"Stories versus State: A Reflection on Alia Yunis’ The Night Counter" in RAWI (19 November 2024)

 As The Night Counter nears its end, an unexpected death occurs. The elderly character in question was
taking a bus ride in Detroit when he breathed his last. This person would go routinely to the airport to see passengers arrive on the flight from Lebanon, his homeland. As I read about the character’s death, I was on a bus myself. I put the book down in my lap and realized that I had been crying. The person, an immigrant, had died alone while trying to catch a glimpse of new arrivals from the old country. I thought of my own father.

Like Fatima Abdullah, the tale’s octogenarian protagonist, I was in Los Angeles as I finished reading the book. Fatima decamps to the west coast from Michigan after divorcing her second husband, Ibrahim. She hopes this act will spare him from having to live out their last years together in what she believes to be a marriage he agreed to only out of a sense of obligation upon the death of Marwan, her first husband and Ibrahim’s friend. Fatima takes up residence in the home of her grandson Amir, whose queerness she initially refuses to acknowledge, leading to many comedic moments. Like Fatima, in a place famed for its car culture, I took the bus everywhere in the City of Angels and happened to be on one of the routes the book mentions as I read about the death of the old Lebanese character. The bus route referenced passes a 7-Eleven on Wilshire Boulevard, a place my dad once worked at. As a young man, he too had lived in Lebanon. That was in 1969, before the political instability, before the refugee crisis, before a long list of events…

Reading Alia Yunis’ The Night Counter in 2009, the year of its publication, little did I know that the book would become one I would use in my classes so consistently. The text has been a staple on the syllabus of my course titled Outside In: Transnational Asian American Literature. The premise of the course is this: moving away from the idea of Asian Americans as those solely of immigrant heritage, the class asks students to think about what it might mean to consider such literary subjects as being the product of displacement within and beyond the United States. Concurrently, the course also asks students to dwell upon the involvement of America beyond its own borders.

The class requires that every text we read involves the crossing of a nation-state’s boundary, often of a character who is identifiably Asian or Asian American. Thus, when not viewed as being only immigrant (or descended from immigrants), how might we see the construction of Arab and other Asian (American) characters as also being influenced by transnational histories and events? In other words, what happens when one looks beyond the purview of a single nation or the state to understand identity?

Certainly, the most transnational figure in The Night Counter is Scheherazade. Yes, that Scheherazade of the One Thousand and One Nights fame. But where she is the teller of stories in the original text, here, in her appearance in this non-Arab setting, she is the receiver of tales about Fatima’s family. The exchanges between the two women are the framing device for the novel, within which is ensconced several other stories. In this way, Yunis’ novel not only makes One Thousand and One Nights an intertext, but also echoes the earlier book’s form of intertwined stories in this 21^st century version. In so doing, The Night Counter brings the Asian literary form of a framing narrative with other stories within it to an American setting. Before Disney and before orientalist adaptations of Scheherazade’s tales, the legends themselves originated transnationally in many lands, including Iran and the Arab world, as well as South and East Asia.  

An early-twentieth-century immigrant to the United States along with Marwan, Fatima’s time in the new country parallels the durée of her fellow-Lebanese and other Arab communities in America, an immigrant history that is longer than a hundred years. In her mid-80s at the time at which she tells her stories to Scheherazade, Fatima recounts for this legendary figure how she, Marwan, and Ibrahim endeavored to acculturate in an unfamiliar land with an unfamiliar language. After all, Fatima had only known a rural life in a small Lebanese village prior to America. Entwined in her stories are legacies of labor struggles, racism and Islamophobia, and intergenerational conflict.

The stories Fatima relays to Scheherazade include accounts of how Marwan and Ibrahim both worked in
the burgeoning industries that marked the rise of capitalism in America, chief among them the manufacture of cars in Detroit, that hub of Arab American life and heritage. Fatima recounts the injuries immigrant men faced in unregulated factories, leading to the struggle for unionization and labor rights-protections that Marwan and Ibrahim find themselves involved with, too.

