MORE TO ADD FOR ''GREEN IS THE COLOUR" by LLOYD FERNANDO

Llyod Fernando’s second novel ,Green is The Colour ,completed almost two decades after his first novel,Scorpion Orchid In Green is the colour,fresh violence erupts in the racial riots in Malaysia (13 May 2013).Again, a set of multi-racial characters is used to develop the novels ideas.Yun Ming ,the Chinese who hasn’t been absorbed into the system as the government official is beginning to question the dominant discourse ,in particular ,ideas on unity which the authorities ate touting .Dahlan ,once his university mate and now a lawyer looks with contempt on Yun Ming’s afflication with the political powers.Dahlan himself tries to bait the conscience of the authorities by speaking out on the need for religious tolerance after the members of Chinese religious sect and their leader,Ti Shuang being arrested not because of any crime they commited but because they appear to authorities to be a threat to public security .Omar the second important Malay character ,fed up with what she deems the decandence of Western ways which have tarnished the race, seeks return to spiritual protection of fundamentalist Islam. Important as these male characters are it seem to me that Fernando gives prominence to the woman character, Siti Sara.A large portion of the last segment of the novel is told in her first person narrative or seen through her concsiousness.

When the novel opens,the violence engendered by the riots has not ceased .Roadblocks necessitate detours tension is so high that is does not take much to ignite fresh eruptions. The country itself appears to have been divided into zones even as its multi-racial populace huddle into safe spaces.Against such a scenario,we are not surprised that some of the main characters (Siti Sara,Dahlan) undergo the horrors of rape,incarceration and torture.But over above this physical violence,is the more insidious violence that is done to men’s minds and their powers of clear and sincere expression. Language has been debased into counterfeit coinage in order to mask lies or purvey-half truths.as dahlan see it “I have lived all my life by words.I have seen make them do anything they wanted. That the evil I have fought.

No real connection between people can be possible when there is so much muddle and so little willingness to be clear.Fernando skillfully evokes an atmosphere of fear and suspicion in which many prefer to be listeners rather than risk voicing deeply –felt truths .These self-imposed silences are volubly filled by other voices such as that Wan Nuruddin,the secretary General in the Department of Unity,discoursing confidently on Confusion ethics and loyalty to the government.In the post May 13^th ambience ,an artificial togetherness has been created to prevent more painful soul searching .Siti Sara admits that’s she develops and clung to the use of plural personal pronoun because it stirred feeling and love for her fellow citizens whether Malay,Chinese,Indian or Eurasian.In fact “ she had embraced a specious feeling  of togetherness with people in the abstract to cloak her unease,to disguise her semi-instinctive need not to know.”Like Yun Ming,she begins to see that official rhetoric merely covers  the facts that racial lines are clearly drawn so as to reinforce a sense of them” and “us”.in this context ,the shadowy figure of another women,Neemlambigai alias Fatimah binti Abdullah whose body neither her relatives nor the Religiuous Department would claim,haunts the reader as a sad reminder of intolerance and bigotry on all sides.Her family considers her an outsider because of her traversing of religious and racial barriers and the Religious Department will not accept her as being of the faith since there is no proof of conversion.Dahlan himself  discovers that it is not so easy to simply say, “ I don’t care for you beliefs,I will bury her.

The individual in such a society is constantly under surveillance .Nearly all the main characters have a sense of being watched. The leitmotif of eyes is skullfully manipulated  to reinforce an Orwellian sense that one’s every move known ,noted and filled away for future reference .Panglima,Political Secretary to the Minister Of Home Affairs ,whose basilisk stare unsettle even it mesmeries has files on everyone.Such an atmosphere breeds paranoia ,even madness.The more sensitive members of the society against the tension and strain having to choose one’s words before speaking.Dahlan we learn,had already had a nervous breakdown while still an undergraduate.Siti Sara,the returnee from American university ,who now lectures in a local institution  ,feels as if she is under the close scrutiny of collegues, students and even her own husband ,Omar who wants her to quit job,follow him to Tok Guru Bahauddin’s community in Jerangau. That her internal turmoil threatens to spill over is conveyed I various intances.looking at the flowers in the compound of her kampong to which she has returned to seek some respite she feels as if the hibiscus exploded in her field of vision …..One flower glowed so intensely bright that is seemed aflame and she gazed at it thunderstruck .She stood before a molten furnace door..It was inexpressibly wonderful to the point of being terrifying and steered away from the disquieting splendor,fearing madness.”

The novel‘s many scenes of violent sexual encounters.For example,between Yun Ming and Sara, and Sara and her husband show the desperate coming together of people  whose inner lives are intensely disturbed .Yun Ming violent possession of Sara is like an urgent effort to transcend loneliness and the consciousness that one has been pawn in the political games of the powers that be. Omar takes Siti Sara with unseeing eyes in narcissistic frenzy. A refusal to see other points of view propells him towards the confined space of Tok Guru Bahauddin ‘s domain where one can be away from the tarnishing contact with Western.

Source :

 Fernando,Lloyd.Green Is The Colour .Kuala Lumpur ; Silverfish Book , 2004.Print