For me, Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012) remains one of the great writers of the Latin American Boom. He combined his talents as an imaginative novelist and short story writer with an unwavering dedication to participation in the major political and social debates of his time. He operated as a leading public intellectual and cultural ambassador for Mexico, while spending considerable time teaching in the U.S.A. He was perfectly bilingual and indeed bicultural in his vast knowledge of literature, history and film. Fuentes attended the School of Philosophy and Letters and the Law School in Mexico City. He was greatly influenced by his professors and their idealistic sense of the possibility of using international law and human rights norms to advance a progressive form of politics.

I have long been fascinated by Mexico and its often violent but also hopeful history, particularly its revolutionary heritage. I first travelled there in the early 1980s and was overwhelmed by the strange, vibrant and dynamic country I travelled through by bus (often putting the hammock I acquired in Merida to good use). On those long bus journeys, I was quick to pull out the novels of Fuentes as my foremost guide to the history of the ancient land which had so remarkably maintained its traditions in the challenging transition to modernity and 20^th century economic development.

The Death of Artemio Cruz

A consistent theme in Fuentes’ work is fusing the past, present and future.This novel remains for me the most insightful account of the cultural meaning of the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 and unfolded over two chaotic decades. Fuentes uses the stories of a revolutionary fighter, Cruz, to trace the development of the country and the decay of the ideals for which volunteers like Cruz, and the companions who fought alongside him, risked their lives. At the very end of his life, Cruz is haunted by the memory of having escaped a prison sentence and death while a young lawyer (who shared his cell) and a courageous indigenous guide (Tobias, “the Yaqui”) met their untimely deaths. In this novel, as in other works, Fuentes affirms the valiant efforts of indigenous peoples to ensure the success of the Revolution and its commitment to greater equality.

Written in 1962, this exceptional modernist novel employs a sophisticated 12-part structure. Cruz narrates events in his life in a fractured recounting of significant turning points. These events parallel historical developments, many of which unravel the noble ideals for which Cruz supposedly fought. The narration shifts in a dynamic pattern between first, second and third-person point of view.

The Years With Laura Díaz

In this later companion novel to The Death of Artemio Cruz, Fuentes provides us with another epic recounting of the years of the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath. Fuentes focusses on a woman who was briefly mentioned in the earlier novel, Laura Díaz. She is a politically committed woman with artistic ambitions who befriends the great painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Years later, she embarks on a career as a photographer.

I have long been fascinated by Mexico and its often violent but also hopeful history, particularly its revolutionary heritage.The novel is not the masterpiece that The Death of Artemio Cruz surely is and struck me as being too slack and diffuse. However, it is a valuable addition to Fuentes’ body of work. In the short, episodic chapters, we see various points where the revolutionary impulse reaches fulfillment – or at least affords a sense of what was achieved by overthrowing both the nation’s dictatorship and the economic domination of foreign corporations.

For me, the novel comes together best in those chapters depicting or alluding to the political breakthroughs of President Lázaro Cárdenas. In the years 1934-1940, his government enacted a whole raft of progressive legislation. A few of the government’s notable achievements mentioned in the novel include:

• expropriating lands that had been taken from peasant communities, including indigenous communities, and returning them through communal holdings (ejidos);
• enacting laws giving social benefits to the poor and modernizing the education system to ensure that millions would be entitled to publicly-funded schooling for the first time;
• nationalizing the oil industry and asserting control over the economy and wider society. This allowed the Mexican government to use its natural resource wealth for its most needy citizens. President Cárdenas initiated the process of nationalization by referring his actions to the courts. Foreign oil companies from the United States and Britain then attempted to ignore the court’s ruling and repudiate their obligations to employees and the state. It was a classic miscalculation, premised on the notion that Mexicans would never be able to run the industry in an orderly and efficient manner; and
• supporting the democratically-elected Republican government of Spain, which was threatened by an attempted coup by fascists and their conservative allies in the country. President Cárdenas also ensured that Mexican law permitted persecuted Spaniards and members of the International Brigades to be granted refugee status in the country.

Fuentes references these significant events throughout the novel. For example, some of the Spanish refugees become close friends of Laura and carry on a series of philosophical dialogues on the prospects for social justice and a democratic rule that would respect human rights.

He combined his talents as an imaginative novelist and short story writer with an unwavering dedication to participation in the major political and social debates of his time.
Fuentes also narrates a moment worth cheering for at the midpoint of the novel. Laura and her friends gather with other jubilant Mexicans in the Zocalo, where wild cheering takes place. All eyes momentarily turn to the “revolutionary President”, who is saluted for possessing the courage to confront the oil companies who had bullied and exploited the Mexican people for years. Citizens hand over what they can – their jewellery, their chickens and their produce – to help pay the expropriation debt that will, they hope, free the country and inaugurate an exciting new era.

Conclusion

Fuentes previously wrote that the word “mañana” is often misunderstood by foreigners. It does not really mean putting things off for the morrow. Rather, it connotes the idea that the future should not intrude on the sacred completeness of today. A consistent theme in Fuentes’ work is fusing the past, present and future. This fusion allows the reader to return to key moments in the unfolding of the Mexican Revolution (which is viewed as part of the wider sweep of world history), to find inspiration, and to discover ways to connect with moments of political transformation. Those chapters dealing with the legal and political reforms of President Cárdenas, made in the face of fierce opposition, illustrate one key to Fuentes’ process of fusion.

“True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?

-Vaclav Havel

I recall an era where progressive politics in Canada was both exciting and a little bit dangerous for the wealthy elite and the power brokers. One of the first politicians who engaged my interest as a young university student here in Edmonton was the irrepressible and courageous Dave Barrett, Premier of British Columbia from 1972 to 1975. His election in 1972 was the very first time an NDP government had taken power on the West Coast. Sadly, Dave Barrett passed away last year after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. An excellent way to savour his career is by reading a fascinating account of the turbulent era when Barrett and his gang of political upstarts rocked the normally staid and conservative world of B.C. politics by defeating the well-financed Social Credit juggernaut of W.A.C Bennett.  It  is captured in the lively history by Geoff Meggs and Rod Mickleburgh, The Art of the Impossible: Dave Barrett and the NDP in Power 1972-1975. The book captures the profound differences between the social worker turned politician who is the flawed hero of the tale, and his seemingly impregnable opponent. W.A.C  Bennett had won the previous five elections handily, having earlier developed the  Social Credit party as a loose coalition designed to thwart the aspirations of a party of the left. The notion that a democratic socialist party might take power sent shock waves through the business and political establishment (which seemed to be one and the same).

He was an irrepressible force of nature, a passionate and unscripted leader, who found it natural to remove his shoes and leap onto the table at his first cabinet meeting. There, he asked his team whether they thought they were there for a good time or a long time. Against these considerable odds, Dave Barrett and the NDP slew the aging dragon in 1972, promising a number of progressive initiatives. Barrett certainly delivered, as his government enacted 369 bills in a little over three years. One of the most important was B.C.’s first-ever Human Rights Code.  Barrett had vowed to assist the most vulnerable members of the province with laws that would protect their rights and the Code was one of a whole raft of laws designed to accomplish just that.

Barrett and his government transformed the province with his new laws. Government in B.C. lacked transparency; his government changed that. It introduced Hansard reporting of all debates, a daily question period and increased funding for opposition parties. These initiatives made meaningful the right to vote and to proper representation for ordinary citizens. Barrett brought in laws designed to increase economic equality and minimum standards of living for all citizens – including “mincome” for those over sixty, the highest minimum wage in the land, higher pension benefits and an improved workers compensation payment structure. He substantially increased legal aid funding.

The NDP in this hurricane season also developed a landmark labour code which greatly facilitated unions’ ability to organize and pursue their right to collective bargaining. The new government restored the right to sue the Crown. It established the first ministry of housing, which included a mandate to establish affordable housing. It preserved B.C. farmland for agriculture through the creation of the Agricultural Land Reserve and extended land protections in other areas, including provincial parks. The Mineral Royalties Act significantly increased royalties on minerals, so that citizens could better share in the province’s wealth. It created a government-run insurance agency to protect motor vehicle operators by reducing insurance rates.