Because of the many children Fatima had between her two marriages, the novel is a multigenerational family saga, one that is replete with the expected conflict between immigrant parents and their American-born progeny. However, Yunis weaves into these parent-child tussles a bit of the history of the settings in which these events unfold. One such poignant moment ensues during a family road trip which Ibrahim only agrees to after being nagged by his most malcontent child, Randa, who wants the Abdullahs to do things like other Americans.

Stopping at a restaurant in Georgia on their trip, the Abdullahs are faced with the choice of entering one of two bathrooms – one for whites and the other for “coloreds.” At the restaurant, a white man unable to identify Randa ethnically calls her the prettiest mulatto he has ever seen. The cringe-worthy moment makes Ibrahim vow that the family will never vacation again.

As with the previously mentioned history of labor rights-organizing that impinges upon the lives of the first generation in the novel, the history of segregation and anti-Black racism reveals itself in the existence of the second-generation characters. Subtly, the novel portrays the history of the Abdullahs – internal conflicts and all – as one that cannot be separated from American histories of marginalization, institutionalized as they are by society, capitalism, and the state. Nevertheless, the most overt encounter the family have with such state power is in the discovery that they are being racially and religiously profiled in the contemporary moment of the novel’s setting, a subject I will return to soon.

Although Lebanon seems to recede into the backdrop of the family’s history in the novel as the Abdullah’s children and then their children’s children are born in America, readers are constantly reminded of the home country. Apart from the old character who dies on the bus en route to see the planes arrive from Lebanon, it is Fatima herself who is always thinking of Lebanon. Because of Scheherazade’s visitations, Fatima believes she only has 1001 nights remaining on Earth and thus becomes obsessed with figuring out to which of her descendants she will bequeath her village house upon her death.

While Fatima never returns to the homeland, the most unlikely of characters does. It is Fatima’s white-passing granddaughter Dina Bitar, the Texas-born, part-Palestinian child of Randa’s (who belatedly goes by “Randy” to also appear white). On a foolhardy mission to impress an Arab American college activist she becomes infatuated with, Dina joins the fuckboy at a refugee camp in Lebanon where for the first time she encounters a community of other diasporic Palestinians like (and definitely unlike) herself.

In this, the most evidently transnational moment in the novel, one that my students find elucidative of the course’s themes, the All-American Dina (a cheerleader, no less) comes face-to-face with the effects of state-sponsored violence on people with whom she shares an origin. One of the refugees, a seamstress named Sarah, produces a document to show Dina – it is the deed to the woman’s house in Palestine. Just before an Israeli airstrike occurs and Dina and the others have to evacuate the camp, the Palestinian woman confides that she lives with the hope that, one day, she will return to her own country. This year, after (unbelievably) the one-year anniversary of the genocide of Gazans that began on October 7, 2023, teaching this novel has had profound resonance. It has revealed to my students that persecution against Palestinians is not a recent phenomenon; rather, it continues to divest many of their homeland as the world looks on.

Indeed, the question of where one’s home is is a persistent theme in The Night Counter. This is a query the Abdullahs find themselves faced with when it becomes clear that they are being targeted by their own government because they are Arab Muslims in post-9/11 America. This, after four generations of the family have been in the United States, with a fifth-generation-child soon to arrive. State surveillance is the unknown soundtrack to the family’s lives as the crackle of static interferes with telephonic conversations. In fact, this is why their relative – the old person on the bus – dies alone and away from the family. The character’s repeated attempts to reach the family are thwarted by phone taps authorized by the government. It is state-sanctioned Islamophobia and racism that gets in the way of this character being with his kin in his final moments.

The Night Counter brings together themes of state persecution, familial conflict, transnationalism, and
Arab American history, but it also has a strong feminist perspective. Fatima’s house in Lebanon – the one she never sees again – was a gift to her from her mother, one that would allow Fatima to have a place to return to should things go awry in America. This matrilineal offering is in keeping with Scheherazade’s own legacy. As we may recall, the storyteller offered herself up in place of her sister, Dunyazad, who was to marry King Shahryar. The reason Scheherazade wished to replace Dunyazad was because the marriage meant certain death, the king finding little reason to prolong his unions were he to be displeased in the least with his brides. It is Scheherazade’s enchanting storytelling (the basis of One Thousand and One Nights) that causes Shahryar to fall in love with her, thereby keeping her and other women from being murdered.

