Dodging bullets and filling holes

Evolution of the mind is a beautiful thing to behold. While reading The Museum of Innocence last week sometime, I was mesmerized by the layers of expressiveness, the obsessive, deep emotion, the frivolous made real in so many ways. Orhan Pamuk's writing can be easily put down for another day, or drowned in so totally that the rest of the world of work is reduced to background noise. Please note spoiler alerts from here onward, for if you plan on reading the book!

And so, the reason for my having bought and read this book on a whim quickly revealed itself to me. You see, while reading the book, I was taken by the idea that I could, after what seemed like ages, read a book just for the fun of it.
But then, I got to the latter chapters and was treated to the conversation between the author and the protagonist. And I was completely blown away. I realised then, that this was no mere coincidence. I was certainly not just reading this book for the fun of it!

This book turned uncanny in it's message to me. It was also rather unpredictable.

Readers of this blog will know that along with the courses that I present, I have been engaged in the research and write-up of a political biography over the past two years. This means that I have had the honour of meeting and interviewing some interested veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle; various gregarious and surreal personalities from around the world, Paris, the UK, South Africa and India.
The journey has been hugely satisfactory for the most part; a delight in many ways.
But I've said this to a few friends, that the writing of biography also feels on some days like a project of dodging bullets and filling holes. I know - it sounds a lot dodgier when it's said that way. It's not a literal exposition at all. But it's every bit as crazed and meandering as its meant to sound.

Until I read this book, that is. Orhan Pamuk's written conversation with his protagonist, Kemal Basmaci, is for me as a biographer, ultimately revelatory and highlights the many features of the biographical process and the importance of giving it authentic subject voice.

And many things regarding the telling of the tale; defining the idea that it's easy to want to write 'everything' that gets dumped in your lap. That there are many people who are loathe to the idea that much will be revealed therein, details which they had hoped would never see the light of day. [Some will go to lengths to make sure this status quo remains unaltered.] That there are some who will make fraudulent claims to history, when in fact they were never really at the front line, as the unsung heroes really were. There are many who will have the story from their viewpoint. And then, there is the view of the protagonist. And this is all that matters. In this way, the biographer's job is made clear cut, if not simpler.

I learned these things from Orhan Pamuk.
And I think that the path has been cleared for me to go on.

Everything for a reason, then. No coincidences, only plan.

S

Say You're One of Them...

Book Review: 'Say You're One of Them' (Abacus, 2008) by Uwem Akpan.

We make easy associations of images with the stereotypes and myths that have come to be a part of how we make sense of society. Social divisions, national identity or age have come to be markers of behaviour and the way we relate to each other. So when we think of childhood, we have at least some amount of sweet, fantastical memory attached to it. The memory of being a child certainly would have held some moments of pleasure. So it might come as a spoke in the movie reel to digest the idea that childhood is a commodity in Africa. And Uwem Akpan brings this idea to life in his bestselling book ‘Say You’re One of Them’.

Never have my notions of identity and society been as steeply challenged as they have been on reading this beautifully orchestrated telling of story, this compelling oratory. Because that is what a book like ‘Say You’re One of Them’ must be described as. The words don’t just sit there, lame, impotent as letters on a page might be expected to; they jump up at you and dare you to piece the puzzle together, they dare you to drink in the images that are revealed of Africa’s brutality towards the most innocent fruit of her womb. The children of Africa.

Akpans anthology of five stories take us on an armchair travel from Kenya to Benin, than onward through Ethiopia, Nigeria and finally, Rwanda. And along this journey, the reader is held at the edge of the armchair rather than calmly settled into it. The stories are striking in their detail. Akpan makes no apology for revealing to the sanitised reader what life in Africa demands of its children.

We continue to insist that greed and survival are two vastly different concepts, and yet when we are made to see how they collide and bring the face of humanity to commit up until now, unspeakably inhumane things, then we are forced to realise the reality of childhood in a continent weighed down by inequality, unrest and all things antithetical to a natural way of being.

Uwem Akpan reveals this as his intention early on, and with little effort. And his methods vary: in each of the stories he is able to bring to the narrative the flavour and tone of the original language, be they indigenous African languages or the tongue of the colonial French. He takes this method further in his display of language as beyond the realm of just words and geography.

