Back in the News: Musharraf's Arrest & Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes

From Thursday's BBC article, "Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf: Court orders ex-ruler's arrest:"

A court has ordered the arrest of Gen Pervez Musharraf over his attempt when Pakistan's military ruler to impose house arrest on judges in March 2007.

Mr Musharraf was present at the Islamabad High Court when the judges issued the order. He had been seeking to extend bail in the case. Police present made no attempt to arrest him as he left the court.

A statement from his office described the court order as "ill-conceived and unwarranted judicial activism". It said that the order was "seemingly motivated by personal vendettas" since Mr Musharraf's return to Pakistan to participate in general elections in May. An appeal is being made to the Supreme Court, the statement said.

When I posted about Musharraf last month, shortly after his return to Pakistan, I recommended A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif:

Ali Shigri, Pakistan Air Force pilot and Silent Drill Commander of the Fury Squadron, is on a mission to avenge his father's suspicious death, which the government calls a suicide. Ali's target is none other than General Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistani. Enlisting a rag-tag group of conspirators...Ali sets his elaborate plan in motion. There's only one problem: the line of would-be Zia assassins is longer than he could have possibly known.

Iran's Nuclear Program, the Shah, & Seraji's Rooftops of Tehran

From last month’s BBC article “The man who turned Iran nuclear:”

In a rare interview, the man dubbed "the father of Iran's nuclear programme" tells how the project began under the Shah, who wanted to leave the option for a bomb open.

Now in his 80s, Akbar Etemad remembers all too clearly the pressure the Americans tried to apply to him when he was head of Iran's nuclear programme between 1974 and 1978.

Mr Etemad was the president of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation and it was under him that the country's nuclear project began and flourished. The Shah of Iran had announced that he wanted to build nuclear power plants in the country, a plan supported by the United States. The goal was for Iran to produce 23,000 megawatts of electrical power...

For a novel about Iran under the Shah, try Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji:

Set in 1970s Iran during the shah's regime, this earnest, semiautobiographical debut novel is told from the perspective of bookish 17-year-old Pasha Shahed, who, along with his best friend Ahmed, plays soccer, goofs off and thinks about girls.

But Pasha pines for one girl in particular—his neighbor Zari, betrothed since birth to Pasha's mentor, the neighborhood radical, Ramin Sobhi, whom everyone calls Doctor. Over a summer Ahmed orchestrates daily meetups with his own beloved, Faheemeh, and includes Pasha and Zari. Despite knowing he shouldn't, Pasha falls in love with Zari.

The idyllic summer comes to an end when Doctor is abducted and killed by SAVAK, the not-so-secret police. The effects of Doctor's death on Pasha and Zari are traumatic and lead each to acts of transgression with tragic results.

Swaziland & Davis' Scared

It's not often one sees news about Swaziland, the small country nearly surrounded by gun-toting South Africa.

So what's new in the country with the lowest life expectancy in the world? Rampant corruption, unfortunately. Here's last month's Guardian article "Swaziland government sells maize donated by Japan and banks the cash:"

Swaziland's government has sold maize donated by the Japanese government to feed hungry Swazis for $3m (£2m) and deposited the money in the Central Bank of Swaziland. 

The nearly 12,000 tonnes of donated maize was sold by the ministry of economic planning and development in 2011, but the sale was not made public until an item about the transaction appeared in a performance report the ministry presented to the Swaziland parliament for review last week. 

Swaziland has not produced enough food to feed itself since the 1970s. It depends on international food aid to bridge a gap that varies from year to year, ranging from two-thirds of the country's 1.2 million people in 2007 to about one-tenth of the population this year, after a better than average rainfall, according to the World Food Programme.

For a book set in Swaziland, read Tom Davis' novel Scared:

Nonfiction author Davis makes his fiction debut with a story about two people worlds apart who help each other find redemption. An orphan girl in Swaziland endures her uncle's abuse through visions of "the illuminated man" who she believes will take her to her dead mother's side. When photographer Stuart Daniels discovers the girl near death, he enlists a pastor and a village chief to help her and her two siblings. Facing floods, confronting an aid agency's fraud, and absorbing a brutal attack by one of many desperate starving people may be the only path toward atonement for Stuart's past life.

China's Cultural Revolution & Min's Wild Ginger

Since I've previously posted about China's re-education camps, I'm glad a story has come up that allows me to cover the "Cultural Revolution" that spawned them.

 From last week's Guardian article "China's Cultural Revolution: son's guilt over the mother he sent to her death:"

They beat her, bound her and led her from home. She knelt before the crowds as they denounced her. Then they loaded her on to a truck, drove her to the outskirts of town and shot her. 

