Making sense of ‘packaged’ terrorism

Book Review
Packaging Terrorism: Co-opting the News for Politics and Profit by Susan D. Moeller, 2009: Wiley-Blackwell.

If you are thinking why we are talking about a book on the media coverage of terrorism in a space like this one, let me tell you one thing upfront: One, because this is a rare and important book and two, because terrorism, no matter where you are and what your profession is, can claim you as a victim.

Also, we have witnessed routinely how Internet-savvy terrorism has become of late: terrorism sites host beheading videos and broadcast threats of attack, terrorists abuse social networks and chat rooms for recruitments, and they use applications such as Google Earth for planning attacks (as seen in last year’s Mumbai attacks). Terrorists have been successfully using the new media to imbed fear into our hearts through our eyeballs.

The larger truth is that terrorism is the politics of our times. And like politics, even if you are not interested in it, it is interested in you.

The grand narrative of our times

Every era has its own grand narrative. Ours has been, at least for the last decade or so, terrorism. Before that, Kennedy’s and Reagan’s era was about the cold war, Clinton’s about globalisation and WTO and until recently, George W. Bush’s of global terrorism and the ‘war on terror’.

This grand narrative, however, is taking yet another new direction under president Barack Obama. The express reckoning is that the global financial crisis is a greater threat to the USA than terrorism. It is an even bigger threat to the United States' national security than the al Qaeda terrorist network or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, said retired admiral Dennis Blair, the Obama administration’s director of national intelligence, in his first appearance before the US Congress.

While the shift from terror to finance is still happening, it is a good time to look at the ogre of terrorism that has been the bane of our life and times. And if you haven’t ever thought about how the media brings the ‘news’ of terrorism to us, Dr Moeller’s book can be an eye opener. She is the director of the International Centre for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA) at the University of Maryland, College Park, US. If you are afraid the book will be a dry read, you are in for a surprise. The book is not jargon-heavy, is divided into short chapters and uses a lot of examples to establish claims and observations.

Packaging terrorism for our consumption

The book is about a very simple idea. “The idea is this: that it’s not the acts of terrorism that most matter in the post-9/11 world,” writes Dr Moeller in her introduction, “it’s what we are told to think about the acts of terror. Politicians tell us what to think. The media tells us what to think. Even terrorists tell us what to think. They all want to attract our attention…They all have agendas. They all are packaging terrorism for our consumption. We are the audience for all those disparate actors.”

So, in a nutshell, this book is about how to make sense of the ‘packaged’ terrorism that is thrown at us from time to time—from New York, London, Madrid, Kabul, Bali and Bombay.

Chapter by chapter, Dr Moeller builds up the gory picture of terrorism and its manipulation—by terrorists, politicians and media barons. She begins with the basics such as what is terrorism, how 9/11 happened, how president Bush and his ‘vulcans’ (Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz) crafted the war on terror—a label for their unilateralist and interventionist foreign policy goals, and how the American (and the copycat global) media responded.

Media response to the War on Terror

“The media responded as directed—and as they always have at the start of a national crisis,” writers Dr Moeller. “At the end of October 2001, the then CNN chairman Walter Isaacson wrote a memo to his staff members that ordered them to balance the broadcast images of civilian devastation in Afghanistan with reminders of the American lives lost at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.” And thus began, according to Moeller, the beginning of a misleading media spin on the war on terror. “Isaacson was wrong,” she argues. “The American public deserved to know more about the casualties and hardship in Afghanistan. The public needed to know more about the meaning and the effect of the president co-opting 9/11 and co-opting the patriotic, broad-based interest in responding through a ‘War on Terror’.”

After examining the genesis of the ‘War on Terror’, Dr Moeller brings under her microscope various media-related issues that underlie the reporting on terrorism. Some examples: use of the umbrella words and phrases such as ‘terrorist’, ‘madrassa’ and ‘weapons of mass destruction’, defining terrorism, why news standards matter, and the politics of media coverage.

“Over and over, time and again, my centre’s studies revealed that the victims of terrorism rarely appear in the stories about it,” she says. “Media cover international affairs through the lens of their own country’s foreign policy—especially as articulated by its leadership.” Think of last year’s Mumbai terror attacks and how quickly it became an India and Pakistan issue, and how the media in the two countries adopted nationalistic agendas in reporting and discussing the attacks.

Citizen journalism and terrorism

With a rich cache of examples, the book traces a variety of developments in the media sector that arose while covering terrorism. One of the most fascinating aspects of these developments is the rise of citizen journalism, especially photos and videos, that came from citizens as well as professional photographers that were much discussed, many achieving iconic status. Perhaps blogs were invented just for this—when the mainstream media became shy of covering something or could not reach some areas, bloggers stepped in (remember the Baghdad blogger?) to fill the void. Very recently, the pain and suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza would not have come out in the open had it not been for the bloggers in Gaza and Israel who wrote the accounts of loss online when Israel had embargoed the foreign media in Gaza in its three weeks’ assault early this year.

The brave new world of murders and restrictions

With terrorism rampant in the world, what is most disturbing is the governments’ control (and thus manipulation) on the media coverage of the theatre of operations—in terms of restricting access to the war zones (embed restrictions) or killing of journalists. Consider these facts:

• Among the first killed by the Hutus during the genocide in Rwanda were 14 local journalists.

• How many people know that for the past decade Algeria has been ravaged by war that has left an estimated 100,000 dead? Not many, because both sides in that conflict have taken turns murdering journalists: 60 at last count. Same in Chechnya.

• Many don’t seem to be noticing that there is less and less coverage of the war in Iraq. By the summer of 2008, noted the New York Times, there were only half a dozen Western photographers covering the country, even though 150,000 American and 4,100 British troops remained engaged there. Why? Because of the “danger, the high cost to financially ailing media outlets and diminished interest among Americans in following the war.”

To ensure free and fair coverage of terrorism, the priority must be to build civil societies, including media, from inside out and the ground up, suggests the author. In conclusion, she says that we need to move beyond spin, ask questions because we don’t have all the answers, and evaluate what we are being told. “We need a vibrant, spirited, diverse, and pluralistic media at home and around the world,” she says.

To deal with the global curse of terrorism, the media needs to rise above all kinds of boundaries and re-evaluate their exceptionalism. Dr Moeller aptly recalls Dr Martin Luther King’s message: “A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.” (‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence’, 1967).

“If we do not act,” added Dr King for action, “we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us begin.”

Even though it seems to be too late, can we still begin now?

Published first as my blog entry at www.mis-asia.com

Guest blog post: If I were an Indian Hindu

I am honoured to publish this guest blog post from my friend, philosopher and guide, Amir Ullah Khan, who is an eminent Indian economist and author of many books. He wrote this article as a companion piece to one of my earlier pieces, If I were an Indian Hindu:

I think it is the idea of India that has killed the spirit of India. Nationalism came to roost in the deadly nineties and submerged all those wonderfully diverse identities that constituted a loose country filled with several diversities. If I were an Indian Hindu, I wouldn’t think differently. Because the community I belong to is the middle aged urban India, with rural roots, someone who has played cricket when young and watches movies whenever possible. I am also a Muslim.

I have not met any Hindu Indian till date. My friends from Hyderabad were quite local in their language, tastes and mindsets. They spoke a delightfully cute mix of Telugu, English and Urdu that they still speak. They did not understand the ways of the North Indian outsider and they positively disliked Hindi as a language. The only Hindi element enjoyed by all were the angry young films that came from Bombay then and appealed to the sentiments of the left leaning youth studying Technology at Osmania University and having firm opinions on the pernicious US influence on Nicaragua and Libya. We all saw a number of communal riots starting 1979 and ending in 1989. The reason, we argued was a weak police force and a one upmanship within the dominant Congress party. The moment a one man dominated party called the Telugu Desam came, communal riots were history and the same police force was now impartial and equally insensitive to all.

