‘Conversations in Malaysia’

The section encompassing Naipaul’s journey is entitled as ‘Conversations in

Malaysia’ with a subtitle The Primitive Faith. It starts with the excerpts from Joseph

Conrad’s work on Malaysia An Outcast Of the Islands in which a Malay is described as

someone primitive, deprived and with a poor temperament. The second extract is from

Portraits from Memory by Bertrand Russell which describes Malays as being emotionally

poor and historical orphans. They have little to pass on to their generations as compared to

those nations whose history is the achievement of slow and steady struggle i.e the Europeans.

First Conversations with Shafi: The Journey Out Of Paradise

Malaysia has been approached by many religions Buddhism and Hinduism through

merchants and priests. It was in fourteenth or fifteenth century that Islam reached Malaysia

through an Indian traveller. Islam spread as an idea here. It came as a purification of the

mixed religion and the most passionate missionaries came. Naipaul believes that the greater

the distance from Arabia, the more ferocity in the Muslim faith. Malaysia is a land of Malay

sultans, warriors, tribal men and Chinese peasants. The Europeans reached this region from

the coast.

Malaysia is rich in natural resources. Malaysia’s economy is based on colonial

foundations and the hard work of the Chinese slaves that were imported to work there.

Chinese have advanced in economy and technology but they are kept out of the political

stream. The government remains in the hands of royal or old Malay families. Malaysia is a

humid country with cloudy weather most of the time. The old colonial town of Kuala Lumpur

is surviving with the buildings from British era. The newly-built sky scrapers cover. The

region is densely covered by forests with occasional habitations. The Malays dress like Arabs

with turbans and gowns and women wear veils.

The money generated from the natural resources goes down to the villages creating an

educated class. The young people, now adorned with modern civilization feel that they

cannot go back to their village. With limited skills, they feel every way is blocked. Their

villages are no more the same and they cannot fit in the fast lives of the cities so they feel

alienated. Islam serves them to get even with the world, to justify their social rage and racial

hate. Islam teaches them to pull down materialism and work for an Islamic state. For

Naipaul, Islam is a passion without a constructive programme.

The guide who accompanied Naipaul was Shafi. He had come to Kaula Lumpur from

m his village in the north as part of his scouts group and then never returned. He was now

part of an Islamic movement ABIM run by Muslim youth. Shafi still had that disturbance of

migration. He missed his village in every way. He believed that the embellishments of the

city life had made him forgot his religious duties and commitments. It was if he was losing

himself.

Shafi said that the city life was freer without any restrictions like that of village.

People roamed about like stray goats. However, freedom must be within a certain framework.

One should know where should know where he wants to go and what he wants to do. His

primary aim in coming to the capital was education but now it contradicted with the freedom

here. All the people coming from the village were used to live under religious bounds. Here

the values contradicted.

Shafi was brought up in bare minimum resources. Life was simpler and meaningful.

The city life was a waste in every aspect. People are running after the facilities the modern

world has brought. The trade takes away the produce of the village people and brings in

return the products of modern world like televisions, refrigerators etc. Shafi wanted to go

back to the village and live in a well-knit community. It is devoid of wastefulness. It was free

of physical, mental and social pollution. The relations between men and women were not

allowed outside wedlock and blood relations.

Shafi worked full-time for ABIM which was founded by Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar got

his education from a British-founded school. Due to his interest in religion he began studing

it more keenly and started giving speeches about Islam. He had met Ayatollah Khomeini and

believed that Islam was the sole remedy for Malaysia’s social, cultural, political and moral

problems. He believed in the Islamic economic system and travelled extensively to propagate

Islamic beliefs.

It was the Festival of sacrifice that Shafi came. He was well-dressed. After two days

of spending time with Naipaul, his hesitation had dissolved and now he was more eager to

answer questions. Naipaul wanted to know about Shafi himself so they went and sat in the

coffee shop. He asked him what he thought about pools and the white women. Shafi replied

that they were simply foreigners for him. They had more clear and natural pools in their

villages. When he was young they used to hunt birds with a catapult.

