the strong poster design (Jake Gilson) and campaign, the professional sound and lights technical team, part-time actors from English Basil Muir & Graeme Tennent and, finally, major input by the “Organizers” an official university group dedicated to making things happen on campus. As we know, the permissions required to get people and events on and off campus are truly awesome. -JD