Sec 3 EL Term 1 2015: Censorship and Gender
Reading 1
About Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It
is his second, following his bestselling2003 debut, The Kite Runner. The book spans a
period of over fifty years, from the 1960s to 2003,and focuses on the tumultuous lives and
relationships of two Afghan women. Mariam is an illegitimate child, and suffers from both the
stigma surrounding her birth along with the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila,
born a generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect
and she is also forced to accept a marriage proposal from Rasheed, Mariam's husband.
Hosseini has remarked that he regards the novel as a "mother-daughter story" in contrast
to The Kite Runner, which he considers a "father-son story". It continues some of the themes
used in his previous work, such as the familial aspects, but focuses primarily on female
characters and their roles in Afghan society.
Women in Afghanistan
Hosseini visited Afghanistan in 2003, and "heard so many stories about what happened to
women, the tragedies that they had endured, the difficulties, the gender-based violence that
they had suffered, the discrimination, the being barred from active life during the Taliban,
having their movement restricted, being banned essentially from practicing their legal, social
rights, political rights".This motivated him to write a novel centered on two Afghan women.
Washington Post writer Jonathan Yardley suggests that "the central theme of A Thousand
Splendid Suns is the place of women in Afghan society", pointing to a passage in which
Mariam's mother states, "Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass
needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You
remember that, Mariam."
In the book, both Mariam and Laila are forced into accepting a marriage to Rasheed, who
requires them to wear a burqa before it is implemented by law under The Taliban. He later
becomes increasingly abusive. A Riverhead Trades Weekly review states that the novel
consistently shows the "patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on
fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to
social status."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_Splendid_Suns
Sec 3 EL Term 1 2015: Censorship and Gender
Reading 2
Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns: "A Man’s Accusing Finger Always Finds a
Woman"
Written by Rohan Maitzen on April 5, 2009
A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the social, cultural and political structures that
support the devaluation, degradation, and violence endured by the two female
protagonists, Mariam and Laila. The novel performs superbly one of the things fiction
has done so well and vitally since at least the nineteenth century, with novels
like Oliver Twist: it puts a human face on systematic failures and abuses, ensuring
that broad ideas such as “severely undermining women’s human rights” get fleshed
out. Here’s a summary Hosseini gives, for instance, of the changes after the takeover
of Kabul by the Mujahideen1:
The freedoms and opportunities that women had enjoyed between 1978 and 1992
were a thing of the past now–Laila could still remember Babi saying of those years of
communist rule, It’s a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan, Laila. Since the
Mujahideen takeover in April 1992, Afghanistan’s name had been changed to the
Islamic State of Afghanistan. The Supreme Court under Rabbani was filled now with
hardliner2 mullahs 3who did away with the communist-era rulings that empowered
women and instead passed rulings based on strict Islamic laws that ordered women to
cover, forbade their travel without a male relative, punished adultery with stoning.
While this has implications for women in society, what does this mean for them on a
personal level? Some insights can be gleaned, for instance, from the scenes following
the failed attempt of Mariam and Laila to leave the country (and their abusive
husband:
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10
15
20
“What does it matter to you to let a mere two women go? What’s the harm in releasing
us? We are not criminals.”
“I can’t.” [says the officer who sends them back]
“I beg you, please.”
“It’s a matter of qanoon, hamshira, a matter of law. . . . It is my responsibility, you see,
to maintain order.”
25
In spite of her distraught state, Laila almost laughed. She was stunned that he’d used
that word in the face of all that the Mujahideen factions had done–the murders, the
lootings, the rapes, the tortures, the executions, the bombings. . . .
“If you send us back,” she said instead, “there is no saying what he will do to us.”
30
She could see the effort it took him to keep his eyes from shifting. “What a man does
in his own home is his business.”
“What about the law then, Officer Rahman?” Tears of rage stung her eyes. “Will you
be there to maintain order?”
1
Mujahideen: In its broadest sense, those Muslims who proclaim themselves warriors for the faith. In recent
years, Mujahideen has been most closely associated by the west with radical Islam, encompassing several
militant groups and struggles.
2 Hardliner: disciplinarian
3 Mullahs: Muslims learned in Islamic theology and sacred law.
Sec 3 EL Term 1 2015: Censorship and Gender
“As a matter of policy, we do not interfere with private family matters, hamshira.”
35
“Of course you don’t. When it benefits the man. And isn’t this a ‘private family matter,’
as you say? Isn’t it?”
The women are cruelly beaten and confined on their return “home,” and when their
husband releases them, starving and broken, they and he know the truth of his words:
“You try this again and I will find you. I swear on the Prophet’s name that I will find
you. And, when I do, there isn’t a court in this godforsaken country that will hold me
accountable for what I will do.”
When the Taliban move in later, the control they assert over women’s conduct and
liberties is “only” an extreme form of what we have already seen, transferring
completely to the public sphere what has been considered acceptable already in the
household–namely, the horrors inflicted on women by men who cannot, or will not, be
held accountable:
Attention women:
You will stay inside your home at all times. . . If you go outside, you must be
accompanied by a mahram, a male relative. If you are caught alone on the street, you
will be beaten and sent home.
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45
50
You will not, under any circumstances, show your face. You will cover with burqa
when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten. . . .
You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten. . . .
Girls are forbidden from attending school. All schools for girls will be closed
immediately.
The novel ends not long after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. That
the return of power and influence to the warlords, among other things, makes this
intervention a mixed blessing to the people of the country is certainly one of
Hosseini’s points, but so is the relief it brings to Afghanistan’s women from the
insupportable injustices and cruelties perpetrated against them for far too long. What
a shame, we might think, that the form of domestic terrorism many of them endured
on a daily basis was not in itself reason to invade.
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60
Adapted from: http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/novelreadings/khaled-hosseini-a-thousandsplendid-suns-a-mans-accusing-finger-always-finds-a-woman/
Discussion Qns:
1. Based on this reading, can you infer the ways in which women face censorship?
2. How does censorship link to rights?
Understanding language:
3. What do you understand from the phrase, “A Man’s Accusing Finger Always Finds a
Woman”? Explain fully.
4. Explain the irony in the officer’s comment, “It is my responsibility, you see, to
maintain order.” (lines 25-26)
5. “Tears of rage stung her eyes” (line 33). Why does the writer use the word “stung”?