Silent Minaret
Page 22
The inescapable helplessness. Go find an eight-metre high wall. Walk up to it. Stand next to it. Imagine it stretching on and on, for 710 kilometres – longer than the length of our first shared journey through the Karoo all those Februarys ago. It will make you feel diminished.
The sheer determination. Remember, ‘Ons dak nie. Ons polla hier!’? The absolute refusal to give up. I’m attaching a photograph of a piece of graffiti on the wall not far from our house:
It reads: like the olive tree, we were here before this went up. Like the olive tree, we’ll be here when it comes down. ‘Ons polla hier!’
The poetry of the language:
Good morning! It’s the morning of light!
Response. It’s the morning of roses.
The etiquette. The manners.
It’s not trendy to be rude.
All the time the frustration that, every day, the world chooses to buy the propaganda, the misinformation, the lies, the crude racism, the blatant stereotypes. Every day, the world watches the horror here that it so readily and continuously and honourably challenged and disputed back home. Why? Because? Oh really! Is that so? Well then, why don’t you come here for a day? Just one day and then tell me again.
And amidst it all, after all the years of searching in unlikely places, there is the contentment of being at home, in the most unlikely place. Yes. Loved – and at home.
So, Mr ‘Best Documentary Film Maker 2004’, when you’ve lapped up the praise and feel ready for your next assignment, why not bring your cameras here? But be warned. It’s far more horrendous than anything you’ve seen in the homelands...
One day, Katinka is reminded of something Issa wrote. At the time she thought it might be overstated, but he wouldn’t change it. Now she thinks he was right and sends a text message to his mobile number, as she still does from time to time:
Im by da wal@qalqilia. Wen jan landd @cape he plantd a hedj 2 sepr8 setlaz frm locls. Da histry of erly urpean setlmnt @da cape is unversly&eternly pertnt x
Acknowledgements
Black and White
The lyrics ‘We don’t need no education’ are from the song Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2), by Pink Floyd on the album The Wall, EMI, 1979.
The Summer of 2003
‘London ceases to be London,’ is from Virginia Woolf’s, The London Scene, Snowbooks, 2004.
‘Summertime’ is by Irvin Berlin, performed by Nina Simone, Mastersong, 2004.
The lyrics ‘We’re lovin’ it’, are from the song Do You Really Like It? by DJ Pied Piper, Ministry, 2000.
Homelands
The term ‘Imaginary Homelands’, is from Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays & Criticism, 1981-1991, Penguin Books/Granta, 1992.
Disappeared
Kagiso looks up the words ‘disappear’ and ‘disappearance’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The Karoo
‘Freedom is taken, never given’, is by Salman Rushdie, in defence of Satanic Verses.
The Song ‘Summer Holiday’ was written by Bruce Welch and Roy Bennett (1962) and preformed by Cliff Richard & The Shadows, on the album Summer Holiday, 1963, re-released by EMI in 2001.
The dialogue between Bentley and Lawrence and Issa’s response that “the desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped” are from the Sam Spiegel David Lean production of “Lawrence of Arabia”, Columbia Pictures, 1962.
Issa recalls an extract from TE Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The complete 1922 text, Castle Hill Press, 2003.
Violent Night
‘I am a standing civil war’, is by TE Lawrence. See also ‘A Standing Civil War’, Edward Said, Reflection on Exile and Other Essays, Harvard University Press, 2000.
Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, is by Ashley Montagu, Columbia University Press, New York, 1942.
“I Just Don’t Give a – ”
Transcript for Talking Point is from www.bbc.co.uk/ talkingpoint. The song, which Issa listens to is Eminem’s, ‘Just Don’t Give a Fuck’, The Slim Shady, Interscope, 1999.
‘A road map into our past.’
Quotations are from the transcripts of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up by the Government of National Unity to help deal with the violence and human rights abuses that took place under apartheid.
