How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position

by Tabish Khair

  Compared to the books Ravi had in his soon-to-be-vacated office at the university and the room, Karim had very few. Not more than twenty or so, stacked in precise order in a cane bookrack at the back of his room. Like everything precious in the room, the bookrack was also kept covered, so that one could not read the titles of the books. I recall noticing this only during the last Friday Quran session that I attended in the flat.

  No, “attended” is not the word. As usual, I had no intention of attending inane discussions about religious matters, culled mostly from a book written in an obscure Arabic dialect no one spoke any longer. Some of the subjects that exercised the intellects of Karim’s gathering—like clothing or food restrictions—were so much out of tune with my experience and life that I wondered what made Ravi go back to Karim’s Friday sessions time and again. At first, I thought it was due to idle curiosity. Then I assumed he continued to attend them out of courtesy to Karim and his guests, all of whom—with the exception of Ali—got along with Ravi and felt flattered by his interest. But finally I had to concede that Ravi derived more intellectual sustenance from the conversations than I could, perhaps because—not having grown up in a Muslim environment—he found some of the ideas and sentiments fresh or thought-provoking. I also suspected that Ravi was willfully blind to what I had increasingly come to see as the fascist face of Islamism. He hated that suggestion, and with good cause, for in the West, Islam itself is considered fascist or prone to fascism. Ravi objected to that. He argued that Islamism, because it considered Islam universally valid for all human beings, could not be fascist, because fascism was an ideology of ethnic, racist or nationalist exclusiveness.

  He might have been right, intellectually. But what Ravi forgot was that Islam, like any other religion or even an atheistic ideology like communism, could be put to fascist uses, and that many Islamic fundamentalists—with their mobs and chanting, their whips and executions, their insistence on absolute obedience—behaved very much like fascists.

  I recall the discussion that Friday had to do with an example of what I still consider fascism in an Islamist mask. But, of course, I was not part of the discussion. I was waiting in the kitchen for Ravi to finish. We were supposed to meet Lena and some other friends later in the evening: we had tickets to a jazzed-up version, its operatic airs replaced by pop songs, of Lucia di Lammermoor, which was playing at a local theater. By then it had started becoming clear to me that things were not going well between Lena and Ravi any longer—not because they had fallen out of love but because, in different ways, they were still too much in love. I think the two of them were trying to do what they could to make it work, and the theater outing was part of that endeavor.

  As I waited for Ravi to finish, I heard the conversation take a nasty turn in Karim’s room. It also took a political turn, which was unusual. In the past, Karim had firmly stepped in and stoppered the genie of politics from being released. But that Friday Karim was distracted—he had been called away on his mysterious trips too often in recent weeks and had been working a lot as well—or simply unwilling to interfere. I must add that the second interpretation came to me later, when I spoke to the police about this particular Friday discussion.

  Do you remember that in April last year a fundamentalist Christian preacher in USA had “tried,” condemned and burned a copy of the Quran, after a year of infantile posturing back and forth? The news had been covered with surprising restraint by the international media but somehow it had reached fundamentalist Islamic preachers in Afghanistan, who had then led a mob attack on some UN workers, resulting in a number of shocking execution-like deaths. I am sure you will recall that unnecessary tragedy, as good an example as any of how the worst draw sustenance from the equally bad across their over-dramatized chasms.

  What you might not recall is that in November a small postscript—almost unreported by the media—had been added to this tragedy. A Pakistani man—a Christian—in a place near Lahore had been (wrongly) considered a relative of the American preacher. Their names, transcribed inaccurately into Urdu, seemed alike. He had been accused of having provided the American preacher with a copy of the Quran to desecrate. A mob had collected, a mullah had pronounced a verdict, and the poor man had been dragged to a field and beheaded. It was, in my book, another example of the kind of Islamist fascism that held much of Pakistan in thrall, largely because liberal Muslims were too busy defending the complexities of Islam from unfair and at times racist Western charges of fascism to be able to face the actual and glaring fact of fascism in Muslim societies.

