Recently I was talking with someone about having read The Kiterunner and they said, "Oh, you've got to read The Bookseller of Kabul", another story about life in Afghanistan. After reading it, I realized that women had been almost entirely absent in The Kiterunner. I don't remember any female characters other than the main character's wife, who only figures in the last few chapters. The Bookseller of Kabul gives insight to how an Afghani author could write a book that is nearly devoid of women.
From illness specific to women who wear the burka to "honor killings", the author Asne Seierstad shows how, in Afghan society, the scale is tipped entirely in favor of men. To research to book, she lived with an Afgan family for three months. Interestingly, she never uses the pronoun "I", obscuring herself as she tells the family's story.
The miserable plight of Afghan women has added another dimension or facet to my knowledge of the Islamic religion. A religious system with some provision in it that allows women (or anyone, for that matter) to be treated with contempt, disregard, disrespect, etc., etc.--widespread, across the board--is a foil to the Christian faith and should be treated as anathema.
Some people probably argue that Afghan society, not Islam, is the problem and give evidence of moderate Islamic societies where women are treated with more equality. With this book as evidence, I'd say Afghan society IS Islam, the two cannot be seperated. Moderate Islamic practices are the result of Western influence, an entirely good thing.
1 comment:
You should read A Thousand Splendid Suns by the guy who wrote the Kite Runner. I liked it even better, and all the main characters in it were women. It goes into a lot of detail of how women were/are treated by the taliban, and all the crazy rules they had to deal with.
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