In the Art of the Impossible, Meggs and Mickleburgh set out 97 accomplishments of the Barrett government, describing their list as subjective and likely incomplete. It is important, however, to also reflect on the vision and stance of Dave Barrett in power. He was an irrepressible force of nature, a passionate and unscripted leader, who found it natural to remove his shoes and leap onto the table at his first cabinet meeting. There, he asked his team whether they thought they were there for a good time or a long time. The message was that after so many years in the wilderness, the self-described “people’s party” needed to seize the day and refuse to hesitate or compromise. Their success can be measured in the number of laws and programs that remained in place even after they lost power in 1975, a result of a snap election call. The wisdom of the decision was debated by British Columbians many times in the years since.

Barrett had an unusual background for a political leader in B.C. in that era. He was Jewish, and the son of a radical mother, Isadore, and a CCF -supporting father, Sam. Barrett recalled in his memoir, Dave Barrett: A Passionate Political Life, the days when he would accompany his activist parents as they marched and  collected funds for worthy causes. This passion for social justice created in Barrett a burning desire to protect the unfortunate and vulnerable and to work for political change that would protect the rights of ordinary citizens. His early political hero, Tommy Douglas, exemplified the way in which one could do this while employing a sense of humour.  Barrett’s sense of humour, often of a self-deprecating kind, was legendary. In the unforgettable campaign of 1972, running on a shoestring budget, Barrett was able to defuse the tension caused by the inevitable warnings of doom by the incumbent with rapid-fire jokes. Attempts to brand him a dangerous “waffle” supporter (the hard left wing of the federal New Democrats) were met with the response that if he was a “waffle” then Bennett was a “pancake.”

An important theme of The Art of the Impossible is that Dave Barrett was, ultimately, a strong force for public good but perhaps 40 years too early. Barrett  maintained that his agenda and his vision for change were not “radical” but rather designed to allow all citizens to flourish. A keen student of Thomas Aquinas and a believer in the social gospel, he would have been quick to assent to the brilliant French writer, Anatole France’s pithy observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

I recall the heady times in the 1970s when the world seemed to hold great prospects for progressive change in contrast to this century. In 1974, I travelled with good friends across Europe and encountered an amazing group of actors outside of Lisbon. This was the year of the Revolution of Carnations – the peaceful overthrow of their long-time dictator. A democratic socialist government had taken power and it was wonderful to discuss and debate late into the night the best way forward for both Portugal and Canada. Their manager, Jose, proved surprisingly knowledgeable about our Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, but I also put in a few words about the promising government in our western-most province. While the Barrett Revolution was to be stalled a short time afterwards, perhaps it is not too late to discover a way to build on his legacy.

You have no doubt heard the expression “the dog that didn’t bark – a wonderful phrase emanating from an old Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle. I would like to conduct a little touch of literary sleuthing and ask why E.M Forster, eminent English novelist, declined decade after decade to publish the one and only novel that deeply explored the truth of his nature as a gay man. His literary executor published Maurice in 1971, one year after Forster’s death. In exploring the decision to refrain from publishing a book first completed in 1914, we can also ponder the question of if and when a writer has a duty as citizen and public intellectual to enter the public arena and adopt a clear position on a contentious issue. I suggest that publishing the novel in the late 1950s would have been an ideal intervention on Forster’s part in the debate over whether to decriminalize homosexuality.

In 1960, despairing of witnessing a substantial change in the law notwithstanding the Report’s clear recommendations for a more enlightened approach, Forster penned a “Terminal Note” to Maurice, to be published after his death.E.M Forster was one of the century’s truly great novelists. Following a string of elegant comic novels, Forster penned an ambitious Condition-of England novel, Howard’s End, in 1910.  Fourteen years  elapsed before he wrote his masterpiece, A Passage to India. He then clearly struggled, publishing no novels at all for the last 46 years of his life. Yet all the while, he had another novel that he circulated to those close friends he thought would be sympathetic to his attempt to depict a positive gay relationship in Edwardian England. The legal context to his decision to refuse to “let his novel bark” is critical. Homosexual relations between men was against the criminal law. Harsh punishments could be meted out. Further, obscenity laws prohibited works that depicted gay or lesbian relationships from being published, or at least created a risk of prosecution. While all of this is true, it certainly does not provide a full explanation for Forster’s unwillingness to take a public stand. In the 1950s attitudes began to change in English society, particularly amongst writers and their readers. Mary Renault forged ahead with her novel The Charioteer in 1953. Even earlier, Angus Wilson wrote his remarkable novel Hemlock and After, in 1952. This tale of an aging novelist and bisexual who journeys through the homosexual underworld calls into question certain liberal pieties and the potential pitfalls of liberal humanism. It also brought squarely into the open areas of British life –homosexuals making assignations that were illegal and subject to harsh punishment.  Forster was sufficiently impressed by the debut novel that he wrote to Wilson to congratulate him but also to express a degree of unease about the plot.

A series of prosecutions of gay men, some of them high-profile and extensively covered in the press, ushered in debate in the House of Commons about the problematic state of the law, at least as progressive politicians and their constituents saw it. The landmark Wolfenden Report was published in 1957, recommending decriminalization. It paved the way for more enlightened attitudes to gain ground  and legal reform finally took place in 1967. Yet, through this period Forster the novelist remained silent.

Perhaps it is more correct to say, as his biographer Wendy Moffatt does, that he made a few small feints in the direction of public advocacy. But really, the emphasis has to regrettably be on the limited nature of his role.

The legal context to his decision to refuse to “let his novel bark” is critical. Homosexual relations between men was against the criminal law. Harsh punishments could be meted out. Further, obscenity laws prohibited works that depicted gay or lesbian relationships from being published, or at least created a risk of prosecution. In 1960, despairing of witnessing a substantial change in the law notwithstanding the Report’s clear recommendations for a more enlightened approach, Forster penned a “Terminal Note” to Maurice, to be published after his death. He indicated that, because homosexuality remained a crime, it would have to remain in manuscript.  He suggested that the guardians of public morality in England could not accept such a book. Perhaps it would lead to a prosecution for obscenity. His “Terminal Note” parallels dialogue found in the novel. Maurice, the stockbroker who dares to live according to his heart’s desires, consults a hypnotist who acts as his “reality teacher.” He suggests to the outcast that he leave England for France or Italy, where homosexuality is no longer illegal. Asked if the law might not change in England, he tells Maurice that he doubts England will change, as it has always been disinclined to accept human nature. The entire chapter is both humorous and moving, as the novel adroitly reveals both the absurdity and the rigidity of the conservative society that is willing to repress and punish so many gifted men.

At the end of the “Terminal Note” Forster laments that, notwithstanding Wolfenden, police prosecutions will continue and Clive on the bench (Maurice’s platonic lover from university, now an establishment figure in the legal profession) will continue to sentence gay men in the dock. But this prognosis was unduly bleak. A strong advocacy group, the Homosexual Law Reform Society, was effectively making the case for sensible legal reform. More and more writers and politicians were willing to enter the public fray to offer eloquent protests against the many injustices that the status quo represented.  The Labour Party was voted into power in 1964, following, ironically, a sex scandal involving a very embarrassing heterosexual affair between a government minister, Profumo, and a young woman. Prime Minister Harold Wilson appointed a well-know liberal reformer, Roy Jenkins, as Home Secretary. Jenkins worked with others in the party to make the case for compassion and understanding and engineered a remarkable breakthrough in Parliament. Homosexual relations between consenting adults ceased to be criminal.

Looking back on this period, though, it is vital to recognize that major reform was not inevitable. There were many conservative voices crying out that it was dangerous to make such far-reaching changes. Therefore, the actions of authors like Forster could indeed have helped to make a difference. In any event, he did make the imaginative effort to write this book that didn’t bark, and for that we can be grateful.

