by John Ling
The Blasphemer is set in New Zealand and reflects the country’s long history of standing up for collective conscience. Nowhere is this clearer than when the South African rugby union team arrived in 1981 for a nationwide tour. This was a contentious time in the country’s history, and many Kiwis were ardently opposed to the South African apartheid system, which segregated blacks from whites. Passions eventually reached boiling point and led to clashes between protestors and police up and down the country. For the first time, politics and sport collided, and the controversy would have far-reaching consequences—New Zealand would have no further contact with South Africa until the early ‘90s, when apartheid was abolished.
The central moral conflict in The Blasphemer is inspired by two pivotal events: the Salman Rushdie affair in 1988 and the more recent Muhammad cartoon crisis in 2005. In each case, the turmoil was framed as a clash between East and West; between the sacred and the secular. Ultimately, though, a core principle prevailed: no one deserves to be harmed simply because he or she has expressed an unpopular opinion.
Khat plays a climatic role in The Blasphemer. It is a real drug, and the trafficking and consumption of it is prominent within the East African community in New Zealand. Its devastating effects were documented in a TVNZ expose in 2010.
Finally, The Blasphemer was originally meant to take place in a world where fundamentalists and liberals alike were scrambling to fill the ideological void left behind by Osama bin Laden’s death. Unfortunately, real-world events have overtaken my idea, and I was forced to jettison much of what I wrote. There’s a sharp difference between the kidney-related death I depicted and the more violent end that bin Laden ultimately suffered in real life.
I have every intention of exploring the consequences further in a sequel.
Maya and Adam will be back.
Stay tuned.
ESSAY: A Cultural Genocide
Author’s Note: Malaysia has often been hailed as a moderate and progressive nation. A beacon of Islamic democracy. A steadfast ally in the War on Terror. But strip away the diplomatic accolades and what you’ll find is an uglier picture. In this non-fiction article, I research and delve into a covert war that’s been raging in the country’s back alleys and ghettos. So covert, in fact, that most Malaysians aren’t even aware that it’s happening.
***
Among the oppressed in Malaysia, there is a single group more marginalised than most. They have been forgotten. Blanked out. Victimised by collective indifference. They are the Shiite Muslims, and they face suppression bordering on cultural genocide. They are regularly raided. Imprisoned. Denied the freedom to worship. Denied the freedom to participate in public life. Left only one choice: convert to Sunni Islam or remain persona non grata.
Nazri (not his real name) provides a rare inside glimpse into this hidden world. I first encountered him while producing a television programme on the lives of immigrants in New Zealand. Nazri reveals that he was once Sunni, but grew disaffected when the hadith failed to provide him with answers to personal spiritual questions. His search led him to the Shia denomination, and he eventually converted. Almost immediately, he and several others were subjected to a swift and brutal crackdown. Enforcement officers raided his home, arresting him and seizing personal religious material. He was detained for weeks in cramped and filthy conditions without being formally charged of any crime. When he was eventually released, he found himself blacklisted; denied employment as well as the opportunity to further his studies. Still, he believes he is fortunate compared to other believers. He has anecdotal accounts of Shiites being whipped and beaten and denied medical treatment as a way of pressuring them to renounce their faith.
The schism between Sunni and Shia dates back to the seventh century. Following the death of Prophet Muhammad, the issue of who would succeed him as leader of the ummah polarised the community. Sunnis, by way of popular vote, chose Abu Bakr to be the first caliph. Shiites, by contrast, preferred Ali, whom they believed the Prophet had chosen by way of divine mandate. This has given rise to two separate interpretations of Islam, with the Sunni tradition holding sway over eighty percent of Muslims in the world today. This often comes at the expense of the Shiite minority, who are labelled as heretics.
The plight of the Shiites has been making rounds on the international circuit, but has gained little political traction within Malaysia itself. The response from opposition parties such as DAP and Keadilan has so far been muted. They are perhaps wary of alienating their Islamist ally, PAS, whose Sunni hadith differs from the government only in the degree of application. The current constitution is also a minefield—article eleven is vague and offers authorities the right to regulate Islam as they see fit. This leaves the door wide open for persecution against ‘sects’ and ‘deviants’ that may challenge the general Sunni understanding of Islam.
Whichever way the political landscape shifts, one thing is for certain—Malaysia will continue to be an uncomfortable place to be Shiite. Believers will either be driven further underground or will have to leave the country.
Buckling under the weight of surveillance, Nazri has chosen to seek asylum in the West, where he is free to worship and practise his faith. But even emigration has not offered him complete relief—while he enjoys freedom from persecution, he fears for the well-being of the friends and family he has been forced to leave behind.
ESSAY: Arab Spring
Author’s Note: The surge of revolutionary democracy in the Middle East and North Africa has served to dilute al-Qaeda’s influence, at least in the short-term. But for the West and Israel, it also brings about a thorny situation that encapsulates everything that’s wrong about power relations in the Arab world. In this non-fiction article, I explore the origins of the revolution and what it means for the future.