Fang Zhongmou's execution for political crimes during the Cultural Revolution was commonplace in its brutality but more shocking to outsiders in one regard: her accusers were her husband and their 16-year-old child. 

More than four decades on, Fang's son is seeking to atone by telling her story and calling for the preservation of her grave in their home town of Guzhen, central Anhui province, as a cultural relic. 

Fang's plot is already hemmed in by buildings and a wall is rising behind it. Nearby streets are stacked with window frames, tiles and pallets of wood. Without official recognition, fears Zhang Hongbing, his mother's grave and story could soon be swept away – part of a wider, shadowed past that is fast disappearing.

For a novel set during the Cultural Revolution, try Wild Ginger by Anchee Min:

The beautiful, iron-willed Wild Ginger is only in elementary school when we first meet her, but already she has been singled out by the Red Guards for her "foreign-colored eyes." Her classmate Maple is also a target of persecution. It is through the quieter, more skeptical Maple, a less than ardent Maoist whose father is languishing in prison for a minor crime, that we see this story to its tragic end." The Red Guards have branded Wild Ginger's deceased father a traitor and eventually drive her mother to a gruesome suicide, but she fervently embraces Maoism to save her spirit. She rises quickly through the ranks and is held up as a national model for Maoism. Wild Ginger now has everything, even a young man who vies for her heart. But Mao's prohibition on romantic love places her in an untenable position. Into this sexually charged situation steps Maple, creating an uneasy triangle that Min has portrayed with keen psychological insight and her characteristic gift for lyrical eroticism.

Musharraf's Return & Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes

From today's BBC story "Musharraf returns to Pakistan despite threats:"

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has arrived back in Pakistan, ending four years of self-imposed exile and defying death threats. A protection detail of heavily armed commandos met him after his plane from Dubai touched down in Karachi airport. A mass rally in the city was cancelled. General Musharraf plans to lead his party in the May general election...  He faces a string of charges including conspiracy to murder, but on Friday the Pakistani authorities granted him protective bail in several outstanding cases, freeing him from immediate arrest once he sets foot in Pakistan. One of the charges is that he failed to provide adequate security for opposition leader Benazir Bhutto after she returned from exile in 2007. Two deadly explosions, in which nearly 140 people died, greeted her arrival in Karachi on 19 October. She was killed that December at a rally in Rawalpindi.

For a satirical novel about Pakistaini politics (and assassinations), try A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif:

Ali Shigri, Pakistan Air Force pilot and Silent Drill Commander of the Fury Squadron, is on a mission to avenge his father's suspicious death, which the government calls a suicide. Ali's target is none other than General Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistani. Enlisting a rag-tag group of conspirators...Ali sets his elaborate plan in motion. There's only one problem: the line of would-be Zia assassins is longer than he could have possibly known.

If satire isn't really your thing, of if you'd prefer a book more focused on Pakistani society than Pakistani politics, you might like In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin:

Daniyal Mueenuddin's collection of linked stories illuminates a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in the countryside outside of Lahore, Pakistan. An aging feudal landlord's household staff, the villagers who depend on his favor, and a network of relations near and far who have sought their fortune in the cities confront the advantages and constraints of station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change. Mueenuddin bares - at times humorously, at times tragically - the complexities of Pakistani class and culture and presents a vivid picture of a time and a place, of the old powers and the new, as the Pakistani feudal order is undermined and transformed.

Pope Francis, Argentina's Dirty War, & Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases

From Friday's Washington Post article "Vatican defends Pope Francis against Argentina ‘Dirty War’ allegations:"

The Vatican vigorously defended Pope Francis on Friday by seeking to discredit accusations that he failed to oppose and may even have collaborated with Argentina’s feared military junta during the so-called “dirty war” against left-wing activists... [Q]uestions about the activities of Bergoglio from 1976 to 1983, when a military dictatorship terrorized much of Argentina and “disappeared” thousands of its own citizens, remain a cloud over his papacy’s otherwise bright early days... While Bergoglio did not confront the abuses of the junta with anything approaching the public fervor of his fellow clerics facing other dictatorships, as in Chile, it is not clear whether he used other, more private channels, to protect his flock. Bergoglio once told a biographer that he purposely said Mass for the nation’s dictator, Jorge Videla, once in order to advocate for mercy.