From the outset, this tapestry of stories expects you to step into the bare feet of a small child. At that point, the dust is removed from in front of you and any evidence of childlike innocence torn from your soul. You have to get it at last: this is what it is to be a child in Africa.

But once that veil of innocence has been removed, the ageless wisdom and resilience of children is beautifully emphasized. Akpan by no means glamorizes Africa. While his love for his continent of birth is tangible, we are made to see through the eyes of child prostitutes, beggars, those being readied for trafficking and those torn from each other on the basis of imagined social lines; Hutus from Tutsis, Catholics from Muslim. And then Akpan extends his metaphor: if it is the children who bear the brunt of society’s dysfunctions in the family unit, then it is Africa’s children who bear the brunt of a world wrought with inequalities.

There is also to be found a profoundly moving statement in the sadness of each of these stories, and yet it is the strength of these tiny examples of humanity that resonate for the reader. The power of the need to survive, to surpass the pressure of an unfair world adds a lustre. But there is work to be done and Akpan does this by allowing us to dig through the grime of the stories in order to find those inevitable questions about where it is that we might find ourselves on the scale of greed and survival. Without a doubt, it also draws a line in the sand between what it means to be a child in the world, in Africa, in the lands of the North and the South. And the answers glare at the reader defiantly awaiting rejection of their truth. Do we dare to deny that these brutal stories are more fact than fiction?

If Akpan compels the reader to continue turning the pages, and manages to awaken an almost denialist sense that such things might occur in the contemporary social world, one thing that we certainly cannot deny is his superb mastery of storytelling, his ease with language and metaphor. His writing is marvellous; his characters believable. Their experiences are a drought to the soul, but they serve as a reminder and awaken the compassionate in us, in sheer rejection of the evils that befall the weakest among us, mainly children.

Akpan succeeds in many ways as a spiritualist, as a humanitarian, as a storyteller in both bringing characters to life as well as stoking the fires of social awareness and conscience in the reader.

But most of all, he succeeds in showing the triumph of human spirit above the adversity that offends and challenges many of Africa’s children on a daily basis.

oOoOo

Uwem Akpan was born in Nigeria on May 19, 1971, in the southern village of Ikot Akpan Eda. Both of his parents were teachers and he and his three brothers grew up speaking English and Annang. He joined the Jesuit order at the age of 19, in 1990 and became a priest on July 19, 2003. He has also studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of East Africa and philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga University. He later earned an M.F.A. degree in creative writing at the University of Michigan in 2006. ‘Say You’re One of Them’ is a collection of five stories from Africa. Of these stories, ‘My Parent’s Bedroom’, set in Rwanda, was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2007, and longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award in 2008. After completing a teaching assignment at a seminary in Harare, Zimbabwe, he is now at a parish in Lagos, Nigeria.

oOoOo

http://shafinaaz.com

Imagined differences

Something fascinating happened this weekend. I met someone for dinner, had a chat, and a whole new world opened in my experience of life.

This is how it happens. Every once in a while you meet someone who affects a shift in your thinking. Or provides the answers to some of the questions you've been mulling over. Or erases some of the doubts you have been holding onto regarding something or the other.

Something. sOmething. SomeThing. There's always something that someone does, says or implies that causes something to stir in you. Realisation, joy, fear, anger, doubt, reassurance. Something.

For the most part, I think its that if we allow ourselves to open our hearts and minds to the world view of yet another person, a new learning happens for us.
Why some of us choose to close off this option is beyond me. But then, ignorance is a dreaded bliss; an empty bliss for most.

Everyday, we are as a vessel, filled and emptied. And in the ebb and flow of the life force, we are a moving energy, merging, engaging, being super-imposed with the energies of others. If you are a vat of positive, dynamic energy, you will find some people gravitating towards you in order to quench a thirst in themselves. Or they will resent your ability to drink from the ocean of life.
Life affords us opportunities to replenish ourselves or to cleanse ourselves so that we're not drained by the flow of energy. Being self aware is about finding equilibrium as often as possible. And self realisation is necessary for real growth.