 A remarkable manuscript was bundled out of the Soviet Union in the late spring of 1956. An Italian Communist journalist named Sergio d’Angelo had visited Boris Pasternak to discuss possible publication of his latest work. Pasternak was the famed Russian poet and survivor of the various purges and show trials of the Great Terror that had gripped Russia since the 1930s, to discuss possible publication of his latest work. The novel was Doctor Zhivago (the new translation by Richard Peavear and Larissa Volokhonsky is recommended). Pasternak’s long-time project would finally be submitted for approval by the state publisher in the fall. The result would be biting criticism, followed by ongoing hostile attacks on Pasternak as a counter-revolutionary, decadent and ungrateful author, who had dared to challenge the dominant narrative of a glorious revolution that continued to achieve great things on behalf of the proletariat.

Earlier in the year Pasternak had obviously anticipated difficulties with publication in his native land. When he handed over a copy of the manuscript to d’Angelo, as agent for the Milanese publisher Feltrinelli, he stated in a resigned voice that: “you are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.” Nonetheless, courageously Pasternak assented to foreign publication and the world was able to read one of Russia’s great epic tales, a work that harkens back to the great nineteenth century tradition introduced by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

Doctor Zhivago is well known to lovers of world literature, as is its film adaptation, the romantic epic directed by David Lean in 1962. The film stars Omar Sharif as Yuri Zhivago, Julie Christie as Lara, Tom Courtenay as Lara’s husband –to –be turned revolutionary commander operating as “Strelnikov” and Rod Steiger, as the decadent lawyer and dandy, Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky.

Rather than offer a review of the novel as a whole, I want to concentrate on key scenes where lawyer Komarovsky plays a critical role, as well as scenes where quite different lawyers are described. It is rather inspiring to consider the prominent role that Pasternak assigns in the early chapters  to progressive lawyers, who are quite willing to engage in what we would today refer to as human rights work, including taking on contentious labour cases on behalf of vulnerable workers. For instance, the hero Yuri (or Yura) travels in the opening section with his Uncle Nikolai Nikolaevich by carriage to visit a friend at his estate. A recurring theme is introduced – that there are characters who can act as a force for good and who share a hopeful idealism, no matter how bleak events may get. We learn that Yuri’s uncle is an important writer and that the two are travelling by carriage over lush wheat fields during the feast of the Kazan Mother of God.  The year is 1903. Their destination is the estate of the wealthy silk merchant, Kologivov, patron of the arts in a fertile period, and financial supporter of various human rights and other enlightened causes. Nikolai will present his manuscript on land reform to assist the poor. The man is a committed “Tolstoyan” who is committed to revolution and nonviolent social transformation. He advocates a compassionate Christianity, with a desire to resist the corruption of the narrow-minded authorities who represent stagnation and a failed society.

Lara, determined to break with the aging sensualist, tucks a revolver into her coat and trudges over to the party, debating in her mind as to how best to deal with her pent-up anger and fear. An important aspect of the Kologivov circle of idealists and activists is the belief that the rule of law and the commitment to seeking justice in the courts will spear head the needed breakthrough in social relations, overcoming the shocking inequality of the times. The Christian humanist ideals of this group have much in common with the liberal ideals of the 19^th century writers and thinkers like Tolstoy and Alexander Herzen, but find new relevance in the 20^th century as the society senses the prospects for a successful revolution. Accordingly, we learn of the financial support they offer to lawyers who defend the accused in political trials and who represent workers who have been exploited and injured. The narrator explains to us that Kologivov hates the “moribund order” and has vowed to bring about reform or revolution, hides fugitives from the law, funds humanitarian projects and cooperates with and pays for lawyers in what are anticipated to be landmark trials.

Some of these details about the philanthropist and activist are provided to us as the narrator describes how Lara is taken as a teenager to stay with the Kologivov family as a tutor. She had been desperate to break away from her mother’s home, given that the Lawyer Komarovsky had abused his position as friend and advisor to commence an affair with the high school student. The relationship between Lara and Komarovsky is recounted with greater depth and subtlety in the novel than is the case in the film, where it is played out in a rather melodramatic fashion.

Lara is depicted as maturing during her time with the Kologivovs and acquiring a keenly attuned social conscience. She hears the jokes about the merchant’s efforts as involving an attempt to “overthrow himself” by subsidizing revolution and organizing strikes at his own factory. In his presence she recognizes the superficiality of the upper classes, as most clearly exemplified by Victor Komarovsky. As a young woman she gradually learns to recognize the true worth of Pasha, an idealist prepared to dedicate his life to the fight for freedom and equality. A memorable scene in the novel is the Christmas Party at a wealthy socialite’s house. Lara, determined to break with the aging sensualist, tucks a revolver into her coat and trudges over to the party, debating in her mind as to how best to deal with her pent-up anger and fear. We witness the various guests at the party, as they play cards and waltz in the large ballroom. The scene’s conclusion reveals much about the essential character of those thirsting for a better world.

Doctor Zhivago follows the trials and tribulations, but also the loves and acts of kindness of the main characters during the turbulent years of the Russian Civil War, which pitted the Reds – the Bolsheviks, against the White Army, which was loyal to the previous regime and its values.

Late in the novel Yuri has found his way to the isolated estate of Varykino and spends time with the valiant, hard-working Lara. She has been raising her daughter Katya alone. Viktor visits them at what will turn out to be the end of their idyll, with news that they must leave the place as the Soviet police will soon arrive to arrest and quite likely execute her. The lawyer has somehow landed on his feet and survived the turbulent times to be appointed Minister of Justice of a far-off Eastern republic. He does in fact rescue Lara and her daughter, revealing that there are mysteries in the human heart and even a rogue like Komarovsky possesses unexpected depths and is capable of moral action.

It occurs to me in considering Pasternak’s contrasting of the initial days of the Russian Revolution and its promise of a better future – the February Revolution with the later, October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks seize power with the help of various militias and irregular armed groups, one might focus on the leader of the Provisional Government. Alexander Kerensky, had he been able to assert control and lead the revolution in a democratic manner, respecting the fundamental rights of citizens, may well have been able to help fulfill the aspirations of Yuri Zhivago and the many romantic dreamers. These are individuals who would see their hopes crushed by the relentless drive of Lenin and his Bolsheviks to root out all dissent, deny freedom of thought and speech and other rights, and commence the descent into the utter darkness of Communist Russia. Kerensky was an extremely talented lawyer, who participated in a number of significant trials on behalf of the vulnerable and persecuted in the waning days of the old regime and as parliamentarian championing important legal reforms, such as abolishing the death penalty and restoring free speech and building a basis for democratic rights. Alas, he was to be pushed into exile, his days numbered had he remained in Russia like others in the Provisional government who would meet a sad fate in the new society, lacking all semblance of the rule of law.

 I have just read a wonderful narrative by the Palestinian human rights lawyer, activist, and now writer of the first rank, Raja Shehadeh. The author lives in Ramallah, in the West Bank, which has been under occupation by Israeli forces for 51 years and counting.  The book, A Rift in Time: Travels With My Ottoman Uncle, is a moving excursion through lands that should by now belong to the Palestinian people but are instead under a harsh military occupation. Shehadeh is too gifted a writer to have offered up his tale in a strident and inflexible manner. Rather, he digs deep within himself to provide a double narrative, as he retraces the steps of his rather alluring yet enigmatic uncle, Najib Nassar. This is much harder than the casual reader might imagine, given the ridiculous, persistent  constraints to which stateless Palestinians are subjected. Shehadeh intertwines his historical tale with observations from today’s perspective on the drastically altered landscape he uncertainly advances across. While the mood is often melancholy, we are treated to a vivid and admiring descriptions of what remains of the open landscape that so enchants our author.