To try to immerse yourself in what Argentineans experienced during the Dirty War, try The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander:

From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, The Ministry of Special Cases casts a powerful spell. In the heart of Argentina’s Dirty War, Kaddish Poznan struggles with a son who won’t accept him; strives for a wife who forever saves him; and spends his nights protecting the good name of a community that denies his existence--and denies a checkered history that only Kaddish holds dear. When the nightmare of the disappeared children brings the Poznan family to its knees, they are thrust into the unyielding corridors of the Ministry of Special Cases, the refuge of last resort.

Also excellent is Departing at Dawn, a novel by Argentinean author Gloria Lisé:

March 23, 1976. Berta watches as her lover, Atilio, a union organizer, is thrown from a window to his death on the sidewalk below. The next day, Colonel Jorge Rafael Videla stages a coup d’etat and a military dictatorship takes control of Argentina. Though never a part of Atilio’s union efforts, Berta is on a list to be “disappeared” and flees to relatives in the countryside. There she becomes part of the family she knows only from old photographs: Aunt Avelina, who blasts records from an old player; Uncle Nepomuceno, who watches slugs slither in the garden every afternoon; and Uncle Javier, who sits in his tiny grocery store day and night. When Berta learns that government officials are still looking for her, she realizes she must run even further to save her life.

Khmer Rouge & Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan

From last week's Voice of America article "$35 Million Budget Approved for Khmer Rouge Tribunal:"

International donors have approved the 2013 budget for the UN-back Khmer Rouge tribunal. Donors agreed on a budget of $35 million, about $5 million less than the court had asked for, court officials said Tuesday... The court is currently undertaking the trial of three former Khmer Rouge leaders—only its second case since its 2006 inception.

What was it like to live under the Khmer Rouge? To learn more about this terrible chapter in Cambodia's history, read Vaddey Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan:

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood—the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival.

Pinochet Secrets Revealed & Gething’s Under a False Flag

 From Sunday’s BBC story “Chile's Gen Pinochet 'tried to cling to power' in 1988:”

Late Chilean military leader Augusto Pinochet wanted to hold on to power when he lost a referendum on his rule in 1988, newly declassified documents in the US suggest. They say Gen Pinochet sought the support of his closest military allies to overthrow the results. But they refused and Gen Pinochet had to accept defeat. The following year, Chileans elected a civilian government and Gen Pinochet was replaced in 1990.

Speaking of recently declassified documents, papers declassified in the early 2000s serve as the basis for Tom Gething’s Under a False Flag, a fast-paced CIA novel based in Chile.  Pro: a well-paced novel based on Pinochet’s overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende.   Con: doesn’t provide the Chilean perspective about life after life after the Pinochet takeover. Description:

October, 1972. Will Porter joins the CIA’s secret war against Chile’s Marxist president, Salvador Allende. Working under cover, Will’s job is to manage the dirty money going to fund the opposition and disrupt the Chilean economy. A budding friendship with university student Ernesto Manning and his beautiful sister, Gabriela, complicates Will’s job and threatens to blow his cover. In a turbulent world of deceivers and deceived, Will must choose between friendship and betrayal, truth and lies, love and duty.

A book that delves more into what Pinochet’s rule was like is Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile. Pro: it was written by one of Chile’s most famous novelists. Con: it uses an experimental narrative, so if you want a straight-forward story, this might not be for you. Description:

As through a crack in the wall, By Night in Chile's single night-long rant provides a terrifying, clandestine view of the strange bedfellows of Church and State in Chile. This wild, eerily compact novel—Roberto Bolano's first work available in English—recounts the tale of a poor boy who wanted to be a poet, but ends up a half-hearted Jesuit priest…assigned—after the destruction of Allende—the secret, never-to-be-disclosed job of teaching Pinochet, at night, all about Marxism, so the junta generals can know their enemy.

Mugabe's Zimbabwe & Sabatini's The Boy Next Door

From the Bloomberg article "Mugabe Paves Way for Zimbabwe Election With Referendum:"

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled the country for more than three decades, set March 16 as the date for a referendum on a new constitution, paving the way for elections needed to end a four-year impasse. Mugabe, 88, made the announcement in the Government Gazette today. Last month he agreed on a draft of the constitution with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, his main political rival. An agreement brokered by the 15-nation Southern African Development Community in 2009 led to a coalition government between Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change. Under that pact a referendum on a new constitution must be held before elections can be called. “I do, by this proclamation, appoint Saturday March 16, 2013 as the day on which the referendum will be held,” Mugabe said. Negotiations on the constitution stalled over issues including dual citizenship, reform of the security forces and land rights.