Recitation of Koran was one of the other activities of Shafi’s childhood. Religious

education was mandatory for everyone, big and small. The verses were to be obeyed although

one did not understand them. The Mullah instructed on cleanliness and how to pray. First

time the books were given free. Any child who missed the religious lessons was punished

without the parents’ intervention. They were taught how to maintain human relations and

value them. The people of the village were very much enterprising. They knit their own

clothes and grew their own plantations. They owned lands and houses. The village people had

contempt for Chinese people, their culture and literature. Astray pigs and dogs from the

neighbouring Chinese village were stoned.

Intellectual pursuits were not of much concern for the villagers. All school education

was in Malay; however, religious education was mandatory. This made them lag behind in

technical and secular modern learning. They were baffled by the latest technological

developments. But Shafi was satisfied in being a backward but morally stronger man. He

thought that the village would be there as it is so they needed some basic amenities like

schools, bus services etc. By the end of the conversation Shafi was tired and depressed by the

hotel environment of wastefulness, strangers and indifference to the rules.

Shafi’s grief and passion in multi-racial Malaysia was immediate. His wish to re-

establish rules was also a wish recreate security of his childhood, the Malay village life he

had lost. He felt like a man expelled from paradise.

Brave Girls

Suffering from insomnia, Naipaul had been waking up in the middle of night. The

nearest coffee-shop would be deserted having uninviting smell of cleaning chemicals.

Ordering coffee from room service at around five in the morning too proved to be an ordeal.

The coffee was made from sour milk so was the boy who brought it. A crowd had gathered in

the racecourse nearby, where there were no horses. Gambling on horse racing was prohibited

as par Malaysian Islamic law; these people were in fact gathered about a radio, transmitting a

race somewhere else. Around the racecourse were trees Naipaul could remember from his

childhood: banana trees, frangipani, another tree with a yellow flower and the great Central

American saman or rain tree.

The exhaustion of sleeplessness from previous night had turned to anxieties and

irritation: the bad milk had denied him coffee, unanswered cables. He went to complain about

them to the girl at the desk where he chanced to read the other cables from guests who had

previously stayed at the hotel. These comments described the scandalous lack of regard

towards hygiene in so many words as “urinating and purging” on hotel floors and cutlery.

The disgusting nature of this revelation made Naipaul nauseous, which substantially reduced

his excitement for the day. He met Shafi and Nasar, a friend of Shafi’s, at Equatorial Hotel.

Nasar was a small and slight man of thirty-four, who like Shafi was a part the

movement ABIM. They discussed how the white people just blended in the background,

unnoticed and Shafi never thought of them. The white and the native Malays moved in

separate worlds. Neither of them touched the egg sandwich Naipual had ordered for them,

cautious of eating non-Muslim food. Exiting the hotel, Naipaul observed the figure of the two

friends, Nasar, small and frail, limping down the language ramp with Shafi, tall and

protective, guiding him. He thought of Behzad and the girl in Iran, how revolutionaries like

them were invisible.

Next day Shafi arrived to accompany Naipaul to ABIM and promised to find him

some ‘brave girls’ who would talk to Naipaul. While stuck in a traffic jam, Naipaul asked

Shafi if he still felt the city strange, considering that Shafi was from a village in far northeast.

Shafi said no, but he did felt like a stranger in his own village now, with things, places and

people drastically changed. They arrived at the ABIM building, which had the school

building adjacent to it. Naipaul met a middle-aged Australian man with a skullcap and

glasses, sitting by himself there to learn about Islam. He observed the young Malay men

around, who would light up at being told the purpose of Naipaul’s visit. As Shafi had work to

do, he left him with Nasar.

Naipaul describes how supposedly Nasar’s ancestors, once Arabic-educated and

leaders in their own way had in modern Malaysia had become “a lower-middle class family”

undergoing transformation in colonial and postcolonial era. Nasar himself had had a part of

his education from England, a diploma in International relations. He opined how big powers

weren’t really interested in peace; instead they were interested in their own spheres of

influence, selling arms. He wasn’t impressed by the British ideals of Individualism, which

denied the consequences. He understood that if modernization in Malaysia is not checked it

too will disintegrate along the same lines as the Western society, lacking consolidated social

structure. Technology should not affect the social fabric, which included prohibition of

alcohol and free-mixing of sexes, which was why they had separate school for girls and boys.

