God of Hunger Read online

  ‘Pan-Islamism, my dear students. That is the aim. The dream, which started with that self same war we have introduced into our minds tonight.’

  ‘In 1914, the Ottoman government called upon its subjects to engage in jihad against the Imperialists: France and Britain. The Ottoman army was very successful until 1916. With Arab support, the Turks mounted attacks on Egypt, stopped the British advance north of Basra and inflicted a major blow upon the British in the Dardanelles. The call also created the Khalifate movement in India. All this from the war.’

  ‘The Arab revolt, too, was launched in 1914. It was orchestrated by Hussayn, the Sharif of Makkah and leader of the Hashemites of the Hijaz, and supported by Britain, the southern revolt aimed to liberate the Arab lands from the Turk and to establish an independent state with Husayn as Khalifa of the world of Sunni Islam.’

  ‘The Arab armies reached Damascus. But their dreams of an Arab Kingdom were shattered by the British and the French who partitioned the Arab lands of the empire in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 and with the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which provided the Zionists with a clear option for a homeland in Palestine. All this before the war had ended.’

  ‘The so-called peace-makers in Paris began their work in January 1919 and from the start they were besieged: Armenians, Greeks, Zionists, Iranians, Arabs and Turks were all engaged in lobbying their particular cause in the process of peacemaking.

  The Turks rejected the peace treaty and sought help, like the Iranians, from the new Bolshevik government in Russia. Here was support for our cause!’

  ‘Lenin had called upon Muslims everywhere to rise against their European rulers. But to the West, it was of great importance to show that this would not occur. None must try and emulate the Ottomans. Pan-Islamism was to be stopped by the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. How? By invoking the principle of Nationalism. By the creation of small national states which could provide a basis for continued influence of the European powers because these states could hardly stand alone. Divide and rule!'

  ‘We witness riots, strikes, demonstrations, rural revolts. Inter-communal violence was widespread throughout the former Ottoman Empire from 1918 to 1920. In Turkey proper, the military leadership of Ataturk and the help of the USSR secured Turkish state interests against Greeks and Armenians and Kurds. In Egypt there followed serious revolts in the urban and rural areas in 1919-20, which resulted in the British surrender of the protectorate over Egypt.’

  ‘In the north, the division of Greater Syria between the French and the British served to produce revolts in Syria and in Palestine, in which Christians and Jews were targets, as well as the Europeans, and the arrival of a southern Arab army in Transjordan, led by Abdallah, son of the Sharif of Makkah served to increase such tensions.

  These crises in Greater Syria coincided with revolts in Iraq in 1920.

  While these were being violently suppressed - as were those in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine - the British secured the position of King for Faysal in Iraq and for Abdallah in Transjordan. This greatly distressed Husayn in the Hijaz who regarded himself as the ruler of both states - until the Hijaz was invaded by the Saudis in 1924-25.The Saudis now controlled Makkah and Medinah after 1926 and gave their name to Saudi Arabia in 1932.’

  ‘The point I am making is that despite promises of a united Arab kingdom with its capital in Damascus, the policies of divide and rule by the British, French served only to advance their oil interests in the area; in 1929, the Iraq Petroleum Co. was formed and it incorporated the existing British oil interests in Iraq, which supplied most of British oil exports from the Middle East by 1939.

  During this time attention focused on Palestine a declaration was made that Palestine would remain an Arab state and Jewish immigration would be restricted and eventually terminated. Why was this said? Because of the war. What was now required was Muslim loyalty and Muslim soldiers.’

  ‘The war over, in April 1947, Britain handed Palestine to the UNO, whose decision to partition the area intensified Arab-Jewish violence, as the British withdrew. And on May 14, 1948 the state of Israel declared its existence. It spelt disaster for the Arabs because the declaration of an independent Israel was recognized not only by the USA but also by the USSR. War followed between Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and the new state of Israel. It continues, in one order of battle or another, to this day.’

  *

  The question and answer session which followed revealed to Theo the most popular concern in the minds of the majority of the audience. The young especially kept asking about Palestine and how to right the wrongs wrought upon their brethren by Israel and its sponsors.

  Theo felt clearly that this history was not his.

  Drawn to these people by their friendliness, their gentle animation and well argued thinking, Theo nevertheless realized that his cause was different. That evening he excused himself and left the meeting heading for the Greek club in central Dar-es-Salaam.

  *

  As he walked back to the Faramdoulas’ house, Theo contrasted the light banter and easy laughter of his compatriots with the weightier intellectual arousal the Doctor had stimulated in him through his Islamic perspective on history. The Doctor’s talks made him want to know more. But not their more. His more. He too wanted a cause. But what was it to be?

  Education at school had been a comparatively arid affair. He now wanted to travel. To meet more people, from different walks of life, from different countries, different religions. He wanted to watch and to listen. To make up his own mind. To draw on a deep well of knowledge, just like the Doctor. To connect and interconnect and develop his own arguments. He wanted tonight’s elation to last and last, for the ricochet of ideas in his mind to never end.

