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lally2 -> just sharing (7/19/2009 5:49:08 AM)
im wondering if anyone else has read 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini. Its about two women, ostensibly, living through the recent history of life in Kabul, Afghanistan. Their lives as women in a society that is divided by appalling prejudice toward women on one side and on the other struggling to give women the rights to live equally amongst men. Some of it is appalling to read... sort of Ms gone totally off the rails. It is such a powerful book, educational too. My eyes (prejudice) toward anything to do with the middle east (im ashamed to admit) have been opened to a society ripped apart by warlords and the Taliban most specifically. Reading it has opened my heart totally to these people. im just glad ive read it, its brought me an odd feeling of peace toward the afghan people i just didnt have before. just wanted to share. x

sirsholly -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 5:58:16 AM)
Lally, i started it but did not get very far. Oppression in any form really pisses me off and i found myself getting too angry. What bothered me the most was some of the passive attitudes of the women. Whereas they are blameless it is difficult for me, with all the freedom and liberty i have, to see that level of oppression.

xiam -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 6:11:15 AM)
Funny, isn't it, that the Qur'an states the only thing worse than death is oppression. I will never understand how Islam in the Middle East has become so corrupted compared to the rest of the world's relatively peaceful practising Muslims.

sirsholly -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 6:14:17 AM)
Xian...perhaps WE view it as oppression but they simply view it as the natural order?

xiam -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 6:20:32 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: sirsholly Xian...perhaps WE view it as oppression but they simply view it as the natural order? To each his own, eh?

lally2 -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 7:08:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: sirsholly Lally, i started it but did not get very far. Oppression in any form really pisses me off and i found myself getting too angry. What bothered me the most was some of the passive attitudes of the women. Whereas they are blameless it is difficult for me, with all the freedom and liberty i have, to see that level of oppression. i know! - me too. if id been mariam id have killed that bastard much sooner (she does kill him in the end with a shovel!) that aside - it was an interesting read from a submissives point of view. they are deeply, profoundly submissive to the men, but there is enormous strength in those women, what some of them endure is mind boggling. but what came through most for me was that not all of afghanistan is that way. there is an informed, progressive attitude thats attempting to evolve. i finished the book with a much better understanding of their precarious society and that there is hope for afghanistan if the coalition can only end the oppression from the Taliban. instead of heaping all afghans into one pile i realised that it really isnt that simple and their civilisation is ancient, proud and based, largely in the pursuit of peace, if the Warlords would only allow it.

lally2 -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 7:15:41 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: xiam Funny, isn't it, that the Qur'an states the only thing worse than death is oppression. I will never understand how Islam in the Middle East has become so corrupted compared to the rest of the world's relatively peaceful practising Muslims. i think because the Muslims in the rest of the world are left alone to follow their philosphies in peace.

DarkSteven -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 7:47:01 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: xiam Funny, isn't it, that the Qur'an states the only thing worse than death is oppression. I will never understand how Islam in the Middle East has become so corrupted compared to the rest of the world's relatively peaceful practising Muslims. Back in the Middle Ages, the Muslim world was far more enlightened than the Christian world. For example, when the Inquisition was stamping out heresy, the Ottoman Empire invited the persecuted Jews in. For some reason I'll never understand, the Arab nations' cultures in the Middle East have never progressed beyond that. Even with the petrodollars flowing in, they have chosen to cling to (IMO) hidebound and barbaric practices. Mohammed's teacher was a woman. There is no justification for oppressing women in proper Islam. Sad.

Lockit -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 12:58:11 PM)
I would love to read the book, but buying anything that isn't home remodelin stuff is out for a long while! Well except an occasional itunes song or a cheap five dollar movie. I am lucky to have found the movie 'A Mighty Heart' about Daniel Pearl's killing. (watching Angelina Jolie cry made me cry because I remember the scream cry and open mouth with no sound times in life and you could feel it.) I watched it last night and would love to know more from personal accounts. I would hate reading it, but at the same time I think I would like to know enough to be able to find some way to get through it. To ever bring about any change I think we really need to feel it, but in a situation like this... how does that change happen? I know I would open my house up to anyone in the situation who could escape and get here... but that is unlikely to happen.

lally2 -> RE: just sharing (7/19/2009 1:48:17 PM)
hi lockit, well, i might be wrong, but im pretty sure the coalition have the taliban in the mountains now and Kabul is slowly healing. and i also might be wrong, but i think that its the Taliban that have in the past tried to enforce old values and reintroduced fanatical prejudices upon the people of Afghanistan and destroyed so much of their history and heritage. how you stop something like the Taliban i have no idea, im not sure you can.

corset101 -> RE: just sharing (7/22/2009 12:17:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: xiam Funny, isn't it, that the Qur'an states the only thing worse than death is oppression. I will never understand how Islam in the Middle East has become so corrupted compared to the rest of the world's relatively peaceful practising Muslims. quote: Funny, isn't it, that the Qur'an states the only thing worse than death is oppression. I will never understand how Islam in the Middle East has become so corrupted compared to the rest of the world's relatively peaceful practising Muslims. Saudi Wahhabism...

lizi -> RE: just sharing (7/22/2009 4:51:56 PM)
Read it and loved it. I'll probably take a beating for this but I enjoyed this book much more than The Kite Runner. What great characters! I found the complexity of the relationships between the women really something I could get my teeth into because there were so many levels of emotions, reality, customs, etc. It was very hard accepting the conditions and expectations the women in this culture live under that were outlined in the book. I can also highly recommend "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad. A similar type story (although non-fiction) and also very well written.

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