The Western philosophy of women’s liberation was problematic as it caused unemployment

for men.

Shafi and Nasar left for the Friday prayers, after introducing Naipaul to the brave

girls. The girls were of different racial types. One was brown-skinned and slender, the other

was plump, pale and round faced. They both wore long dresses and had covered heads. The

brown-girl had a slack looking black head-cover while the other was neater with pink head-

cover. They both were students at the ABIM school and were a bit nervous about the

interview. The first question Naipaul asked was about their headdress, called tu-dong in

Malay. They replied that the headdress was to cover the hair which shouldn’t show. And it

must be covered so because men are sexually attracted to the beautiful hair. When asked why

it was bad, they replied that it was a sin for the woman to have men attracted to her. Girls

could only show her face, and hands. The question if feet should be covered too was decided

by a verdict which came from someone sitting outside.

The main philosophy behind covering their beauty was to preserve their beauty and

gentleness. Though they could not express why it was beneficial to remain veiled they

understood the purpose of it. They acknowledged their lack of knowledge, declaring they had

to learn Arabic to understand Koran. They criticized how the government schools focused

only on academic and scientific studies neglecting religious studies; girls had no time to pray.

These girls should be entreated gently to pray. For though it was not bad to pursue a career

and have a job, but one cannot always be materialist as the world was not eternal, one had to

think of the afterlife too. One had to mindful of the death that can come at any time. It was

desirable to go to heaven where one would get to see the Prophet; nothing on earth is

comparable to that.

When asked about reading, they replied that they had read Barbara Cartland, Perry

Mason and James Hadley Chase, which were short light romances, promoted in

commonwealth countries meeting the imaginative needs of the people new to modern way of

life. A fact acknowledged by one of the girls but it was all fantasy they said. When asked if

the life was better either in town or in the village, they two differed in their opinions. One

said it was more peaceful in village but the other felt that town was centre of all activity

hence more exciting; it was also a hubbub of religious movement taking place. When asked

about the strangers they had to encounter in the town the girl in black scarf indicated that

non-Malay i.e. Chinese were the cause of trouble as they are were immigrant brought by

British rule. They monopolized the economy. Naipaul observed how even after so many these

Chinese were still considered immigrant whereas the girl in black scarf whose ancestors were

from Indonesia was accepted socially being a Muslim. To be Malay was to be Muslim.

Between Malacca and the Genting Highlands

On Saturday he drove from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca. He went to Malacca for its

historical name where he met Shafi. On Sunday he told him about his drive to Malacca and

richness of the land he had seen. Malacca people live besides river which provides fish fertile

land for paddy cultivation, easy movement by boats. Life is too easy as compared to Chinese,

who come from four- seasoned country.

After that, Naipaul is talking about Shafi’s life and career. His first visit to Kuala

Lumpur with his school scout troop in 1963. He came in Kuala Lumpur for preuniversity

education in 1966 where he met Anwar Ibrahim. At the time there were political disturbance

in Kuala Lumpur, race riots between Malays and Chinese and Shafi became a leader. He said

that feeling in Kuala Lumpur was different because it was national politics and personal

feeling against Chinese was due to their religious taboos.

They had a meeting with Anwar Ibrahim and other Muslim students’ organization.

Naipaul questioned about faith as a student Shafi told him that he had no doubts about

religion or faith, he only questioned institutions like marriage. Later on Naipaul talks about

Shafi’s trip towards Africa. In Africa food was all Western and it was difficult for Shafi to

enjoy food because food was not cooked in Muslim way. Naipaul also wanted to know about

his time in America. Shafi replied that he went America to study all policies made by the so-

called civilized people of the modern world. In Shafi’s eyes civilization meant, to able to

develop the man, the person, closer to the Creator. Shafi’s argued that life of U.S people

revolved around money and sex. Shafi investigated the purpose of Naipaul writings. Naipaul

explained his idea of vocation was new to him. For Naipaul nature of work is more important.

For Shafi America is the place to go for short visit but not to stay. After coming back to

Malacca he joined Malay firm. He said that business is full with manipulation and without

ethics. On the return from U.S he got married not to the girl he admired but a girl from a

village. Shafi shows his love for village because village is not polluted in terms of

environment. They were not materialistic people. They were people of dignity and they were

quiet pious.