  What was it he had overheard at the door of the committee room at the Club on the way to the toilet? Something about the need to form a new political party. That was the telling shot as he lay down to sleep.

  *

  The next morning the Doctor did not go to work. His appointment with the First Minister, or rather, the First Minister’s appointment with his physician, had in any event been cancelled in favour of one the following week.

  Instead he waited for his guest on the verandah. Theo eventually emerged from his room. He said a gruff ‘Good Morning.’ No point in being too polite. He felt he had stayed too long.

  ‘My friend. I am sorry. I thought that you, as a budding historian and statesman would be interested in what I was saying last evening. Tell me why you are not. Please sit and tell me while the Mpishi makes you breakfast.’

  Theo was wary of speaking. Was he to share his very new feelings? He sat and looked his host in the eye taking a stab towards the truth. “It is all too different for me and I do not agree with much of what you are saying. And why you are saying it? I am an admirer of America. Where would we be without them? And what harm have the British really done that we should be critical of them?’

  The Doctor smiled. Paused to answer. Stood up and walked into the house with an excuse me to his guest and returned with four slender volumes.

  ‘Theo. Just listen to these few words: Imperialism is, was, a long term poison. My aim is to find an antidote. I want us to move forward with new ways of living together. Just look at this set of readings. They are from books I have collected over time. The readings illustrate the greatest of all evils in relations between peoples of different colours and cultures. It is the poison called prejudice; racial prejudice.’

  ‘From the late 19C. To this day, racial prejudice is much in evidence in European perceptions of non-Europeans, identified as Black, Brown or Yellow, especially in relations between Europeans and non-Europeans in the imperial and colonial context. The following selection of quotations is taken from British authors’ perceptions of Africa and Africans. They range chronologically from the mid nineteenth century to the nineteen fifties. Please cast an eye over the portions I have identified with bookmarks.”

  Theo looked
up at the Doctor and said, “Okay. I intend to clear my mind by going for a swim. I will read what you have given me on the beach.

  *

  True to his word he found the passages:

  ‘Looking back for a moment over this great Central African city, it is quite impossible to divest one's mind of the history of the past - and so, one pauses. How different is the Uganda of to-day to that of thirty years ago! The bitter controversies and the savage persecutions of those early days have almost faded away and are now scarcely remembered, while all visible trace of them has vanished; for Uganda has passed through its fiery ordeal and has come out safely on the other side. The dark days are behind, and those who remember them prefer not to dwell upon their horrors, but to look forward to the bright prospects ahead, with ever-increasing eagerness - for the dawn has come.

  We are thankful for the government by which laws are made, based upon purity and uprightness, and that tend to uplift the greatest of Central African people; and for the wise administration which not only helps the Uganda native to work honestly for his living, but also keeps the country at rest from wars and strife that hitherto have made Africa so dark. But best of all, we are thankful for the British flag that flutters over every outpost in the country, ensuring the blessings of peace, prosperity and religious liberty to all under its sway.’

  *

  ‘I have performed a most unpleasant duty today. I made a night march to the village at the edge of forest where the white settler had been so brutally murdered the day before yesterday. Though the war drums were sounding throughout the night we reached the village without incident and surrounded it. By the light of fires we could see savages dancing in the village, and our guides assured me that they were dancing round the mutilated body of the white man.

  I gave orders that every living thing except children should be killed without mercy. I hated the work and was anxious to get through with it. So soon as we could see to shoot we closed in. Several of the men tried to break out but were immediately shot. I then assaulted the place before any defence could be prepared. Every soul was either shot or bayoneted, and I am happy to say that no children were in the village. They, with the younger women, had already been removed by the villagers to the forest. We burned all the huts and razed the banana plantations to the ground.

  In the open space in the centre of the village was a sight which horrified me - a naked white man pegged out on his back, mutilated and disembowelled, his body used as a latrine by all and sundry who passed by. We washed his corpse in a stream and buried him just outside the village. The whole of this affair took so short a time that the sun was barely up before we beat a retreat to our main camp.

  My drastic action on this occasion haunted me for many years, and even now I am not sure whether I was right. My reason for killing all adults, including women, was that the latter had been the main instigators of not only the murder but the method of death, and it was the women who had befouled the corpse after death....’

  *

  ‘My opinion of him, the East African native is that as long as he is ignorant he makes a good servant. I mean ignorant from the point of view of book learning. He, the Swahili native, very quickly learns to wash clothes, iron, make beds and clean boots. He is clean in his habits and looks A.1. in his long, white kanzu and white cap, as contrasted with his shiny, black face. But if once you joke with him, or allow him the slightest liberty, he is ruined; he will steal and lie and generally be only fit for his discharge...I wish you could see a battalion of King's African Rifles, they are magnificent, all strapping great niggers with European officers.”

