In the last two weeks I read two very interesting books. Before the end of the last semester I decided to go back to reading some fiction after reading a dozen of fascinating non-fiction books for two of my classes.
The first book on the top of my list to read during the winter break was Khaled Hosseini’s second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. As a huge fan of this Afghani American writer, I knew the second book would be as good as the first one, or even better. Indeed, it was a second masterpiece. The Kite Runner which fascinated millions of people does not have the high timbre the new one does.
In this book Hosseini writes about the most victimized sex in Afghanistan. Women. A fascinating story of two women whose lives were influenced by the country’s strict traditions and the inhumane actions carried out by the Taliban regime in 1990s until the US-led invasion in 2001. I didn’t read the book as fast as I read the Kite Runner. I think it was too much for me to do so. The pain, the horror and the abuse the characters went through left me crippled and unable to comprehend how much savagery Afghani women had endured. I had to read it interruptedly in order to digest what happened to these characters. Yet, the end of the book left me with a huge smile on my face, a smile of content.
In order to break the tension of reading such a story, I surfed the internet for something different. I finally found a book called Tales from Old Baghdad by Khalid al-Kashtini, one of Iraq’s and Arab’s famous authors and columnists. I heard of al-Kashtini a while ago when Omar told me about his satirical columns in the al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, a London-based Saudi newspaper. Since I started reading these uproarious columns, I became more attached to his writings. So I ordered the book and a week later it came by mail. Like most of the times, I like to read my books at the coffee shop in Borders. My friend would pick me up at a certain time in the morning and we would go there to read, chat and enjoy sipping tea or coffee.
Kashtini’s book is a fast read. Like most of his columns, it’s sarcastic and very funny. What is amazing about it is that the English version which I am reading is very well translated from Arabic. Kashtini’s first words in the dedication page were also very encouraging for me to read the whole book: “To the people of Iraq who have nothing to laugh about. Perhaps this story may put a momentary smile on their faces.” Indeed, Iraqis don’t really have anything to laugh about, yet the tales he narrated left a permanent smile on my face instead of a momentary one. It was not even a smile rather than a laughter that recur every time I recall some of the incidents he narrated.
The narrative of the book is very strong, yet it’s about the simple and beautiful life Iraqis enjoyed back in the 1940s and 1950s. The Shanasheel, Rashid Street, Bab al-Mudham, Istikan Chai, Manqala, Arak, Hasna, Benzene Khana, the prayers, even the Kalachiya, etc… it is all lurid and bona fide. It is about family bonds, children and grandmothers, honesty and respect. It’s about good deeds that seem absent from our lives these days. It’s fascinating how such life existed in Iraq. Nothing destroyed it but the successive wars and the abusive power of tyrannical regimes and then the occupation. Reading this book, one never misses the innocence of the time and how it embraced Iraqis all together. Now we live in another world, another time. A time when the country and its people became victims to these tyrants, terrorists and occupation.
The ease that accompanied me after reading the book vanished when I saw a movie I wish I didn’t see. Redacted is one of the American controversial movies that expose an issue very sensitive among Americans. It definitely breaks a taboo that is widely shocking for the American audience as well as Iraqis. It is a drama based on the Mahmudiyah killings, the gang-rape, murder, and burning of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in March 2006 by U.S. soldiers who also killed her parents and younger sister. Although I was very disturbed by how perfectly the rape incident was performed in the movie, I take a bow to the cast who did a fantastic job in revealing a crime that is not even recognized by wide variety of Americans, at least the ones I came across. Although the girl’s honor and life will not be back, yet this film is a good reminder and a proof that will remain in history along with all what al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army did against innocent people of wounded Iraq.
The video below contains the rape scene in the movie. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.
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