Naipaul observed to Shafi that he travelled towards America with fixed idea and he

might have missed something. It is so ironic that Naipaul himself travels to Malaysia with

some fixed idea and he missed some positive things about Muslims.

Araby

V.S Naipual talks about the Islamic commune in Kuala Lampur. They

rejected modern ways of living and also rejecting modern goods. They

formed a little piece of land and lived like old Arabs. They did not welcome

visitors. When he visits to that community nothing happened for many

days. After that Khairul telephoned him. He one of te commune, his

English accent was clipped and sharp just like Japanese. Khairul asks from

him that for what purpose he is interested in that community? He

answered him that spiritual purpose but he actually want to know about

the economic ideas of some Islamic groups in Malaysia.

One evening Khairul with his three men visit to his place in their

turban and long green gowns. Those men include khairul, haji, journalist

and one man who look like Chinese. Khairul is the translator of all of them

because he knows English. Haji told them that his father’s family was

head-hunters before converted in Islam, after that his father became

religious teacher .When he died he left only one dollar. Haji says that his

father taught me everything like Koran, Arabic, Napoleon and Hitler. His

father told that we cannot compare Napoleon with Khalid, because

Napoleon withdraws his forces in order to meet his love. On the other

hand Khalid sacrificed his life for Islam. Haji also tells him that there are

still Hindus wedding ceremonies in villages. There is no sense of Islam in

village life

Khairul states that tobacco is not encourageable in Islam but not

forbidden. Haji told him that they are using tobacco because it is

manufactured by Jewish. They say that they must not consume their

products because they are the enemies of God. Haji also says that ‘if you

know the Koran you know everything; economics, politics, family laws –

and all the principles embedded in the Koran’. Haji tells him that Jews are

genius race. Another thing he tells him that before the time of Moses,

there was a Jewish tribe in Arabian lands. Among them there is a prophet

he ordered them to pray to God on Saturday. But they ignored the

commands of the prophet. God swore to convert the tribe to monkeys.

This story is mention in Torah in Koran. Haji says that as a Muslim we

believe in the God and the Old Testament.

Narrator argues about the past of haji father’s family that they were

head-hunters. Haji answered that that was the wrong way of life due to

which Islam come into being. He gives the example of Caliph Omar who

buries his daughter alive but after embracing Islam he become different

person. Haji also claims that all the believers of Islam have a grace on

their faces and spirituality and beauty in their lives. Khairul also tell him

about the dress code of women and men in Islam. In Islam men have to

cover them from the navel to the knee. For women cover everything

except the face the hands.

Khairul also explains him that all matters fall in the five categories

between allowance and disallowance i.e haram and halaal, which would

make things easy to understand. Naipaul asked him if coughing was

haram or halaal, as if to test him. After leaving them, he moves in the

commune and describes the people who were dressed like Arabs and

waiting for the prayer call. He hires a taxi back to his hotel.

The Spoilt Playground

During his visit in Malaysia Naipaul went to Shafi’s village Kota Bharu which

according to Shafi was “once unpolluted, the people were pious, dignified and not

materialistic” unlike the present situation. When he enters Kota Bharu he designates savage

imagery to the place. He describes the village as a rubber estate, a place covered with jungle

and with a fusion of nonstop downpour. The village has “little low shops, little low houses,

tiled roofs, and corrugated iron”. There he meets Rehman who is a government employee and

three head teachers. Among the three men there is a lecturer who is a professor of philosophy,

a registrar and an Arabic teacher. During their conversation the lecturer shares his experience

with Arabs at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo which becomes quite intriguing for Naipaul

for his further study on Arab people. The lecturer says that the Arabs were undisciplined and

unreliable. While soon after making this statement he himself becomes an object of study for

Naipaul as he wants to hear more about The Al-Azhar.