Shehadeh is a Christian and I was taken by his description of his forlorn feelings upon coming upon the Jericho-Tiberias Road, one that in the past he had often traversed. In reading the account of Najib Nassar, a journalist, novelist (”bad novelist” according to his great-nephew but revelatory nonetheless), and romantic dreamer of a future Palestine filled with equal, rights-bearing citizens, I was reminded of the tale of Sisyphus in contemplating the exertions of the author. You may remember that in Greek myth he was the wily and unflappable King of Corinth who got in Very Serious Trouble with the Gods over his failure to follow their rules. This led to a drastic punishment indeed. He was left to toil ceaselessly in rolling a boulder up a hill in Tartarus. Once Sisyphus had struggled to the summit, the God of Hades decreed that it would immediately begin a trajectory back down the hill. Shehadeh’ s work as lawyer and founder of the pioneering, nonpartisan  human rights organization Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, appears to have been every bit as frustrating as the labour’s of poor Sisyphus. Shehadeh’s efforts to challenge the illegal expropriations and takings of Palestinian lands, the demolitions of Palestinian homes and other abuses were met with failure time and again. The Israeli military courts were not interested in this indefatigable lawyer’s conceptions of justice.

Having penned several legal texts on law in the Palestinian Territories and on human rights, Shehadeh has clearly recognized that his talents as a writer might thereafter be better put to testifying to the reality of the Palestinian nation and the Palestinian people in the twentieth and twenty first century. The world had famously heard from a former Israeli Prime Minister,  Golda Meir,  that there  “are no Palestinian people.” Shehadeh has employed his gifts as historian, memoirist and travel writer to refute that statement. He has done this with poise. Most impressively, he continually seeks out equitable approaches to the problems he describes.

Indeed, the book starts with the startling news that our narrator is himself under arrest. It is none other than the Palestinian Authority (PA) that wants to haul him in for questioning.  A Rift in Time recounts his efforts to come to terms with what had been family lore – the stories of his great-uncle Najib’s daring escape from the Ottoman authorities whose empire encompassed the district of Palestine until the Empire’s breakup in the aftermath of World War I. For some years, Najib lived a life on the run, disguised and living in hiding in the homes of friends or acquaintances. Shehadeh is able to draw on a novel penned by his great-uncle, Mufleh Ghassani, at the very time that the British Mandate came into being in 1922. Readers are able to join in a voyage of discovery with our deeply knowledgeable guide. We learn much about the multicultural aspects of the Ottoman world in which Najib had earlier operated. Although he is said to be too much the stoic and therefore lacking in the ability to investigate and reflect upon his inner self as he recounts the various episodes of his life in the largely autobiographical novel, Shehadeh teases out any number of fascinating connections to the momentous times. For instance, he searches for an accurate map of the largely vanished Palestinian landscape that Najib travelled through in his flight from authorities. To do so, he must hunt down a 1933 map from the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. He communicates the grim reality that his great-uncle, albeit an alleged criminal, had greater freedom of movement than any Palestinian in the Occupied Territories does today, given the many borders and border within borders, including innumerable checkpoints manned by stern, sometimes surly soldiers that Israel has created. A mound of directives and laws has been imposed on the subject population, without regard to Israel’s obligations under international law.

Our London-trained lawyer offers a number of forceful insights into his attempts at rebellion against an alien authority through legal channels are thwarted every bit as much as were his great-uncles attempts at offering principled alternatives to autocratic rule through his journalism, nearly a century before. The way Israel has used its military orders to give a veneer of legality and respectability to its actions to fragment the landscape and isolate the long-time inhabitants is captured in graceful prose. Shehadeh took on a number of cases involving challenges to the settlement project, losing again and again but refusing to acquiesce to the new “facts on the ground.” In A Rift in Time, he cites a government report that 40 % of the Jewish settlements were established on land proven to be owned by Palestinians and yet nothing would be done to remove them. In his considered view, law and legality did not prove to be decisive weapons in his people’s battle against what he, together with  many others, describes as colonialism. His faith in the power and righteousness of international law and  the  foundational concepts of fairness and equality dashed, he describes his shift to engaging in the act of writing as a form of resistance by a “noncombatant.”

The book, A Rift in Time: Travels With My Ottoman Uncle, is a moving excursion through lands that should by now belong to the Palestinian people but are instead under a harsh military occupation. The book also offers descriptions of the fate of others Shehadeh meets. These include a poignant lament by his driver, Abu Ahmad. The events that occurred after the Palestinian Nakba (“catastrophe” of 1948) have severed close family bonds. He was forced to emigrate to seek work as a driver in Jordan. His brother in Nablus in the West Bank is not allowed to leave his enclosed territory by virtue of Israeli military rule. Abu Ahmad’s nephews, he laments, have become strangers to him, against his will. Another brother lives a remote existence in exile, in Venezuela. And so it goes.

It is important to note that in my view Shehadeh  endeavours to provide  a fair and complete account of the situation in the Palestinian Territories. For instance, he is certainly willing to criticize the Palestinian leadership. Indeed, the book starts with the startling news that our narrator is himself under arrest. It is none other than the Palestinian Authority (PA) that wants to haul him in for questioning. Fortunately Shehadeh is not charged with anything but he give us details of the alienation he has experienced in his recent dealings with the strange quasi- government that is the PA. The scene also serves to establish kinship between himself and his great-uncle. We will eventually get to hear of the interesting trial that Najib is put through in Damascus, having been arrested in Nazareth in 1917. The alert reader will be able to make various connections between this trial and the many trials Palestinians continue to face in the West Bank.

Shehadeh is a Christian and I was taken by his description of his forlorn feelings upon coming upon the Jericho- Tiberias Road, one that in the past he had often traversed. Now, all he can do is stare at the different world preserved for Israeli settlers and visitors. “A land that from here appeared truly like a paradise had been usurped and could not even be visited.” As a Christian myself, I think of the stories in the New Testament of Jesus and his disciples travelling the Jericho Road, one that presented grave dangers to many travelers. Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan in relation to that danger zone. One can only ponder in futile despair the fact that there are few Good Samaritans willing to help Shehadeh’ s people today.

In A Rift in Time, he cites a government report that 40 % of the Jewish settlements were established on land proven to be owned by Palestinians and yet nothing would be done to remove them. In his considered view, law and legality did not prove to be decisive weapons in his people’s battle against what he, together with  many others, describes as colonialismOn a personal note, I thought often of my sole trip through the West Bank in the 1980s, after spending time in Israel. I will never forget my time in Nablus, and the great generosity of Hassan, and the other Palestinians who welcomed me there and offered me their kind hospitality. I have tried to imagine what life has had in store for them in the years since.

It may be that every effort that Raja Shehadeh makes, whether through the military courts or, now, through his memorable accounts of the Palestinian century, will be no more successful than Sisyphus’s efforts in rolling his boulder up the hill. Still, I recall that Albert Camus made Sisyphus the ultimate hero of the absurd universe that we now live in. There must be a reason that Camus ends “The Myth of Sisyphus” with the words: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Perhaps Camus knew something that the original tale omitted. Perhaps Sisyphus had conceived a way to smuggle a message out to the free world, or perhaps to the Goddess of Liberty, Eleutheria, and, sooner or later, would be relieved of his massive burden. Perhaps, too, Shehadeh’s message will penetrate the Iron Wall of indifference and inspire a meaningful and compassionate response from the community of nations.

I note that Shehadeh has a new book out, Where the Line is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships, and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine. One of the significant relationships he explores is with Henry, an idealist Jewish Canadian who emigrated to Israel many years ago and who has been a tireless advocate for peace. Speaking of this friendship, Shehadeh states: “In our small way, our friendship exposed the lie peddled by Netanyahu and his followers to Israeli people and the world – that the Arab is the fundamental and eternal enemy of the Jew, that the conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews cannot be resolved diplomatically and that the Israeli people have to live forever by the sword.” I look forward to reading this latest installment from our modern Sisyphus.

 Last month marked the 20^th anniversary of the landmark Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms case, (Delwyn) Vriend v. Alberta. There was some fine reporting in the Edmonton Journal and elsewhere on the case, including where Delwyn Vriend is now and what his experiences have been in the struggle to see gay rights entrenched in Alberta’s human rights legislation.  Readers will gain an appreciation of what a long and arduous struggle is entailed in raising a Charter challenge, involving decisions by three levels of court, over a period of many years, culminating in Vriend in a ringing affirmation of the existence of gay and lesbian rights under s. 15 – the equality rights provision. The decision also removed any doubts about the positive duty to include protection for these rights in a human rights statute.