Then I moved to Gujarat, now famous for its state sponsored murder of a couple of thousand Muslims during the one week of murder and mayhem in the year 2002. The Gujarat of the late eighties was quite the opposite. All my friends then were just emerging from adolescence and had recently found freedom through consuming alcohol. Gujarat denied them this liberty as it was, and continues to be, a prohibition state. Their liquor came usually from police stations where the constable made some money selling confiscated bottles at exactly double the Maximum Retail price printed (In India there is this strange regulation that makes manufacturers declare the maximum price on labels). If the police did not have stocks, the underworld did and was recommended by the local police station. The Gujarat underworld was kin to the more powerful ones in neighbouring Bombay and was usually Muslim, who did not drink themselves, but were always to be relied upon by the thirsty students of management in Gujarat then. There existed a healthy respect and brotherhood that defied any potential divide that would come up later.

My third set of friends was the civil servants that would soon run India’s bureaucracy. We were all training to be government servants in the early nineties. Most students there couldn’t care less, despite the fact that the Babri masjid had just been demolished. Almost everyone was worried about the state she would be allotted to and would do anything, including convenient marriages, to go to a good state. The Indian civil service remains delightfully provincial in this regard and bureaucracy that gets allotted to difficult provinces in India suffers all life. Almost everyone wanted to avoid Gujarat, Orissa, Kerala and the North East. In the search of a good posting and at the beginning of a career, no one really cared about being communal or nationalist.

Then I moved to Delhi and knew there was a change that was taking place quietly. We were all growing up. And I realized that I had changed. The transition from a simple small town life to a relatively well off big city existence now started alienating me from all my earlier fraternities. School friends had been forgotten, college mates were all in the US, the business school fraternity was really busy and the bureaucratic batch mates had spread far and wide. Suddenly there were no roots any more. Around me, in the nineties, the concept of India was gaining ground. What was a vague romantic notion was now becoming concretized. People were doing what they had never felt the need to before – defining their Indianness. In this quest, there was a serious problem – India was never a nation, so there were no parameters or benchmarks. Therefore some took the easy route of defining what was not Indian and then proving that that was not what they were. Hindi became important and by now the Bombay talkies had taken Hindi to all corners of the country and made almost all parts understand the language. Television and its opera helped do this at lesser cost.

Now a pan India Hindu identity was emerging and noticing the fault lines that were sometimes defined as Sikh, sometimes as Muslim and now Christian. History and historical mistakes were now being studied by ideology driven neo converts to the concept of India. Violence spread as the state watched in confusion. How could it strike at people who were proclaiming their love for the country? Is someone who claims to be protecting local interests, local culture and language a patriot or an irrational maniac? But all this is an aberration, and I continue to think so despite the sad news on communalisation that keeps coming in every now and then. I met most of my friends this year again in various twenty year, fifteen year and ten year re unions. They were all the same. Nothing had changed. We laughed and ate, shared anecdotes and pulled each other’s legs. The India as I remember it from the last century lives on.

The author is an economist and the director of India Development Foundation, Gurgaon, India.

Bend it like Balli

Just writing something end of the day or being affirmed by the recognition of a fellowship, being recognized by fellow writers and critics, that is very humbling and it makes me feel like I am doing something worthwhile, says Balli Jaswal, the youngest winner of the David T K Wong Fellowship, in a tête-à-tête with Zafar Anjum, editor of Writers Connect.

I was facing a very unusual dilemma when one evening last November I found myself walking to the Arts House to interview Balli Jaswal. While I was curious to meet Balli, who is a young journalist and a first-time novelist, I was not sure how to engage her in a meaningful discussion.

The reason for my dilemma was this: for most writers interviewed, one has the benefit of reading the subject’s works (novels, essays, stories, journalistic pieces, poems) in advance to help form an opinion. In Balli’s case what she has been working on (a sample of that text, not available to me, won her the 2007 David T K Wong Fellowship at the University of East Anglia, UK) is not in the public domain yet; at the same time, her winning of the prestigious fellowship establishes her credentials as a ‘writer’ beyond doubt and the potential she embodies as a successful future writer.

That’s why when I met the vivacious Balli, I started with a very basic question—one that sprang from my mind with a tinge of Naipaulian determinism and determination: When did she ‘decide’ to become a writer?

“I don’t know if I ever decided it,” Balli said, attentively noticing the nuances of the word ‘decide’ that I had used in my question. “I think it occurred to me as something that I was good at doing, something I really enjoyed doing …I just kept doing…”

“I don’t think I can still be defined as a writer,” she said putting the matter to rest.

At one level, Balli had stated the absolute truth. Her first book was yet to be out (Naipaul once said that he did not think he had become a writer until he had published five books). At another level, she was being humble. Like the past David T K Wong Fellowship winners (Balli is the youngest winner), she too has been marked, destined for a literary stardom.

The making of a writer

Balli had a childhood that spanned across many countries in Asia, including Japan, Russia, the Philippines and Singapore. That experience, of living and growing in many cities, of dealing with people of different cultures, informed her ways of seeing the world. “I gathered a realization that communication is very different for me than other people,” she said. “The word, the language that you choose becomes very important (in a multicultural setting). You tend to listen to dialogue differently.”

Out of this body of experience, according to her, schooling in Singapore played a significant role. “Schooling in international schools, writing competitions in Singapore really honed that drive for writing,” she said.

After schooling, Balli decided to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer. Not everyone agreed that this was a good move. Nevertheless, she carried on and got to study creative writing in the USA at Hollins University and George Mason University. In fact, she ended up attending the same creative writing course (at Hollins University) that was attended by Booker Prize-winner Kiran Desai.

But did the creative writing programme really help her? “I think more than anything it gave me confidence,” she said. “It gave me some affirmation that what I was writing was important. You do a lot more criticism than writing and you tend to learn what other people are doing right and wrong. So that sort of training was important for me to become a writer.”

But not everybody is fortunate enough to study creative writing. Can such unfortunate people still become writers, I meant to ask her. “As long as you instill that discipline (of writing) for yourself and have a community that you can turn to and have a sense of confidence in your writing, you can do it,” she said.

“It can never hurt you to be in a creative writing programme,” she added matter-of-factly. “Even out of your assignment you get a volume of work, even if it is crap that you don’t want to look at again.”

Winning the fellowship

After finishing her creative writing course, Balli returned to Singapore to work on her first novel, When Amrit Returns. She also took up a teaching assignment. That’s when she was awarded the 2007 T K Wong Fellowship.

“I was in complete shock,” she said on her getting the fellowship. “And I was just elated. It was exactly what I wanted or needed. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I think it is the highlight of my life.”

Balli said that when she was shortlisted for the fellowship, she thought ok, she had got that far. “But when I got it, that was really beyond my expectation,” she said.

The fellowship took her to the University of East Anglia (UEA) for about one year. “It was an interesting experience,” she said recounting her experience. “I had just a vast amount of time all of a sudden. Before that I had been teaching in Singapore. Very busy all the time. Didn’t have much time to write as anyone with a full time job would. And suddenly I had the entire day, the whole day to sit and write and I knew I was prone to freezing up – OMG what do I do now. So I tried to work myself out of that a lot. I took it one day at a time which I realized it was a good step to take.”

But there also was a downside to the experience. “It was a very isolating experience in a lot of ways,” she said. “That is the nature of that kind of position I guess.”

During her time at UEA, apart from writing, she also got to meet other students doing their Masters. “They were really nice” she said. She also had a mentor who was supposed to guide her. “But it was a flexible relationship,” she added.

In UK, most of the time she was working on her book. Between breakfast and lunch, she cooked her own meals. She used to sketch out what she was going to write in the day, know where to start and know where to stop. “I tried to churn out something everyday,” she said. “I thought it was important to do.”

An Indian writer?

Taking a break from writing related questions, I asked her how she saw herself, what kind of writer she thought she was. Did she think she was an Indian writer or a Singaporean writer or a hyphenated one?

“The writing that I do I can’t just call it Indian writing,” she said. “It is not based in India but my characters are mostly Indian. I am a Singaporean Indian writer who wrote the only Singapore Indian book so far and hopefully there will be more so I will be in the company of others who have done the same thing. If not, I would like to be described as an immigrant writer.”

Whatever way publishers and critics will pigeonhole Balli in the hierarchy of writers, she is certainly interested in the stories of immigration like many of her contemporary expat Indian writers. “I am very interested in the background of immigration and how it is represented in literature and how multiculturalism shakes that landscape,” she said. “I have been an immigrant in so many different contexts.”

