Koran: Forbid or Rewrite? A Guide for Peaceful De-Islamicization [Paperback]

In the normal course of reviewing, I try to follow DH Lawrence's dictum to `trust the tale, not the teller,' despite my many misgivings about Lawrence's own work. However, the author of the current book, Dewanand, introduces so much of himself into the text that it seems appropriate in this case at the least to introduce the concept of the authorial voice. I will start with a quote from p.111, in the introduction to an article (the book is really a compendium of articles, possibly ordered chronologically) entitled "Mohammed is Eighty Three Times Worse than Hitler:""This article was originally written in the PI Nordsingel (House of Custody) at Rotterdam, cell CS16, on August 21, 2002. This text was originally written in Dutch with a pencil in prison. This literally translated text, written in prison, contains crude and emotional statements and should not therefore be construed to be personal." There are several things to be deduced from this and from the other internal evidence from the manuscript. First, the author is male and a Hindu, a very strong Hindu in terms of adherence to that form of belief. He originally came from Surinam and then moved to the Netherlands, where he has been living for the past 20 years, some of which have been spent in incarceration. More details of his life and interests may be found from his website at [...], at which readers will probably be able to make further deductions alone.

This book, as mentioned, is constructed as a compendium of articles written, often in Dutch, in a variety of different media. I did not see mention of a translator so I am assuming that the author is conversant in several different languages and, even though the use of English is not perfect, it is nevertheless of a high level from a technical perspective. However, author Dewanand has the additional benefit of having been visited by the god Krishna, or at least one of the avatars of the god (my understanding of how the major Hindu gods are able to manifest themselves in physical form on earth is limited) and the result is described on p.5: "Around 1993, Krishna appeared to me as the incarnation of Altecrea (acronym for Almighty Technical Creator), after a decade full of setbacks, extreme suicidal thoughts, suffering, social isolation and bitter sorrows. Altecrea revealed secret knowledge to me and then gave me a new spirit; a new consciousness; and a new, holy life purpose. Since then I have grown and developed myself into a happy and sociable person, able to communicate with others." I can only feel happy for the author to have experienced this life-changing experience, although my (admittedly somewhat limited) research on Altecrea suggests that is an incarnation about which little other information is available.

Alas, the Altecrean intervention, based on the dates, suggests that it was not sufficient (if that was indeed its intention) to keep author Dewanand out of incarceration.
At various times in the book, the author stresses the transcendent validity of the sacred Hindu texts (or at least some of them) and explains that the criteria for determining whether they have sacred provenance or not is whether they `always' lead to deeper understanding and `never' lead to violence or other negative aspects. There seems to me, therefore, something of a contradiction between what the author was advised to create by means of the Altecrea intervention and the inclusion of the articles such as the one with which I started, concerning the comparison between Mohammed and Hitler. Since the author himself clearly says contains `emotional statements' and, as the reader may discover, also contains a number of statements which can be described, with some measure of litotes, as contentious, it would seem to contradict the imperative for claiming to have a sacred nature. What, then, is the author's purpose? Despite reading the 676 pages of text in the version made available to me (and I believe I should note here that, as a reviewer, I was given a free copy of the manuscript), I did not find a clear explanation of the purpose of the book in the form and structure which it currently exists. That is not to say that the author does not have plenty of lessons to communicate to the general public, indeed, the book is crammed with exhortations for people to behave in this or that way and assertions aiming to explain why things are the way they are. For example, in an early section, the author describes the nature and function of female circumcision - again, as a matter of full disclosure, I spent a year in the 1980s teaching in eastern Sudan among people (I never met or even saw any of the women involved) where female circumcision was practiced and so am aware of some of the issues involved - and concludes thus: "There is currently a debate about female circumcision, and it seems appropriate to write something about it. In principle, I am not in favor of this form of circumcision because this practice can lead to severe genital mutilation, which would last a lifetime (p.84)." This is accompanied by a typology of female circumcision which concludes that most forms of such circumcision (to be fair, the author denies that many of the surgical techniques involved are `real' circumcision) are justified because, for physiological reasons, both affected men and women are able to enjoy sexual penetration more. Apparently, the author believes that `black women' have `hard labia' which hinder procreation. As I suggested above, this contradicts my information on the subject. To be honest, I would be more inclined to listen to what the author had to say if he had provided some sources or evidence to support his many assertions. Perhaps that is just the academic in me.

Indeed, in what seems to be a common feature with all people with a strong interest in a particular form of literature and the persistence necessary to put views into a published book, Dewanand appears to take a keen interest in what young women wear and in the nature, shape and health of their genitalia. Here is an example from p.80: "In every culture, for example, it is true that a half naked woman makes it clear that she has a need for sex with a man, or she indicates that she wants to be seen as an erotic object, who may be hunted ... In every culture, this is the same." In the face of this kind of religious belief, further comment from me would seem to be superfluous.

If it may be reasonably assumed that the author's state of mind varies in line with the different styles and viewpoints of the sections included: one theme occasionally revisited is the decadent and indeed nihilistic nature of the Dutch lifestyle and how it would be improved if everyone converted to Islam, by which I take it to mean any form of organised religion. This is rather contradicted by the sections which accuse the Pakistani army of extraordinary butchery and atrocity during the various wars with India and, indeed, with what the author describes as an unending slaughter of Hindus in India by cruel Muslims, which has a somewhat different interpretation of the past from others I have read. Then again, so far as I am aware, I have never been visited by the incarnation of a god, any god.

Finally, in terms of the question with which the title of the book somewhat provocatively announces itself, the author pronounces himself an opponent of rewriting and, in fact, an opponent of very many things. I am reminded by something said by (as far as I recall) Richard Dawkins, who said and I may be paraphrasing somewhat "if they were children of dentists, would you describe them as `dentist children' and expect them to behave in some specific and unusual way in which only dentists would behave?"