Yosa, Magical Realism, Rushdie, and the Charismatic Religious Leader - 2003-06-21

Yosa, Magical Realism, Rushdie, and the Charismatic Religious Leader - 2003-06-21. The seemingly strange and outlandish stories of magical realism in the Americas cleverly connect to Western culture and civilization through dozens of bridges. In this book by Yosa, we have a character who is a Scottish free thinker who flees to Brazil due to his participation in the Paris Commune. Moreover, Christianity serves as a common ground that makes the most astonishing legends of Latin America tangible and relatable for the Northern Hemisphere reader. The difficulty that Rushdie faced, which became easier for other writers in the region and cultural space after him, was that he wanted to use Islam and regional issues as the material for his work, which at the time of the first publication of 'The Satanic Verses' was a realm far from the minds of many. Although today, Islam, the Middle East, and the conflict between India and Pakistan are familiar stories for Westerners. Only after fifty pages does Yosa begin to report on the character and thoughts of one of his heroes. Until then, it was just a heap of Spanish names and event details. Yosa's strength lies in connecting seemingly unrelated worlds; incorporating ancient myths and legends into everyday life and demonstrating their relevance and necessity in modern life; reflecting a world in the past where all kinds of miracles and wonders are acceptable, but a world that is rapidly disappearing and becoming incomprehensible; showing an apparent chaos behind what quantum physics also addresses, relativity, parallel times, and summarizing things that are also highly sought after in new mysticism; finding connections between countries, people, and seemingly unrelated events; sleight of hand and wizardry; avoiding psychology and political slogans, yet possessing a profound and hidden political nature; reflecting the mind of today's human, where due to a series of influences, the boundary between sleep and wakefulness, past and present, barbarism and civilization is blurred; having a strong entertainment aspect to compete with television and cinema; avoiding providing general information to a reader who receives this type of data from thousands of other sources and is looking for something different and more specific in the novel. For example, a hundred years ago, Melville wrote several pages in 'Moby Dick' about materials obtained from the whale's body and their applications in the economy and society. The central theme of Yosa's work is the belief of a charismatic religious leader in the imminent end of the world and organizing a rebellion based on this belief against the central and local authorities in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century. I do not know how much of this religious leader's character is drawn from historical realities and how much is his own creation; it does not matter because the work was written after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and after its writing, other religious leaders with similar beliefs have emerged. The opinions of this charismatic religious leader sound very familiar and are universally appealing. For instance, he tells his followers: 'Do not let the enemies of religion confuse you with nonsense such as using meters (instead of feet and yards), statistics, and census' (p. 88). That revolutionary anarchist, despite his opposition to religion, brings weapons to the religious rebels and helps them come to power. Because he, like many leftist revolutionaries, believes that the rebels' opposition to the ruling regime, despite their reactionary beliefs, is positive and in favor of the socialist revolution.