  Strangely, in April, not one of the Friday discussion groups that Ravi attended had brought up the controversy for discussion. Or I would have remembered. Even bin Laden’s dramatic death in May had not been discussed, as far as I could recall, and the “Norway attacks” in July been mentioned only in passing. Why? Well, perhaps because Ali had not attended them, or perhaps because Karim had been more in control. (The other explanation—subterfuge—came to me much later, in the light of other events.) But this Friday in November, the beheading of the Pakistani Christian was mentioned by Ali, who had come over with three other men.

  Was Ibrahim there on that occasion? Later, the Danish police officer asked me that question too.

  I am not sure. There were four Somali-looking men, but I did not stay in the room long enough to properly observe them. The police officer seemed dubious and shook his head in disappointment when I said so, but it was the truth. Ibrahim might have been there; or perhaps he was not there. I do recall—and I told the officer so—that Ajsa was not in the room. She seldom attended these Friday discussions.

  Let me give you a clearer picture of the setting. There was Karim’s sofa-cum-bed in the middle. Usually, Karim would be seated on it, but this Friday he was too restless—he kept going into the kitchen to fetch snacks or brew fresh tea—and as such he had relinquished the sofa to Ali and his cronies. Facing the sofa in a half-circle were six or seven men—I don’t think there was a single woman that evening—on chairs, mostly folding ones. A table with Indian snacks and tea was set in the middle. It also held Karim’s copy of the Quran, wrapped in clean cotton, placed on a wooden pedestal with inlaid silver patterns. Next to the Quran rested Karim’s necklace of beads.

  How did the argument escalate? I am not sure; I was reading in the kitchen, not really paying attention to the babble. Suddenly, though, I heard shouting—Karim was in the kitchen brewing more tea—and rushed to the room, followed by Karim. Ali and Ravi were close to hitting each other. Ali always appeared close to hitting someone or the other, even the words he uttered were expelled with a blast, showering his interlocutors with spittle. But it was unusual to find Ravi worked up to that extent; he usually managed to cut people with a comment or a regal gesture. I later realized it had to do with the phase that Ravi’s relationship with Lena had entered, leaving him more vulnerable than I had ever seen him, than—I am sure—he had ever been.

  I stepped in and parted the two. Ali left immediately, followed by two of his cronies, shouting. I remember his parting words:

  “Anyone who insults the Prophet, peace be upon him, should be killed. It is every Muslim’s duty!”

  (The police officer looked very pleased when I reported these words to him.)

  Karim apologized to Ravi, but I had had enough and pulled Ravi out of the flat. We were early for our theater appointment—we had agreed to meet the others for a drink in a café—but Ravi did not resist. I asked him what had caused the outburst. What follows is his account.

  “The evening was shaping up as these evenings usually do,” said Ravi, as we walked into town. We crossed an election billboard featuring Pia Kjærsgaard and her smile, which, Ravi had claimed in the past, reminded him of a well-fed cat being nice to a juicy mouse. Behind her was emblazoned the legend: Der er en grænse. “There is a limit.” “There is a border.” I think both Ravi and I grimaced at the same time.

  Ravi continued: “But then Ali and his cronies referred to th
is Pakistani Christian who was beheaded. I think Ali was trying to justify the act and also wish it away. You know, bastard, how you bloody mullahs behave when something really bad is done by your fellow Muslims: you look around desperately for the CIA or Mossad or someone else with an agenda to blame it on, and of course half the time those blasted motherfuckers are involved in any case. But then something like this happens, and no amount of Quranic exegesis can dig up a CIA plot. So Ali, poor bugger, had no choice but to defend the crime. I was lost in my own thoughts and did not pay him too much attention, but then he started talking about how all Christians were in the pay of the West and how the West was xenophobic and anti-Islamist. One of the other men objected and said that he did not think that all Danes were xenophobic.”

  We paused to allow a sleek, well-groomed white cat to cross the pavement. It did not slink past. It was well-fed and unafraid.

