Halima: A Somali Girl's Way to the Lodge

By Arsalan

A Somali girl student, having grown up and living in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia Townsville, witnesses her draughtsman husband being enticed by an Indonesian girl to leave his wife and young child to open an East-African-style restaurant in Aceh, NW Sumatra. Halima, meanwhile, consummates her own love affair with Edward, a middle-age

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westwood Books Publishing
• Release date: Sep 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685368180

Arsalan

Arsalan, a learned and well-travelled polyglot septuagenarian ecologist, educator and nonlinear historian, writes about places he has been and situations he has known over the years; of European descent, he is a long-time resident of Australia; his pen name derives from an eventually-doomed relationship with a West Asian girl.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Arsalan.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America.

Westwood Books Publishing LLC

Atlanta Financial Center

3343 Peachtree Rd NE Ste 145-725

Atlanta, GA 30326

www.westwoodbookspublishing.com

Contents

Lodge:

Halima’s Journey to Kiribilli (C) Arsalan 2016

Lodge:

Halima’s Journey to Kiribilli (C) Arsalan 2016

Itinerary of a Journey to the Lodge

by a young Somali Woman

Actorum Personae: Halima, born near Baidoa in Somalia, brought to Jibouti by her parents who managed to get themselves into Australia; she gets married young but is allowed to study; she gravitates from student politics into leadership of the Truly Democratic Party and gain preselection into a Somali- majority seat in Townsville, North Queensland, a city where she grew up, due to her parents’ ability to speak Italian.

Omar, cousin and sometime husband, a draughtsman who, while initially supportive, gets increasingly jealous of Halima’s intellectual and political ascent; eventually, he settles in Aceh with Arif Subandrio’s grandniece Nurya whom me meets on a visit of hers; he obtains a Sharia divorce and a temporary marriage to Nurya.

Edward Tanner, of partly Dutch- Indonesian descent works at an occasional lecturer/ tutor at North Queensland University and a once-weekly home tutor to the children of African refugees and migrants; he gets to know and love Halima when she is asked to pick up Ayesha, her niece three degrees removed, at the tutoring centre; for Edward a tragic but loyal lover has been to many places in Asia and Africa as an environmental consultant and relates to Halima instantly. Eventually, he withdraws into the background, so as not to ‘rain on Halima’s parade’ when she is made Prime Minister.

Fred Apple is a sympathetic Catholic priest, member of the Interfaith Action Group and a Cairo- trained scholar on Sufism who speaks fluent Arabic. He, too, is a widely- travelled and erudite man, admits to being smitten by Halima and all sexy Somali girls. The Imam of the North Queensland Madrassa

Abul Talib, is his friend, as are several Muslim families of long atanding in Townsville. The Imam, a Bengali, is rather a conservative but also a man of exquisite manners and ready to listen and not averse to the doctrine of Free Will- mutajil.

Arif Subandrio, a Javanese businessman of long standing in North Queensland, and his family end up being supportive of Halima’s political efforts, after initial resistance; for he had wanted to back a relative to become the first Muslim ever to be elected in North Queensland.

Rebecca Avranidis, a full-blooded regional politician, knew and worked with Halima in their student days but, unerringly, picks that particular electorate as pivotal to the outcome of the election and wants it for herself.

Scipio Adolari is a power-broker in a city and region once largely inhabited by Italians and their descendants, people who worked their way into wealth and ultimate acceptance. While initially vehemently opposed to Halima’s preselection, he is set upon by his granddaughter and her friends but also able to strike a deal that would benefit some farm families.

Greta Magnusdottir is an internationally - known journalist, married to a North Queenslander but unwilling to change her name, in good Icelandic traditions; she ‘discovers’ Halima and is a constant source of critical encouragement, hardbitten journo, and almost crypto- alcoholic that she is.

Darryl and Jane Johnson, he a Council engineer, she a refugee welfare coordinator, are strangely reluctant to be involved with Halima’s cause but end up canvassing for her; their newly-migrant community is likewise split-minded, not least because many among them do not wish to attract undue attention.

Trevor and Beryl van Blinkeren, last century’s migrants, take a long time to be convinced; eventually, they agree to not only vote for her but look after her daughter when Halima’s house is torched and the family narrowly escapes. They also provide for Halima’s and Edward Tanner’s last meeting.

Jason Treloarne is a fringe member of Us Only, a committed Anglo-Saxon/ Celtic, basically White- Supremacist network, is involved in a plot to kill Halima’s family and burn their house yet changes his mind due to a chance encounter with Greta and takes steps to ensure that the house is uninhabited on the fateful night. He eventually gets caught, along with the real arsonists whose trial is covered by Greta, among others.

Neil Bradford is Greta’s on-again, off-again lover, smitten by Halima, which causes Greta to almost give up on Halima; it is an encounter with Halima’s daughter at the van Blinkeren’s that convinces her to continue with the good work.

Muna, Halima and Omar’s five-year-old cheerful, witty daughter helps win her mum’s election but is distressed when the father finally leaves for Aceh, much as she gets to like Nurya. Edward, in particular, is a most helpful and understanding adoptive uncle during the period, as are her Somali relatives.