In 1990, about the time that Delwyn Vriend’s legal journey was just getting started, I attended the Citadel Theatre’s production of Breaking the Code, by Hugh Whitmore. It was directed by Bob Baker and rarely have I seen such a searing drama on an Edmonton stage. It was based on the life of the brilliant British computer scientist and pioneer, Alan Turing. The play can be viewed on DVD or on the web and is well worth watching or reading.

The British government responded with the “Turing Law” which was enacted in 2017. Pardons are extended to all gay men who had convictions for gross indecency and related offences as a result of consensual acts with those over 16.The play was first presented in 1986 in London by the Theatre Royal and starred Derek Jacobi as Turing and Isobel Dean as his mother, Sara. The BBC later produced a version for television, again starring Jacobi. In 1986 and again here in Edmonton in 1990, it was surely the case that most of us knew very little about Alan Turing. He was truly a mystery in British society on several levels. First, we learned during the production that he was the computer scientist with the key responsibility for decoding the German Enigma Code in the heroic days of World War II when the fate of the free world hung in the balance. Turing and his team were absolutely essential to the Allied war effort and their work saved countless lives. His work, though, would have gone largely unrecognized during his lifetime. His tragic death followed two years after his conviction for homosexual offences.

The play is one of the relatively rare examples of a successful modern tragedy. As Aristotle has so helpfully explained, tragedy is essentially the art form whereby an elevated figure is brought low by a series of events, shaped by an archenemy, which bring about his or her downfall. It is evident from the plots of Classical and Shakespearean tragedy that the figures are leaders of their societies, possessing many virtues but at least one significant flaw. Further, we are made aware that the eventual destruction of the hero foreshadows some major harm to the society in which they rule or otherwise play a leading role. The challenge for modern tragedy in the Western world is for the playwright to embed within the dramatic action a citizen in contemporary democracies who possesses rare qualities without in fact displaying the obvious heroic grandeur of an Oedipus Rex or a Cleopatra.

Turing is no doubt an unconventional “hero”, but as the play progresses we learn of his brilliant work as a computer scientist in World War II, who possesses the determination and spirit of critical inquiry that enable him to achieve remarkable breakthroughs. Yet like his classical counterparts, the quiet but compelling man has a deep flaw. It is quite likely linked to his autism – he simply must tell the truth and seems to think little of the consequences. The central scenes occur in the local police station in Manchester in the north of England where he has gone to report a robbery that took place at his home. He naively indicates that he is in a homosexual relationship. The officer is unwilling to drop the matter – the interviewee has admitted to committing a criminal offence. As one can imagine, British society was particularly hypocritical in many respects in its treatment of homosexuality.  A number of writers, politicians, lawyers and other professional men were in fact gay but were extremely discreet. Others who committed their acts in places where the police might locate them were not only charged, but faced serious consequences – jail time and loss of employment and reputation. Indeed, in the very era when the play is set, the Home Secretary was specifically directing that police forces across Britain vigorously enforce the law.

At trial, there is little counsel can do for his unfortunate client. His client has admitted his guilt and to avoid jail, Turing is provided with the option of taking chemicals to end all sexual desire – that is, of accepting chemical castration. The worried man accepts the offer but is shown drifting further and further into despair.

As one can imagine, British society was particularly hypocritical in many respects in its treatment of homosexuality.  Another element of Turing’s life that is interwoven into the drama is his involvement with the British Secret Service. His stellar war record has led to offers to do some part-time work in peacetime. A by-the-book intelligence officer interviews Turing at various points and we see the continuing dangers that Turing’s unfortunate propensity to tell the truth, the whole truth, has created. It becomes clear that his actions and travel arrangements will be carefully monitored and attempts to travel to the Continent freely will be reviewed and quite likely denied.

The play ends with one final scene after Turing’s shocking death – as Ross, the investigating officer, meets with the hero’s mother, Sara. She poignantly recalls the incredible efforts he made to attend university and excel there, as prelude to a marvelous career. A debate follows as to whether or not he did in fact commit suicide, which I note as an aside, remained a criminal offence at the time.

Whitmore’s play successfully dramatizes this mysterious hero’s life and layers the investigation with dialogue revealing the unique quality of his mind and its ability to work through to the last possibility the prospects for establishing the truth of his theories.

Turing is no doubt an unconventional “hero”, but as the play progresses we learn of his brilliant work as a computer scientist in World War II, who possesses the determination and spirit of critical inquiry that enable him to achieve remarkable breakthroughs. English law has gradually moved toward equal treatment of gay men. In 2013, after a petition was delivered to the government, a posthumous pardon was issued for Turing.  A further petition, which gathered 640,000 signatures, was launched in 2015, calling for a much wider pardon for all gay men who had been unjustly convicted. The British government responded with the “Turing Law” which was enacted in 2017. Pardons are extended to all gay men who had convictions for gross indecency and related offences as a result of consensual acts with those over 16. Commenting specifically on the pardon for the great Bletchley Park code breaker, Turing’s great niece Rachel Barnes stated on a televised program: “[He] so, so deserves this. To think that this man who cracked the enigma code and saved countless of millions of lives during World War Two and to think of the treatments that he went through …in 1952 is still unbelievable to us.” She also emphasized that it is vital to think about her great uncle as a man who achieved much in his life, rather than simply as a gay man who was victimized.

It is appropriate here to invoke the statement attributed to Martin Luther King, that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but bends toward justice.” We do have to stop every once and a while to reflect on the capacity of societies like Britain’s and Canada’s to progress towards greater equality and understanding, even if  in the cases of  men like Turing and, in recent times, Delwyn Vriend, it takes much longer than we would think possible.

 Sayed Kashua wrote his novel, Second Person Singular, as an Arab-Israeli. He has since sadly reflected on his need to leave Israel for the US, after years of trying to find a place for himself in a society that treated him and other Palestinians as second-class participants in a country dominated by hard- right, nationalistic voices.

Before turning to Kashua’s novel, I wanted to place it in the harsh and punitive legal context of a variety of repressive laws that have been passed in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset.  One such law enacted by Israel in March, 2017 denies entry to any foreigner who has exercised his or her freedom of conscience and of expression to support the international boycott movement that has gained steam. This law comes in an era where the ever-expanding illegal settlements established by the state of Israel calls into question any prospective two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians that could have any hope of a just and peaceful resolution of the ongoing turmoil  endemic to the Palestinian / Israeli situation. It was reported that the vote came as the Israeli government’s right wing was clearly emboldened by the election of President Trump and his warm welcome the previous month of Prime Minister Netanyahu, as well as the statements made by key members of his administration which have been highly supportive of the illegal settlements project.

Sayed Kashua wrote his novel, Second Person Singular, as an Arab-Israeli. Rabbi Rich Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish movement in North America, was quoted in an interview as follows: “ It’s going to be a giant sign…’Don’t come unless you agree with everything we’re doing here.’ I don’t know what kind of democracy makes that statement.” A peace activist sees the law as redefining as an enemy of Israel anyone who does not agree that the settlements are now and forever to be part of Israel.

A second law that was enacted in the Knesset some years ago will now be utilized to punish two foreigners who have dared to call for a cultural boycott of Israel or the territory it controls. The 2011 law allows civil suits against those who might call for an economic or cultural boycott, by anyone who can claim economic harm. The law was heavily criticized by Israeli civil liberties groups, and as expected, the criticisms were to no avail.

But I certainly had these reports etched in my mind as I read Kashua’s novel. I thought about the fact that one of the protagonists’ is a lawyer whose name we never learn, but one who has developed a strong legal practice in Jerusalem. He specializes in representing his fellow Arabs who are accused of various crimes. Perhaps indeed , this character, “the Lawyer” ( a nice touch I think , by the author to emphasize the degree to which this man is to be identified almost completely by his career, which has catapulted him into upper-middle class Arab society in Jerusalem), will end up defending various Palestinians who dare to speak out against the settlements.  Perhaps he will expand his practice and defend Jewish peace activists whose efforts to defend the fundamental rights of Palestinians and those who advocate on their behalf have met with severe repression by the Netanyahu government in recent years.

