The Kill List by Frederick Forsyth; corgi books; Price: Rs.399; Pages 348
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The reckless, cold-blooded murder and mayhem unleashed by jihadists — fanatic soldiers of Islam — upon innocent civilians in the US (9/11, 2001), the UK (7/7, 2005) and most recently in France (the Charlie Hebdo murders — 1/7, 2015) which was preceded by the massacre of 132 school children in Pakistan (December 16) are all self-driven, and perhaps final nails in the coffin that Islamic fundamentalists have built for themselves. These atrocities have aroused the red-hot fury of Western powers who are aggressively deploying their awesome technological prowess to directly target and decimate rabid Islamist preachers and hatemongers, regardless of borders and collateral damage.
The US in particular has swiftly transformed its overwhelming economic and technological superiority to gather intelligence and unleash remote-controlled weapons of astonishing destructive power. During the past decade, American scientists and technologists have cut to size the overweening monarchy and potentates of Saudi Arabia and OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) who have been covertly funding Wahabi terrorism, by assiduously researching and developing fracking technology. As the foolish and greedy sheikhs of the Middle East raised the price of crude to $140 per barrel, it became viable for corporate America to invest heavily in fracking, which extracts natural gas and crude oil from abundantly available shale rock and sediments.
Today a shale-fired US — hitherto the world’s largest consumer of OPEC and Saudi crude — is poised to become an oil exporting nation, and the international price of crude has fallen below $50 per barrel. With the profligate Saudi monarchy having failed to develop or invest in indigenous industry even as its youth population has multiplied dramatically, the end of the Ibn Saud monarchy is a prophecy foretold.
Adulation of the awesome might and capability of Western — particularly American — technology is the subject matter of The Kill List, the latest oeuvre of best-selling British novelist Frederick Forsyth.
According to Forsyth, in the “dark and secret heart” of Washington D.C, the US president and six men meet every Tuesday morning to review a “kill list” featuring the names of terrorists so dangerous to the US that they are to be taken out “without any attempt to be made at arrest, trial, or any due process”. The exord (presidential executive order) is to be implemented by J-SOC, “the world’s biggest and most dangerous private army”. In turn, J-SOC uses TOSA, “a body so obscure that 98 percent of serving US officers haven’t heard of it”.
In spring 2014, TOSA’s director presents his senior manhunter Kit Carson, an enigmatic lieutenant colonel of the US Marine Corps, known only as the Tracker, an exord on which are written the words: “The Preacher. Identify. Locate. Destroy”.
Thus begins a transnational hunt for the Preacher, a rabid pan-Islamist ideologue who broadcasts English language hate sermons on the internet based on selected passages of the Quran which are so venomously impactful, that even well-adjusted Muslim youth in the West are persuaded to become suicide bombers and assassins. And to illustrate the effectiveness of the Preacher’s broadcasts, several instances of radicalised youth assassinating senators, businessmen and ordinary shoppers and then blowing themselves up, are graphically described.
Thus the stage is set for an international search for the Preacher using hi-tech bugging, eavesdropping, aerial surveillance and other technologies. Meanwhile, the reader is informed that the Preacher is actually Zulfikar Ali Shah, son of a Pakistan military officer. Linguistic experts detect his faintly Pakistani English accent, a childhood photograph is scientifically aged by experts and a reclusive teenage American computer nerd is roped in to break his internet cover.
Finally, the Preacher is located in a village in war-torn Somalia by a highly sophisticated Global Hawk drone, hovering over 25,000 ft. up in the sky, equipped to capture and relay crystal clear photographs and sound bytes 24x7 to military bases and command centres in the US. The destruction of the Preacher is completed by a British commando unit joined by the Tracker, in hand-to-hand combat.
