Book Review: Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah

I first read this interesting novel on the Swahili coast in 2021. The novel covers various aspects of the history, customs and social life of the people living on the coast. Colonialism, racism, trade, merchants, colonizers, biases, politics, minority communities, education, orientalism, ignorance about oral communities and many other themes are discussed in this novel. I find the writing style of the novelist very different from what I have read before. 

Some of the chapters in the book are Hasan Ali, Fredrick, Pearce, Rehana, An Interruption, Amin and Rashid, Amin and Jamila, Rashid and Amin, and A Continuation. The setting of the novel is based in a small town along the coast from Mombasa. In 1899, when Hassanali sets out for the mosque he finds and exhausted Englishman. Hassanali rescues the man named Martin Pearce. Pearce recovers and visits Hassanali to thank him for help and support. There Pearce meets Rehana, the sister of Hassanali. Pearce finds her attractive and hence begins the love affair. This all happens on the brink of the twentieth century.

Some of the interesting sentences in the novel are:

• Happy to be disturbed (p. 49).
• Exaggerating his willingness to listen (p. 52).
• Left them bereft and disconsolate in unfamiliar silences (p. 64).
• When inspiration deserts you, it deserts you completely (p. 97).
• You are over-salting the dish (p. 139).
• Elysian pastures (p. 149).
• Knowledge sometimes obscures what was known before (p. 210).

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Book Review: What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response by Bernard Lewis

Islam was at the forefront of human achievement for many centuries. This included military and economic power in the world. Europe was considered as something from which there was nothing to learn or to fear from. Europe changed drastically- first on the battlefront and the marketplace. After that it progressed in every aspect of public and private life. Lewis tries to understand how things changed and how the West rose to dominate the rest. At some places in the book, Lewis writes in a very patronizing tone. The author explains how the Middle East turned its attention towards understanding European weaponry and military tactics, commerce, industry, government, diplomacy, education and culture.

Lewis writes about the differences between the Western and the Middle Eastern cultures from the 18th to the 20th centuries. He makes comparisons of themes related to music, arts, women, civil society and religion. He presents an account which helps in understanding the historical relationship between the Middle East and Europe. The author writes in the early 1600s the Persian won a number of successes against the Turks (p. 12). The Turks were ready to make peace. The Treaty of Carlowitz 1699 was of special importance as it was the first peace signed by a defeated Ottoman Empire with victories Christian adversaries (p. 18). Lewis states that Carlowitz  had two lessons. The first was military, defeat by a superior force. The second lesson was diplomatic- learnt from the process of negotiation (p. 19). For Ottomans philosophy was not useful, but history was.

In the 16th and 17th centuries Arabic Chairs were established in major European universities (p. 42). First the pasha of Egypt, then the sultan of Turkey and then the shah of Persia sent selected groups of students to London, Paris and elsewhere (p. 44). Young Ottomans persuaded the Sultan to proclaim a brand new constitution with the help of some pressure from the European powers (p. 58). There were constitutional revolutions in Persia in 1906 and in Turkey in 1908 (p. 60).

Lewis says that the title of ayatollahs of Iran is quite a modern times and unknown to classical Islamic history (p. 109). He also mentions about interesting examples of how cigarette was used to measure times, invention of sundial and water clock in the Middle East (p. 123). The writer also writes about crusades, Muslim and Christian methods of warfare, migration and government services, telegraph and the changes it brought, the notion of political freedom, money and power in the East and the West, Islamic egalitarianism, slaves in Islam, roots of secularism, separation of powers in Christianity, Jami's Frankish glasses from the 15th century, the notion of frontier and demarcation, Sultan Mahmud's help from abroad.

Further in the book the author writes about the translations in various languages, the three forms of cultural influence (visual, musical and literary), team sports, dinning and dancing. The West European empires taught their subjects English, French, and Dutch because they needed clerks in their offices and counting houses (p. 61). Lewis says that the most valued commodity brought from the East to Europe were slaves(p. 26). Slavery was abolished in Yemen and KSA in 1962 (p. 89).Coffee originally came from Ethiopia (p. 50). 