The poem scribbled on a rolled-up travel card is by Satish Gupta. Kagiso reads from Dorothee Metlitzk’s The Matter of Araby in Medieval England, Yale University Press, 1977:7.
Issa’s note to Frances refers to an extract from Dorothee Metlitzki’s The Matter of Araby in Medieval England, 1977: 111 – 112.
The self-censored front page stuck in Kagiso’s journal is from The Weekly Mail of Friday June 20 to Thursday June 26, 1986.
The Monster’s Name
Katinka Reads from TE Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, op cit.
The Sanctuary
The extract in Kagiso’s journal is from the archives of the Black
Sash as quoted in Francis Wilson & Mamphela Ramphele Uprooting Poverty: The South African challenge, David Philip, 1989: 211.
Blind Alfredo’s story is from Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, Italy, 1988.
‘Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs / Got to keep the loonies on the path’ is from Pink Floyd’s song ‘Brain damage’ on the album The Dark Side of the Moon, originally released in 1973, re-released by EMI Records Ltd, 2003.
Russell Square
“If there is war with Iraq, there’s already been the first casualty – art.” Peter Goddard, The Toronto Star.
The extract which Issa reads to Katinka is from Edward Said, ‘Arabic Prose and Fiction After 1948’, in Reflections on Exile: and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, Granta, 2001.
The Verses
Quotations in the raw archival footage of the roadside executions in Bophuthatswana are as quoted in The Star, March 12-13, 1994. Kagiso reads Issa’s annotations in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, Viking Penguin Inc., New York, 1988.
Missing Persons
Information in the leaflet, which Vasinthe gives Katinka to read, is from the National Missing Persons Helpline, registered charity No. 1020419.
The song in Katinka’s dream is Sting’s ‘They Dance Alone’, from the album Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984 – 1994, A&M Records, 1994.
Vasinthe’s Letter
Issa’s words to Kagiso, “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts,” are from the Sam Spiegel David Lean production of Lawrence of Arabia, Columbia Pictures, 1962.
Another Brick in Another Wall
The rap which Karim imitates is from Eminem’s, ‘Rock Bottom’, The Slim Shady, Interscope, 1999.
The line which Katinka quotes in her promise to Karim is an extract from Hafiz embroidered in the Arbadil Carpet on display in the Islamic Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ‘Everytime we say goodbye’ is by Nina Simone, The Best of Nina Simone – the Colpix Years, Blue Note Records, 1993.
The story Katinka overhears on the train is from the film Mughal-E-Azam, directed by K. Asif, India 1960.
Baghdad Café
Issa’s text message to Katinka includes a quote from TE Lawrence’s The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and an instruction to read Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost.
Vasinthe & Gloria
‘Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say ‘death’
For exile hath more terror in his
Look, much more than death.
Do not say banishment.‘’ William Shakespeare; Romeo & Juliet 3⋅3⋅12-14 ‘Inglan is a bitch,’ was a rap song written by Linton Kwesi Johnson in 1980.
Somewhere & Nowhere
The book in Kagiso’s lap is Rohinton Mistry’s; A Fine Balance, London, Faber and Faber, 1995. All song lyrics in this chapter are by Pink Floyd.
The Last Night
‘Rule Brittania’ is by James Thomson, set to music by Thomas Augustine Arne in 1740.
Statistics of fatalit
ies in the British Concentration Camps are from John Fisher’s The Afrikaners, London, Cassell, 1969: 181.
The song on Katinka’s stereo is ‘Self Evident’ by Ani Di Franco, from the album So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter, Righteous Babe Records, 2002.
‘And dost thou not see that the stars in the heavens are without number...’, as quoted in Dorothee Metlitzki’s The Matter of Araby in Medieval England, Yale University Press, 1977: 16.
Frances’ thought, ‘I wrote my will across the sky in stars’, is from Lawrence’s dedication in Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
A later chapter entitled ‘The Muslim Prisoner.’