Balli also likes to explore issues of cultural isolation. “You can be a part of a culture and be still outside it,” she said.

In the same vein, she finds language very interesting, how in different ways language is used and how people perceive language.

Her first novel

The conversation now veered towards a new topic: Balli’s first novel, When Amrit Returns. “It takes place between the late 60s and the early 90s,” she said about the temporal setting of her work in progress. “It centres around the life of a Punjabi family in Singapore whose lives start to unravel when their youngest daughter changes and goes missing. That is the first part of the book. Physically she comes back but mentally she is not all there. From any reader’s point of view it is quite clear that she has a mental illness. But the family does not recognize it as such because they are still rooted in tradition. Singapore becomes third world to first very rapidly in that timeframe bit people don’t catch up with that. So, they think she is not well raised or she is possessed. And even when they realize that she has a mental illness they don’t want to deal with it because of the taboos surrounding it. But there is a twist in the end” (she laughs).

“In a lot of ways, Singaporeans have lost their homeland. I left Singapore for nine months and when I can back, there were new buildings. My parents who were born here also talk about the loss of their homeland. They lived in very different circumstances than they are living now.”

Many interviewers and readers would want to know how other writers or their writings have influenced a budding writer. I am no different, so I asked Balli about her favourite writers. I tend to like books than writers, was her reply. Fair enough, I thought. Then she took some names. On top of her list is the Indian writer (who now lives in Canada) Rohington Mistry. “If he wrote the phone book, I would read it,” she said about Mistry. She waxed eloquent about Satnam Sanghera’s biography of his mother (the best biog I have ever read), wowed about Margaret Attwood’s Cat’s Eye and raved about Yiyun Li’s short stories.

Towards the end of the interview, I again took Balli to the elemental question—what did she feel about her journey so far, what did it all mean to her? Her reply showed the depth of her understanding of the state of being a writer. “Just writing something end of the day or being affirmed by the recognition of a fellowship, being recognized by fellow writers and critics, that is very humbling and that makes me feel like I am doing something worthwhile,” she said. “Though I wouldn’t refuse a huge advance” she said with laughter that I will always remember her for.

Enter the world of Tamil Pulp

Book Review

Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction
Selected and Translated by Prathim K. Chakravarthy
Edited by Rakesh Khanna
Blaft Publications Pvt. Ltd, Chennai
366 pages
US$ 17.95

Growing up in India in the 1970s and 80s, like millions of fellow Indians, I too was exposed to pulp fiction in Hindi and Urdu. It was sometimes in high school when the transition from reading funny comics and magazines like Suman Saurav and Parag to Hindi and Urdu detective potboilers and crime magazines took place. Unlike watching masala Bollywood films that have always been accepted on their own terms, reading pulp was always a secret activity. It provided a guilty pleasure.

While I remained in tune with the developments in the pulp fiction arena in North India’s two principal languages, I was unaware of its cousins in the Southern India because of the linguistic divide between North India and South India. Thanks to Blaft Publications of Chennai, I recently got the opportunity to a taste the Southern fare in a good dollop in the Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction that came out last year.

The anthology has stories by 10 of the India’s best-selling Tamil authors, which have been translated into English for the first time. The stores featured in this 366 page anthology include from authors such as Rajesh Kumar, Ramanichandran, Subha, Pattukkottai Prabhakar, Indra Sounder Rajan, Pushpa Thangadorai, Vidya Subramaniam, Tamilvanan, Brajanand V.K. and Resaki.

When I sampled some of the stories in this collection, I realized how the pulp fiction writing in the two Indian languages (Hindi and Tamil) was similar. The collection is a significant addition to Indian writing not just because of its pleasure quotient, but also because, as the translator notes in his introduction, “this book is an attempt to claim the status of ‘literature’ for a huge body of writing that has rarely if ever made it into an academic library, despite having been produced for nearly a century.”

The stories in this anthology have all the hallmark elements of pulp fiction—suspense, murders, detectives, police inspectors, mad scientists, murderous robots, lovers and prostitutes, and plots sprinkled with a fair amount of titillation. The stories have interesting plots; even the titles are so interesting—Hurricane Vij, Matchstick Number One, Silicon Hearts, Tokyo Rose—just to mention a few. When you read them you can see that some of the stories such as Matchstick Number One and Tokyo Rose could have easily been made into Tamil masala capers.

Apart from the stories, one of the most interesting aspects of this collection is the author introductions. For example, the author Subha (Hurricane Vij) is the nom de plume of not one but two authors: Suresh and Balakrishnan. They have been writing together since their school days and together have co-authored more than 600 long and short novels. Similarly, the writer of the story Matchstick Number One, Rajesh Kumar, may well be the world’s most prolific living writer of fiction—he has written and published more than 1250 novels and over 2000 short stories. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

I immensely enjoyed reading the stories in this collection. If you ever loved pulp fiction in any Indian language, you should not miss this anthology.

Book of the year for the Wall Street bunglers, and you

Whether you are a winner or a loser, Ashish Jaiswal’s True Dummy should be on your reading desk

True Dummy
A Fable of Existence
By Ashish Jaiswal
Publisher - Rupa & Co.
Paperback - 247 pages

When I started reading Ashish Jaiswal’s debut novel, True Dummy, I was hoping to read something familiar—and I mean it not as a compliment but a complaint that I hold against most Indian writers. The first few pages seemed to read like a pastoral with its bucolic charm or a tale from a small town. Is it another Slumdog Millionaire set in the mountains, I wondered. Village life, mountains, valley of flowers, rivers, small boys, Ammas, shopkeepers, minstrels—was Ashish treading on the Ruskin Bond territory?

Turned out it was no Ruskin Bond, no Slumdog Millionaire, but more Paulo Coehlo, and more Luck by Chance, perhaps even deeper than them.

Honestly speaking, the narrative might not grab you from the start—I had to struggle a bit (which happens with most novels I try to read) and keep the faith. Paragraph after paragraph failed to make me suspend my disbelief (you might have a different experience—every reader brings his own experiences to a text) but there came moments when I recognized the wisdom of the writer, the genuine observations of an extraordinary mind, the imagination of an adroit narrator.

As I kept on reading beyond the first few chapters, I was defeated in all my expectations—soon I was on a heroic journey along with the protagonist of the novel who starts out to seek fame and fortune in this world like most underdogs. He fails by all standards, even his own. And then he succeeds, not realizing what he was doing—until we are shown an unfinished piece of the puzzle.

Like a skillful magician, Ashish creates a mirror of the world (a mayanagri, if you will) in the novel where our basic human motivations and failings are reflected in a stripped down version—as if in a TV show, a la Chocolate Factory, where we all come seeking fame or riches, to be the next American Idol or the next superstar or the next whatever. And we fail: “I wanted to be the most famous and found myself amidst faces that nobody cared to notice. Nervous faces, cowardly faces, depressed faces…faces that said at the first look that they were born to lose.” Sounds familiar? There you go.

Ashish’s novel is so different in many senses. Though he lives in Oxford, UK, pursuing a DPhil from the University of Oxford, his work has been brought out by an Indian publisher. The novel’s title itself is so uncommon (I am talking in terms of the usual stuff that we see coming out of the Indian writing in English stable): the title is intriguing and yet has a refreshing allure about it, not reminding you of the Red Bulls, The Boat in the Mangrove and The Bride of Sitapur (all made up titles) type of commonplace titles.

Ashish’s novel may not be a great literary work (perhaps he did not even attempt to achieve any literary greatness in his work) with its many cardboard characters, uncomplicated and trick-less language and a straight narrative structure, it has great potential to be turned into a video game, with the Rings and its crooked tail and its three gates—MoneyGate, PowerGate and FameGate. Or it could be the next Slumgdog Millionaire meets The Lawrence of Arabia. Are the UTVs and the Warner Brothers listening?

Ashish’s tale might be Indian in tone and setting, but in terms of its ethos and message, this is a universal book (even the characters’ names such as Geoga and Verona are translation friendly). And so insightful, you might want to re-evaluate your approach to life after you have read it. If you are successful in life, you might see your success differently after reading True Dummy. If are a failure, you might feel otherwise about yourself. You may be inspired to do what the protagonist does in the novel.