  “This is the kind of cat,” said Ravi, “that would give me a taste for mishi kanka.” Then he returned to his account: “I tried to give the matter a half-ironic turn and said something like, ‘I agree: Danes are not xenophobic. It is worse than that. Danes worship the heathen idols of comfort and convenience. Anything, any idea, or person that reduces their comfort or convenience has to be shunned or exorcized. They mostly do not dislike strangers from far places; they simply find them uncomfortable and inconvenient.’ Ali, of course, is incapable of understanding anything like that, and very soon he was shouting about those stupid Danish artists who had made cartoons of your prophet and calling for their death, and for some reason I got provoked… That’s it, let’s forget about Ali. He is a fool and a rabble-rouser.”

  “He is a bloody fascist,” I could not help muttering.

  “No,” Ravi replied. “He is just a fool and a rabble-rouser. But let’s hasten, good sir, to the café yonder, where we shall say good night till it be morrow.” Then, in keeping with the sudden quasi-Shakespearean turn of his language, he quoted: “Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

  At that time, I thought he was still referring to Ali and his ilk. Now, I am certain I was wrong. He was not thinking of Ali anymore. I doubt that he could think of anything other than what was actually troubling him: a glass full of love.

  The glass leaked, for the first time, that evening. I had noticed the ripples on its surface in recent weeks, but I had never expected it to leak. Or maybe it did not leak; maybe it brimmed over.

  We were in the café, about six of us, including Lena. We were talking of this and that, the usual small talk on such occasions. Lena was the very epitome of poise and grace, so much in control of her speech and gestures that it sometimes appeared as if she were reading out her lines. I think she always made a special effort in Ravi’s presence, tried to be even more perfect than she usually was. I am sure she realized that it was the wrong way to go with Ravi, but she was either too uncompromising or order and poise were too deeply ingrained in her for her to express love in any other way. I think that is what must have set it off.

  Ravi turned to her suddenly and said, with his usual abruptness in jumping from one topic to another, “Didn’t you take riding lessons, Lena?”

  If Lena was surprised by the sudden change of topic, she did not show it. She seldom showed real surprise; if it showed on her fine porcelain face, it was because she knew it was expected and proper.

  “Oh yes, as a kid,” she replied. “For seven or eight years. I was pretty good too. My mother insisted on it: she loves horses. I never really did and I stopped as soon as I could. I have not ridden since then.”

  “But you still know all about bridle and snaffle…”

  For a micro-second, she looked mystified. “Y-yes, I think I do,” she almost stammered.

  “See,” Ravi turned and smiled brilliantly at me, “lots of snaffle and curb, but very little horse.”

  Then he pushed his chair back so suddenly that it almost fell over and he went out. We could see him light up a Marlboro outside.

  I avoided looking at Lena. I knew she was confused. I could sense her sadness. For the second time I saw her mask slip, her fear show. But then she tried to pull herself together and started conversing with all of us, almost her usual charming, smiling self. Was I the only one who sensed the fine lines of worry and loss that fractured her poise and control? You had to be very observant to notice how suddenly her green eyes would flicker—with something of the palpitation of a caged bird—towards the window outside which Ravi stood, his back to us, smoking. Why don’t you get up and go to him, I felt like saying to her. Don’t you hear it? The murk of the café was repeating it in a persistent whisper all round us, in a whisper that seemed to wither, hollowly, like sand falling in a glass: her name, her name, in his silent voice.

  But I knew I couldn’t say it; I knew she would refuse to understand me if I did. That was a dialect for times long gone. She would never run out, grab him by the collar and kiss him. I looked at her again. The doll’s smile had come back, stapled to her face.

  Ravi returned only when it was time for us to leave for the theater.

  A few words return to me here; words uttered by Ravi around that time, I am certain, though I cannot recall the context. Did he drop in at my office, or were we talking in one of the canteens? Was he lounging about, in my room or his, skimming quickly through a book? Or was he rolling a cigarette with Karim Bhai in the kitchen?

