Yours was a thoughtful, insightful and enlightening essay, written from a perspective that exists forever outside of my realm of experience.
After I was done reading it, I went out into the garden as it was getting dark. I lit a disposable barbecue. After the flames died down, I tossed a couple of things on the flimsy grill. I sat down and I thought about your writing, and watched the squashed red and yellow constellations of the distant aircraft as they moved through the skies overhead. I can't remember the last time I sat alone and in silence, and simply thought about things. I should do it more often. I think I might be happier if I did.
The first time that I read a movie script (I believe it was 'Pulp Fiction') I was astonished by how spartan it was. I was expecting something with the density of a Shakespearean play, and it wasn't like that at all. I have since come to the realisation that movies are more than just words and images on a screen; that they braid together narratives framed in a myriad of different mediums. Recently I have become fascinated (to the point of hitting pause on the DVD remote) by set dressings – those rooms that have the superficial appearance of places where people have lived and worked, maybe for years, and yet none of it is real. Somebody on the production team thoughtfully positioned every object, both in and out of shot, and perhaps considered the history of each piece and its relevance to the characters occupying that space.
I moved through Yemen on my own, during the late 90s. I speed-read a Penguin translation of the Quran during the flight over. I don't think that you could still negotiate the country the way that I did back then, or whether you would even want to. If you could, then it would probably be harder now. You were supposed to obtain permits from the police prior to moving between the major towns. The soldiers/tribesmen would ask you for the paperwork at the checkpoints, which were usually little more than tied together sections of old rope, strung across the road, between pairs of oil drums. You could plead ignorance and they would usually allow you through, with a few notable exceptions. You weren't getting anywhere near Marib without a formal nod of the head.
I had acquired a revolver for protection from the local wildlife. There are roving dog packs and they are very dangerous. I had haggled for the gun in one of the villages outside of Sana'a while sitting on a metal crate that was filled with hand grenades. While I was in Yemen, I was not in a good frame of mind. I was frequently high on a natural amphetamine called Qat – the cheap and nasty variety that would make your throat bleed. On occasion I was also drunk. One evening I sat on the end of the bed in my hotel room. I loaded the gun and put it in my mouth with the barrel pointed upward. I had no intention of pulling the trigger. I wanted to see what it was like to be poised on the brink, but it was an empty gesture. I was a walking disaster of a human being. In common with many other walking human disasters, I was invulnerable. Before I left the country, I dismantled the revolver and buried the parts in different places. I haven't fired a gun since then, and I don't imagine that I ever will again.
On paper, Yemen had been unified in 1990. The friends that I made still separated the country into the relatively liberal south and the hardline conservative north. Ironically, while I was there, it was in the liberal south, in Abyan, where a large group of foreign tourists were taken captive and later killed, either by their kidnappers, or in the crossfire between the terrorists and the army. It was an early manifestation of al-Qaeda, a couple of years before the bombing of the USS Cole, in Aden Harbour, and everything that came after that.
I have often wondered if the people who died were from one of the tour groups who I would sometimes see climbing out of SUVs and then walking aimlessly up and down a street, too nervous to take a seat in one of the cafes. There is a misconception that a man bearing a talismanic Kalashnikov will keep you safe under such circumstances. In truth it is your fellow travellers from the area, with whom you drink tea and converse, who offer you your best hope against those who wish to cause you harm. Better to make your own way, rather than under the banner of a tour group.
There was a general assumption that, if you were a westerner, and not a Muslim, then you must be a Christian. The idea that you might be an atheist was apparently too implausible a thing to contemplate. Informing someone that you didn't care either way was very likely an anathema. In Yemen, and in other similar places, for the sake of simplicity I became an honorary Christian.
When I was wandering around in Dankalia, in Eritrea, I played a taped copy of the song 'Blues For Allah' by The Grateful Dead to a group of tribesmen. I was interested in what their reactions would be. A man who I was travelling with provided a translation of the lyrics which I recited, and which occasionally appeared to spark conversation, though I was not party to it.
In the desert, where the mosques are often little more than low circular walls of mud brick, indistinguishable, from a distance, from the surrounding landscape, something peculiar seems to happen to Islam. It becomes less a religion and more a credo; something that is inseparable from day to day life. I would very much like to exist in such a manner, in unobtrusive harmony with whatever god will have me, and with nature, and the banal minutiae of my cloistered existence. Unfortunately, I don't think I have it in me.
My experience in Ceylon was as an attractive 10 year old with long blonde hair, desperate for the lavatory I was taken to an old Colonial building which had a long straight stair case leading up from the front door, at the top of which was a man in a yelllabir and a Fez jumping up and down shouting at our guide..." no child no child no child " I was eventually allowed up the stairs and past a hallway with a settee upon which sat men and women cuddling and canoodling....of course I learned years later , it was a Brothel. However, during the rest of our tour around the town , both myself and my other friend Marie, were at times fondled and felt up by various local males who my mother glared at and ran from pulling us by our hands as fast as she could......ahhhh....memories......