If you like to read a book full of pearls of wisdom or quotable quotes, I bet this is the book for you. There are some dialogues or observations that you may want to note down in your diary. How about this one: “A fallback plan is for people who walk backwards, hence they all end up where they start.” A good quote for a film poster, with the Rings and all that, nahi? Or how about this one: “If a person has to tell what he does, then probably he does not do anything worth telling.” You find it cheesy? New age humbug? (Humm, are you a snooty high-brow lit reader?). Never mind. Salim-Javed would have liked it.

On a serious note, I strongly recommend this book to all those guys at the Wall Street and the big banks who have created a huge mess in our world, to the Bernie Madoffs and the B. Ramalinga Rajus of the world—it could be a good read in prison. At the same time, I think this book should be read by our ambitious youth, from Chandni Chowk to China to Connecticut, who ought to know what is truly valuable in life.

Elegy/John Updike

Yesterday I was in a theatre watching Elegy, based on Philip Roth's The Dying Animal. At one point I cried when Penelope Cruz broke the news of her advanced stage cancer to her lit professor/writer/lover Ben Kingsley.

This morning when I opened the pages of the newspaper, I read about the death of John Updike. He died of cancer. I loved John's non-fiction, especially his book reviews and essays. I read some of his novels but did not enjoy them. The language he used was so beautiful I could never reach the story. More than his, I assume it was my limitation.

On an unrelated note, I read this story on self-publishers in the NYT that says what I have always maintained:

The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them.

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Indians in Singapore

From my cover story, Singapore Se, published in Khabar, Atlanta, USA:

Can you name a country which is the richest in its region, with Indians forming less than 10 percent of its population, and yet it has an Indian president, many Indian cabinet ministers and a thriving professional class of Indians with their own global glossies and radio stations?

It is not Dubai. It is Singapore.

That’s why it didn’t seem odd when I was recently chatting about Singapore’s Indian diaspora—new and old—with some American students in a café on Orchard Road (Singapore’s famous strip of upscale malls). These students from a college in Indiana were in Singapore to conduct research on the Indian diaspora in the island state. Why did they choose Singapore for their study? Because it is the microcosm of the Indian diaspora in a globalized city state in all its hues and colors—old and new, rich and poor, from all regions of India, and representing more or less all cultures and religions of India.

Here is a succinct description of the Indian diaspora’s situation in Singapore. This is a diaspora whose story might not have been narrated to the world, but it is a story of grit and hard work and of final triumph that needs to be broadcast and celebrated.

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How to talk about books you haven’t read

Thank God, most people don’t read books. Imagine how drab a conversation would be if it were only about books—unless those involved were writers or literature students. At least in Singapore, what I have seen during my MRT train rides or on buses is not very intellectually threatening—most people either read The Bible or self-help guides or get-rich-quick books, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad kind of books. Looking at the titles of these books, you know these are not garrulous folks—they want some peace of mind and soul or want to get ahead in life. Nothing wrong with that.

But if you happen to find yourself in an unpleasant situation (with a pleasant person, let us say a person of the opposite sex you can’t ignore or a person of power you have to make a deal with) of talking about a book that you haven’t read, worry not. There is help. There are ways to come out of the situation unscathed, even sounding impressive and intelligent.

You don’t believe it. Roger that. Neither did I in the first place.

But this piece of reassuring wisdom came to me during the last happy holidays season when I hit upon a book by Pierre Bayard. It is called How to talk about books you haven’t read. Yes, you read it right. That is the title of the book. I had read a review of the book in The New York Times sometime ago but hadn’t had the opportunity to lay my hands on the book until now. I read it and I was convinced.

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The curious case of B. Ramalinga Raju

Confessing fraud in his letter to the board of Satyam, Satyam Computer’s founder and chairman B. Ramalinga Raju wrote: “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.”

The allusion to a tiger in this sentence reminded me of last year’s Booker prize winning novel, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga, a fellow Indian writer. Through his novel as well as author interviews, Adiga postulates that only through two ways can a poor man rise above his rank in India’s current socio-economic system: crime and politics.

How interesting to note that Raju uses the same vehicle of tiger—a symbol of turbo-charged unstoppable growth—to convey what he was dealing with! Juxtapose it with Balram, The White Tiger, the lead character in Adiga’s novel. The narrative shows the contrast between India’s rise as a modern global economy and the crime-fuelled ambitions of Balram who escapes rural poverty to seek a destiny of riches.

But the relationship between the real Raju and the fictional Balram ends here. Unlike Balram, Raju did not exactly come from a poor family. After his father migrated to the state capital Hyderabad from his ancestral village Garagaparru, he started buying land in the city. Raju was sent to Ohio in the US to study business. He came back to help his father in the construction business. Raju grew the business, achieved great success, finally diversifying into textiles and even software—now he was firmly saddled on ‘the tiger’. Tax holidays and India’s outsourcing boom helped Satyam, that was started with 20 employees in 1987, to become India’s fourth largest outsourcer.

But Raju was not happy with the number four status. He wanted to be number one. And that desire to become the numero uno in his field—by hook or by crook—caused his ultimate downfall.

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A moment for India's powerless

Even amid the darkness that surrounds us, the news that Slumdog Millionaire has won the Golden Globe for Best Picture and its director Danny Boyle the directing award for the film has cheered me up.

Slumdog is a fascinating film--the story is not new for Hindi film viewers but the way the movie has been shot and directed (the narrative structure itself) is what makes it different from other films. I saw the film side by side with Mira Nair's similar-themed Salaam Bombay, and the effect was stunning (though I admit that Boyle's take is more uplifting and perhaps Bollywoodesque). It takes a lot of courage to make a film on an unglamorous subject--the story of two Muslim boys from Bombay's slums, who are orphaned in a communal riot--and how one of them grows up to become a millionaire through a TV show--at the cost of the sacrifice of his namazi but criminal and trigger happy elder brother. Boyle had the guts and the wit to make a movie like Slumdog Millionaire. Bollywood's filmmakers should take a lesson from this win.

The Satyam scandal

Hear me in a special podcast discussing the Satyam scandal that has rocked India's corporate world with IDC's Philip Carter and Springboard Research's Dane Anderson.

Go here

Or copy and paste this url in your browser:
www.mis-asia.com/__data/assets/file/0018/134901/Satyam_podcast_edited090109.mp3

The art of war

From my mis-asia.com blog:

If you have been following the unfortunate Israel-Gaza conflict, you might have seen a video on YouTube in which several ‘Hamas’ (Palestinians) members are seen loading ‘short-range rockets’ into a truck moments before a massive explosion. According to media reports, this video, uploaded by a member of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on YouTube, is the most viewed IDF video on the channel. It has been watched more than 360,000 times.

You get what you see, right? Not exactly. According to an investigation by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, the rockets seen in the video were not rockets but gas canisters; the victims were not members of Hamas but civilians moving welding equipment after their workshop had been damaged in the Israeli air strikes.

Chances are that you have not heard about B’Tselem or its investigation on the above-mentioned episode. And that precisely is the point.

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Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Isreal enters Gaza

Welcome to a new year, 2009!

But how new is this new year? It sounds very much like the last year or worse. Even before the old year could be rung out, Israel started pounding Gaza--and this was carried out along with a massive Israeli PR exercise. The corporate media the world over, accustomed to bite the easy crumbs of information handed out by the PR companies, reported what was obvious PR shit. However, some commentators were brave enough to have delved a little deeper into the issue.

Israel has been saying that its aerial bombings of Gaza were provoked by Hamas' Qassam rockets. Hamas is definitely wrong in shooting the rockets, even during a truce period. But is that the entire truth? According to Sara Roy (London Review of Books), it is not:

Israel’s siege of Gaza began on 5 November, the day after an Israeli attack inside the strip, no doubt designed finally to undermine the truce between Israel and Hamas established last June. Although both sides had violated the agreement before, this incursion was on a different scale. Hamas responded by firing rockets into Israel and the violence has not abated since then. Israel’s siege has two fundamental goals. One is to ensure that the Palestinians there are seen merely as a humanitarian problem, beggars who have no political identity and therefore can have no political claims. The second is to foist Gaza onto Egypt. That is why the Israelis tolerate the hundreds of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt around which an informal but increasingly regulated commercial sector has begun to form. The overwhelming majority of Gazans are impoverished and officially 49.1 per cent are unemployed. In fact the prospect of steady employment is rapidly disappearing for the majority of the population.