  I do not remember, but the words I recall: “Did I tell you when I decided not to play the piano professionally? Somehow my dad had fewer objections to Western classical music—it was compatible with a scientific career in his mind, if only because of Einstein—than to my becoming a journalist or studying art. But one day I knew it was not for me. That was when my third piano teacher told me I had perfect pitch. I knew then that I had no future in music. Perfection condemns you to glorious mediocrity. It is in the gap between your imperfections, honestly faced, and your desire for something beyond perfection that you can achieve genius. Perfect pitch, perfect life, perfect love—these are dead ends.”

  I will leave the rest of it out. It is not just families that are happy in the same way but sad in entirely different ways. So are individuals.

  But I will mention just one more thing. This must have taken place in the first week of December, or maybe a bit earlier or later. It was the week in which Ravi finally submitted his PhD thesis. He told me one morning that he’d a dream which finally made him “understand.”

  Understand what? He did not elaborate.

  He claimed he had never dreamed in Denmark before, that the moment he came to Denmark, he stopped having the few dreams that he used to have. You just don’t remember them, I told him.

  No, he replied, seriously, yaar; I don’t think I have dreamed a single dream in Denmark before this one. Not even a nightmare. I suspect they have ordered dreams away in this country.

  Ravi wrote down the dream, with some poetic license, as a short story. It was one of the stories he shared with me. A week or two later, he posted it on an open-access online site. He had never done so with any of his creative writing before, and he hasn’t done so since, as far as I can see. Ravi was a book person. Online publishing did not mean much to him. If you Google him, this is the only open-access story or poem by him that you will be able to find. I think he wanted someone in particular to read it. Though sometimes I wonder.

  He called the story “A State of Niceness”; it was narrated in the third person. The version that I have copied here is taken from that online edition.

  But it was difficult to locate when I wanted to find it for inclusion in this account. I got a number of hits when I Googled “A State of Niceness.” I had always considered it a brilliant title for a story set in Denmark. But, obviously, Ravi and I were not the only people to think so.

  So much for originality!

  I hit upon another story—published in print in several places but not accessible online—with exactly the same title. By a strange coincidenc
e, this story is also by an Indian writer—a chap called Khair—who had lived in Denmark some years ago. I could not find a copy of Khair’s story. I do not know if it shares anything with Ravi’s story of the same title. Anyway, it is Ravi’s story that concerns us, and that is the story I have copied in the next chapter.

  A STATE OF NICENESS

  The wipers made a slight sucking noise that Ravi felt at the back of his head. Maybe they made the noise only in his head. Surely that was the case: how could he possibly hear the sound of wipers brushing away the relentless autumn drizzle in a car that was hermetically sealed against the outside? It is something he never got used to: these sealed cars; windows up, always. No draft except the smooth artificial airflow of the air conditioner. Just warm enough. A smell like that in a room closed for too long, like a prison room, the smell of staleness deodorized to a nicety. But it persisted. Ravi smelled it in all such cars, Fords, Mercedes, Chryslers, cars so different from those, even when imported, that he had driven, windows down, wind ruffling his hair, in India.

  A wall covered with Virginia creeper flashed past; it was blood red now. Autumn had entered the short phase, a few weeks between drizzle and barrenness, when an explosion of colors redeems the death to follow. But he was insulated against even that.

  The car smelled of a stuffy niceness. Or did it? He could see his parents-in-law, both schoolteachers, both extremely nice people, sitting up front. His father-in-law, reasonable, sane, grizzled blond hair now gone a steely grey, was driving. His mother-in-law, reasonable, sane, blond hair still kept blond with the help of various lotions and dyes, was leafing through a sales catalogue. They obviously could not smell the stale niceness that pervaded the car. Ravi wished he could lower the windows or get out for a quick breath. But it was drizzling outside, and cold. It would be strange if he lowered the window. It wouldn’t sound nice if he said he wanted to get out and breathe. Shout. He had been conscripted into niceness by his decision to stay in this country, his decision to marry here two years ago.