Another man who is a registrar shares his three days experience that he spent in

England. He builds a negative picture of people living in England. According to him they

have absence of manners in their lives, no ethics and morality and no sense of decorum. He

gives example of three things which he finds immoral in England and compares it with

people in Malaysia. Registrar says that people in England travel underground; there is a

speaker in Hyde Park which announces that 60 percent of men are homosexual and men and

women don’t feel ashamed while embracing in public. For Rehman people in Malaysia don’t

mix their private life with their domestic life. There private life in secret and sacred for them.

They feel that people living in West are lost in their own world. During their conversation

they are joined by an Arabic teacher who claims that people are turning to Koran as they are

tired of novels because novels are also written by lost people who themselves have no sense

of direction in their lives and thus provides no immediate cure to their problems.

Naipaul assumes through their discussions that these people are happy and satisfied

with their lives as they used the word “content” again and again during their conversation.

Naipaul says that here at this part of Malaysia people are optimists, they have a strong believe

in their religion and they know that God will provide for their sustenance no matter how large

their families are or how poor their condition is. Naipaul says that “Islam for these men is

part of their contentment” unlike Shafi’s Islam which was “revolutionary, serving no cause”.

The next stop during Naipaul’s visit in Malaysia was Penang on the West coast.

Unlike Kota Bharu the West coast was more developed with the British plantations and

factories working under energetic Chinese. Penang being more advance in nature also had an

international airport. Here Naipaul meets Abdullah, a man of thirty four and Muhammad.

They both are unlike Kota Bharu’s people not at all content with their present situation.

Abdullah talks about the city’s dissolute condition and says that there are ‘international

companies but low wages, the casualness of Malays, their inability to compete and the need

for Islam” is what Malaysia is nowadays facing.

Emphasizing more on the colonial past Naipaul asserts that the people living in

Malaysia with Chinese feel like strangers in their own land. There is a constant rift between

Chinese and Malay people which is quite visible in their faces. Naipaul when ask

Muhammad about his colonial past, Muhammad, says that there has always been a Christian

and alien atmosphere. Living under colonial dominance Islam was never been taught to us.

Having a Muslim background their present was quite unIslamic and their identity fragmented.

They were confused between the two schools of thoughts, things which were taught in

Christian school and things which they believed throughout generations. Their ideas about

life, death, society and nature were a mixture of Christian and secular beliefs. For instance

their idea of conquering nature was based on Western concept of ecology and environment.

During this process they used to find an easy solution in Islam and their faith in God which

for Naipaul is an abstract belief. These people are living their lives with no sense of

reformation, they are dependent on other people’s ideas and thoughts and it is hard for them

to get themselves out from these ideas.

Naipaul has shown that the Malay people have no account of their history they are

aimless people living in a limbo with no sense existence and direction. Their faith has made

them an abstract man living in a vague idea of utopian world. To be civilized for them is a

matter of correct religious beliefs. The only difference between old and new Malay was the

difference between Chinese and Malay people. Chinese people were more humble towards

modern life realities. They were more powerful and energetic unlike Malays. Naipaul

believes that religion is diverting Malay people from their true purpose of life, it is the reason

they are still retrograde. And for this reason they despise Chinese and call them commercial

lovers while they are aesthetic devotees.

Analysis

Travel Narratives are generally supposed to be objective and scientific, representing

the social and historical reality. However, this is a false assumption, Travel writings are

inevitably embedded with fictional elements and figures. The line between fact and fiction is

blurred with inclusion of exaggerated incidents, grotesque representations and inexact

historical references. Similarly, fiction too includes many aspects of ‘travel’ writing like

geographic, historical and social references. As Dissayanake and Wickramagamage point out:

“[…] the distinction between fiction (created) and travel writing (factual) is a false

one but also points to the misrepresentation, distortion, orientalism, and search for cheap

effects that characterize much travel writing.”

They gave three different categories for classification of travel-writings: 1)

information-oriented, the most objective form of travel writing, with authorial voice reduced

to minimal, 2) Experiential (Sentimentalizing), dramatically subjective type and 3)

intellectual-analytic, apparently objective with author as an informed-commentator. The third

category is by far the most controversial as the writer emerges as a sort of intellectual-social

authority, who derives this power not from objective presentations of facts rather a

representation of observations. This sort of writing convinces its readers of its objectivity and

hence is more successful in constructing cultures. This notion of constructing and assigning

meaning to other cultures is apparent in colonial narratives.

