Poetry in desolate landscape
Nausheen Rahman courses through rocky land
Translated from the Norwegian by Ingrid Christophersen, The Bookseller of Kabul, authored by Asne Seierstad, gives us an overview of war-ravaged Afghanistan and its courageous, resilient people after the fall of the Taliban. Written by a journalist, it appears in a literary form; it is at once well-researched, keenly-observed reportage and a very readable story book. Seierstad wanted to write a book on Afghanistan and so spent a few months in Kabul (soon after the Taliban's flight). She lived in the house of Sultan, a bookseller. She says she did not choose that specific family to write about because she wanted it to represent all other families, but because it inspired her. This is about a country which was used to continual strife between ethnic / tribal groups and between warlords who ran away, letting the mullahs take over. Civil war, drought and the Taliban have devastated entire areas. Afghanistan had been a scenic, popular tourist resort before all the mayhem began. There's a startling contrast between what the region could have been and what it has become. We can't help but be spellbound by Sultan's love for books and by his braving arrest and punishment, time and again, as he persists in his mission of supplying books to Kabul residents, even after many of his books are burnt. Once when he was in jail, where non-reading material was permitted, he somehow managed to smuggle in books every week. It was in these difficult conditions that his interest in Afghan culture and literature and Persian poetry was strengthened. He was determined to spread knowledge of Afghan culture and history and to protect his books from further destruction. We recoil in horror as we read how the Taliban set about ruining the heritage of the country: "It took them half a day to annihilate a thousand years of history". They burnt books and smashed or blew up sculptures which dated back nearly two thousand years and were Afghanistan's "greatest cultural heritage". Sultan has collected books for thirty years and says he "could not allow the Taliban, or other aggressors, to destroy even more of the Afghan soul". To him, there's nothing more important than work. He is convinced that progress lies in hard work and in doing away with war. His ambition is to build an empire of books. It is amazing that in a country where life is so insecure and uncertain, and where three-quarters of the population is illiterate, people continue to love and value books. What is more impressive is "the power of literature to withstand even the most repressive regime" (a quote from one of the blurbs). Ironically, though, Sultan whose life revolves around books and other sources of learning, does not allow his sons to go back to school when it reopens. He wants them to become businessmen and believes that the best place to learn business is in the shop. Each chapter of the book revolves around one member of Sultan's family and, as his or her story unfolds, the culture, tradition and changing situations of Afghanistan flash across the pages. We can perceive how the habits and psyche of a people are shaped by the environment and circumstances they are raised in, and by the experiences they are exposed to. Seierstad based the stories on the narrations rendered by the family members. These stories not only tell us about their respective joys and sorrows, aspirations and let-downs, but also give concrete information about the different kinds of obstacles, prohibitions and restraints they have to confront in their daily lives (especially women). A woman longing for her love is taboo. To protect the family honor, a girl is killed by her brother at the behest of the mother. Having a daughter is a little "catastrophe". These are some of the things we are told about the state of women in Afghanistan. Facts worth noting are that, in the previous century, women did not wear burkhas, and that burkhas were gotten rid of by the upper classes, by those who had started the custom (the dress code changed with the changing of the rulers). A lot of positive changes have taken place since the fall of the Taliban, but unfortunately, within the family circle, things remain more or less the same. One very interesting chapter, "Suicide and Song", is about Afghani women who rebel, privately by taking their own lives, or by writing poetry. Syed Bahodine Majrouh, an Afghan poet, tells us about this in a book of poems written by Pashtoon women (he was killed by fundamentalists in 1988). The poems are called "landay", meaning "short". In Majrouh's words, they are of few words, short and rhythmical, "like a scream or a knife stab". These women wrote mostly of forbidden love, and exchanged poems discreetly with one another. The protagonists in the poems defy the chains put around their wishes and are willing to die for love. Where they live, "passion is prohibited and punishment is merciless". In one poem, the woman tells God that she would prefer to be a stone, rather than a woman, in the next life. The poems reflect the disappointments and hopelessness reigning within women; some aim to deliberately stir up men's virility. The thing that mars the book's literary qualities, however, is the blatant tone of derision throughout. Writers sometimes have to be hard-hitting, but it is not necessary to hit below the belt. Admittedly, cruel practices must be condemned, but there is no need to propagandize issues. A chronicler has to present facts as they are, but harsh censure sounds didactic and, to think, all the noise being made in the western world is against 'morality' in Muslim countries. An Afghani woman writing about the way women's confidence is crushed and how they are oppressed, or about the constraints of the burkha, would not have sounded as offensive. An outsider passing judgment or making fun of the burkha is not acceptable. I wish I could say that the book's good parts outweigh the derogatory parts, but my conviction that people's rights to their own religious practices must be respected, prevents me from doing so. And I do not say this as a Muslim or as a woman, but as a fair, rational human being.
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