According to Tariq Ali (The Guardian, UK), the Israeli attacks on Gaza are motivated by political goals:

The assault on Gaza, planned over six months and executed with perfect timing, was designed largely, as Neve Gordon has rightly observed, to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the right and the far right in Israel. Washington and its EU allies, perfectly aware that Gaza was about to be assaulted, as in the case of Lebanon in 2006, sit back and watch.

Add to the big picture of motives and goals Israel's military-security-industrial complex's need to demonstrate the effectiveness of its weapons, the surgical precision of its bombings. The Israeli military gloated how in about 3 minutes it was able to bombard multiple locations in Gaza. The footage will help establish Israel's arms industry's effectiveness to its customers and would-be customers--Israel is the world's 4th largest arms supplier now. And in a recent interview to the New Yorker magazine, Naomi Klein, the author of Shock Doctrine, clearly told how Israel's commitment to the peace process has been compromised by its security industry.

Also, sometimes I have this suspicion that Israel wants to incite Hezbollah and finally Iran to take part in this war and finish the Neocon agenda before Bush's final departure. Let us see how it all turns out but the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is appalling.

Welcome to 'Prison Earth'!

Perhaps this is my last post of 2008. Here's wishing you Happy Holidays!

I end the year with a little chilling piece that I wrote for my 'official' blog. I leave it with you:

Welcome to 'Prison Earth'!

Recently, I read a story in The New York Times about a brothel in Prague. It is called the Big Sister (perhaps an allusion to the Orwellian Big Brother) which touts itself as the world’s biggest Internet brothel.

Big Sister marries the virtual with the real, leading to an unusual business model. Customers can have free sex at Big Sister. In return, they will allow the brothel to capture their exploits on film. The resulting porn is streamed live onto Big Sister’s website.

But the newspaper report was not about the innovativeness of Big Sister’s business model. Through the brothel’s example, the report highlighted how the ongoing global financial crisis was affecting the brothel’s business as the number of sex tourists coming to Prague had diminished.

The reason I cite this example is not because I want to talk about pornography or the economic crisis. My intention is to illustrate how people willfully submit their privacy (a human right) to profit-seekers.

In Big Sister’s case, the momentary carnal pleasure comes as freebie but the ultimate price that is extracted from the revellers is priceless—human privacy. Moments of compromised privacy is broadcast to those who find value in it on Sky Italia and Britain’s Television X, or sold as a DVD, like ‘World Cup Love Truck’.

What’s scary here? One’s privacy is gone for ever but it has not been taken at a gun point. One has willingly signed it off for a (Faustian?) bargain.

What’s the connection, you might ask. Replace sex with search, and you will get the point.

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And if you have time, watch this interesting video:

Arundhati Roy on the Mumbai tragedy

The Mumbai terror attacks shocked the entire world. Many people did many things in response to the tragedy, from shouting against the government's lack of security preparations to Pakistan bashing to lighting candles in the memory of the innocent dead.

A host of major Indian/Pakistani writers (save for Professor Amitava Kumar, who published excellent excerpts of other writers' reactions on his blog) reacted through their specially penned pieces on the tragedy: Amitava Ghosh, Arvind Adiga, Suketu Mehta, Mohsin Hamid, Mohammad Hanif, Shashi Tharoor, and Amit Chaudhari, among others. I was kind of waiting for Arundhati Roy to write on this horror. She was perhaps the last to record her reactions but finally she did it. Here: 9 is not 11. In her piece, she makes several good points, as she always does.

In today's world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike and isolate it within the borders of a single nation-state is very much like trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It's almost impossible.

In circumstances like these, air strikes to 'take out' terrorist camps may take out the camps, but certainly will not 'take out' the terrorists. And neither will war. (Also, in our bid for the moral high ground, let's try not to forget that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE of neighbouring Sri Lanka, one of the world's most deadly terrorist groups, were trained by the Indian army.)

Elephants in the room

She further notes, reacting on the typical Indian (media and experts) reaction:

Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in India at least there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room: Kashmir, Gujarat and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Instead, we had retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war against Pakistan.

And her indictment grows stronger:

Tragically, this regression into intellectual infancy comes at a time when people in India were beginning to see that the business of terrorism is a hall of mirrors in which victims and perpetrators sometimes exchange roles. It's an understanding that the people of Kashmir, given their dreadful experiences of the last 20 years, have honed to an exquisite art. On the mainland we're still learning. (If Kashmir won't willingly integrate into India, it's beginning to look as though India will integrate/disintegrate into Kashmir.)

It was after the 2001 Parliament attack that the first serious questions began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been criminally violated at every stage of the investigation. Eventually the courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including S.A.R. Geelani, the man whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third, Shaukat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him but was then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offence. The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In its judgement, the court acknowledged that there was no proof that Mohammad Afzal belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, "The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender. " Even today we don't really know who the terrorists that attacked Indian Parliament were and who they worked for.

But her conclusion is most chilling; it's a warning and an exhortation:

The only way to contain (it would be naive to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says 'Justice', the other 'Civil War'. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.

No one should miss the point.

Cat City Chronicles

Five minutes. That’s all I had to decide about making a trip to the big B. Of course, I am not talking about Amitabh Bachchan here (And as far as I know, he has not bought an island and named it after himself, at least not yet). The big B stands for Borneo Island for the uninitiated. That’s where Sarawak (and Sabah) is—Malaysia’s largest state.

When I break the news in my office, one of my colleagues quips, “What’s there in Sarawak to see? Pineapples?” Well, not his fault—that’s the general perception about the place but you know what, I’m ready to be surprised.

Next thing I know is that I am on board Malaysian Airlines with a group of travelers from Singapore. The flight time from Singapore to Kuching, Sarawak’s capital, is a little over one hour but you hardly feel the passage of time. By the time you have unclasped your seat belt after take off and enjoyed a hot and delicious meal, you are almost there.

The plane descends through layers of sodden clouds. I look out the window and now and then, get a glimpse of the ground: impenetrable dark jungles and serpentine mud-copper rivers coursing through. Man, what are those trees—a carpet of rainforest! The mere sight of green vegetation makes my city-jaded spirits soar.

At the Kuching airport (which looks quite clean and presentable), we are welcomed by our travel guide, Cik Selina of Masama JS Adventure Tours. We pile into a bus, off to the main city of Kuching—the Cat City—noted for its multi-ethnicity, history, architecture and cuisine.

Kuching is the capital of Sarawak. Despite the rapid economic developments in the last decade, the city still retains quaint touches of the past. Sarawak boasts of a multi ethnic population—more than 30% are Ibans, followed by Chinese (30%), Malays (20%), Melanau (6%) and Bidayuh (8%), among others.

Coming from the lion city, I already feel an affinity for the cat city. Both belong to the same family, right? And even their histories match—the White Rajahs of Kuching had started off inspired by Raffle’s Singapore. They wanted to recreate Raffles success in Sarawak. A part of kingdom of Brunei from early 14th century, the state saw signs of discontent from Malays by the 28th century. In 1839 English adventurer James Brooke sailed into this volatile situation and got a title for himself, the Rajah of Sarawak, for crushing the Malay rebellion. The Brooks ruled over the region until 1941 when the Japanese attacked them and later it fell under British rule. In 1963 the state became part of the Malaysian federation.

When I see the Sarawak river and the boats plying on it, standing from the balcony of a restaurant where I have a late lunch, I feel a keen sense of history. What role this river would have played in shaping the fate of this state?


I spend the night at the beautiful Damai Beach Resort, a 40 minute drive from the Kuching city. The resort is situated at the northwest coast of Borneo, on Teluk Bandung’s sandy beach facing the South China Sea and residing on 90 acres of sea frontage within the world’s oldest tropical rainforest. The property even boasts of an Arnold Palmer designed golf course, the first in Malaysia.

I have been given a single room in a chalet on the sea front. The whole night, like a lullaby, I hear the sea licking the beach. In the morning, when I draw the curtains of the glass wall, I see the picture-postcard beauty of the sea and the sandy beach. Is it some kind of dream, I pinch myself.


