Opening Remarks
Thank you for participating in this online launch of Cutting the Cord.
This is a difficult time for many of us, and being able to tell stories and to experience them is an important part of coping with the events around us.
Firstly, I would like to thank Ventura Press for publishing my book and for hosting this launch. I hope that we can still hold a launch in person, but under current circumstances that is of course not possible.
As part of this launch, we will make the opening chapter from the novel available, and you will also find a video with some questions that Ventura prepared. I hope to be able to do a live question and answer session in the future, and, of course, you can always contact me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or through Ventura.
Cutting the Cord
Cutting the Cord is a terrorist novel that explores fanaticism, through the experiences of its central protagonist, Amira Knox.
Amira, a twenty-two-year old Australian has been groomed since childhood by her family to commit acts of terrorism against the world’s capitalist elites.
Her family leads the “Authenticity Movement”, an unconventional terrorist cult with grandiose non-religious pretensions and a melange of rather vague ideas for eliminating a virus of “inauthenticity”.
The narrative concentrates on how the cult creates a dystopia for both its victims and perpetrators, and centres on Amira’s quest to leave her terrorist identity behind.
My novel explores what might happen when a terrorist cult forms based on one person’s closed mind and the answer is terrorist violence for broader Western society, and a dystopian outcome for many perpetrators.
I would add that the ‘virus’ of ‘inauthenticity’ as used in the book is not related in any way to real-life viruses that we may be experiencing at the moment.
The Authenticity Movement and the ‘virus of inauthenticity’
In short, the ‘virus of inauthenticity’ is the way the cult sees the evils of capitalism.
The longer version is that the Authenticity Movement is a variation on the doomsday cults run by charismatic leaders, which were prevalent in the 1960s through to the 1990s, such as the Manson family, the People’s Temple and Branch Davidians. Like Aum Shinrikyo, The Authenticity Movement engages in outward-directed terrorist activities similar to those of jihad operations (excluding suicide bombings).
The group claims that the generally accepted notion of economic progress is spread throughout society like an infection, hindering the capacity of people to live “authentically”.
The Movement preaches that those who lead and profit from the global financial system – the billionaires – are especially inauthentic and, as key vectors of contagion, must be eliminated.
According to the Movement, the virus of “inauthenticity” steers the populace into myopic consumption, existential alienation and robotic subjugation. The terrorist agglomeration, using twenty-first century technological innovations (such as mobile phones, computers and the internet), seeks to amplify and diffuse system-created global financial crises via acts of terrorism and economic sabotage, inciting a revolution that will create a more “authentic” way of being.
More importantly though, Cutting the Cord is Amira’s story. Amira’s experiences in this cult leading her to the point where she questions everything she believes. It is also her story of empowerment through building her own identity and find her independence.
Acknowledgments:
"I am grateful to Dr Dianne Schwerdt and Dr Carol Lefevre from The University of Adelaide for their careful readings of many drafts and their support. I am also indebted to the University of Adelaide for enabling me to conduct research onsite in Germany and Switzerland through a Research Abroad Scholarship.
I want to thank my mother for her prayers, strength and love; my father for his constant encouragement and feedback; my sisters for their willingness to listen; my son for his inspiration and patience.
I would also like to thank Catherine Heath for her editing help and the team at Ventura – Jane, Zoe and Holly for their help and advice in bringing this book to the public.
Finally, I want to thank my husband Andreas, without whom none of this would have been possible."