?The war on terror is obscuring from our sight the nature of war itself. It is an elaborate and expensive distraction that hides us from the real crime.? That is the claim Amitava Kumar is making in his new book, Evidence of Suspicion: A Writer?s Report on the War on Terror. In an increasingly claustrophobic world, suspicion he brings out, has been enough to destroy lives. A professor of English at Vassar College, he takes up two trials in the US in the wake of 9/11 ? that of Hemant Lakhani, on trial for selling a fake missile to an FBI informant, and Shahawar Matin Siraj, charged with conspiracy to bomb a New York subway ? to catalogue that just about anyone with the right racial profile may be a victim any time, anywhere. And, proving innocence is an expensive-to-impossible affair. Suman Tarafdar caught up with him at the Jaipur Literature Festival, where Kumar?s message was heard only by the discerning. A reflection of our times? Excerpts:
What led you to write Evidence…?
After 9/11, the war on terror has been the governing principle of our life. If you are in a public place in the United States, you behave in a certain way as you might be an object of suspicion. I had heard writers immediately after 9/11 say that the writing they were doing earlier was not useful any more. I was also trying to understand that if a new life is being organised, then how should writing and knowledge be organised? I started teaching a course called the literature of 9/11. In some ways, that was the starting point.
A lot of the American writers?John Updike, Jay McInerney?have written on small domestic dramas. After a tragic incident, people become more unhappy, or find new love, a new purpose of living etc. To me, it was clear that a lot of Indians and Pakistanis were getting implicated and I thought maybe one should write a little more about this. So I got interested in terrorism trials. I picked two trials ? Lakhani and Siraj. My statement, that on a bright morning, when two planes crashed into two tall buildings, ends with a man in a dark cell being tortured or a man in a blue suit in Guantanamo. This was a simple line that needed to be drawn and this is what fuels this project.
You mention that writers were made to pause after 9/11. What responsibility does a writer bear in situations such as these?
On 9/11, I heard a voice on radio, clearly an Indian, saying, ?I am a Hindu, I am not a Muslim, I am not a terrorist.? Why should only Muslims be terrorists? The voice I was hearing was that of Hemant Lakhani. One response of the writer is to write in extraordinary detail, the individual stories of people and to find out particularities, like who was that person, what were his conflicts, what were the ambiguities?
I am also interested in responses in art. The 9/11 Commission Report says we should have more imagination. To my mind, real imagination was shown by artists responding to the attacks. I mention the case of Hasan Ilahi, who has chosen to record moments of his life and upload it. He believes that if more people do self-surveillance, then they shall have to hire more people to check that and more people in India and Bangladesh will get jobs!
Suspicion is destructive. And govern- ments rarely apologise for falsely doing so. If we are looking to build a new life, how do we reconcile, as the proponents of terror surveillance will point to its necessity?
It is incumbent on us in the absence of an apology to remind the state that mistakes have been made, that it cannot have the mentality of a lynch mob, that it cannot associate a face, beard, a cap and stereotype.
Where I live, every few days, there is this headline: ?Terror plot unveiled, 3 people arrested?. On examination, it was revealed that one was a schizophrenic, one was a deranged man, one was a school dropout ? all met an informant? usually an Indian or Pakistani, who convinced the FBI that here were people who were part of the terror network. The state needs to show greater scepticism, greater evidence of suspicion. We must ask what the screen is hiding. It is hiding ineptness and a deeper terror. A claim my book makes is that the war on terror is a screen to hide the war on Iraq.
Why is it important to understand the faceless terrorist?
I would like to understand the terrorist not as an automaton, but as a human being. I am writing against the wanted poster, for that just says ?wears shirt and pant?. Who is that? Instead I want to understand when that man looks at a man or a woman while on the run, what does he feel? On what happened on 26/11, I am angry when I watch the tapes. When I hear the voice of the handler, it is the voice of evil. It makes me think the killer is closer to his victims, just by an inch, when I hear him tell the handler, ?sir, yahan to bade bade computer hain?, mistaking plasma TVs for computers. He can?t find switches. He has no idea of where he is. He is a small man lost in a big world. It gives a glimpse into his past. It will help us understand this terrorist, which we have to do to combat terror, instead of thinking this is a faceless ideology. Unless we do that, we will keep falling victims to stereotyping.
Any changes visible under the new US administration?
None. There are indications that Guantanamo will be brought closer home, to Illinois. The framers of the draconian laws in the previous administration will not face the scrutiny of law. However, there is a change in people?s perceptions. Obama?s election meant people were not ready to pursue an agenda of unrelenting war on the world.