While I tell my students that this is proof enough of the power of literature to save lives, the other lesson one learns is that Scheherazade grapples with state power, as represented by the king, through the use of culture (and wins). Arguably, Scheherazade’s story ends with the preservation of heteropatriarchy and not with the demise of the king (or the state). Yet, in demonstrating that stories and their telling preserve heritage while state-sanctioned violence looms, both The Night Counter and its ancient inspiration ask us to consider how even those made marginal hold on to what is most important to them and preserve it by passing it on in the stories they tell for more than a thousand and one nights.  

From RAWI (Books that Shaped SWANA Lit). With thanks to Priscilla Wathington and Alia Yunis. In fond remembrance of Leila Ben-Nasr.

"How the 16th-century Basilica of Bom Jesus became an Icon of Goan Identity" in SCROLL (17 November 2024)

 

Once a decade, the sacred relics of Saint Francis Xavier are put on public display at the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa. The decennial Exposition that begins in 2024 will run between November 21 and January 5, 2025.

Since 1624, the Basilica has housed the remains of St Xavier, a Catholic missionary of Spanish origin. Goa was a Portuguese colony from 1510 to 1961. Nearly 500 years on, the church still stands and is a revered site for many Goans and others regardless of their religious affiliations. Images and representations of the Basilica, depicting its towering, auburn laterite walls, are widely used to advertise Goa as a tourist destination

How did a 16^th-century basilica become an icon of Goan identity? 

In his research, scholar Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar has found recurring use of images of the Basilica of Bom Jesus over the centuries, depictions in each period reflecting technological changes. Most notably, between the 19th and 21st centuries, advancements in photography and other forms of reproduction have allowed for the Basilica to be seen in Exposition-related ephemera as well as modern-day tourist souvenirs.

Kandolkar, an architectural historian by training and an associate professor at the Goa College of Architecture, has documented his findings in his new book  Goa’s Bom Jesus as Visual Culture: The Basilica’s Architecture, Image, History and Identity, the first monograph-length study on the visual history of the Basilica of Bom Jesus.

In this interview, Kandolkar talks about his book, controversy surrounding the maintenance of the Basilica, and what makes architecture in Goa unique.

 What led you to research the Basilica and why focus on its visual appearance, especially the exterior, rather than the famed relics it houses and the baroque interior of the church?

This book would never have happened. Let me explain. A long time ago, I had written to the famous architectural historian Paulo Varela Gomes about his book, Whitewash, Redstone: A History of Church Architecture in Goa (2011). In my message, I proposed the idea that his important work be made accessible in a more visual form to lay readers, but also to parish priests and others directly involved in dealing with the rich architectural heritage of Goan churches.

Varela Gomes was not too keen on this idea. He felt that the subject of Goan church architecture had been adequately covered. As a result, I had all but moved on from thinking about Goan architecture as well.

However, as time went on and I developed my own ideas about Goan architectural history, it became evident that there was a great deal left to be researched, especially from the vantage point of Goans themselves. This eye-opening insight made me approach the subject anew as I commenced my PhD research at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in 2016.

At Srishti, my supervisor, Dr Pithamber Polsani, got me interested in the genealogical study of images related to architecture in Goa. As I dug into the archives at the Central Library in Panjim and Xavier’s Centre of Historical Research in Porvorim, Goa, images of the Basilica became a recurring theme across different media, be it books, souvenirs, pamphlets, and newspapers.

Most of these publications that I came across were the kind produced on the eve of the various Expositions of St. Francis Xavier’s relics. From the mid-19th century onwards, the Expositions had become recurring events. As Pamila Gupta explains in her book The Relic State: St Francis Xavier and the Politics of Ritual in Portuguese India (2014), the declining Portuguese colonial state benefited from periodically displaying the remains of the saint.

However, the recurrence of the Basilica’s images in various Exposition souvenirs, published across the 19th and 20th centuries, underscore the need to study how symbolic legacies are perpetuated through architecture. In fact, it is clear that right from the colonial period, when Goa was heralded as the Rome of the East, to the post-Portuguese period, when Goa has become an idyllic destination for leisure tourism, architectural images of Bom Jesus have been central in shaping Goa’s identity.