Naipual belongs to this third category, whose apparently objective, informed, logical

and rational presentations seem very convincing. But his writings are infact an amalgamation

of fact and fiction; vulcanized travelons or novelogue. These include descriptions of

landscapes and people, historical commentary, autobiographical memories and philosophical

ideas. And as his ‘self’ intervenes continuously throughout the text he becomes a sort of

commentator. Discussed in this paper are the aspects he borrowed from both his experience

of traveling and the genre of fiction. In his characterization, narrative, dialogues and

descriptions given in travel writings there exists certain fictional paradigms which cannot be

isolated. His travel writings can be studied on three formal levels 1) the Naipualian

assumptions 2) his narrative authority and 3) his travel strategies.

Naipaul’s assumptions are a direct result of his Western identity, which cast a

‘colonial gaze’ at the non-Western world. He re-thinks, re-assesses and re-invents his travel

experiences, employing these colonial perspectives. Thus from analysis of his writings reveal

them to be representation of reality. This ‘representation’, thus, is a cultural product that is

‘determined’ by dominant ideology and worldview. What Naipaul ‘saw’ and observed in his

travels is not represented in his travel writings; it is a very critical selection of reality that

reflects a Naipaulian idea or his own set of assumptions. These are the pre-conceived ideas

which he only confirms in his writings.

Naipaul’s narrative authority, the second major aspect of his travel writing, makes his

text a convincing reading; it portrays his ideas and perspectives as being definite and

conclusive. This view of ‘objective reality’ seem authentic as he convinces the reader by

giving an eye-witness experience, demonstrating an ‘acuity of observation’, employing

analytical skills and by offering us a pleasant and readable narrative. No one can deny the

remarkable quality of his observations which are detailed, keen and exact. About his writing

skills Dissayanake and Wickramagamage write:

“He has the well-trained and sensitive eye of the artist with which to record the breath

taking beauty of these short summer landscapes in the mountainous regions of the

Himalayas. His eye for the telling detail is extended to his descriptions of the people

too. So it is that he manages to outline vividly a portrait of the Afghan herdsman

whose manner and physique obviously intrigue him.”

This ability to engage and convince the reader is of special importance to any travel

writer even if it means portraying and creating false or grotesque images. His ability to create

an illusion of reality lends authority to his text.

Thirdly, Naipaul manipulates certain travel writing strategies, blurring the lines

between reality and fiction. These travel writing strategies include: journalistic techniques,

detailed ethnographic reporting, historical prespectives, autobiographical features and

philosophical inquiry. The extensive use of these techniques and approaches blend to make

his work a sort of “Amateur ethnography”. These strategies are further discussed here with

specific reference to Among the Believers. This work is Naipaul’s most well-crafted travel

narrative with integration of both types of components, fictional and travel strategies.

Firstly, journalistic techniques of gathering and presenting facts, figures, and dates

abound in all of his travel narratives. It falls into investigative journalism and Naipaul has

employed a factual and concise style, whose uncluttered phrase reminds one of clear first rate

journalism. These include detailed and graphic documentation of events with reference to

local dailies and newspapers. This technique lends a credibility to his texts for example:

“The Islam the missionaries bring is a religion of impending change and triumph; it

comes as part of a world movement. In Readings in Islam, a local missionary magazine, it

can be read that the West, in the eyes even of its philosophers, is eating itself up with its

materialism and greed. The true believer, with his thoughts on the afterlife, lives for higher

ideals. For a nonbeliever, with no faith in the afterlife, life is a round of pleasure. “He spends

the major part of his wealth on ostentatious living and demonstrates his pomp and show by

wearing of silk and brocade and using vessels of gold and silver.” (AB 227)

And further on Naipaul even quotes a Hadith, or tradition about the Holy Prophet,

highlighting the irony:

“Silk, brocade, gold and silver? Can that truly be said in a city like Kuala Lumpur? But this is

theology. It refers to a hadith or tradition about the Prophet. Hudhaifa one day asked for

water and a Persian priest gave him water in a silver vessel. Hudhaifa rebuked the Persian;

Hudhaifa had with his own ears heard the Prophet say that nonbelievers used gold and silver

vessels and wore silk and brocade.” (227)

He refers to specific kind of news articles, suiting his purpose which he analyses according to

his own prejudices and biases. For example the following extract and the accompanying

analysis is a convincing sample of such analysis:

“Mandatory Islamic studies welcome, says Abim: Islam was to be a compulsory subject for

Muslims in schools. Rahman: Don’t neglect spiritual growth: that was a government man, as

Muslim as anyone else. Hear the call from across the desert sands: that was a feature article,

for this special day, the Festival of Sacrifice, by a well-known columnist, a good, lyrical

piece about family memories of the pilgrimage to Mecca.”