Its really left up to us to identify these moments and to absorb them; to make them a part of the journey of awareness.

These moments reinforce the idea that the stories we live are the blueprint for a collage of universal living. And that we need to write these. That we need them to become part of something larger. Human biography is not just about documenting the art of life. Sharing them is a way of celebrating our humanity, rather than concentrating on our imagined differences.

birthday reflections: a piece of sheesh mahal (palace of mirrors)

Tribute to a struggle veteran

“MICHELANGELO would have liked to paint or sculpt him.
Not just because his face, wreathed by a white beard of rare gentleness, had a hand-carved perfection to it. Or because his pair of ocean-travelled eyes seemed to say "I have seen, seen it all". But because his entire countenance, bearing, mien, were compelling. Like that of some Old Testament figure who has been drawn into the New, a friend of some past nobility that has stumbled onto a newborn's crib. The subject for a Basilica's murals.”

Gopal Gandhi on Maulvi IA Cachalia, ‘Legacy of Struggle’, The Hindu, 19 Oct 2003.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2003/10/19/stories/2003101900140300.htm

six o'clock gin and tonic

I walked into Rika's apartment a little after 3pm yesterday. The appointment was set for 2:45pm, but a young driver wandering around unknown parts of the city can be easily forgiven, or so she said.

I'm always thirsty for easy forgiveness, so I didn't argue much on that. Besides, I know at least enough not to argue with someone whose three times my age, and very astute for the average 91year old. I whisper a silent prayer in awe: God, let me be that way at 91, or not at all! This is Rika Hodgson. Veteran ANC stalwart.

And so she launches into her animated chat about the days of old; you know, when you could hide a bottle of whiskey in an old typewriter, and share it with a friend of another race, even if there was the scare of the Immorality Act hanging over their heads. But not before she has made absolutely sure of the fact that I am comfortably seated with the sun from the large bay windows swathing me in a welcome embrace, and a steaming cup of tea settled withing close reach from my notebook and pen.

I scribble and try to repaint in few words the enigmatic imagery that she spurts forth in words and facial expressions, almost as if I am being let in on secrets never told before; sometimes she takes for granted that I may not have lived a time as that. She clucks incessantly at the realisation. I release a sigh of apology.

I am quickly forgiven, and the stories unfold once again. Mr & Mrs Jack Hodgson. Their journeys into Botswana, Tanzania, India and beyond. The Pahads, the Cachalias, the Sisulus and the rest of the lineage of the anti-apartheid struggle reveals itself in yet another thread of narrative. I make fervent notes. My voice recorder laps up the milk and cream of the voice and word content of this dialogue. It retells the story to me hours later, when I have returned to my desk in a less quieter part of Jozi.
Another dotted line is drawn, making for a tangible thread between her apartment in the North and my room in the centre of Johannesburg. Voices echo around me, bouncing off the walls, tempting me to make something of them. I am impatient, but its still not the time to write. Patience.

I relive the last few moments of my visit. The endless books. The endless rays of afternoon sunlight. I got invited to stay for her six o'clock gin and tonic; said with a rather mischievous grin to highlight her ample wit, as I was leaving. Ah, I know that you don't drink, she said in reply to my laughter. Everything works around traffic, here in Jozi. I had to leave, anyway... But in many ways, I stayed.

tests of compulsion,love and creativity

I have noticed something rather strangely appealing about the blog- and social media world in general. And that is, the worms that find their way out of the woodwork are outnumbered by the people who will leave notes of wonder and encouragement at your blog-doorstep, at precisely the moment when you need to read it most.

I have also paid attention to the trend of writing that follows the blog world, and the facebook/twitter updates that arise from various people across the globe. This is not some kind of discourse analysis of it all, just an awe-inspired sharing of my observations. I had a chat with one of my dearest friends recently, and I have to make the following comment; I believe that every person who lives on this planet, should in some way be able to sit down and write about their lives, even if it's just about one day that serves as a landmark day, their first love, animate or inanimate reference, their marriage, the birth of a child, the death or loss of a loved one. Anything. The hue of stories waiting to be told and heard are as countless as the experiences had by people in general. And once told, the shared stories will reveal a kind of continuum of life energy, humanity and spirituality that transcends the often imagined boundaries that we seem to find ourselves comforted by, and accustomed to.