***
When Muhammad Bouazizi set himself on fire, he wasn’t looking to inspire a revolution. He was twenty-six, had never graduated high school and barely eked out a living as a street vendor. Like most Tunisians of his generation, he was buckling under the weight of a flatlining economy, an autocratic government and pervasive corruption. Things were bleak and had been for some time.
Bouazizi had no real interest in politics. No real hope for change. His life had settled into a painful but familiar pattern. The daily cost of restocking his fruits and vegetables. Managing the razor-thin profit margins. Pacifying the police officers who often raided him. And saving enough, just enough, to support his six younger sisters.
On the morning of December 17th 2010, however, Bouazizi’s balancing act came undone. Stern-faced officers swooped into his marketplace. Spat on him and slapped him. Demanding money that he didn’t have. Bouazizi dropped to his knees, pleading for more time. But the officers sneered and took away his wheelbarrow and produce. Distraught, he staggered into the local governor’s office to seek help, only to be rebuffed. The governor’s message was, ‘No money, no talk.’
Devastated, Bouazizi suffered a meltdown. He left the governor’s office and returned with a can of gasoline. Sobbing, shaking, he doused himself, struck a match and went up in flames. His last words were, ‘How do you expect me to make a living?’
In a region more known for submission than reaction, Bouazizi’s tragedy struck an emotional chord. In death, he became much more than he had been in life. A shahid. A martyr. And in him, millions saw their own destitution and oppression reflected and magnified. Via Facebook, Twitter and weblogs, their sentiments rippled and snowballed, triggering a spike of collective anger.
It was a watershed event. Unprecedented in its scope. Unexpected in its ferocity. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere, governments took a battering as citizens organised and rallied, defying death squads and tanks, demanding change.
Amidst the geopolitical shift, however, one player found itself left out in the cold: al-Qaeda. For much of the past decade, its leader, Osama bin Laden, had cultivated a singular narrative for disaffected Arabs, ‘If you strike at Americ
a, the distant enemy, you will hurt the near enemy, the corrupt governments that have oppressed you. So take up jihad. I will show you how.’
After 9/11, it seemed as if bin Laden’s vision was the only vision worth buying into. Washington’s long-time support for repressive Arab regimes and tinpot dictators had escalated into a more aggressive stance under the Bush administration, spawning twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as America’s moral standing floundered in the quagmire, so too did bin Laden’s reputation flourish. He had styled himself as the new Saladin, the anti-Crusader who had baited a superpower, eluded capture and ploughed the venomous environment necessary for terrorism and insurgency. One that would set the dominoes falling and lead to a new caliph, a transnational Islamist empire.
What al-Qaeda had not counted on, however, was the birth of a strikingly different narrative. The narrative that Muhammad Bouazizi’s death had sparked, Arab society had embraced and the Obama administration had supported: inclusive democracy over exclusive jihad.
This ideological shift was a game changer. It isolated al-Qaeda. Shrank its operational space. Starved it of financial and logistical support. And allowed America to close in and neutralise bin Laden himself.
The death of al-Qaeda’s founding father, though, doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the organization itself. Already, the giddiness and excitement of the Arab Spring is fading, and citizens are coming to terms with sober realities. The rich have all but fled, taking their money with them, leaving the poor to deal with spiralling inflation and unemployment. Street crime and rioting is intensifying. The infrastructure and social services are shattered. Perhaps worse of all is the power vacuum and political instability that threatens to cripple the region.
With the collapse of the old guard, the West—and in particular Israel—has clearly lost the intelligence and counterterrorism assets it has traditionally depended upon to keep jihadism in check. There is now little choice but to turn to richer Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, hoping against hope that they can act as bulwarks amidst the turbulence. But these states are neither democratic nor devoid of self-interest, and they are likely to exercise their own power plays.
Exactly what this means for the long-term future is anyone’s guess. But one thing is for sure—chaos and fundamentalism sit comfortably together, and al-Qaeda, under the leadership of former number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, is almost certainly finding a way to rewrite the narrative, rejuvenate itself and make a comeback.
EXCERPT: Righteous Fire
Author’s Note: ‘When the favoured son of the Chang family dies, it is up to his outcast sister to unravel the truth.’ I originally submitted this for a first-chapter contest, and I won an honourable mention. It even led to a publisher asking to take a look at the full manuscript. However, I aborted the story early on because I felt it didn’t have the legs to go the full distance as a novel.
***
Benjamin Chang died suddenly, violently.
It happened when his tyre blew out and went flat on the way home. He stopped at the side of the road and got down, braving the growl of passing vehicles, blinking away the grogginess in his eyes.
‘Benjy?’ His wife Emma lowered her window, yawning as she did. ‘It’s not safe, dear. Come back inside. We’ll call for a tow truck.’
He knelt and fumbled with the tyre. ‘No, it’s alright. I think I can handle—’
And that’s when he got sideswiped by a drifting SUV.
In the predawn darkness, Emma never saw its number plate or its model. All she saw was poor Benjy being flung by the bone cracking impact, his arms and legs twisting.
Emma screamed and screamed.