Interestingly, the Basilica is a modest structure compared to many buildings from the early modern period. Lacking a fancy vaulted ceiling and featuring a simple, single-nave design, it has nevertheless become central to Goan identity over time. Its significance lies not only in the fact that it has housed the relics of St Francis Xavier since 1624, but also in its role as a symbol of Old Goa’s glorious past despite the city’s ruination. The Basilica evokes the idea of Golden Goa (which refers to the heyday of Portuguese rule), embodying multiple legacies simultaneously, which has contributed to its iconic status.

Old Goa was once the capital of Estado da Índia (Portuguese India). As your book points out, despite its political and religious importance as the eastern hub of Catholicism in the early modern period, Old Goa did not retain its allure for long. Pestilence caused people to flee and, later, the capital itself shifted to Panjim, a city which still functions in this capacity. Neglect led to the ruin of many early modern structures, but the Basilica survived unlike other edifices in Old Goa. Why was this?

Usually, when we see that very old buildings like the Basilica have survived till now, it shows that they have been taken care of. This has not been the case with many other buildings in Old Goa, which have suffered due to negligence and disrepair. Of course, some conditions of neglect have also arisen because of the specific history of the longue durée of Portuguese rule in Goa.

Popular belief attributes the downfall of Old Goa primarily to recurring pestilences. However, the arrival of other European powers in Asia by the late 16th century, coupled with the faltering economic and social policies of the Portuguese, also significantly contributed to the city’s decline.

For instance, after a two-century partnership, the Portuguese state sought to reduce Church control in the 18th century. This period marked a secularisation of the Portuguese empire initiated by the Marquis de Pombal. As a result, the Jesuits, the powerful religious order to which St Francis Xavier belonged, were expelled by the Portuguese in 1759. Consequently, many Jesuit monuments in Old Goa, including St Paul’s College (built between 1560-74), underwent rapid ruination.

Similarly, the Portuguese also expelled all the other religious orders (Augustinians, Dominicans, Carmelites, etc.) from Goa in 1835, which meant that the buildings that belonged to these orders, such as the once-magnificent Augustinian Church (built between 1597 and the early 1600s), were left to ruination.

The case of Bom Jesus is different, because of St Francis Xavier, whose legacy continues to be very important to Goans. Local people in Goa played a crucial role in ensuring the timely restoration of the Basilica; even during the 19th century, a time when many other monuments in Old Goa were falling into disrepair, the Basilica remained well-maintained. Let me give you a specific example of such care.

A careful examination of archival photographs of the Basilica shows that the three lateral walls underwent significant change: the buttresses seen on the northern side of the church are 19th-century additions. This particular restoration along with a complete overhaul of the Basilica’s roof was undertaken in the 1860s, immediately following the 1859 exposition. This illustrates that the widespread reverence for the saint and the popularity of his church were key factors in ensuring the monument’s protection.

Because it serves as the resting place of their beloved saint, the building has become iconic of the identity of Goans. For the same reason, the neglect of the church continues to garner attention. In 2020, a major controversy arose when the roof of the Basilica was left unrepaired, allowing rainwater to enter the monument.

Goans raised objections, calling on their political leaders to take action. As a consequence, the government directed the Archaeological Survey of India [which is responsible for the Basilica’s maintenance] to undertake immediate repair of the structure. Essentially, it is the love of the people that has ensured that the Basilica has enjoyed a long afterlife.

Apart from its attraction to tourists, Goa has become a favoured destination for those from India who settle there, often looking to buy what has commonly been referred to as “Portuguese houses”. Your research contends that second home ownership by non-Goans is contentious for many reasons. Among these is the disregard for local conditions coupled with the desire for homes and lifestyles tied to the alleged Iberian aesthetics and nature of the region. Additionally, your book argues that even though the Basilica itself may have been built in the early modern colonial era, its design cannot be described as Portuguese. Likewise, why is it also erroneous to call the aesthetics of non-church structures in Goa “Portuguese”?