Day 2

At 7.30 am, after having a hearty breakfast, I set off for the Semonggoh Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre. The wildlife park is an hour’s drive from the resort. It has a thriving population of semi-wild orang utans, surviving in their natural rainforest habitat.

Coming from Singapore, orang utans are not a novelty for me but what is different here is the experience of seeing orang utangs in their most natural habitat, seeing them having their breakfast at the feeding stations and jumping from tree to tree.

Be careful, we are told. We are constantly reminded that these docile looking creatures may also turn aggressive if exposed to wrong stimuli. Take pictures but make sure you don’t use the flash—it distracts them. Keep quiet—they don’t like noise, etcetera etcetera.

I spend a few hours in the forest—I see a baby orang utan swinging from ropes, eating bananas and posing for photos, as if it were the most natural thing to do (perhaps it was for him). The fellow acted like a film star, considering his jubilant fan base from a good perch. Soon, the crowd of spectators hears branches crushing, leaves rustling violently, all creating a sort of commotion. What’s the deal, mate? Turns out that Ritchie is arriving—the father of junior, the bulkiest of the ornag uans here. In a while, so does Suduku, the oldest of the lot. Ritchie comes down to the ground where we stand. He walks in front of us, leading us to a feeding station, giving us ample photo opportunities.

The park has in all nearly two dozen orang utans, and all have fancy names—George (not Bush), Edwin, Melina and Selinah, et al. There’s even Annuar—he was named after the Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim; the day he was born was the day Anwar was put in jail, our guide fills us in with details like these with glee.

After Semonggoh, we go for a city tour in Kuching. The first stop is at a pottery workshop. We see artists at work making beautiful designs on vases big and small. For the adventurous, there is even a potter’s wheel to get your hands dirty with clay. Some of my fellow travelers get down and dirty, trying to shape a piece of clay into something recognizable. Most of them fail in their attempt but it seems to be fun. I stay away from it, mostly shooting artists in action with my camera. In the shop, I get some good bargains and buy some souvenirs for my family and friends.

The next stop is at a well-known bird’s nest factory. The nutritious bird’s nests are a rage among the Chinese Singaporeans for their nutrition value. For the first time, I get to see what the fuss is all about. In the factory, we see the workers clean up a bird’s nest—which is quite a tedious and meticulous process. I do some more shopping here—hats, traditional ladies bags, clothes, sago biscuits, local snacks.

Next we head to the Civic Centre tower. From its third floor (which seems like the 10th floor of a Singapore building), one can get a bird’s eye view of the city. You can see the Sarawak River and the beautiful houses on its banks, set amidst lush greenery. It is a relief not to see skyscrapers in this city. This should be the first stop for anyone visiting Kuching, comments Mr. Singh, one of my fellow travelers. I nod in agreement.

After the Civic Centre, we make a stop at the city museum, educating ourselves about the past of the tribes that lived in Sarawak. There have been over 30 (or 220) indigenous tribes in Sarawak and Sabah, depending on whom you ask. One can spend a full day here but we are short of time, so we leave after an hour or so. We have lunch at a restaurant on the way back to the Damai Beach. We pass by China town and India Street (yes, there’s one there too). Unfortunately, we don’t have much time to explore those streets.

We have a brief spell of rest before we are back again on the road to the city stadium, to witness and take part in the Gawai Dayak festival. But before that, I must mention the dinner. This dinner, held at the serene Treez at Damai Beach Resort, is one of the most memorable dinners of the entire trip. Along with Sup Ekor Lembu and rice served in basket, the menu comprises Ekor Lembu Asam Pedas, Midin Belacan, Ikan Bakar Bersambal, Ayam Masak Hitam, Udang Masak Lemak, Beef Ginger, and topped with a sweet dish, Sago Gula Melaka. Every morsel was so yummy—I still remember the taste of it. For RM 60 per person, this kind of a dinner is a steal.

When we finally reach the stadium around 8 pm, we see it full of people assembled to celebrate the Gawai Dayak festival—the most popular festival among the Dayaks in Sarawak—a kind of a thanksgiving festival, thanking the spirit of rice for giving the peasants a good harvest. The festival is celebrated throughout the state on the 1st and 2nd of June every year. “Gawai” means “a ritual or religious festival” whereas “Dayak” is a collective name for the native ethnic groups of Sarawak comprising the Iban, Bidayuh, and the Orang Ulu group (the last group consists of 24 sub-groups). For the next few hours, young boys and girls in colourful costumes from various tribes treat the gathering with traditional dances and opera-like presentations. The event is so important that Malaysia’s PM has also flown in to enjoy the festivities.

By the time the festivities end and we reach the resort, it is past midnight. I go straight to my bed.


Day 3

Today is supposed to be the most adventurous day of the entire trip. We are to travel some 300 kilometers to the deeper end of the Borneo island, close to the Kalimantan region of Indonesia.

We leave Damai Beach Resort around quarter to nine in the morning. On the way, we make a stop over at a pepper garden—pepper being one of the top cash crops of the region. The green ears of pepper look charming in a small plantation area, next to a factory that harvests, dries and packages pepper for commercial distribution. We learn how black pepper is different from white pepper (not much actually—white pepper is the same black pepper sans its skin). We are demonstrated how good black pepper corns are separated from the chaff using a multi-layered machine. Fun stuff!

Throughout the bus ride, I either read from a novel or look out the window. The road is superbly smooth but there is very little traffic—all I see is the occasional truck or a few cars zipping by. Flanking the road are miles and miles of jungles and now and then, the pattern gets interrupted by pepper gardens and small villages—some seemingly abandoned, other populated.

Two hours later, we make another stop over at a Bidayu native market called Serai. It’s a small own with a wet market and a few shops (I see a KFC too). The wet market is packed with vegetables—along with all the usual tropical veggies, I also spot the wild ferns (that we had eaten the night before at Damai) and a kind of twisted beans. Someone is even selling live maggots.

It’s quite hot but the market swarms with Bidayuh people—they all seem to be so personable and relaxed. Breaking away from the group, I stand facing the open air workshop of a cobbler. All his stuff is by the side of a wall and I see the picture of a sexy girl adorning the wall as a backdrop—the picture must have been torn out of a newspaper or a magazine, I guess. Such a scene would be quite common for roadside eateries in Indian small towns but sexy picture for a cobbler’s wall in Sarawak—that seemed a little unusual. A bevy of local girls in tops and pants pass by me, all giggling at the tourist.

We grab our lunch at a local eatery and the bus moves on. On the way, the bus stops for a few minutes and we are led into a field of wild bushes. Selina shows us the pitcher plants (that eats flies and even small mammals) and wild orchids. Everybody takes out his camera and clicks at these wonders of nature.

After nearly two hours, we stop by another small town. I buy a coke and a pack of smokes—the prices are as good as in Kuching. I have been wondering about the bus ride. It seems longer than promised.

I look far into the horizon. It has now started to drizzle a little bit and the sky is getting overcast with menacing clouds. Some of us buy cheap rain coats—paying RM 5 for a rain pouch. Might come handy for the boat ride to the longhouse, Selina tells us.

By the time we reach the ferry terminal to go to the Iban longhouse, it is nearly four in the afternoon. The longboats are ready. We put on the life jackets and start for the hour long journey in the Batang Ai River to reach the Iban longhouse.

And what a journey it is! The long boats are very low, made of wooden planks, running on fuel. A long boat can seat 4-5 passengers only. Our captains are teenage girls and boys from the Iban community. All of us sit in 4 boats.

The river is deep, wide and meandering, flanked by islets of dense forests. The boats run on full speeds. Sitting on it, I can touch the water on both sides. One sudden jerk, one mistake, and it could all end here. It is dangerous yet liberating, and sometimes the view is so beautiful, it becomes difficult to describe. There is a certain kind of mystery to such experiences. The slow drizzle falls on my face. I can feel the chill of fresh air getting into the pores of my facial skin. In such moments, you feel like surrendering to nature. Come what may but this is one of the most unforgettable moments of my life—that’s the thought that runs through my brain.

