Burnt Shadows--Kamila Shamsie

There was a section in this novel which struck me as a page from my own life. It occurred towards the end of the story when an American asks an Afghan—Have you ever read the Quran? To which the Afghan replies-- Of course I have. And the American retorts-- Have you read it in a language you understand? The Afghan states unequivocally-- I understand Islam.

I had similar arguments with a man who I once loved more than anything else in the world. For approximately three years I tried to understand him and Islam. He was a Thai Muslim and I was the all-knowing Westerner who tried to square my love with his religion. This literary exchange made me realize how foolish I was to think that my reading of the Quran in English translation meant anything compared to his life raised in the faith.

This novel brought so much back to me, opened so many ideas about my own past; places I have lived and histories that in some way intersected with my life although they were distant in time and space from my own experience.

The novel begins in Nagasaki, before the atomic bomb and after. My life has been touched by this history, in a round about way, as the lives of anyone with a connection to Japan since the bombs dropped has been affected by those few days before the end of the war in the pacific.

That war, the surrender of the empire, the resulting impact on the Japanese psyche, touched my life in the person I chose to father my children-- much as the impact of those last day touched the lives of children born to, or related to, characters in the novel, who had never walked under a Japanese sun.

The thread in the first half of the novel that tied the main characters, almost all who were in exile from their homeland, was very engaging and when the story shifted to the next generation I almost put the book down. But soon I was drawn into a Muslim world where, although there was war and death, there was also a hint of that acceptance and love that I had experienced in the Thai Muslim communities that had once been part of my every day life.

I have never felt more love from strangers than in those small rooms and cinder block houses on dirt tracks in the jungle or small housing projects on the outskirts of Bangkok; peace be with you-- said my new brothers and sisters. I miss waking up to the call to prayer and the feeling it gave me to see an old man, one of my traveling companions, unfurl his prayer mat at the break of dawn when we stopped at a roadside gas station.

When I read this book I thought of how many people would read it and miss this point-- although the writer shows you the love that exists, even in the heart of a tacit supporter of the Taliban in Kabul-- I predict very few westerners will be able to accept it. In general, westerners fail to see the humanity of jihadist. I think that only when we can see them as people, try to understand their motivation, will we be able to end the so-called war on terror.

Of all the themes in this novel, the most important one, in my reading, is the possibility to look beyond fear, hate, class, and religion and find a brother/sister.

Being part of a Muslim community was one of the most important events in my life. It taught me to see the most demonized people of my time as part of my heart. I am forever grateful.

It was the image of the burnt cranes that drew me into this novel. I expected to be disinterested in the portion that I knew was coming at the end of the tale; that section dealing with 9/11. I have hit the saturation point on that topic, but this was not what I expected. It reminded me of a part of my life I don't think about often enough and the people that taught me how a true believer really acts, lives and loves in the world.

I hope other readers will see this in the characters of Abdullah and Ismail and give them their full attention. There is the potential for greater understanding here; I encourage everyone to take the opportunity.

Not the assignment

“That's not the assignment,” a student told me recently when I questioned her about an observation she made in her paper. And that is, in large part, what is wrong with the education system today; students are not challenged to think outside of the box, or to think at all in many cases.

These days I am looking at the education issue from many points of view simultaneously; as a teacher, a student and a parent. None of these perspectives makes me feel we are winning on the education battlefield. Occasionally I have students that challenge the status quo, have original ideas and make me want to spend more than my allotted 30 minutes with them. Unfortunately I don't see enough of that type of student.

What I do see more often than not are students that have summarized information. Questions about what all this information means are usually met with blank stares. I can handle that. I wish I had more time to lead these students down a path to greater understanding but that is not my job—which is also part of the problem.

Sometimes I feel like an emergency medic-- patch them up to get them through this crisis-- this deadline, that thesis statement. I am not there for the major surgery, the recovery, the revelation.

I have accepted my role and as I said I sometimes get wonderful shinning students in my office and sometimes I get ones that tell me, “That is not the assignment.”

In the case mentioned above, the student had made an observation that I found anthropologically significant; in her work experience at an nursing home there were only white faces in the resident population. I asked her what she thought that meant and received the terse reply noted above.

I am very curious about what her observation says about our population, our culture. There are many African Nova Scotian communities near this nursing home as well as one Native community; why were they not represented in the nursing home population? Is it due to the cost of care or the connectedness of those communities where elders are taken care of at home for as long as possible? I don't know the answer to the question but it intrigues me and it should have intrigued my student. And therein lies the problem-- it didn't.

This student did not want to think outside the boundary of her assignment and when I asked her to do so she became confrontational. What does it say about university when students expect not to be asked to use their minds beyond the scope of a stated problem?

Universities were initially a place for people who desired higher learning. That is sadly no longer the case at most post-secondary institutions. Universities are now akin to financial institutions who trade in credentials. Said credentials, once paid for in both money and time by the consumer, will presumably translate into higher income brackets for the newly certified. That has become the goal of university students, not knowledge.

I would like the focus of academe to shift to knowledge over commerce but with rising tuitions and unrealistic consumer expectations—that is unlikely. In the meantime I will relish the students who come to me and show they are the wolves in the flock of status quo sheep.

The Children Act-- review

Last week I reluctantly borrowed the novel, The Children Act by Ian McEwen. My reluctance stemmed from two sources; the first being that the last McEwen novel I read was unsatisfactory. I was not a fan of Sweet Tooth. The second was that the thumbnail sketch of the novel sounded a little too much like a Jodi Picoult—issue of the month-- plot line.

After looking over many of the new books on the library shelves, of which I have read or tried to read in recent weeks, I was left looking at The Children Act.