Sam Redlark. Absolutely fascinating. You are indeed a storyteller and for all I know already a well known author. Excellent writing. Your observations about tour groups in such places rings so logical! Like yes! Why didn’t I think of that? Though I believe my gut already did. If you are not already, keep writing do you will not despair.
I really like these "essays"...nobody writes about all this stuff, in this way. I bought the "Laundrette" screenplay, and the essay at the front was ahead of its time - The Rainbow Sign ...the title referencing Baldwin...if memory serves me. Amazing stuff!
What a beautifully written piece. I admire your analysis and attempt to humanise even the most fundamentalist Islamists, who would gladly kill us atheist ‘infidels.’
It’s interesting as a middle-aged person looking back on the evolution of ideas and political movements. My parents are both Iranian and I was born in Teheran and lived there until I was 6.5. My parents were both very westernised, my father, having done a degree and PhD at University College London, and my mother one at Columbia Uni, NY. My dad had been a Communist when he was young and he always longed for a liberal socialist democratic government in Iran because he had witnessed the excesses and corruption of The Shah.
When he first heard about Khomeini, he said to his three children ‘ look how humble this man is, instead of living in a palace, he lives in a tiny place outside Paris, and lives on bread and cheese.’
But this demonstrated how illusionary first impressions can be. Because Iran was secular, it never crossed either of my parents’ minds that it might become a theocracy, and worse, a murderous one.
From his high hopes, my father’s dreams came crashing down. He would sit in his office chain-smoking as he watched on TV what was happening in Iran. He had always been for education and was an atheist like me, he couldn’t believe that the Revolution stole the rights of women and murdered the intelligentsia. I was too young to ask him then, but I know he would have been disgusted by the wave of antisemitism and intolerance of opposition.
My father became less of a socialist and more of someone who believed in hard work and enjoying the fruits of that work. But he never lost his humanity or his wish to reduce the chasm between rich and poor that was present during the Shah’s time.
And yes, living with the dual desires of your parents can rip a person apart. My brother and I were lucky, we were academic, but my artistic and musical sister wasn’t, and struggled to cope with the middle-class Asian emphasis on good academic grades and the oft-repeated mantra ‘you can be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or an architect.’ My parents had been at war since the three of us had been small children, now they vied for my sister, with my mother, allowing her 14-year-old daughter to stay out all night and bring boyfriends home and smoke cannabis in her room in order to spite my father. This is the way human casualties develop.
I think that the reason why Asian fathers so often value academic achievement in their children is because they have seen the differences between the wealthy and the poor in their countries, and know that the professions like medicine and law are more financially secure than the arts. And yet for a rounded world, we need both science and arts. could we have a world without visual arts, fiction, film, theatre?
I am an unpaid person on here and in the light of your writings - which are headed at the paid people, quite rightly as this is the very support you need - it values your writing. This is the marketplace, and I have come here with nothing. All that to one side, I did get some of what you say -especially how the fundamental religious view took hold so well. No wonder I find the Ottoman empire so enthralling. But your intelligence on all of it, it is quite something. I am awestruck. lots of good wishes Maddi from the little village in deepest North Yorkshire.x
Dear Hanif, thank you for this essay! It addresses so many of the aspects and questions my students raised and discussed in my class about your plays and scripts. What we all found fascinating - and I still do - is your ability to anticipate, as early as the 1980s, what would become a shocking 'new reality' for many people in the West with the events of 9/11 or 7 July 2005.
The fact that you addressed the ideology of fundamentalist Islam in 'The Black Album' or in your amazing film 'My Son the Fanatic' years before the first terrorist attacks, can possibly only be explained by what Shelley called the prophetic vision of poets. And these artistic visions and voices are needed today more than ever.
How do you do it? Explain the grip of fundamentalism in such a way that it suddenly makes perfect sense to a - I guess- “Christian atheist!” Reading this was like, oh! Now I get it! Of course I cannot judge the verity of your analysis of Pakistani society, but you are utterly convincing. Yes HK, I am a fan. Thank you.
I’ve also never heard the phrase “Muslim atheist”. But there is a long tradition of Jewish atheists. There are probably many Muslim atheists in the closet; it would be possibly a dangerous thing to admit to.
You have the most remarkable way of putting things. Thank you for your sharp intellect and generous heart.
Yours was a thoughtful, insightful and enlightening essay, written from a perspective that exists forever outside of my realm of experience.
After I was done reading it, I went out into the garden as it was getting dark. I lit a disposable barbecue. After the flames died down, I tossed a couple of things on the flimsy grill. I sat down and I thought about your writing, and watched the squashed red and yellow constellations of the distant aircraft as they moved through the skies overhead. I can't remember the last time I sat alone and in silence, and simply thought about things. I should do it more often. I think I might be happier if I did.