  *

  “He introduced himself as Captain MacTavish, and took me along to the officers' mess tent, where an African was busy laying the table for lunch. As he was the first of my own Africans that I met, I examined the specimen closely.

  He was very black. That was the first thing I noticed. And very healthy-looking and shiny. He had a fat, rather jolly face and looked intelligent.

  But the main impression remaining in my mind was one of extreme blackness. I felt surprised as I saw him putting the white cloth on the table that the black of his hands did not transfer itself to the material. I must freely admit that his blackness oppressed me. It seemed to make him different. Africans have told me since that the first white man they meet affects them in much the same way. They feel that there is something unwholesome and unnatural about the pinky-yellow-whiteness of his skin. So far as I was concerned the unfavourable reaction to blackness lasted a very short time. Later on the blackness or brownness came to seem as good and proper as the shades of white, pink, yellow and purple affected by Europeans. In fact, at one time, when for a period I mixed very little with white men, it began to seem to me when I went to Cairo for a visit that it was the white man who looked a queer colour.

  This first African, however, looked very black to me. I still simply could not visualize the forming of any bonds of sympathy with such as he, and without bonds of sympathy the relationship of any army officer with his men is as unsatisfactory as any other human relationship.”

  *

  “Yes. Okay,” thought Theo. On the farms the old man called many an African Sura la Weeno (Ink Face) and he used the phrase himself. So what? As for the Kenya episode, stuff like that also happened during Mau Mau. Okay, this stuff chimed in with what Misha had said to him … but what exactly was Dr. Faramdoula getting at?’

  The answer soon came when Theo returned from the sea to the house. After dinner he told the Doctor that he found the passages not at all shocking. That is how things were.

  The Doctor looked startled. ‘How can you say such a thing? Young man, our country is heading for self-rule with a great burden of illness. An illness of the mind. Of the European mind. We must cure it or else the future looks bleak. You are here as our guest because we think that you will go far in this new world. Certainly your father will. He is a good man, a force for cohesion. To us he is a hero. We know of his writing to Colonel Nasser upon the victory of Suez. And to do so in the purest Arabic! My dear Theo he is a wonderful asset. You must follow in his footsteps. I want you to influence his thinking further by what I am attempting to teach. Let me repeat to you the most important points.”

  “No really. My mind is full to bursting point.”

  “Theo please. Please. You are free to go, of course. But for the sake of our friendship hear me out.”

  Flames still danced in Theo’s mind. He could hardly refuse this kind and civilized dispenser of generous hospitality. He was leaving them. An hour or so would not hurt. So he sat back in the chair and smiled.

  “Thank you Theo. This, I promise, is my last parable for you. … The Doctor paused to collect his thoughts and said:

  ‘Our faith is strong. And one day we shall prevail. Not only through jihad. But mainly

  through our peaceful principles.

  Theo, I will reveal to you something about me that only my wife knows. The faith into which I was born is not Islam but Bahai. In public I am a Muslim. More than that. We are a family that, in public, attempts, by example, to straddle the Islamic divide between Shia and Sunni. But in private I am a Bahai. It is a belief in universal peace and harmony; nothing more, nothing less. But my private faith lacks the political power of Islam; that is why, in public, I am a Muslim. It has enormous power; there is no greater force for unity in the world than that of Islam; no other faith is as powerful. And what are its forces?’

  ‘Firstly a belief, as with yourselves, in 'One God, One Book, One Prophet' Your Issa is revered by us too, not as a son of God, but as a Prophet in line behind Ahmed. As stated in the Quran, the Holy Book of the One God as revealed to the last of the Prophets, Muhammad, in 610. …’

  ‘Secondly we have Sharia; the Islamic Law. Sharia derives from the Quran and from the Life of the Prophet as recorded in Hadith, the traditions, and the Sunna, the customs.’ ‘Acceptance of these has served to identify the Sunni Muslims who form 90% of the Umma.
Four 'schools' of Sunni Muslim law are followed and differentiated according to region (Maliki in North and West Africa; Hanifi in the Ottoman and Mughal imperial lands; Shafi here in East Africa, parts of Arabia and South-East Asia; Hanbali in Saudi Arabia.’

  ‘Thirdly we have the Five Pillars of Islam: the declaration of Faith; the daily prayers; the period of fasting; the payment of alms; the pilgrimage.’

  ‘Other integrative factors, other things that unite us, include the Arabic language in which your father excels; the elementary and higher educational system; the legal system with its Sharia courts, officials, qadis, and scholars, ulama; the traditions associated with education, pilgrimage and trade served to link Muslim communities.’

  ‘Theo, I want to start a political movement, here in Dar-es-Salaam, here on the Swahili coast, here amongst the Muslim majority. I shall incorporate what I have said to you about the Umma into a political programme based on the Swahili equivalent of Ujamma: brotherhood, community, caring for our society from within. I have no wish to compete with TANU. Rather I intend that the party incorporate our movement’s ideas. I want your father’s help in achieving this. He is close to the leadership. Please intercede on our behalf. What say you?”