While undemanding readers of fiction thrillers — the majority of young readers regard it as ‘literature’ — might appreciate the one-sided fast-paced narrative of this novel, there’s something irritating — even questionable — about the author’s unrestrained awe of the mind-boggling logistics and clockwork precision of US anti-terror operations. Moreover, all of them are very mindful about avoiding collateral damage to civilians on the other side, which anyone who reads the newspapers knows is untrue.
Almost imperceptibly, despite politically-correct protestations to the contrary, the Western war against Islamic terror has transformed into a clash of civilisations as foretold by Harvard social scientist Niall Ferguson in his treatise Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011). Far from being the stuff of valour, this is a complex war in which collateral damage — civilian casualties — suffered by Arabs and Muslims worldwide being led to certain defeat by effete and incompetent rulers, is likely to be devastating.
DILIP THAKORE
Buddhist nun’s story
Singing For Freedom by Ani Choying; Nepalaya; Price: Rs.1,194; Pages 240
One of the best books I’ve read in recent years, Singing for Freedom is the autobiography of Ani Choying Drolma, a Buddhist nun who has acquired international fame for popularising Buddhist chants around the world. .gif)
Born into an impoverished Tibetan family which lived in a one-roomed tenement in Kathmandu, Nepal, Ani Choying had to endure the brutality of an abusive father, a horrifically violent man who routinely terrorised mother and daughter. This singing nun’s heart-rending account of her bruised childhood makes a good case for compulsory parenting training worldwide, and a legally enforceable charter of children’s rights.
Fortunately for her, Tibetan Society offered Choying an escape route — the option of becoming a nun. Drawn to this path, she escaped to a Buddhist monastery outside Kathmandu and asked to be ordained as a nun. An ani (nun) is accorded great respect and reverence in Tibetan society, and she knew that as a nun, she was beyond the reach of her abusive parent.
In the monastery, Ani Choying flowered under the love and care of a compassionate spiritual master. Aware of her painful history, he guided her gently onto the Buddhist path. But Ani Choying didn’t conform to the stereotype of a conventional Tibetan nun. She learnt to drive a jeep, eagerly improved her English and flouted convention by practicing the martial arts.
When an American jazz guitarist visited the monastery and heard her sing, he invited her to record an album with him. Soon, she became internationally famous, spending much of her time abroad, enthralling and inspiring audiences with spiritual music, which she continues to do.
Ani Choying doesn’t sing for money or fame, she sings for a cause. The not inconsiderable sums she earns flow into the Arya Tara School promoted by her for young Buddhist nuns in Nepal — little girls from brutalised, poverty-stricken homes. Choying’s mission is to ensure that Tibetan girls are spared the horrors she suffered.
While the abuse she suffered drove Ani to don the robes of a Buddhist nun, her spiritual master gradually helped her overcome the emotional wounds of childhood. As she recounts in this engaging memoir, she began to cherish the joy of simple acts and pleasures — saving an injured mouse, crying over a Bollywood film or ideating a song.
Being a nun didn’t make her an ascetic; it made her appreciative of the beauty of life. Her spiritual practice gave her the calm and liberation she needed. Over time, she was able to develop a Buddhist compassion for her tyrannical father and worked on her parents to build an egalitarian relationship. If it wasn’t for her father’s torture, she reasoned she might never have fled home to become a nun, and inspire people around the world to find peace and composure with Buddhist chanting.
Ani Choying has a beautiful way with words — not just when she sings them, but also as she writes them. In this book, she weaves a poignant story of a little girl who managed to heroically overcome a distressing family situation, her awakening through Buddhist practice, and eventually emerging as a samaritan and healer of troubled people.
“The acid taste of pain makes you better able to appreciate life’s sweetness… Like a magnet attracted in opposing directions, I have built myself around love and hate, violence and unconditional love, restraint and the infinite. I was drawn first one way, then the other, until my internal receivers stopped panicking and sending me contradictory messages — until I found my stability,” she writes with sincerity.
An incredible life — and this book describes that life in an incredible way!
Roshan Shah