After an hour long boat ride, we finally reach the Iban long house, which houses nearly 30 families. Most of the ladies, children and men are sitting in the corridor (Ruai), passing a lazy afternoon. We are welcomed by the chief of the house.

There are not many signs of modern life here—but I see a satellite phone, some posters of Caucasian women, along with those of Jesus and Mary, and a poster from an election campaign. Inside the chief’s house, I see a sofa set, a television set, a DVD player, and a freezer. In the kitchen area, there is a proper wash basin. The guide tells me that only the chief, an ex-Malaysian army man, has such modern amenities, sent by their children who live and work in cities.

Outside the house, we are shown a traditional cock fight and some of us get a chance to handle the blow pipe—the Iban’s weapon of warfare. These blow pipes were used to throw poisoned needles at the enemies.

Meanwhile, the community has prepared rice wine for us. We sit in a semi circle and rice wine is served. If you don’t want to drink, no problem, we are told by our guide, but the tradition is to just dip one of your fingers in the wine glass. Soon follows a musical session and we are entertained by the traditional Iban dance. Some of the travelers join in the revelry. On our way to the longhouse, Selina had bought some gifts for all these families. Those gifts are evenly distributed. Then we take our leave for Hilton Batang Ai Longhouse where we will stay for a night.

This time the boat ride is little shorter but still dangerous as we sail in semi-darkness under the moon light. The Hilton Batang Ai Longhouse resort is nested in the jungles of Sarawak, spread in nearly 20 acres. This 15 year old property with 100 rooms, managed by Hilton, is smack in the heart of the land of Ibans, the brave headhunters of Borneo. There are only two ways to come here: river and air—that is you either take a boat or a ferry or fly by a chopper. Heck, the place comes with a real helipad.

As I speak to the manager of the resort, he gives me a background of the area. When the “White Rajahs” attempted to put an end to head-hunting, fierce battles resulted. In the hearts of the native Iban folks, this area is regarded as the heart of Iban territory because this was where their ancestors fought for their beliefs. This area is also in close proximity to the traditional Iban longhouses and the Batang Ai National Park which is home to the Orang utan of Borneo.

The resort is built like a traditional longhouse, with a long vacant gallery between the balcony and bedrooms. In a traditional longhouse, this area is called Ruai—the place for a hive of activities for men and women—a place to make hats, mats, baskets and farming apparatus, and also to tell stories and perform songs and dances.

The Ruai area of longhouses provide a commanding view of the river. Rivers are the highways and lifeblood of the country—and it was through a river that we had only a while ago reached the longhouse of the Ibans.

The resort provides many adventure activities such as fishing, sunset cruises, trips to a traditional longhouse, and trips to waterfalls, among others. They also provide guided nature walks and blow pipe demos. There is also a mini theatre (Panggau Libau Lounge) for video presentations and nature movies. If you are looking for inhouse activities, there are plenty of games to choose from—board games, mahjong, darts, table tennis, volley ball, pool volleyball and water polo—all for prices ranging from RM 25 to 200.

Day 4

My mobile phone alarm wakes me up at 6 am. A good night’s sleep in the Batang Ai Longhouse resort has taken care of the fatigue accumulated over the last few days. My body feels relaxed, my mind is calm as I know that I have enough time to complete my morning rituals—a stroll in the green, a cup of coffee, a cigarette, you know the stuff. Then breakfast and then a massage, that’s the plan.

Another fifteen minutes are gone by the time I get out of the bed. I draw the curtains open. It is still semi-dark outside but it’s tranquil—nature’s peace, with the muted notes from insects and birds singing nature’s songs. With a cup of tea in my hand, I get out of the room. The Ruai (long gallery between the balcony and the bedrooms) is vacant and partially lit, the light coming from some of the open windows in the balcony, overlooking the lake. Some of my travel mates are either still sleeping or getting ready for breakfast. I venture out to the balcony. The day is opening its eyelids but I cannot see the sun yet. The sky is partially clouded. All I can see are green trees (Rose wood, mango, lemon, meranti, many more varieties) and shrubbery, and the meandering lake and mountains beyond them. A soft breeze blows but it is not chilling—just light and pleasant.

A little later, I reach the restaurant for breakfast. Some of my travel mates are already there, eating freshly made omelets and sipping black coffee. I join the group. I too have an omelet that the young chef prepares in a small frying pan right in front of me. Sizzling hot, he transfers the egg to my plate. I also savour the beef bacon and vegetable samosas. I gulp down two cups of coffee and gossip with Calvin and Mr Singh, both travel agents. I ask Mr Singh about the kind of tourism that is being promoted here. Is it adventure tourism? It can be called eco-tourism, says the experienced travel agent. Calvin wants to visit Ladakh in India in a year or two. That sounds great, I tell him. Someone is distributing mosquito patches to others in preparation for the visit to the waterfall. Outside I see some couples and families, all Ang Mohs, taking their breakfast.

I have decided I’m not going to the waterfall. I wanted the experience of a Borneo massage to take home with me. After breakfast and some more photography, I walk to the facility’s wellness centre. Constance, the in-charge of the centre welcomes me. I ask her about the massage: how different it is from other therapies? Unlike other massage systems, she says, the Borneo massage techniques are based on the five elements of nature: earth, wind, fire, water and metal. What the heck does it mean? She gives me Tommy, a boy seemingly just out of his teens. Over the next one hour, Tommy does a good job with his expert hands, leaving my body supple and relaxed.

After the massage and a simple but appropriate lunch, we go for a tree canopy walk for about half an hour and then back on the boats. The bus journey resumes to Kuching. By the time we reach Kuching, night has fallen. We have excellent sea food as dinner and then we check into Holiday Inn to rest for the night. Tomorrow morning, we fly back to Singapore to tell my friends how Sarawak is vastly much more than just pineapples.

…
All photo credits: Zul Photographer/Zafar Anjum

A short version of this piece appeared in India Se, Singapore (December 2008).

They hate us...

Here is an excellent article by Patrick French in yesterday's NYT on the Mumbai terror acts and their aftermath. French, however, stops at the security measures to thwart terrorism, and does not advise that the root of terrorism, problems like the Palestine issue and the Kashmir dispute, should also be tackled:

The terrorists themselves offered little explanation, and made no clear demands. Yet even as the siege continued, commentators were making chilling deductions on their behalf: their actions were because of American foreign policy, or Afghanistan, or the harassment of Indian Muslims. Personal moral responsibility was removed from the players in the atrocity. When officials said that the killers came from the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, it was taken as proof that India’s misdeeds in the Kashmir Valley were the cause.

These misdeeds are real, as are India’s other social and political failings (I recently met a Kashmiri man whose father and sister had died at the hands of the Indian security forces). But there is no sane reason to think Lashkar-e-Taiba would shut down if the situation in Kashmir improved. Its literature is much concerned with establishing a caliphate in Central Asia, and murdering those who insult the Prophet. Its leader, Hafiz Saeed, who lives on a large estate outside Lahore bought with Saudi Money, goes about his business with minimal interference from the Pakistani government.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is part of the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (the Qaeda franchise). Mr. Saeed’s hatreds are catholic — his bugbears include Hindus, Shiites and women who wear bikinis. He regards democracy as “a Jewish and Christian import from Europe,” and considers suicide attacks to be in accordance with Islam. He has a wider strategy: “At this time our contest is Kashmir. Let’s see when the time comes. Our struggle with the Jews is always there.” As he told his followers in Karachi at a rally in 2000: “There can’t be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them — cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy.” In short, he has an explicit political desire to create a state of war between the religious communities in India and beyond, and bring on the endgame.

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And here, Tehelka's Tarun Tejpal lashes out at the nation's elites, and asks them to get their hands dirty with politics:

The first thing we need to do is to square up to the truth. Acknow ledge the fact that we have made a fair shambles of the project of nation-building. Fifty million Indians doing well does not for a great India make, given that 500 million are grovelling to survive. Sixty years after independence, it can safely be said that India’s political leadership — and the nation’s elite — have badly let down the country’s dispossessed and wretched. If you care to look, India today is heartbreak hotel, where infants die like flies, and equal opportunity is a cruel mirage.

