Anil’s Ghost
We assume that the current age of lies that the west is living through is somehow unique to us and our time. As Colin Burrow pointed out in his recent Winter LRB lecture the ‘age of lies is probably as old as time’. We are not unique. Throughout history lies and the withdrawal of the truth have been used to gain or maintain political power. Thinking that the lies that reverberate through echo chambers and enable populist politics is new is reflective of a culture whose horizons do not span much further than the hegemony of the post Cold War Western-sphere.
The techniques may be evolving, enabling more sophisticated messaging that understands instantly what an audience wants to hear (and therefore what lies can maintain one’s support and political power). But the basic fundamental of political motivation and perverse effects of lying has remained consistent. Therefore there is much to learn from other societies who have recently suffered.
Anil’s Ghost is set during Sri Lanka’s civil war and follows the investigation of the government murder of a civilian. The the tragedy of the book is that the protagonists have to create so much distance from their native society to pursue the truth. Anil, a forensic pathologist, after being somewhat outcast in her childhood in Sri Lanka is returning from having spent her whole adult life in the UK and US; Sarath, a government official, can only become animated by ancient history rather than the present; Gamani, a doctor, plunges himself so far into the front line of the war (and drug addiction) that he ceases to have a normal existence or presence.
Michael Ondaatje effectively creates sense of oppression throughout the book. The violence of the war only takes place between what is recorded in the novel. It is a book about the things that do not actually happen in the book. As readers we are only privy to the consequences of the violence and even that is a privileged position. Most of the population, including victim’s families, have no visibility of the government’s crimes — just a tragic acceptance of their fate.
Events are hidden by walls of silence; lies made possible by the government disturbing real historic walls. Bodies of the government victims are hidden in ancient burial sites — attempting to steal their history by merging them into the country’s ancient sites. There’s a naked arrogance in their actions, a presumed ownership of their country’s ancient and current history that makes them immune from responsibility.
Anil is the only character that explicitly presses to uncover the truth of the crime she is investigating. She has the most distance after all. The others have some degree of nuance in balancing the version of the truth acceptable in a tightly controlled society and the evidence in front of their eyes. Anil’s distance makes her naive to concept that someone’s truth can relative concept, where the facts of what has definitively happened must be balanced with self-preservation of what might happen.
Anil is able to get Sarath to stand up for objective truth — with deadly consequences that suppress the truth spreading further.
Ultimately though the government can not keep a handle on all things all of the time. In the penultimate chapter the President is killed in a bombing. As the injured and dying are rolled into hospital rumours fly. Once it is known internationally phone calls to relatives confirm the rumours and ‘the truth slipped across [Colombo] in an hour’.