Closed Chapters
‘We’ve got stars directing our fate,’ is from the song Millennium by Robbie Williams, on the album I’ve Been Expecting You, Chrysalis, 2002.
The Summer is Over, Theresa
Frances quotes from the Qur’an S.iii, 42.
The following works and sources were central to the writing of this book:
A critical biography of Shaykh Yusuf, Suleman Essop Dangor
(Centre for Research in Islamic Studies University of Durban-Westville, 1982); A history of South Africa, Leonard Thompson
(Yale University Press, 1995); A History of South Africa, Frank Welsh
(Harper Collins, 2000); BBC News, BBC World Service,
BBC Online; Factfile: Five Hundred Years: A History of South Africa, ed. CFJ Miller (Academica, 1984); Frontiers, Noel Mostert
(Jonathan Cape, 1992); Islam in South Africa: Mosques, Imams, and Sermons, Abdulkader Tayob, (University Press of Florida, 1999); Islands, Dan Sleigh (Tafelberg, 2002); Krotoa, called ‘Eva’:
A Women Between, VC Malherbe (1990); Krotoa-Eva:
The Woman from Robben Island, Trudie Bloem (Kwela Books, 1999); Lawrence of Arabia,
Sam Spiegel David & Lean, (Columbia Pictures, 1962); Monuments of Syria: An Historical Guide, Ross Burns (IB Tarus, 1992); Palestine is still the issue, John Pilger, 1977; Reflections on Exile: and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, Edward Said (Granta, 2001); Seven Pillars of Wisdom, TE Lawrence (Penguin Books, 1962); South Africa: An Historical Introduction, Freda Troup (Eyre Methuen, 1972); Sowetan, South Africa; The Afrikaaners, John Fisher, (Cassell, 1969); The Holy Qur’an, translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, (Islamic Propagation Centre International, 1946); The Guardian, UK; The Guardian Year: 2003, ed. Luke Dodd (Atlantic Books, 1985); The Independent, UK; The National Missing Persons Helpline Factfile, (NMPH, 2004); The Matter of Araby in Medieval England, Dorothee Metlitzki (Yale University Press, 1977); The Mosques of Bo-Kaap: A Social History of Islam at the Cape, Achmat Davids (The South African Institute of Arabic and Islamic Research, Athlone, 1980); The Muslim Jesus: Sayings And Stories In Islamic Literature, edited and translated by Tarif Khalidi (Harvard University Press, 2001); The Palestinian People: a history, Baruch Kimmerling & Joel S Migdal (Harvard University Press, 2003);
The Rough Guide: South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland, (The Rough Guides, 1997); The Star, South Africa; The Sunday Times, South Africa; The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report of South Africa, (Juta, 1998); The Weekly Mail, South Africa; Uprooting Poverty:
The South African challenge; Francis Wilson & Mampele Rampele (David Philip, 1989).
Thanks
I would like to thank my teachers,
Pamela Nichols and William Radice,
researchers, Mbongisi Dyantyi and Gila Carter,
and readers, Munizha Ahmad, Colette Fearon,
Anne Harte, Rafiek Mammon and Shaun Viljoen.
I would also like to thank Cadi Fester,
Deborah Hooper, Barry Willis, Michael Chackal,
Zahra Mackouie, Jane Mitchell, Razzaq Moosajee,
Roya Shahr-Yazdi, Eric Stobbaerts,
Maureen Cantwell, Alan Fransman, Vikram Malhotra,
Somana Sachin, Andrew Cooke, Bridget Maclou and
Hassan Ramadan at Al Saqi Books, London.
My special thanks to everybody at the
National Missing Persons Helpline UK
(www.missingpersons.org),
especially Ross Miller.
I would also like to thank everybody at Jacana Media
and their partners in the EU Literary Award,
as well as my editor, Alex Dodd.
As thank-you is forbidden, I hope that Shobha
Bohra and Pratibha Pathak will not mind me saying:
“Dhanyavaad.”
And to all my family and friends, shukran.