In search of a (Sufi) ethics of vulnerability and care: Treason, friendship, and the First World War in Stephen Daisley’s Traitor

Abstract

The article offers an analysis of the representation of an enemy encounter in Traitor (2010), a novel by Stephen Daisley, which depicts the relationship between a young New Zealander, David, and a Turkish doctor, Mahmoud, during the First World War. In my interpretation, I show the multiple facets of Sufi ethics as embraced by David under the influence of his Ottoman friend. Applying theoretical approaches rooted in the philosophy of politics, I argue that friendship between enemies in Daisley's novel is a political claim that challenges dichotomous ways of thinking and questions the meaning of such concepts as traitor, friend and enemy. Furthermore, I approach the protagonist's dissent and conscientious objection as deeply ethical acts of embodied resistance. Finally, I demonstrate that the novel represents an intriguing intervention in Australia and New Zealand's Anzac commemorative discourse, thus contributing to a twenty-first-century reassessment of the memory of the First World War.