I thought about the fact that one of the protagonists’ is a lawyer whose name we never learn, but one who has developed a strong legal practice in Jerusalem. The novel is not a political fiction in any obvious way. The point certainly is not to explore specific political and legal problems that wreak havoc on the proper workings of Israeli society. Rather, it is an existential work, looking at questions of social identity and how they are constructed and what happens when pressure builds to construct false identities. We learn that the Lawyer was originally from a small Palestinian village. However, he got a first class education, including a top degree at law school and must perform a role that he has carefully constructed form himself, so that he might succeed in impressing his desired clientele. So he wears a Ralph Lauren tie, though he pretends to not know its make when asked by his friend, the owner of an independent café in Jerusalem’s downtown, on King George Street. He finds it necessary to attend to meetings and court in an expensive, German-made luxury car. He does this to win over skeptical Arabs who have joined the professions in Jerusalem and consider that only someone well-versed in the manners and mores of the Israeli Jews will be a substantial and reliable lawyer.

Although the novel does not take us through any trial scene, it describes the work our protagonist does. We learn that he finds the unwinnable criminal cases he conducts for those charged with attacks on Israeli cars in the West Bank on the bypass roads only available to the settlers and other Israeli Jews. There is no potential whatsoever to beat the charges we are told – a conviction and lengthy prison term is unavoidable. However, by finding any aspects of the action and of his client’s background that might be remembered for mitigation on the day a future prisoner exchange occurs, he will more than likely assist him or her. While that eventuality will be years down the road, it is the best that can be hoped for.

He soon tracks down the novella in a used book store and on his way home, spies a note inserted in the book that seems to indicate that his wife has been addressed by an apparent lover. Early scenes with a book club prepare the development of one of two main plot lines in Second Person Singular. The Lawyer’s wife asks him if he has read Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata. He soon tracks down the novella in a used book store and on his way home, spies a note inserted in the book that seems to indicate that his wife has been addressed by an apparent lover. This triggers intense jealousy and a psychic melt-down, as the carefully constructed progressive persona he has built up disintegrates. He regresses to a conservative, irrational man whose ingrained habits from his village upbringing pour out.

A parallel plot involved a young man who has also arrived in Jerusalem, Amir, from the village of Jamilla, who has just completed his graduate work in social studies. Amir also finds it necessary for various emotional and practical reasons to construct a persona and to slip out of his “Arab skin” and takes extreme action to become accepted within Israeli society. At one point, Amir states that he wants to be like them – “without loyalty tests, without admission exams, without a fear of suspicious looks…without feeling that I am committing a crime.” I won’t give away the plot other than to indicate that it develops in surprising ways once Amir becomes a helper for a young Jewish Israeli who is suffering from paralysis. Kashua eventually links the two plots in a rather ingenious fashion. In the process, he tells us much about the struggles of middle class Palestinian Israelis who attempt to find a true home and sense of belonging in a truly precarious or risky atmosphere. This novel brings to life tough issues that might otherwise remain abstract ideas.

 George Orwell was an outstanding man of letters who is also quite likely the most influential political novelist of the 20^th century. Best known for his satiric animal fable Animal Farm, and the dystopian novel 1984, he began his career as an unlikely candidate for literary stardom. His first novel, Burmese Days (1934), reveals his complicated feelings about both being part of the machinery of British imperialism and secretly hating it in ever-escalating feelings of disgust during his six years in the Indian Imperial Police (Burma was a region within the Indian division of the British Empire). As a police officer, Orwell had an unparalleled opportunity to see the workings of imperial rule close up, as part of the machinery devised to impose law and order.

Nonetheless, Orwell’s cynical outlook on the abuse of power by both British and Burmese characters provoke me to make a connection to the brutal military rulers who now govern Myanmar (formerly Burma) with an iron fist and utter contempt for human rights and the lives of their citizens. At the time Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, arrived in Burma in 1922, nationalist agitation was just beginning to become a serious problem for the imperial masters. Whereas the important Montagu –Chelmford reforms took effect in India, perhaps out of either carelessness or indifference, they were not extended to the province of Burma, leading to riots and cries for greater autonomy. The British attempted to respond, but the local governor’s reforms were too little, too late. Historians inform us that economic pressures created by British manufacturing and the opening of the Suez Canal were transforming traditional Burmese life in sometimes startling ways. A further point of serious tension was the decision by the British to establish secular schools, thereby depriving Buddhist monks of a fair amount of their secular power. As a consequence, a number of monks advanced nationalist positions and became serious trouble makers to British officialdom.  They would obviously have a considerable amount of scorn for police officers like Blair/Orwell. This friction is described in one of Orwell’s well known essays, “Shooting An Elephant”, when he admits: “With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, something clamped down. . .  upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts.” Fortunately, he did not give in to the impulse but resigned from the service, instead, and sailed home with little money and a completely uncertain future but with his dignity and self-respect intact.

In Burmese Days, the protagonist, John Floy, was a fairly typical Orwellian “hero” mostly lacking heroic qualities. He is not a policeman but rather a hugely unhappy timber agent. He strongly detests the ugly racist attitudes of his fellow Brits in the colony in a nondescript town in Burma but, being fully aware of his uniquely dissenting views, is able to voice his true feelings only in the comfort of his own room. However, at various points in the plot he is compelled to come to the rescue of certain of his fellow colonists, such that by the end of Burmese Days we might think of Flory as an honorary policeman, or at least guardian of the civilian population. So, for example, early in the novel he leaps into action after hearing a fearful cry and a commotion created by a water buffalo. He competently frightens the animal away, winning over the lovely Elizabeth girl who recently came from the cultured city of Paris. Before long Flory is madly in love but various obstacles to a match are placed in his way.

The narrator lets us look behind the successful outward poses of officers and merchants to see their narrow-mindedness and frequent recourse to alcohol to get them through difficult and unrewarding careers. The scenes describing the British colony and the ill-mannered members of the Club that Flory has little choice but to attend are advanced with a bracing cynicism. The narrator lets us look behind the successful outward poses of officers and merchants to see their narrow-mindedness and frequent recourse to alcohol to get them through difficult and unrewarding careers. There is of course a strong colour bar and arrogant club members think little of assaulting and demeaning servants who fail to please their masters.

Both laws that discriminate against the local population and oppressive treatment at the hands of the colonial masters who at times act with impunity lead at one point in the novel to a full-scale riot. Ellis, a bigoted racist, has lost his cool and lashed out with his walking stick at a schoolboy who has acted mischievously and greatly annoyed him. Due to incompetent medical treatment the boy is blinded. As the law will clearly not operate to hold Ellis accountable for his actions, a mob of incensed Burmese begin an all-out assault on the Club. Flory performs a truly heroic deed in breaking out to courageously cross the river to the point where the police force is stationed and alerting them to the danger.

One might think that after such a remarkable deed, Flory would be treated like a genuine hero by members of the colony and finally win over the beautiful but conventional and shallow Elizabeth. However, by this point in the novel, we have been educated by Orwell to recognize that mere virtue will not overcome conventional prejudices and assertions of white superiority. As if Flory’s struggles weren’t great enough already, we learn that he has a truly serious enemy in the corrupt magistrate, U Po Kyin. In the course of the novel, we come to learn that there is nothing in the dark arts of political advancement and unethical legal maneuvering that the fat and greedy magistrate needs to learn. U Po Kyin wishes to achieve the coveted goal of becoming the first non-white member of the British Club. His only competition is the Indian doctor, Veraswamy, who is a good friend of Flory’s. The shrewd magistrate sets in place a series of false reports and anonymous letters making false accusations against the two men and creates a truly embarrassing scene involving Flory’s old mistress. Kyin has accumulated great wealth and power as a magistrate by taking bribes from both sides of a case. Then, rather than favouring the side that might have offered the larger bribe, he simply decided the matter on correct legal grounds, pocketing tidy sums in the process. He also levied a ceaseless toll, a kind of private taxation system, from all the villages under his jurisdiction.