Let’s be clear we are not in a crisis because the Taj hotel was gutted. We are in a crisis because six years after 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Gujarat there is still no sign of justice. This is the second thing the elite need to understand — after the obscenity of gross inequality. The plinth of every society — since the beginning of Man — has been set on the notion of justice. You cannot light candles for just those of your class and creed. You have to strike a blow for every wronged citizen.

And let no one tell us we need more laws. We need men to implement those that we have. Today all our institutions and processes are failing us. We have compromised each of them on their values, their robustness, their vision and their sense of fairplay. Now, at every crucial juncture we depend on random acts of individual excellence and courage to save the day. Great systems, triumphant societies, are veined with ladders of inspiration. Electrified by those above them, men strive to do their very best. Look around. How many constables, head constables, sub-inspectors would risk their lives for the dishonest, weak men they serve, who in turn serve even more compromised masters?

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Indian media: Probe deeper

Why can't the Indian media probe deeper into the claims made by Pakistani defence experts such as Hamid Zaid? Why should the media take everything coming from the Indian police sources and authorities as the only truth? We know how the police are capable of bending facts to fit to their narrative? We have seen it so many times. If Zaid is wrong, prove him wrong. Why can't the media explore the 7 points raised by Neelabh Mishra in Outlook?

Let me add one more point: Even before the boat that brought the terrorists to Mumbai was captured, Modi came out in front of the media and started telling the stories of Gujarat's boats being stolen/captured by Pakistani navy and being used for terror acts against India? Did he have prior information or was it the case of "chor ki dadhi me tinka?"

I am not interested in judging anybody but why can't the truth of explored further?

Defeat the tyranny of terror

We became the vicarious victims of terror for 60 hours while terror was let loose in Mumbai. The city was not virginal--hundreds had died there in various terrorist acts before. But the moment was—it became India’s 911.

After three days of fierce battling, the Indian commandos succeeded in ending the siege. Not just India, the whole world took a sigh of relief.

Shocked and grief stricken, people could begin to think of food and sleep. Some wiped the tears off their faces and decided to move on with life. Others seethed with anger—at the impotence of the system—a system that failed to protect citizens from repeated carnage of terror.

There was intelligence that warned the authorities of the impending attack. How could the system let such warning pass? Why did they not act in time?

Enough is enough, said angry citizens. We don’t want words, we want action, they demanded of the country’s leaders. Heads rolled, politicians at the state and union’s level resigned.

Meanwhile, after the 60 hours of live reporting, the media moved on the act II. There began the parade of armchair terror experts and page 3 personalities. Politicos were added to the combo to balance the debate on terror. The whole system was found guilty. And the attack’s culpability was thrown into the backyard of Pakistan where it always belongs.

While all this debate and shouting made good television, one thing was completely lost-- the message that the terrorists had brought with their bullets.

Global terror comes to India

Whatever group the Mumbai terrorists belonged to—Lashkar-e Toeba, Jaish-e Mohammad or Al Qaeda—the message was clear: global terror had come to India, as it had come to the UK and Pakistan, the allies of the global super power America.

This time it were not homegrown terrorists—Muslims or Hindus trapped in the cycle of communal vengeance—who had come, planted the bombs and melted away in the crowds. These were Al Qaeda style fidayeens (suicidal terrorists) who were there to create a spectacle, sure to get carried away on radio and television waves to the far corners of the world. They could not create another 911 in New York or Sydney or Shanghai because of the tight security in those cities, so they chose Mumbai—a soft target.

In other words, it was not national terror—it was global. Any country, any citizen was the target. That’s why they targeted the Americans, the British and the Israelis. That’s why a Singaporean became the first victim of global terror. Indians who were killed at the railway stations or other places were perhaps fodder to divert the attention of the police. This allowed the terrorists to take hostages at the tourist rich places—The Taj, Oberoi and the Nariman House.

And what did the terrorists rant about? The persecution of Muslims in India and the festering Kashmir problem. Stop persecuting Muslims in India, they told TV stations. They had no other demands.

It is not just about Kashmir or Pakistan

It were these demands, these assertions by the terrorists that got relatively suppressed in the media chatter about intelligence failure and government irresponsibility and body counts.

We all know that Kashmir, Afghanistan and Palestine conflicts are festering wounds that have bedeviled life and politics in South Asia and the Middle East. But why would the Muslims in India want ‘global terrorists’ to bring home the message of their persecution to the Indian government’s attention?

No matter what, Indian Muslims will never want any terrorist—domestic or international—to articulate their woes and tribulations. They can and they are fighting within the democratic system of India to right the perceived ‘wrongs’ done to them. And they are doing it along with millions of liberal Hindus who empathize with their problems.

That’s why, perhaps in a show of pop patriotism, Muslims of Mumbai refused to open the doors of their cemetery when the police sought to bury the bodies of the nine dead terrorists. These terrorists who killed innocent people cannot be Muslims, they argued.

The terrorists who came to fight in the name of Indian Muslims or Islam were not friends of Muslims or Islam. That’s why it is important to delink terror with Islam. Terrorism is terrorism. Period.

Islam as the only competing vision?

Why then the terrorists are playing this game? The Palestinians fight for Palestine, the Chechens for Chechnya, and the Kashmiris for Kashmir?

Then why are the ‘global terrorists’ bringing the ‘Jihadi’ fight to the country with the second largest population of Muslims in the world?

This is very important to understand as its implications will be grasped only in the next few decades.

As I have said before, this ‘global terrorism’ is not just about Kashmir or Palestine. It probably started from these grouses but I think the game plan has changed. Despite the efforts of Al Qaeda and its acolytes (whoever envisions the world domination of Islam and the end of the international system that we have now), majority of Muslims in the world have by and large remained peaceful. They have denounced the Jehadi elements, the misguided suicidal sickos that wage war with terror in the name of Islam.

The lack of Muslim response to their cause has made the ‘global terrorists’ desperate. In desperation, they have gone for a far more sinister plan—if you can’t alienate the Muslims for global Jihad, make everyone else hate the Muslims, then they themselves will get alienated. Make things so worse that everywhere people will begin to equate Islam with terror (a small example). Then Muslims will be cornered. Muslims then will have no choice but to get radicalized and that’s when the clash of civilizations will take place. Radical Islam against the capitalist-globalised-liberal democratic world—the world of pure Islam against the ‘consumption and fornication’ (Tariq Ali's formulation) fuelled world of the West and its satellite states. After all, other than Islam, which other world religion provides a banking, financial, moral and system of jurisprudence of its own?

This is the game plan now. And they are achieving this bit by bit, with every terror attack. The charge of terror is ionizing the populations—the poison is slowly spreading without people barely noticing the phenomenon.

The only way to defeat this ‘global Jehad’ is for ‘frightened’ people and governments to understand this game plan and take corrective measures.

As global terror expert Brian Michael Jenkins says, frightened populations are intolerant. They worry incessantly about subversion from within. In the case of India, it could mean the subversion by 150 million Muslims from within. In the case of USA, subversion by 5 million and in Europe’s case, subversion by 53 million Muslims, and so on. To make things worse, there already are active elements everywhere that demonize the Muslims as a community or are Islamophobic. They will act as the nature allies of the terrorists.

Security not an anti-dote to terror

To borrow another line from Jenkins, security is necessary but security alone is not an antidote to terror. It is imperative for governments to step up security and beef up intelligence gathering but more needs to be done.

There are already reports that the next 911 might be nuclear. Will terrorists go nuclear? Will they use biological or chemical weapons? Who knows but fear mongering always works. Even for terrorists, it is easier said than done. Kitchen table nuclear bombs are myths, as Jenkins says.

The bottom-line is that no amount of security or preparation can completely stop mad terrorists unleashing terror somewhere in the world. What we can and should do is to make our minds free of fear and prejudice and force our politicians to solve the festering wounds of the world, starting from our own country, to build a just world order. If we do that, ‘global terror’ of this nature will die its own death.

Let me finish my rant by quoting Jenkins from the last chapter of his book, Will Terrorists Go Nuclear? (Prometheus Books, 2008):

“We can behave like frightened sheep, content to fill our stomachs while we are herded about by terrorists and cynical politicians who chip away at our liberty. Or we can behave as citizens whose first mission is to defeat the tyranny of terror. If we value democracy, our choice is clear.”