Yes! Very much. In fact, to recognise that the architecture of these monuments (and even local Goan culture itself) is not exclusively “Portuguese” needs decolonial thinking. Although influenced by architecture in Portugal and the rest of Europe, the architecture of Goa is distinctively Goan, particularly because it was built with local materials, construction techniques, labour and patronage.

In the contemporary period, architecture in Goa is termed as “Portuguese” because such denomination is seen as more exotic; it is a concept used to attract tourists from the rest of India and profit-seeking real-estate investors.

Conversely, calling it what it is – Goan architecture – means to acknowledge that locals are very much part of this conversation and are the creators of their own culture. On the other hand, to term architecture in Goa “Portuguese” then even permits non-Goans to think that they can partake of such commodification by simply buying real-estate properties, for instance. By labeling every aspect of Goan culture as “Portuguese,” there is an implied sense of a bygone era and an absent coloniser.

This tendency, however, obscures the active role Goans have played throughout the colonial period in shaping their own cultural identity. Not surprisingly, therefore, many tourists from other parts of India who come to buy second homes in Goa often hold the view that “Goa would be so much better without Goans.” What they fail to recognise is that without Goans, there would be no Goa at all.

Such disregard for the concerns and welfare of locals is not restricted to the field of real-estate or tourism alone, for even academia is guilty of the same. Consider that even prestigious American universities like Yale are presently conducting research on and about Goa and Goan culture, but without the involvement of Goans themselves. Sadly, Goans are being marginalised from the very culture they helped produce, marking yet another episode of direct and indirect colonialism.

In an installation series you did in 2021 titled This is Not the Basilica!, you employed several visual representations of Bom Jesus (which can also be seen in your book) to explain how this church has become synonymous with Goan culture. You suggest that although Goa is often represented with those elements that pertain to coastal holidaymaking (like the beach and palm trees), the Basilica may still make an appearance, even in tourism advertisements. Why has the image of this church become so persistent in representing Goa?

This was the most fun part of my research – to see the recurring use of images of the Basilica across different media, including the sale of mattresses among other things. I enjoy studying popular tourist souvenirs in Goa, which do reveal how the Basilica has played a central role in depicting Goan identity. For example, in a souvenir plate I saw being sold in 2016, the likeness of the Basilica of Bom Jesus is juxtaposed with other popular images associated with Goa, such as the sea, sand, swaying palms, and frolicking tourists.

While the convenient superimposition of Goa’s religious architecture with other secular images on popular souvenirs reveals the easy stereotypes used to commoditise Goa as a destination for tourism, I also want to draw attention to why it is no coincidence that the image of Bom Jesus has come to represent Goa’s identity even presently. Bom Jesus plays a vital role in representing Goa because, without its image, the beach scene (in advertisements and souvenirs, among other things) symbolises a generic tropical location, a place that could be anywhere in coastal India if not somewhere else on the planet.

If in the tourist souvenirs of the contemporary period, the 16th-century colonial-era architectural images of the Bom Jesus become a visual argument to represent the identity of this location – to mark its difference – the questions I address in the book are when and how did the architecture of this early modern monument come to symbolise Goan identity.

An 1890 image of the Basilica of Bom Jesus showing its plastered and whitewashed exterior. Credit: Photograph by Souza & Paul, Central Library, Panjim, Goa.

 Now nearly a half-millennium old, the Basilica has not been without issues related to its upkeep. In fact, it is the very look of the church as it appears now – its laterite stone exposed to the elements – that has led to some of these troubles as I will let you explain. Clearly, as your book posits, it is indeed visuality that has been this structure’s problem.

Consecrated in 1605, the Basilica of Bom Jesus was a plastered and whitewashed monument for most of its life. In fact, it is a miracle that the exposed laterite walls of the Basilica have withstood the onslaught of the Goan monsoon since Portuguese architect and restorer Baltazar Castro ordered the removal of the external plaster in the 1950s. The same fate was not accorded to the Arch of the Viceroys – another monument in Old Goa that was deplastered on the recommendation of restorer Castro in the same period.

Sadly, the Viceroy’s Arch crumbled during the heavy monsoon rains that followed the “restoration” in 1953; the arch visible today was reconstructed in 1954-’55 to approximate the original and does not even stand in the same location as its forebear.