Following are his comments on the above newspaper article, which make this an effective

travel writing technique:

“Only half the population was Muslim; but everyone had to make his obeisance to Islam.

The pressures came from below: a movement of purification and cleansing, but also a racial

movement. It made for a general nervousness. It made people hide from the visitor for fear

that they might be betrayed.” (235)

Naipaul also includes historical perspectives and quotations of passages, which are deeply

woven into his travel narratives and lend ‘narrative authority’ to his writings. Usually

historical writings are characterized as ‘objective’ ‘factual’ and ‘authoritative’; and the reader

fails to take into account the various types of discourse and ideologies which permeate these

writings. Naipaul adds personal dimension to many such historical passages. For example he

integrates passages from Joseph Conrad: An Outcast of the Islands (1896) and Bertrand

Russel: Portraits From Memory to lend historicity to his narrative. These passages serve to

only further expound his own Western Prejudice as seen supported by these “authorities”.

What else can any reader assume or derive about the Muslim states when he is from the very

start of the chapter given the impression of:

“Those communities that have as yet little history make upon a European a curious

impression of thin-ness and isolation. They do not feel themselves the inheritors of the ages,

and for that reason what they aim at transmitting to their successors seems jejune and

emotionally poor to one in whom the past is vivid and the future is illuminated by knowledge

of the slow and painful achievements of former times” (224)

Naipaul’s colonial gaze is never more evident than this passage above, where seen from the

view of West with rich history, these newly formed states seem shallow and lacking

meaningful existence.

Naipaul’s writings are infused with philosophical techniques which are intertwined

with autobiographical aspect of his writings. He as a Seeker is both literally and

metaphorically embarked on the quest of self-discovery. The fact remains Among the

Believers is a mature narrative of someone who has ‘fully arrived’ to his Western identity,

which is why Naipaul advocates ‘universal civilization’. Travelling these non-Western states

has only given him an opportunity to compare his Western prejudice against the alternative

cultural, religious, and political ideologies offered by Islam. Instead of broadening his views,

his constantly assuming and analyzing and philosophizing.

In short Naipaul’s travel writings are replete with these writing strategies, their main

function being to enhance and convince the reader of the idea or mood which needs to be

communicated and at the same time invoking some form of ‘narrative authority’, not to

mention his intense exploration of ‘self’ which render his works highly subjective.

Naipaul’s writings also include ‘accurate ethnographic observations’. His style gives

the text an anthropological touch through a certain objectivity and indifference. He describes

landscape, topography and people. Due to his detached perspective, he depicts humans as

‘objects’. Since these details are the result of ‘colonial gaze’, this style gives Naipaul a

certain ‘narrative authority’. He portrays the weather, buildings, dresses and locations with

profound detail. For example, in the opening chapter, Naipaul mentions, ‘Malaysia steams. In

the rainy season in the morning the clouds build up’. (228). He states that Malaysia ‘produces

many precious things: tin, rubber, palm oil, oil’. Similarly in the second chapter, the trees

around the racecourse are described in detail. (244)

While in Kuala Lumpur, he describes the old colonial town with ‘old tile-roofed

private dwellings, originally British; the rows of narrow two-storey Chinese shop-houses, the

shops downstairs, the pavement pillared, the pillars supporting the projecting upper storey’.

(228)He also mentions the attire of Malay people who ‘dressed as Arabs, with turbans and

gowns’. The girls wear veil, socks and gloves. (229). The head dress in Malay is called a ‘tu-

dong’. When he meets the two girls in the second chapter, he describes their appearance in

much detail from their dresses to skin colour. This detached description of human beings

makes them treated as an object.

