REDUNDANCY OF COURAGE [Paperback]

Timothy Mo's novels have not always appealed to me (especially 'The Insular Possession') but I found this book depressingly capivating. I would unhesitatingly recommend it and have done so to numerous friends over the years. By the way, Timothy Mo's 'Sour Sweet' is also a good read, and especially so for those familiar with both Hong Kong and the U.K.

I have recently re-read this book during a trip to Dili, where I was fortunate enough to meet some of the resistance leaders who feature in "Redundancy" (If Timothy Mo reads this, I would enjoy seeing if my identification of the 'fictional' characters is correct!). This is a shocking story of devastation and brutality on a massive scale, ignored and even aided and abetted by the major Western powers for 25 years. Mo himself seems torn between the cynicism and self-interest of his narrator, self-described as "The Cynical Chinaman", and his own admiration for the FALINTIL guerrillas and the legitimacy of their struggle. Thus on the one hand we have the fictitious account of FAK(sic)INTIL's post-invasion decapitation of the IP (UDT)leaders (Nicolau Lobato, apparently the model for Osvaldo, certainly undertook no such action), on the other we have the final page of the book, a moving and entirely uncynical tribute to 'ordinary people asked extraordinary things in terrible circumsatnces - and delivering'. One could question Mo's judgement in attributing fictitious deeds to identifiable characters in what is really a history book. That, however, in no way detracts from the power of this extremely important work. All of Mo's books seem initially to offer a detached and amused account of aspects of Asian life, whether in Asia or elsewhere, but ultimately surprise and move the reader with compassionate and heartfelt conclusions. "Redundancy" is however different in that it seeks to and succeeds in demonstrating, through these true events, the power and triumph of the human spirit in the face of seemingly impossible odds. "Nothing can stop the march of a people seeking their freedom. Nothing and no one". Osvaldo was right, Adolph Ng was wrong, and the world is a richer and better place for it. This book should not be out of print. It should be compulsory reading for the men and women serving with UNTAET in East Timor today. It should act as a reminder to politicians around the world, that the conscious ignoring of and appeasement of aggression by one people against another diminishes us all.

It is the best I have read. The title is the theme: individual courage in any 20th century national poltical struggle is redundant, irrelevant to the outcome of that struggle. I saw the same thing - on both sides of the conflict- living in Chile during and after the Allende government. Mo's narrator saw it in East Timor after the Indonesian invasion. It is simply brilliant: a War and Peace for the "Third World" and this century. Since I first read it in the year of publication the only thing I can wonder is: why does Timothy Mo not write more? I've read all of his books and I would read many more.