The first time that I read a movie script (I believe it was 'Pulp Fiction') I was astonished by how spartan it was. I was expecting something with the density of a Shakespearean play, and it wasn't like that at all. I have since come to the realisation that movies are more than just words and images on a screen; that they braid together narratives framed in a myriad of different mediums. Recently I have become fascinated (to the point of hitting pause on the DVD remote) by set dressings – those rooms that have the superficial appearance of places where people have lived and worked, maybe for years, and yet none of it is real. Somebody on the production team thoughtfully positioned every object, both in and out of shot, and perhaps considered the history of each piece and its relevance to the characters occupying that space.
I moved through Yemen on my own, during the late 90s. I speed-read a Penguin translation of the Quran during the flight over. I don't think that you could still negotiate the country the way that I did back then, or whether you would even want to. If you could, then it would probably be harder now. You were supposed to obtain permits from the police prior to moving between the major towns. The soldiers/tribesmen would ask you for the paperwork at the checkpoints, which were usually little more than tied together sections of old rope, strung across the road, between pairs of oil drums. You could plead ignorance and they would usually allow you through, with a few notable exceptions. You weren't getting anywhere near Marib without a formal nod of the head.
I had acquired a revolver for protection from the local wildlife. There are roving dog packs and they are very dangerous. I had haggled for the gun in one of the villages outside of Sana'a while sitting on a metal crate that was filled with hand grenades. While I was in Yemen, I was not in a good frame of mind. I was frequently high on a natural amphetamine called Qat – the cheap and nasty variety that would make your throat bleed. On occasion I was also drunk. One evening I sat on the end of the bed in my hotel room. I loaded the gun and put it in my mouth with the barrel pointed upward. I had no intention of pulling the trigger. I wanted to see what it was like to be poised on the brink, but it was an empty gesture. I was a walking disaster of a human being. In common with many other walking human disasters, I was invulnerable. Before I left the country, I dismantled the revolver and buried the parts in different places. I haven't fired a gun since then, and I don't imagine that I ever will again.
On paper, Yemen had been unified in 1990. The friends that I made still separated the country into the relatively liberal south and the hardline conservative north. Ironically, while I was there, it was in the liberal south, in Abyan, where a large group of foreign tourists were taken captive and later killed, either by their kidnappers, or in the crossfire between the terrorists and the army. It was an early manifestation of al-Qaeda, a couple of years before the bombing of the USS Cole, in Aden Harbour, and everything that came after that.
I have often wondered if the people who died were from one of the tour groups who I would sometimes see climbing out of SUVs and then walking aimlessly up and down a street, too nervous to take a seat in one of the cafes. There is a misconception that a man bearing a talismanic Kalashnikov will keep you safe under such circumstances. In truth it is your fellow travellers from the area, with whom you drink tea and converse, who offer you your best hope against those who wish to cause you harm. Better to make your own way, rather than under the banner of a tour group.
There was a general assumption that, if you were a westerner, and not a Muslim, then you must be a Christian. The idea that you might be an atheist was apparently too implausible a thing to contemplate. Informing someone that you didn't care either way was very likely an anathema. In Yemen, and in other similar places, for the sake of simplicity I became an honorary Christian.
When I was wandering around in Dankalia, in Eritrea, I played a taped copy of the song 'Blues For Allah' by The Grateful Dead to a group of tribesmen. I was interested in what their reactions would be. A man who I was travelling with provided a translation of the lyrics which I recited, and which occasionally appeared to spark conversation, though I was not party to it.
In the desert, where the mosques are often little more than low circular walls of mud brick, indistinguishable, from a distance, from the surrounding landscape, something peculiar seems to happen to Islam. It becomes less a religion and more a credo; something that is inseparable from day to day life. I would very much like to exist in such a manner, in unobtrusive harmony with whatever god will have me, and with nature, and the banal minutiae of my cloistered existence. Unfortunately, I don't think I have it in me.
My experience in Ceylon was as an attractive 10 year old with long blonde hair, desperate for the lavatory I was taken to an old Colonial building which had a long straight stair case leading up from the front door, at the top of which was a man in a yelllabir and a Fez jumping up and down shouting at our guide..." no child no child no child " I was eventually allowed up the stairs and past a hallway with a settee upon which sat men and women cuddling and canoodling....of course I learned years later , it was a Brothel. However, during the rest of our tour around the town , both myself and my other friend Marie, were at times fondled and felt up by various local males who my mother glared at and ran from pulling us by our hands as fast as she could......ahhhh....memories......