At the time Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, arrived in Burma in 1922, nationalist agitation was just beginning to become a serious problem for the imperial masters. U Po Kyin is a corrupt, dangerous and indeed evil man who will ruthlessly destroy any individual who he perceives will be an obstacle to his path to success. Orwell of course did not anticipate the various changes that would occur in Burmese society after it acquired independence in 1948. Nonetheless, Orwell’s cynical outlook on the abuse of power by both British and Burmese characters provoke me to make a connection to the brutal military rulers who now govern Myanmar (formerly Burma) with an iron fist and utter contempt for human rights and the lives of their citizens. The long-time military ruler of Myanmar, Ne Win, seized power after a military coup in 1962, thus ending all hope for a successful democratic form of governance. Ne Win’s bloodthirsty and ruthless reign came to an end in 1988. A serious uprising aiming to establish democratic rule was crushed and military rulers continue to suppress all forms of dissent. The “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya, one of the many minority religious groups in the country, is the latest in an ongoing series of atrocities perpetrated by the military.

While the novel is certainly limited in scope and must ultimately be viewed as a minor work, it does contain some of Orwell’s best writing in the novel form.

 Doris Lessing left Africa – Southern Rhodesia to be precise, to journey by ship to England with the most meagre of personal possessions – a suitcase, a small sum of money and a manuscript. It was the manuscript which would transform the life of this fearless colonial from the margins of the fast-changing British Empire. In 1950, this deeply personal manuscript would be transformed into the novel The Grass Is Singing. Lessing’s debut was an astonishing novel which must have been received by a number of British readers as an assault on their belief systems. The Grass is Singing opens in dramatic, albeit understated, fashion with a small news report indicating that Mary Turner, wife of the white British-Rhodesian farmer Dick Turner, had been found murdered on her front verandah. Her house boy, Moses, had confessed to the killing.

As a courageous truth-teller, Lessing did not hesitate to criticize the growing racism generated by Mugabe and his party, the ZUNAU-PF. While the unsuspecting reader might believe that the novelist will probe the mystery inherent in the stark reality of a murder of a poor white woman by her black servant and at the very least the deeper motivations for the brutal act, Lessing defies conventional expectations. This tale of murder is far less an investigation into Moses’ role than an investigation into why another white farmer and a neighbor of the Turners , Charlie Slatter, displays such open contempt for the dead woman.  As an important representative of the white community in the region, Charlie’s views reflect a widespread and overwhelming desire to cover up the most important facts of Mary’s last days.

In the opening chapter, Charlie quickly condemns both Mary and Dick for their unconventional dealings with the black workers on their farm. Charlie attributes the violent attack to the failure of “the man” of the house, Dick, to take a firm hand with Moses and the other black servants. He asserts this as a principle which passes in this confined world as conventional wisdom. In the hypocritical world of these British colonials, it is vital to ensure that no thoughts of free and easy discourse by mere servants are able to emerge.  There is no doubt that Charlie deals with his black servants and farm hands with an iron hand. The narrator makes this clear when informing us of the time Charlie actually became enraged by one of his native workers, striking and killing him. For this, he was fined 30 pounds! We might ponder the difference in treatment that the justice system provides to Charlie and to Moses, who will be hanged for his offence. The racial divide is illustrated further at various places in the book.

The reader should know that the title of this work is taken from a line of T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land, and in particular the section “What the Thunder Said.” Lessing then introduces the character of Tony Marston, a young public school graduate who has come out to the colony from England. As an assistant on the farm, Tony has had the opportunity to closely observe the relations between the Turners, their black farm workers and household help. Tony is truly bewildered by the lack of interest displayed by both Charlie and the investigating officer in determining what motivated Moses to commit the deed and what Mary did to place her in a dangerous relationship with him. In fact these men, and, one suspects, other key members of the white community of farmers and local officials, want to throw a heavy veil of silence around the entire act and the obvious fact that Mary had an intimate relationship with Moses (which might well have had a sexual component). She has violated an unwritten code and rather than honoring this long-suffering member of their community, all thought of her fate must be banished.  As the narrator explains, it is as if she has breached the esprit de corps or the pride of the farming community. They can only proceed with confidence if the myth of white superiority if maintained and if a rigid colour bar is maintained at all times.

Tony, however, has not reached a point where he might have considered such attitudes normal and necessary to protect the well-being of the community. Since the murder occurred early during his temporary stay in Southern Africa, it is indeed strange and unnatural in his eyes. While Marston initially places his trust in the trial process to get to the bottom of this disturbing act, instead it becomes clear that both the prosecutor and the judge have conspired with others to prevent any probing.  The narrator is left to conduct an inquiry into this event and the significance of Mary’s death on the reader’s behalf.

In The Grass is Singing, Lessing has drawn a haunting portrait of a marriage under extreme pressure. Lessing carefully traces the unique limitations in upbringing of the characters, especially of Mary’s in a society where women are expected to comply as companions to their husband’s social role. However, Lessing also highlights the damaging effects of the racial discrimination and oppression. Dick indeed is viewed by many as something of a fish out of water because he at times develops a free and open relationship with his black farm hands, treating some in comradely fashion.  His neighbors expect him to be vigilant in stamping out all thought of independent action and to strictly discipline his black workers.  In the Turner’s rather unsuccessful and increasingly diminished social circumstances, Mary ends up taking out her frustrations on the Africans working in the home.

Mary actually brandishes a whip and slashes the face of one of the servants. A critical point in the plot develops when Mary grasps that by giving stern orders, failing to allow for natural frailty, and prohibiting the staff to stop for breaks in the intense heat are leading to acts of rebellion. Mary actually brandishes a whip and slashes the face of one of the servants. Rather than realizing that she has developed a hateful domineering approach, she determines that greater use of threats is necessary. She then warns some of the workers that she will seek police assistance to ensure that they abide strictly by a contract they are supposed to have signed. Under the laws of this Southern African state (not named), they can be compelled to return to work based on commitments forced from them because of a complete lack of bargaining power.

The arc of the novel will reverse shortly after this point and Mary will begin to unravel and increasingly become prone to mental instability. The novel will explode in the final chapters which depict her final disintegration in highly symbolic terms. The reader should know that the title of this work is taken from a line of T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land, and in particular the section “What the Thunder Said.” This is a risky strategy for Lessing and it largely works for me, despite her failure to provide sufficient details which would enable us to understand Moses’ motivations better.

While Marston initially places his trust in the trial process to get to the bottom of this disturbing act, instead it becomes clear that both the prosecutor and the judge have conspired with others to prevent any probing.  It is worth placing this novel in the context of the Nobel Prize winner’s later work.  Lessing treats her protagonists with a fair degree of compassion. They are inevitably tangled up in the racist foundations of African society in the years during and just after the Second World War. Yet we glimpse the capacity to respond in a positive manner to new opportunities. Dick in particular shows a true love of the soil and respect for the integrity of those who work the land, granting some dignity to his black farmhands. Mary’s relationship with Moses reveals levels of intimacy which, while disturbing to other whites, nonetheless reveals the potential for a member of the white community to perceive the Africans as something other than second class citizens who are to be treated like beasts of burden.

Lessing goes on to make a case in a later work, African Voices, for the white farmers and their critical role in maintaining a viable economy in post- colonial South Rhodesia, renamed Zimbabwe. Long before many others in the West had given up on Mugabe for his human rights violations, she was an early critic of the dictatorial rule of Robert Mugabe. As a courageous truth-teller, Lessing did not hesitate to criticize the growing racism generated by Mugabe and his party, the ZUNAU-PF. Had the international community heeded her warnings, for example, the violent land seizure program of 2000, affecting thousands of white farmers and their families, might have been averted.