I have been allowing alot of stress to filter into my life this past week or so. Which is undeniably unusual for me, because not only do I like having all my ducks in a row, but I'm a pretty easy-going girl for the most part.
Perhaps the two aren't exactly mutually exclusive; having ducks in a row makes for easy living, and less stress in the long term.

This is adrenalin on erm speed. Does that sound right? I didn't think so. Okay let me try that again. It's the good adrenalin of something that I am working towards, compounded by the not so good feeling that I may not make the self-imposed deadlines that I have now confirmed to a portion of the world at large. Makes sense? I'm being cryptic. I know. But it's temporary. Hopefully it will all be resolved, at most by the end of this week. It's yet another exciting project, about to be made manifest and one which has had some behind the scenes work for some years now. So here's hoping that it works out in the best way that it can. Taking into consideration my hectic budgetary constraints and all that.

Then onto the writing thing.
The biography project has become a slow and deliberating attempt to unveil the identity and being of a person about whom very little has been written, and we are relying on a large amount of primary data from people who held him in high esteem, but not all of them engaged with him directly. Needless to say, some worthy gems have been uncovered. One of my most trying recent interviewees looked me in the eye and asked: 'Are you serious about this work?' and 'Can you write?'
Most of these people are skeptics of a long-forgotten era. Some are high ranking people, used to business above pleasure. And many are almost 3 times my age. It's a more than forgivable skepticism. I was tested. And apparently I more than won approval at the end of it all. I was thrilled with the balance of the conversation, of course.

I'm editing more than writing, at the moment. It has been two years since my book 'Daughters are Diamonds' was launched at the Cape Town Book Fair. In that time, I have done many little things that seem to be adding up to delightful newness, and I have met myriad people of the same. Also, I have compiled two manuscripts in the last year. I am figuring out what to do with them :)

Much Love,
S

...the beauty of this world

a fresh breeze tints my skin,

my baby eyes open

to the length of her cupboard door,

fingers reach for an ancient lock, dangling there

i pry them open, this place of old and new, new and old.

-the scent of musk invades the room-

silks and wools line the hanging spaces,

more textures in the drawers,

my hands float;

senses still arrested by the warmth of oils and musk and rose

and her. my beginning. my first pair of eyes.

my taste of real and The Real.

my reason for awakening. my view to beauty in this world.

---

many happy returns to the most beautiful woman in the universe

may you have days of scented rose

and nights of comfort, only. to my dear grandmother.

here's wishing you a grand 81, with Allah's fragrant blessings...

happy birthday!

Lunch with Kathy & Ms C

These interview sessions are taking me down a path of memory recollections that lead off into some of the darkest sinews of the human mind. Most of them are rooted in conflict and struggle; some thrived on tiny snippets of hope and almost always thirsted for compassion. Of course, there was very little to be found.

Ahmed Kathrada was tried along with hundreds of others in a time when treason was almost a buzzword. Today we sat down to a feisty curried lunch after he recounted the details of some of those proceedings; and the strategic mindset of his senior, Maulvi Cachalia, during the freedom struggle. But the moments I found to be most profound of these recollections, would have to be the close to thirty years spent in jail; and the criminal record for life, that disallows entry into a country like Canada.

The archives of memory and history twist with far more complexity than nature's vast DNA, and yet they need to be unraveled...
Ideals still need to be purveyed and protected; hope still gleams for many in an effort to not succumb to despair; and the quest for survival still a more than valiant struggle that keeps us in the depths of the quandary, hard at work.

But then there's that cloud of depravity; the winds of apathy churning sandstorms around us, blinding.. misleading... and allowing only thuggery to show its face.

About those ideals... What were they again? All evidence lost that there were men of steely character who fought in blood and sweat and tears and more blood. Ruling party or not, politics is a strange-ish game of umbrella morals and scattered corruption beyond the reach of the greater scope of an organisation.

Will the Emperor be found unclothed? Whats the vote?