***
Benjy looked peaceful in his coffin—his face finely powdered, his hair slicked back, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips—when they closed and sealed the lid for the last time. Dried autumn leaves fell in shades of brown and yellow.
The pastor recited the closing verses, ‘In my Father’s house, there are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.’
Sara Chang breathed in the smell of freshly dug soil, the crisp morning breeze chilling her tear-stained cheeks. Digging her nails into her palms, she watched her big brother being lowered into the grave by creaking ropes and pulleys.
Mum sobbed quietly. Dad remained stoic, his face grey. Benjy had been an overachiever, a businessman, a treasured first-born son. For them, it was as if they had died along with him.
There was a soft crunch.
The coffin touched bottom.
‘Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’
Emma clutched her face, breaking into a long tormented wail. Sara reached out and caught her just before she collapsed.
‘Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me.’
Everyone shuffled forward to drop roses, blood red roses, into the grave. It was a bitter farewell.
***
Mum was still snivelling when they pulled away from the cemetery with Dad at the wheel. In the back seat, Sara stared out at the hilly landscape with tombstones flying by.
‘You shouldn’t have caught her.’ Mum blew her nose into a tissue, the golden bracelet on her arm jiggling. ‘It was embarrassing.’
‘What?’ Sara emerged from her stupor.
‘I’m talking about Emma. You shouldn’t have caught her.’
‘But she was falling—’
‘You are being silly. She had her brothers to take care of her.’
‘But I was closest to Emma.’
‘Didn’t we already talk about throwing in the roses together? The three of us together? As a family? But look what happened. You left your Dad and me to do it by ourselves.’
‘Look, Emma was so distraught and I had to—’
‘Damn it!’ Mum slammed her hand on the dashboard, cracking one of her pink fingernails. Her mascara was smudged. Despite her recent face lift, she suddenly looked twenty years older. ‘You have no respect for your brother and no respect for your parents.’
‘Respect? Respect!’ Sara seethed, her throat burning, her jaw clenching. ‘You are obsessed about saving face. That’s all you care about, isn’t it?’
Sara stopped herself when she noticed Dad’s eyes glaring at her through the rear view mirror.
‘Sara, that’s quite enough.’ His tone was flat and matter-of-fact. ‘You need to shut up.’
***
It was an aching memory.
She was ten at the time.
Benjy was sixteen.
And it happened to be report card day.
Sara trembled as Mum scanned her grades. They were mostly B’s. The only A she received was for English.
Mum squeezed the edges of the report card until they crumpled. ‘We work day and night to put you in a private school. And you think you are being fair to us by giving us this?’
Mum pitched the report card into her face and slapped her. She fell. Her ears buzzed. Blood trickled down her lips. Terrified, she scooted backwards, the carpet searing her buttocks through her skirt.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy, I’m sorry.’
Mum grabbed a snakeskin belt from the wardrobe and closed in on her.
Sara bumped against the wall, cowering. Her throat contracted. Her heart felt like it would burst. If only she had been smarter, if only—
‘Mummy!’
‘You’re useless.’
The belt snapped again and again. Sara howled in agony, her arms turning black and blue, so swollen and numb she couldn’t feel anything anymore. She curled up into a ball, her eyes growing foggy, her head almost splitting.
Oh God, when would this end?
She became faintly aware of Benjy coming into the room, yelling, his voice clashing with Mum’s. The blows stopped. They sounded garbled, hollow, distant, like a dream. Everything was a kaleidoscope of blurs.
Sara hat
ed herself. Hated herself so much. She deserved this, didn’t she? She needed to get away. Needed to be safe.
She crawled, struggled to stand, and lurched towards her room. She barely made it, crashing into her bed, reaching for her favourite plush toy—a cat named Fluffy. She clasped it against her chest before passing out with silent sobs.
‘Hey. Wake up. Hey.’
Sara struggled to crank open her eyes.
Her mouth felt parched, terribly parched.
It seemed like only a split-second had passed, when it had really been hours. Her skin prickled as if covered by pins and needles. She felt a straw being pressed past her shivering lips. She sucked long and hard, tasting orange juice, taking big swallows.
A face came into focus. Benjy’s smiling face. Sleek and rugged in all the right places, he reminded her of Cary Grant.
‘You’re getting too heavy.’
‘Wha—?’ her voice rasped.
‘I had to carry you to the bathroom, clean and bandage you, change the
bed sheets, and then carry you all the way back. Poor me.’ Benjy scrunched up his face and faked a pained expression. ‘You got to go on a diet, sis. Lose some weight for my sake. Please?’
Despite her soreness, she laughed, spilling drops of juice. ‘I’m not fat.’
He winked. ‘Sure.’
‘Why…why did you stand up to Mummy?’
‘Because you’re my sis, that’s why.’
‘But I’m useless.’
‘No, you’re not. I know you’re not.’
She started to cry, feeling almost sorry that he had to protect her. ‘You’re the best big brother.’ She hugged him. ‘Best big brother, ever.’
***
Sara stroked Fluffy slowly, thoughtfully.