According to architectural historian Joaquim R Santos, the damage to this arch made the Portuguese colonial administration acknowledge the problems of keeping the Basilica unplastered and they had begun the process of fixing it in the 1960s. However, before the Portuguese colonial government could execute the work, Goa was annexed by the Indian Union. In the post-Portuguese period, the ASI became the state agency responsible for the monument. They, along with the Church, appear reluctant to repair the colonial-era politically motivated mistake that has led to further ruination of Bom Jesus.

The monument’s brown look has become its trap, because most of the current generation of Goan people have only ever seen the Basilica with an unplastered surface. This is also the image that is now commonly replicated in various representations of Goa, further cementing the notion that this is the way this structure is supposed to look.

Discussing the deteriorating condition of the Basilica in 2021, the Rector of the Basilica, Fr Patricio Fernandes, is on record stating that “[w]ithin a span of ten years of my tenure at the Basilica, I have seen the worst ever soaking of the inside walls of the Basilica. The laterite stones get saturated with the torrential rainwater, and the walls are soaked so much that the water starts dripping through the inside walls.” Despite this, nothing is done to replaster the Basilica.

A proper understanding of the visual history of this monument would definitely help for common sense to prevail, and it is precisely this kind of chronicle my book attempts to offer. Knowing the Basilica’s past would also aid understanding that the monument should be returned to its original aesthetics, that is lime-plastered and whitewashed. This should ensure that many more generations would be able to experience this wonderful structure from the early modern period.

As climate change and increased monsoonal rainfall in Goa continue to affect Bom Jesus, what needs to be done to ensure that this legendary Goan icon “weathers” such epochal developments?

Over the last century, monsoons in Goa have become more intense, with an increase of over 68% in rainfall. Facing the brunt of increasingly severe rainfall and stronger tropical storms each passing year, the threat to Goa’s built heritage serves as yet another example of how climate change has affected monsoonal South Asia.

The ruination of Indo-Portuguese architectural heritage, however, is seldom seen as a part of the imagery that informs the climate change discourse. That is, although the tropics are doubly affected by climate change – sea-level rise in addition to locally produced effects such as stronger tropical storms – the global discourse on climate change continues to be dominated by visuals which reference the Global North.

Furthermore, the emphasis on environmental devastation, as important as it is, tends to veil the potential demise of material culture – including architectural elements that have world heritage value. Such effects of climate change are devastating to architectural heritage, especially those structures built using weaker materials like laterite, a stone which is vulnerable to deterioration – particularly when it is left exposed to the environment.

In April 2020, a gaping hole appeared in the Basilica’s roof. This caused damage to the church, as unseasonal rain soaked the walls and wood of the structure. The aforementioned Rector of the Basilica, Fr Patricio Fernandes, raised the alarm, accusing the ASI of “utter neglect…leading to the deterioration of the Basilica and the Shrine of ‘Goencho Saib’, St. Francis Xavier”.

Given its long historical and religious importance, and nearly 40 years of world heritage significance, the question that arises is why the ASI and the Church have been compromising the safety of the building. Essentially, as I suggest in the book, the rain entering the Basilica is symptomatic of a larger issue – it points to climate change which has breached the boundaries of the monument.

Last but not least, the ongoing use of Bom Jesus indicates that, even as a monument, it is not a museum that is distanced from people. To emphasise once more, the Basilica should not be perceived “just” as a monument. Its current status is not distinct from its past, as it continues to function as a church, serving the needs of the local community. Therefore, with culturally unique places like Goa, the built and ecological heritage have to be imagined together with its people, creating a system of regional entanglement.

Thinking regionally would in turn help in dealing with the challenges of climate change on a planetary level. Harming any one of the elements – the monument, ecology, local people – would mean inviting disasters at a global level, as has already been witnessed with ongoing climate change. In short, even as the severe issue of environmental change requires action, it also needs recognition of the intertwining of Goan people and culture as part of the solution.

From Scroll. See also: "A Short Visual History of the Long Life of Goa's Basilica of Bom Jesus" by Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar and R. Benedito Ferrão