Under the Persimmon Tree

So I wasn't quite sure about what we were supposed to write for Monday, but I am going to give you my brief impressions of Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fischer Staples.

We begin in the small village of Golestan, Northern Afghanistan, in October of 2001, mere weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There, we are introduced to a small family: Bada-jan, the father, Mada-jan, the mother, Nur, the brother, and Najmah, the sister. The Taliban are passing through the Kunduz hills where the family resides and this creates conflict for the small farming family. I don't want to give too much away, because I know other people may read this book, but the story is based on the journey of Najmah, and her travels to Peshawar, Pakistan, in search of her family. We also encounter Nusrat, an American teacher who is leading a small school for refugee children who have been displaced from the violence and corruption of the Taliban. Her husband Faiz is a doctor who has left to set up a medical clinic in Mazar-i-Sharif to help the mujahideen, the men fighting against the Taliban. Najmah and Nusrat cross paths in the middle of the story and their interactions and the relationship that blossoms between them is heart-warming in times of such adversity.

The images conjured in this book of the violence and terrorism of the Taliban are very real, and very disturbing. This book was written, as I've implied, after the September 11th attacks, and is based on the aftermath of those attacks, but instead of the American point of view, we are able to get some insight from the other side of the playing field. However, the author is American, and this book reflects an outsider's perspective. It is definitely a teen book, and the functionality of this text on a higher level is slim.

I also read the article that Allen sent to us about the abuses of the Israeli soldiers. Reading the ending of that where the men were breaking the limbs of the four year old Palestinian boy made me sick. And to think that they believe they are being "ethical" makes me worry most. How can a person break the limbs of a little child and feel good about doing it? What sort of mindset does someone have to be in to think that it's ok? And what the hell else is going on over there that we never hear about. What is becoming of the world? I mean honestly!

There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used.... Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed. -Gil Bailie