The vulcanization of travel writing and fiction attains its height in Among the

Believers. He uses many fictional elements which blur the thin line between a travel writing

and fiction. Naipaul incorporates the elements like theme, imagery, tone, characterisations

and use of dialogue. He integrates the themes of confusion, stagnation and decay.

This work is not objective because it carries certain themes

throughout. There are themes of futility and decay. Naipaul’s eye only

captures grotesque and ugly details. He sees the Malaysian land or every

Muslim land in general, with the corroded and dusty lens. The lodgings,

streets, weather and people are all described in dark and stark

vocabulary. The conversations with the people carry a theme of confusion.

The overall physical, emotional and psychological picture of the Malays is

that of despair, misery and lacking originality. All these themes are

maintained through the apt use of imagery, tone, dialogues and character

descriptions. All of them are addressed in the following passages.

Be it landscapes, people or locations, the visual representations as given by Naipaul

are grotesque and dark. In the third chapter, he has used harsh, hot and dry imagery for

example: ‘The heat which is in the town was hard to bear. The trees, cattle which would

have now suffered in the sun.’ (254) He uses disgusting imagery for these people

e.g. the way haji cleans his nose with his finger. The imagery of decay is

also visible where he describes that in rainy season, the creepers race up

the steel guy ropes of telegraph poles; the overwhelm dying coconut

branches even before the branches fall of’. (228)

Naipaul’s tone takes on various shades. Mostly it remains

pessimistic throughout with occasional glimpses of irony and satire. Shafi,

his guide in Malaysia was a defiant of the modern world. Naipaul,

however, mentions sarcastically that ‘Shafi…had been made by the world

that had released his intelligence; that was the world that had released

his intelligence’’ (234). He also remarks that ironically, ‘ritual cleanliness

had nothing to do with the cleanliness for its own sake… There were rules

for villages; there were no rules for towns.’ (244).

In chapter two, the girls told him that it felt good to read English

romances because it contained big houses and big cars. The author

comments satirically if ‘these Islamic ducklings…already secret city

swans’ against the Islamic teachings to reject materialism (252). While

asking from them about categories of halal and haram, he mocks the

Islamic principles by asking Khairul to describe coughing in these

categories of permissibility and impermissibility. (276).

Another feature of fiction seen in Naipaul’s travel writings is the characterisation of the

people he meets on his journeys. He describes them as fictional characters with ample detail;

from the tips of their hair to the soles of their feet. Whether it’s Shafi, his guide, the two

school girls or the ABIM founder Anwar Ibrahim, all are defined in all their facets. For

example, while describing the two school girls he writes that ‘one was brown-skinned and

slender; one was pale, plump, and round-faced. They both wore long dresses and had covered

heads. The brown girl had a head-cover in thin black cotton that had crinkled up and looked

slack; there was about her a general adolescent untidiness which was fetching. The round-

faced girl was neater. A white kerchief was drawn tightly on her head, and over that she had a

pink head-cover that was pinned below her chin.’

The use of dialogues in Naipaul’s narrative adds to the dramatic form of the

travelogue. The interviews he takes from various people as transformed into dialogues as

being carried out between the characters of a fictional work. For example, the conversation

between Rehman, the lecturer and the registrar is written in dialogue with Naipaul posing

questions and people answering them. Similarly, throughout the section, all conversations are

presented in this manner.

An analysis of Among the Believers shows that Naipaul has amalgamated the genres

of travel and fiction to create an entirely new one called ‘travelon’ or ‘novelogue’. The use of

various travel strategies through the tools of fiction produce a narrative that the readers find

pleasing to read. The instances from history or journalistic sources give him an authorial

authenticity. His time to time commentary and critical views add to the validity of the

narrative. For him, the world is an arena with innumerable stories to be picked up and

reproduced. In short, Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey is not only a travelogue but a

complete aesthetic text in itself.

INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Female Campus

Comparative Literature

Assignment no. 02

Submitted to: Ma’am Rubbiya

Submitted by:

Maimoona Azam

Amenah Qureshi

Hasna Shabbir

Maryam Irshad

Humaira Masood

Date of submission: 31st March 2013