Which brings us to the novel The Boy Next Door, written by Zimbabwean Irene Sabatini:

Sabatini debuts with a love story set against the backdrop of Mugabe's Zimbabwe, from its independence in the 1980s to the decline of democracy in the 1990s. Lindiwe Bishop is 14 when her neighbor, 17-year-old Ian McKenzie, is charged with killing his mother. Lindiwe's shy, at the top of her class and from the first black family that settled in Bulawayo after integration. Ian is boisterous, a dropout and from the last white family remaining in the neighborhood. They only meet briefly before he is jailed, and when he's released a year and a half later they strike up a secret friendship...

If you'd like to delve further back into Zimbabwe's past, there's Doris Lessing's novel The Grass is Singing, which is set in 1940s Rhodesia/Zimbabwe:

Set in South Africa under white rule, Doris Lessing's first novel is both a riveting chronicle of human disintegration and a beautifully understated social critique. Mary Turner is a self-confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, frustrated wife of an ineffectual, unsuccessful farmer. Little by little the ennui of years on the farm work their slow poison, and Mary's despair progresses until the fateful arrival of an enigmatic and virile black servant, Moses. Locked in anguish, Mary and Moses--master and slave--are trapped in a web of mounting attraction and repulsion.

I don't usually include memoirs in these posts, but the following memoirs by (white) Zimbabweans are very popular:  Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin.

Godwin has also written an acclaimed non-fiction work on Zimbabwe, The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe:

Godwin arrived as Robert Mugabe, the country's dictator for 30 years, has finally lost an election. Mugabe's tenure has left Zimbabwe with the world's highest rate of inflation and the shortest life span. Instead of conceding power, Mugabe launched a brutal campaign of terror against his own citizens. With foreign correspondents banned, and he himself there illegally, Godwin was one of the few observers to bear witness to this period the locals call The Fear. He saw torture bases and the burning villages but was most awed as an observer of not only simple acts of kindness but also churchmen and diplomats putting their own lives on the line to try to stop the carnage.

Haitian Dictators & Danticat's Krik? Krak!

From yesterday's BBC story "Haiti's 'Baby Doc' Duvalier avoids appearing in court:"

Haiti's former ruler Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has been ordered to appear in court in Port-au-Prince after failing to attend a hearing. Relatives of some of those allegedly killed or tortured by his militias in the 1970s and 1980s want him charged with crimes against humanity. Mr Duvalier had filed a last-minute appeal to avoid appearing in court. The ex-leader, who returned to Haiti in 2011 after 25 years in French exile, had already missed two hearings. He denies all charges, with his lawyers saying the case should be thrown out.

Want a book about life under Baby Doc? Try Edwidge Danticat's short story collection Krik? Krak! :

Danticat, born under Haitian dictatorship, moved to the U.S. [in the 1980s]. Many of the stories in this moving collection reflect the misery she has observed from afar and leave readers with a deep sadness for her native country. Survivors at sea in a too-small, leaky boat endure any indignity for the chance at escape. Selections about those remaining in Haiti have a dreamlike quality. A woman must watch her mother rot in prison for political crimes. A young father longs so much to fly that he gives his life for a few moments in the air. A prostitute plies her trade while her son sleeps. "New York Day Women" shows what life might be like in the U.S. for immigrants without resources. Through unencumbered prose, the author explores the effects of politics on people and especially the consequences of oppression on women, the themes of which figure into each of these vignettes.

For those of you who prefer classics, you might try Graham Greene's The Comedians, a novel about life under Baby Doc's dictator father Papa Doc:

One of Graham Greene's most chilling and prophetic novels, The Comedians is set in a Haiti ruled by Papa Doc and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Just as The Quiet American offered a preview of the coming horrors of American involvement in Vietnam, this novel presages the chaos in Haiti.

North Korea's nuclear test & Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son

From today's BBC story "North Korea carries out biggest nuclear test:"

North Korea has carried out its third, most powerful nuclear test despite UN warnings, and said "even stronger" action might follow. It described the test as a "self-defensive measure" necessitated by the "continued hostility" of the US. Its main ally, China, criticised the test, which was condemned worldwide. Nuclear test monitors in Vienna say the underground explosion had double the force of the 2009 test, despite apparently involving a smaller device. Analysts say this could take Pyongyang closer to building a warhead small enough to arm a missile.

So what is it like to live in North Korea?  After visiting, Adam Johnson attempted to depict the country in The Orphan Master's Son, which is now probably the most well-known English novel set in North Korea:

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of...an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return. ... Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves... Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master’s Son is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love.