 George Orwell famously sought to make writing on politics into an art. It’s important to remember that he wasn’t the only one. So too did a radically different kind of writer, the cocksure American Gore Vidal. I bring up Orwell because I continue to ponder the notion that his dystopian novel 1984 time and again serves as the go-to book for citizens in the West looking for insights into ever more frightening examples of the abuse of political and legal power. Once again, this year the novel rocketed up the bestseller charts as the enormity of the election of Donald Trump began to manifest itself. Truckloads of the book were on their way to people’s homes the day after they witnessed Trump spinmeister and spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway refer to a false claim made by the Trump team about the size of the inauguration crowd as “alternate facts.”

Much as I admire Orwell as an essayist and early exemplar of participatory journalism, I would like to tell friends and fellow lovers of literature that, while 1984 works well within the parameters of the dystopian novel of ideas genre, it has some very real limitations as a warning and a guide to contemporary political trends. Sure, Orwell was able to brilliantly depict the means by which totalitarian or, at least authoritarian rulers could maintain a firm grip on power. But other aspects of the novel seem to me to be quite remote from what we witnessed in the years after its 1949 publication. In the decade after the novel appeared, did the United States and Britain would become the drab, joyless societies depicted in the novel? Then or now, do they appear on the verge of becoming totalitarian or even authoritarian states run by a band of ruthless rulers hidden behind the stern visage of Big Brother? It seems to me that as the 1950s advanced and the American economy roared along, it developed in manner quite unlike the dark world Orwell envisioned. The bulk of the citizenry were no doubt too distracted by all the bright new shiny toys and sheer abundance of goods on offer to need to be controlled in the heavy-handed way Orwell dramatizes.

As I read the novel, I found the ironies piling up one after another. The society is in desperate need of reform and yet any attempt to achieve it seems only to lead to more violence and bloodshed.I consider that the novels of Gore Vidal capture important aspects of the postwar world that would soon be effortlessly dominated by the United States in the West, facing off in the Cold war with the Soviet Union, which had developed its own form of imperialism.  An early novel of Vidal’s, Dark Green, Bright Red gives a sense of the way in which the author’s political realism, served up with a pungent dash of cynicism, is able to dramatize the urge-to-Empire of the United States in the Truman and Eisenhower eras. Later Presidents continued to build upon this super-state with its military-industrial complex and its ever-intrusive secret service, the CIA.

In his note at the end of the novel Vidal tells us that he completed it in Antigua in 1949, the very time that 1984 exploded in the world. Vidal had lived in Guatemala for considerable periods of time over the preceding three years.

The novel certainly has a cinematic quality. Unfortunately, some of the characters, particularly the Indians and Spanish- Americans of the fictional land referred to simply as “the Republic”, a stand-in for Guatemala, resemble the stock characters of a B movie from Hollywood  struggling  to escape from their stereotypical origins. As a reader, I suspect that Vidal is toying with me, expecting me to buy into the myths and stereotypes of Central Americans that the mainstream media and an ostensibly de-politicized Hollywood employed in that era. The three significant characters are the American protagonist, Peter Nelson,  a young and energetic figure with a mysterious past as a soldier in the U.S. army;  the General, in whose army Nelson is now employed and the General’s beautiful and vivacious daughter, Elena. She is engaged to George Green, nephew of the Director of “The Company” and himself a rising official in a powerful fruit company. The Company is  clearly modelled on the hugely financially successful United Fruit Company, known popularly in Guatemala and the rest of the Americas as the Octopus because its hands reached into virtually every sector of their societies.

The plot involves the planning for a coup against the existing government along with an early push into Guatemalan towns, as the volunteer army gathers strength and courage. There is considerable talk of the General’s desire to establish laws and programs for the poor, primarily the Indians who make up the majority of the country’s population. However, Vidal deftly allows us to see that there is likely to be a significant gap between the promises made to the most vulnerable and hence gullible citizens in this very unequal society, and the eventual results. The novel has a unique quality of parody. This seems at first quite inappropriate for a novel that purports to explore the power relations of a poor Third World country and the suffering endured by the majority of the population due to unjust laws and unfair land grabs. However, by novel’s end I acquired a sense that there might be method in the madness. Vidal wished to find an unusual means of telling us how futile and foolish all talk of land reform and the creation of a just set of laws, with courts to uphold them in a principled manner, will inevitably be. The reasons for this are located in the slightly sinister and genuinely dangerous Mr. Green, the head of the (United Fruit) Company and his nephew. They are the puppet masters and they will determine who will rule. All opportunity for reform will be stymied because they have not the slightest intention of allowing their profits form the large estates they own to be placed at risk in any way.

An early novel of Vidal’s, Dark Green, Bright Red gives a sense of the way in which the author’s political realism, served up with a pungent dash of cynicism, is able to dramatize the urge-to-Empire of the United States in the Truman and Eisenhower eras. A strong scene in the novel occurs when Peter Nelson, as captain of the General’s troops, engages in a confused sequence of shooting before routing a group of looters in the town the rebel’s troops have just secured. Peter’s order to fire on the unruly mob saves the life of a man who had a rope around his neck. The fellow turns out to be a lawyer who was being terrorized by the mob because, he explained, he had been part of the successful middle class whose family operated a business. Envy on the part of the group of troublemakers led to an attempt to confiscate all his family’s assets. The lawyer talks about the necessity of restoring order and plans to “deal with” the men responsible for his near-murder. We learn, in other words, that in a country riven by disparities of wealth and power, there is a brutal struggle for power and material gain and little time for high-minded idealism.

As I read the novel, I found the ironies piling up one after another. The society is in desperate need of reform and yet any attempt to achieve it seems only to lead to more violence and bloodshed. Further, the country that clearly dominates the region, the United States, through its multinational corporation, was far from being a guarantor of liberty and justice. It simply ensured that the misery would continue without cease. In the actual history of the country, a further irony is that just at the time the novel was published, Guatemala was actually beginning a remarkable transformation. The government of Arevalo had replaced a long-time dictator who had been forced to flee because of a genuine rebellion uniting the middle class and the poor. Over the next three years, the talented and compassionate President, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, together with his brilliant wife, engaged in a number of progressive measures to create a more equal society. He modelled his reform program on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal of two decades earlier.

Vidal’s novel of an attempted coup, masterminded by The Company with the obvious support of the U.S.  government, turned out to be amazingly prescient. The Eisenhower administration, working covertly through the CIA, responded to the requests of the United Fruit Company to destabilize, punish and if necessary destroy the democratically elected government of Jacobo  Arbenz. It did just that, ultimately forcing Arbenz and his family to flee the country. The dictator that it installed in power ensured that all legal and political reforms were rolled back. An era of bloodshed and a brutal denial of basic rights was unleashed. This continued over the next several decades, with support from the United States, because the dictator was willing to burnish his anti-Communist credentials, meaning opposition to all leftist and progressive thought and organization, and to leave the lands and profits of United Fruit Company untouched.

The very title of this novel – Dark Green, Bright Red, captures the colors of The Company. It symbolizes the headlong rush out of the green world of lush forest into the “bright red” world of  authoritarian Guatemalan society, the colour of the blood of all those Guatemalan citizens made to pay with their lives and liberties for the return to rule by the mighty, all under the yoke of American corporate and political interests.

The novel is an insightful depiction of the ways in which the United States as a new super-power would thwart the aspirations of small countries in Central America and make a mockery of the Four Freedoms that President Roosevelt had so recently promised.  In the 1950s the United States aggressively supported the interests of the United Fruit Company in a manner that undermined the one hopeful development in Guatemala during the Arbenz administration. This was the establishment of a functioning legal system, respect for the rule of law, and rights for all Guatemalans, no matter how poor. The coup engineered from Washington ensured that any attempt thereafter to exercise human rights would be met with imprisonment or outright murder. Only in 1999 would an American President, Bill Clinton, apologize for the enormous wrong-doing that occurred. As for United Fruit, as the great poet Pablo Neruda wrote, it constituted a “dictatorship of flies.”