Vidia Among the Knuckleheads

Naipaul’s Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981) takes our narrator to 4 non-Arab Muslim countries (Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia) where the constant idiocy of the citizens and those that govern said citizens leaves him speechless. Here Naipaul begins to let the people he meets do the talking and narration, and it’s a great technique. Naipaul asks few leading questions, and his jabs at the nonsense in between the discourse are few but razor sharp; you can, at points in the book, hear the sound of Naipaul banging his head against his desk.

In Indonesia he meets students and masters of a peasantren, a schooling system where the agriculture-bound poor attend to learn poor agricultural skills. They sit with their Korans and pretend to read. Naipaul wants to punch people, but refrains – his lets the narratives tell of their homegrown stupidity. He finds no one to agree with him that this is all nonsense.

In Iran, post the Khomeini revolution, he watches the first stages of Tehran’s decay. Building cranes sit idle, hotels staff to the hilt to greet the few people passing through. He meets one Imam who has been studying the Koran all his life (30 years) and claims to know half of it. 30 years! One book, and only half comprehension! Naipaul is aghast at the moron before him.

Pakistan is failing to distinguish itself, and the Chinese in Malaysia while small in number have the prime seats in the financial theater. The disaffected are clamoring for change, and yet they adhere to one book they believe can remedy any wrong. Too bad the Koran doesn’t contain any sleight-of-hand tricks. At least Vidia could have been entertained.