Many wonderful things here, Sam
Sam Redlark. Absolutely fascinating. You are indeed a storyteller and for all I know already a well known author. Excellent writing. Your observations about tour groups in such places rings so logical! Like yes! Why didn’t I think of that? Though I believe my gut already did. If you are not already, keep writing do you will not despair.
I really like these "essays"...nobody writes about all this stuff, in this way. I bought the "Laundrette" screenplay, and the essay at the front was ahead of its time - The Rainbow Sign ...the title referencing Baldwin...if memory serves me. Amazing stuff!
I like this piece very much. It's so resonant, so detailed and valuable. I shall read it again.
What a beautifully written piece. I admire your analysis and attempt to humanise even the most fundamentalist Islamists, who would gladly kill us atheist ‘infidels.’
It’s interesting as a middle-aged person looking back on the evolution of ideas and political movements. My parents are both Iranian and I was born in Teheran and lived there until I was 6.5. My parents were both very westernised, my father, having done a degree and PhD at University College London, and my mother one at Columbia Uni, NY. My dad had been a Communist when he was young and he always longed for a liberal socialist democratic government in Iran because he had witnessed the excesses and corruption of The Shah.
When he first heard about Khomeini, he said to his three children ‘ look how humble this man is, instead of living in a palace, he lives in a tiny place outside Paris, and lives on bread and cheese.’
But this demonstrated how illusionary first impressions can be. Because Iran was secular, it never crossed either of my parents’ minds that it might become a theocracy, and worse, a murderous one.
From his high hopes, my father’s dreams came crashing down. He would sit in his office chain-smoking as he watched on TV what was happening in Iran. He had always been for education and was an atheist like me, he couldn’t believe that the Revolution stole the rights of women and murdered the intelligentsia. I was too young to ask him then, but I know he would have been disgusted by the wave of antisemitism and intolerance of opposition.
My father became less of a socialist and more of someone who believed in hard work and enjoying the fruits of that work. But he never lost his humanity or his wish to reduce the chasm between rich and poor that was present during the Shah’s time.
And yes, living with the dual desires of your parents can rip a person apart. My brother and I were lucky, we were academic, but my artistic and musical sister wasn’t, and struggled to cope with the middle-class Asian emphasis on good academic grades and the oft-repeated mantra ‘you can be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or an architect.’ My parents had been at war since the three of us had been small children, now they vied for my sister, with my mother, allowing her 14-year-old daughter to stay out all night and bring boyfriends home and smoke cannabis in her room in order to spite my father. This is the way human casualties develop.
I think that the reason why Asian fathers so often value academic achievement in their children is because they have seen the differences between the wealthy and the poor in their countries, and know that the professions like medicine and law are more financially secure than the arts. And yet for a rounded world, we need both science and arts. could we have a world without visual arts, fiction, film, theatre?
Last line should be ‘How could we...’ - it’s a rhetorical question, not one that seriously considers life without art!
I am an unpaid person on here and in the light of your writings - which are headed at the paid people, quite rightly as this is the very support you need - it values your writing. This is the marketplace, and I have come here with nothing. All that to one side, I did get some of what you say -especially how the fundamental religious view took hold so well. No wonder I find the Ottoman empire so enthralling. But your intelligence on all of it, it is quite something. I am awestruck. lots of good wishes Maddi from the little village in deepest North Yorkshire.x
Beautifully written, incisive insights. Thank you for sharing so much food for thought.
The void where Marxism should be has a lot to answer for
Dear Hanif, thank you for this essay! It addresses so many of the aspects and questions my students raised and discussed in my class about your plays and scripts. What we all found fascinating - and I still do - is your ability to anticipate, as early as the 1980s, what would become a shocking 'new reality' for many people in the West with the events of 9/11 or 7 July 2005.
The fact that you addressed the ideology of fundamentalist Islam in 'The Black Album' or in your amazing film 'My Son the Fanatic' years before the first terrorist attacks, can possibly only be explained by what Shelley called the prophetic vision of poets. And these artistic visions and voices are needed today more than ever.
I’ve shared this. It’s brilliant.
I loved The Black Album and My Son the Fanatic including the film both funny and very melancholic with fab acting and music. I also found this which is interesting https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwkcj1IMRck/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==
Great to hear you’re now able to be home 🏡
Some of your most beautiful work. Thank you.
Brilliant, incisive, and spare.
Superb.
How do you do it? Explain the grip of fundamentalism in such a way that it suddenly makes perfect sense to a - I guess- “Christian atheist!” Reading this was like, oh! Now I get it! Of course I cannot judge the verity of your analysis of Pakistani society, but you are utterly convincing. Yes HK, I am a fan. Thank you.
Brilliant and enlightening article.
I’ve also never heard the phrase “Muslim atheist”. But there is a long tradition of Jewish atheists. There are probably many Muslim atheists in the closet; it would be possibly a dangerous thing to admit to.