My Odyssey with George Bizos

I met George Bizos today. As my car inched its way into the basement of the building that houses his offices, Braam Fischer House, I played the rehearsed meeting over and over in my mind. My readings told me all I needed to know about the encounter I was about to make: the man needs very little introduction as the human rights lawyer of the apartheid struggle along with an incredible string of accolade that rolls off a tape measure of milestones and accomplishments. But I still didn't know, or have an idea of the man I was about to meet. Or the reception that awaited me.

Who is George Bizos? A Google search will tell you much of what you need to know... WhosWho@24.com. A face to face encounter will allow you to search the eyes of a kind soul, to see into the light of a gentleman of the world. I was at ease as he began his chat, informally, by his own admission, in an office walled with leather bound journals and archives of his professional nurturing. I asked about his work, his influence and his life. I got asked about my own. He spoke animatedly about Greek food, the Ottoman Empire and the apartheid struggle; he stood counsel on numerous cases concerning the Group Areas Act, as well as the infamous Rivonia Trial (under which Mandela and Sisulu and a host of others were tried for treason) and the Delmas Trial (under which e.g. Terror Lekota was tried).

Bizos at almost 81 is of fine memory and incredible spirit. His words deliberate, eyes twinkle with merriment as the stories from the past reveal themselves first to him, and then to me. I am mesmerized by the sheer energy of light that emanates as he speaks of past and present; digging memories of significant trials and tactics of the freedom struggle, and of his contemporaries, especially the protagonist of my biography, Maulvi IA Cachalia. He was a 'tactician', he repeated after each rendering of one or two examples of particular trials that they discussed and managed around the unjust legalities of the time.

Of course, as we moved on to talking about baclava, chai (my favourite; Bizos prefers kahve) and biryani (apparently the Greek word for it is very similar), appetites and memories were enticed to an anecdote about samoosa's in the Heidelberg trial, another example of the Group Area's Act tug-of-war.

The scribbling and doodling of his fountain pen (in Greek letters nonetheless) still follow my mind as he chatted with that shiny gleam in his eye. I can see the sparkle of eye mirrored in smile, still. I doodle too. It jogs memory and muse. The interview transcript will reveal all the technical details ('The machine must tell the story' - Bizos) for later analysis. For now I am basking in the measure of a morning spent on the ninth floor of a city centre office in Johannesburg, with a man who is most certainly an institution in his own right.

'S'


Books By George Bizos: No One To Blame? - In Pursuit Of Justice In South Africa (1998); and Odyssey to Freedom (2007)

real life drunken flower-picking

An old world exists hidden in the recesses of some of Johannesburg's quaint suburban patchwork. Some remnants lie behind palisades crawling with flowering plants; other signs exist just in the archives at Baileys and various scattered media. My fingertips pry these places with a mixture of glee and apprehension and what I might discover. I am a good month into the new project and I have written scant little about it, save for a few transcripts. Just one dive in and I am being swept away by the current that prevails. I am on a spate of interviews as part of the data collection phase; and I have yet to speak to a person under the age of 60. Life is revealing itself to me at a whole other level. Writing does no justice.

The stories pile up on my virtual desk. Some merge in tapestries of biography that will themselves reveal to be whole new stories to look into. Other's add colour to the mainframe of a story that works its way into my new work. And it's all just the raw material for now... a range of logs that wait for the craftsmen to get to work creating canoes that will carry contemporary readers across the river to the other side... to a view of a world that our generation can only ever read about and never really know.

I am to write a biography in the next few months; and the realness of a non-fiction work is filling me with an amazing sense of being once again a part of something wholesome. I love narrative biography; the basis for 'Daughters are Diamonds' was just that. This is different though; I am walking into a world that even my imagination at a stretch would be unable to tease out. It will present itself as the life story of a man who, arguably, may not have commissioned the work if he was alive. That in itself lends to a responsibility in the way that I present this. The comments resonate, both in the archives, and from the transcripts of his contemporaries, his children, his recorded notes and memories. There once walked a man distinguished more by his sense of presence than by the guarded allegiances he made with the freedom struggle of his time. My thoughts are scattered more by the brilliance in simplicity than by the ostentatious delving into this almost forgotten world.

At some point, I must emerge from this trance and get back to the drawing board for some real work. For now, the flower-picking continues...