Bernard Lewis states that 'every dominant civilization has imposed its own modernity in its prime' (150). Printing, translation and newspapers accelerated the process of modernization (p. 50). Steamships, railways and building of road networks accelerated communication (p. 52). Clock, timetable and calendar were the instruments by which modernity was introduced (p. 131). Lewis says that the most powerful instrument of change in the whole process of modernization seems to have begun with railway (p. 130). Modernizers by reform or revolution concentrated their efforts in three main areas, which includes military, economic and political. 

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Book Review: Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

In the novel George Bowling is a forty-five years old man. He is married and has children. He works as an insurance salesman for a company. His worries include an expanding waistline, a new set of false teeth and a strong desire to escape his current life. George decides to return to his village life. When he gets there, things seem to have changes drastically. 

He fears the war in 1939, because he foresees food queues, soldiers, secret police and tyranny. The protagonist writes about his early life, things he wanted to do, family life, the food he ate, women, married life, his work, and nostalgia. At various instances in the book the author makes some really interesting descriptions. Orwell writes that 'human mind goes in jerks. There is no emotion that stays forever' (p. 194).

Some other expressions that he uses in the book are 'book-pipe-fire atmosphere', 'whipped-dog air that middle-aged businessmen always have', and 'the way small shopkeepers look at their customers- utter lack of interest.' 

Overall, the book is entertaining as Orwell's ironic humor keeps the reader engaged. I am sure that anyone reading Part IV of the book would find it really fascinating as it reminds the reader how the process of change never stops. It also brings to surface the adverse effects of urbanization on rural areas. 

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Book Review: Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia by Louise Brown

Louise Brown states that Japan forcefully recruited 100, 000 girls and women during World War II, as sex slaves. Most of them were Korean women (p. 8). She argues that prostitution is not just about poverty. It is a business founded upon all sorts of inequalities (p. 60). The author stresses that the sex slaves do not have a choice. They cannot resign because of poor working conditions and the unreasonable conduct of their employees and clients (p. 96). 

Writing about the whole sex business in Asia, the author writes that psychological conditioning is every bit as brutal as the physical coercion of girls and women into the trade. Sex workers are stripped of their previous identities and women who refuse are beaten, tortured and sometimes killed (p. 122). Companies in Japan treated their employees to annual sex tours to Korea, Thailand or the Philippines (p. 82). The author also establishes a link between the boom in the Cambodian sex industry and the 22,000 UN peace-keeping forces in the country during 1991-93 (p. 138).

Writing about the trends in South Asia, the author states Pakistan the internal trafficking of girls for prostitution is far more common than the trafficking of Bangladeshi, Indian and Afghani women (p. 63). The author mentions that the Japanese maybe the biggest spenders in the sex market but the Pakistanis are the biggest hypocrites (p. 152). Further in the book the author writes about the dominant mother complex, sadism in Japanese society, corruption in the Japanese immigration department, and the Japanese people (who consider themselves as the 'whites' of Asia).

As per the author, the Kandupatti brothel in Central Dhaka housed five hundred women and girls. It was established by the British during the colonial period (p. 166). The author also critiques the Sharia and considers it misogynist. Brown says that 'the institution of prostitution, the people who profit from it, and the men who enjoy it who deserve our unreserved condemnation (p. 246). In addition to that at another place the author stresses that 'prostitution has to be damned for the dehumanizing, woman-hating activity that it is (p. 255). She concludes that sex slaves are the intrinsic product of male-dominated Asian societies (p. 255). Both prostitution and traditional marriage can be interpreted as a continuation of a primitive form of human transaction whereby women exchange sex for food and protection (p. 129).

This book covers many stories from India, Pakistan, Burma, Japan, Nepal, China, Malaysia and Thailand. The author does not provide any detailed account of the connection between the institution of prostitution, colonized lands and the colonizers.

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