I am really a designer prevented by the nature of my work to be truly creative, he assured her,

but I know what you mean, I am sure the answer is there.

did the Arabs not reinvent science and technology?

yes, in the generations after the Prophet, Peace be on Him,

(he replied, using the descriptive formula for Mohammad).

why, then, are we Muslim so far behind the eighth ball?

she wondered. My father used to talk about mutajhil…

free will? Omar queried.

choice and responsibility.

was that not a heresy? I suppose so.

She tried to remember:

Father explained it like this; we are to be judged and Allah has given us a mind,

to know to do good and leave evil alone?

not only that but know how and why something might be evil, not merely because someone says so.

Does that include the Q’ran, Halima?

well, it gets interpreted in many different ways.

what do you mean? Omar was getting rattled.

you must have heard of Fatwa-shopping…

isn’t that what they do in Saudi Arabia?

Halima thought of her cousin Fatimah in Ryad.

that’s what she told Dad when he visited some time ago.

Halima’ parents had gone there to prepare for the entire family to prepare for the Haj but had to give up, due to sudden poor health.

Someone who knew a lot about the Haj and how to organize pilgrims- Haji and Haja alike-was Abul Tarib, the highly conservative but gentle urbane and rather tactful mullah of Townsville, a close friend of Halima’s father the formerly well-known Somali poet; his artistic Bengali soul relished poetry or, at least the gift of the word, he knew classical Arabic well enough to appreciate not only the sheer beauty of Q’ranic oratory but that of Pre-Islamic Arabian love songs, a specialty of Halima’s father.

Both Omar and Halima appreciated the sheer artistry of people like her father or of deep cultural awareness, such as that of the moulvi sahib but somehow thought that not only did it belong to a bygone age but had been thoroughly shredded by past global events, and who was to argue that they were entirely wrong, intelligent and thoughtful people that they were.

One such who did was Fred Apple, Father Louis by religious name, a Founding Confrere of the Markist Fathers and Brothers, oftentimes called Marxist by deliberate error, in this day of the demise of socialist theory and practice. They dared to not only believe but practice and work with the Discipleship of the Poor, by the Poor and for the Poor, worshipped the Abandoned Jesus and had, quite seriously, promoted the brotherhood of the Broom, in a somewhat sarcastic Adaptation of a contemptuous title people in Pakistan and India afford Christians: ‘ sweepers’!

Fred Apple could claim of himself, not that he did very often, that he knew more about Islam than ninety-seven point five of all muslimin, practicing or otherwise; he had studied in Cairo, worked as a orientialist editor in Beirut and a missionary formator on loan to the Fransciscans in Nazareth.

Better still, Fred Apple had worked in West Bengal as a seminarian and had kept up with the Bengali he learnt, along with Sentali, while working at a tribal leprosarium there, one of the very few people in all of Townsville to do so. Abdul Tarib’s wife, Hasma Begum, viewed herself as his Older Sister, seeing that he was not married, that she could talk to him in Bangla over endless cups of tea and alooparatha and that she could help him and her husband organize futsal tournaments among the Muslim girls in North Queensland; for like all Bengalis, she was football-mad. She had even managed to get girls’ teams from Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Northern Territory on several occasions, by using her own contacts and by assuring anxious parents of suitable billets for the girls, all of whom she considered her daughters.

Hasma Begum had persuaded several young muslim women, Halima among them, to organize in an interfaith group with several nuns, girls from the Sikh community and young Torres Strait matrons; she had used a tape of Father Louis in Arabic speaker as a lead-in to a meditation; the next time around, she and her husband, the moulvi, brought their friend along, to the delight not only of the nuns.

Islam, Father Louis intoned, is related to salaam or shalom, Peace; in itself it means Purposeful Surrender, ending the stubborn resistance of self, surprisingly enough related to the nibbana, the end of striving, of our Buddhist brothers and sisters, with the end being the eckankar, Oneness, of the Sikh faith; or do I sound too much like a Sufi saint?

Several people laughed. In Bengal, those people used to be called Pir, Sufi- inspired muslim saints to be Sure but resting on a Buddhist even more than a Hindu background; seekers and guides at the same time.

He paused for a while: sat sri akal is the Sikh motto which I’d like to translate as Truth is the Beauty of Awareness, reminding us that while Godness is invisible but manifest in any number of ways; Sikhs are People of the Book, as are we all when we respect learning and endeavour and respectful submission.

Spontaneous applause greeted his words: Not all of you would have understood my introduction in Arabic But it would not have been all that different from what I am saying now; bearing that in mind, I’d like all of you to meditate on Awareness itself, something both common and unique to us as human being.

The music in the background was a medley of Somali rhythms, Turkish tunes and Sikh iterations and everyone was silent for a very long time; it seemed that nobody wanted to break the mood by making a sound as if quietly wanting to wait on God or on the nature of the Universe, or both.

The music ceased and Fred Apple, Father Louis, asked Abul Tarib to offer an Islamic benediction:

but before I request my friend and brother, your Moulvi, to do so, I’d like to ask who among you ladies are active in your respective communities or in society in general; don’t feel pressured to answer but if any of you feel like it, introduce yourselves and explain what you do and why.

To her own surprise, it was Halima who answered first: I am Halima Diretry, a young married Somali woman with one very young daughter, Muna; I grew up as a refugee girl in Jibuti and Yemen, compliments, Father, on your authentic Arabic; I study minority community development at graduate level and am an organizer within the Party of Truly Democratic Values, known as the True Democrats.

Her ‘confession’ must have