The main topic in this book, as it is set out on the flyleaf, is the right of a judge to overrule the wishes of both parents and patient concerning medical treatment as formed by religious views. In this case Jehovah Witness precepts that hold blood transfusions are not in keeping with God's will.

Last week this was a particularly interesting issue in Canada. A very similar case was heard in Ontario; an aboriginal family withdrew their 11-year-old child from chemotherapy treatment and was taken to court by the hospital that had been treating the child. The hospital lost the case on grounds of aboriginal rights; a ruling that is surely groundbreaking and most likely will result in the death of the child in question.

But the issue that this novel tackles that intrigued me more than the flagged topic de jour was the responsibility we have to those whose lives we either create or extend through our intervention. There is a proverb that is most often attributed to the Chinese that if you save a man's life you are henceforth responsible for that life.

Spoiler alert

In this novel the intervention of the judge saves the life of the boy but leaves him in a spiritual vacuum; one that sets him in opposition to his family and his community as a whole. He has survived but he no longer has a connection to his world—he is a drift.

He predictably seeks love and belonging from the only source that seems to understand him-- the judge. Her rebuff of his attention and need results in predictable consequences.

I believe that children's welfare relies, in some cases, on the state. In this novel the judge has made the correct decision. What she fails to do is monitor the resulting fall out. In such a case an alternate support system is necessary for the recovering child. When one's entire belief system is challenged-- a replacement needs to be ready at hand.

I have seen this play out in the life of an acquaintance of mine many years ago. She was a staunch believer in the Chinese Government; a native of Kunming province. She detested the liars and revolutionaries in Beijing and told me that Tiananmen did not really happen; at least not as the Western media had portrayed it.

When I knew this loyal Chinese citizen she was a fellow classmate of mine in Bangkok. Without the control of the party she soon started to see things she could not explain; knocking down the walls of her prejudiced perception. I was not surprised when she came to class one day and told me that she had been 'SAVED'. She traded one ideology for another. Several months later she left her new religious cadre; adrift. I don't know what happened to her, over the years we lost touch, but when I read this book I thought of her grasping at the edge of a new raft in an unknown sea.

In the end, although I was not interested in the topic of morality in medical decisions, I was drawn into this novel as it explored the failure of the judge to recognize and take responsibility for the identity chaos she created in the young protagonist.

I read this novel in one evening, skimming over the sections relating to the marital difficulties of the judge although these do pertain to my current interest in the mid-life crisis; which I think I am entering at astounding speed. It was time well-spent but not necessarily focussing on the obvious theme.

Afraid of the dark

How could it be that the thing I was most worried about when I went to university at 17 years of age was not my grades, not my finances, nor my new environment but whether or not I would be raped. It speaks volumes that this was a constant worry in my late teens. And that it was something that I didn't talk about with any of my female friends whose shared experience might have helped me deal with that fear.

When I went to university in Halifax in 1991 there were warnings from the police about walking after dark. There were reports of a rapist hiding out in the densely foliated lawns of the South end where my school was located.

To combat this 'fact of life' a campus car service was implemented; the Husky Patrol. The service would take you home after class if you were on the St. Mary's campus (within a given radius from the university—luckily I lived within the permitted area). That was a lifeline; especially after daylight savings time clicked into play-- making a walk in the dark inevitable unless you were off campus by 4:30.

Despite the car service, I still ended up walking in the dark. I had an evening class on the Dalhousie campus that required a long walk down Robie Street. There was no way, other than paying out of my own pocket, to avoid walking alone after dark. So not only did we women have to live in fear, we also had to pay more to attend classes if we wanted to feel safe. And just to be sure I am clear, I am talking taxis not buses-- there is nothing scarier than standing on a mostly deserted street corner for fifteen or twenty minutes in the dark waiting for a bus.

Poster campaigns littered the walls of all the womens bathrooms telling us who to call if we were raped and what defensive measures we should take to avoid being a victim; carry our keys slotted through our fingers, add a rape alarm to our keychain, etc. I never once saw a poster directed at men telling them how not to be raped.

After a while I think we all internalized these warnings—and what they really meant. First, this was a woman’s problem. Second, as women we would never be safe.

During my years as a young undergrad I did some things that, in retrospect, were stupid but they should not have been. It shouldn't have been up to me to be constantly on my guard. How many of the young male undergrads were worried about date rape, walking home at night, or if they were placing themselves in a dangerous situation by coming back to my apartment? I am guessing not many.

When I went home from the Northern Pikes concert with a cute guy from Iona-- I should not have been kicking myself the next day for the possibly dangerous situation I had put myself in. Luckily for me he was the gentleman my female friends, who knew him from back home, said he was.

Now, over 20 years later I am back on campus. Last week I was walking to my car after dark. I have a night class, and I thought to myself how liberating it was not to feel afraid. My lack of fear was not due to a decrease in the probability of danger that a woman walking alone at night faces-- my fear was diminished because I now felt that my maturity would help me better handle whatever life might throw at me.

These days I am mostly afraid for the young women I know and my daughters. Things don't seem to have gotten any better then when I went on my first 'take back the night' march two decades ago. At this point I want to write a reality cheque to those who think such actions make any difference to the plight of women and the potential for sexual violence that we all face. Such marches, like all movements that confront the issue of sexual violence, will not have positive results until as many men as women attend these events.

I sincerely hope that the current discussion around sexual violence will create a movement towards change in which everyone will participate. I don't want my daughters to grow up fearing what lurks around the next bend in the road, behind a seemingly vacant bathroom stall door, or within the young man they just met at a concert.

I am tired of being afraid of the dark.