GINS and Tumblr Mash Up (My Forbidden Face)
“We share and trade a lot in Kabul: Nothing useful should be wasted.” – Latifa, My Forbidden Face by Karenna Gore Schiff
For those of you who don’t know, in school along with our consumerism project, we are also doing a Global Issues Novel Study (GINS). In this study we all got a chance to pick a novel, usually based on a true story, about an issue that we are interested about. Through this, we were meant to find ways that we could take action in these current issues. I chose a book titled My Forbidden Face. It is a true story about a young, teenage girl who has found herself a prisoner in her own home when the Taliban first made themselves known in Afghanistan. Her world spiraled, turning from a mostly modern society to a complete dictatorship. Countless rules, new ones being announced every day, taking the radio stations that once played music. I began thinking, how would my identity, values, and beliefs be altered if I was to live through and experience what the protagonist, Latifa, did. How it would feel to know freedom, in fact live half your life with the right, only to have it snatched away overnight. What would happen if I were to watch someone that I had known for practically my whole life be killed in front of my eyes.
Throughout the novel, I found myself comparing the lifestyle that I had with Latifa’s. I couldn’t believe the differences! One thing that really popped out for me was the essential thing that the government of Canada provides to us using taxes. I wondered what our life would be like without the social programs that we value so much. Women in the country of Afghanistan at that time had no way to get health care. They were unable to go to a male doctor, because the law stated that women were unable to lift their chador (the veil that covers them from head to toe) in the presence of anyone other than a family member and other females. That would have been fine, but another law also stated that women were not allowed to work. Not even for essential services. How were women supposed to receive health care? Simple, they weren’t. I realized that before Latifa had to go through the Taliban taking over her home country, she lived in quite a modern society. Though the country was still at war for many different reasons, they still had many of the rights and privileges that people, especially women, in Canada have. They were able to go shopping for new clothes or go to school so that they could get a proper job. They could also go to the movies to freshen up. In many ways, before the Taliban arrived, the people of Afghanistan’s consumer identity was quite similar to our own. Their values may have been different in many aspects, but overall the way that they would spend their time and money was quite similar.
As I was reading through the novel, I had an overlying question on almost every single page, why? Why are there so many rules, why isn’t anyone standing up against them, and why are the Taliban performing such cruel acts? Even if I can learn to accept their reasoning, I will never fully understand it. Who would be willing to become a part of the Taliban, knowing full well of all that they have done? Since Afghanistan is not considered to be a first world country, it has many different aspects that describe its’ collective identity, consumerism not being one of them. As you know, citizens of first world countries are often described as consumers. It has become such a big aspect of our lives that for us, living without consumerism would be the equivalent of living without our physiological needs. When I first began this post, I was thinking about how I can relate my consumer identity to that of Latifa, or others in Afghanistan. I found out very quickly that what people in countries like Afghanistan don’t waste their money on useless wants. They do whatever they can to survive. A really interesting idea that came up in this book was, “Joy and sorrow are sisters.” – Karenna Gore Schiff. It was something that really got me thinking about how two things that are such polar opposites can be true. After some consideration, I figured that she is correct. Without one, how can the other exist? That being said, I can never imagine what it would feel like to feel nothing but joy or sorrow. All I can say is that going through the hardships described in the novel.
