My Forbidden Face Summary

A rite of passage is a ceremony that marks a transition from one phase of life to another. In My Forbidden Face, Latifa goes through a rite of passage that scrutinizes her morality. On page 64, Radio Sharia announces that "from now on the country will be ruled by a completely Islamic system." This change in government drastically alters Latifa's life. She is no longer allowed to shop, paint her nails, or anything remotely close to being a normal teeneager. Nevertheless, the last straw wasn't until Narguesse, a friend of Soraya, removed her chadri(pg 68.) This act of rebellion caused several other women to defy the Taliban with hopes of reformation. Latifa's fear of the Taliban didn't withhold her distain for injustice. Latifa chose to remove

The Taliban came into power in 2005 in Pakistan and began dictating the civilians how to live their lives the “right Islamic way”. The people of the Swat District were forced to obey every command of the Taliban unless they and their families wanted to be killed. Women especially became very oppressed and had to enter Purdah, wear hijabs whenever in public, and were encouraged to not go to school. All westernized media, clothes and games were banned, anyone who did not follow the law would be shot. The community lived in such a terrible state of fear that Malala and her family were afraid to go outside where they were known as famous social, political and educational activists. A BBC correspondent contacted Ziauddin to make a blog from a school girl’s point of view on living under Taliban rule. Malala soon took up the challenge and related her experiences over the phone about her oppressive life in Swat Valley and the threats against girls like her for going to school. Eventually, her school had to close after many local school bombings, and then the whole valley had to be evacuated for the Pakistani Army to come wipe out the Taliban.

Education is one of the most important contributors to having a successful future. In developed countries such as North America boys and girls are fortunate enough to have access to an unbiased education system. Therefore, allowing children to have countless opportunities. However, in countries like Afghanistan girls are marginalized and neglected the right to learn. Afghanistan is a country of war, where women and girls are often the worst victims. In 2011, Afghanistan was known as the most dangerous place in the world for a girl to be born (Kissane). Malala Yousufzai, a female education activist was also a victim of war. Yousufazi was shot in the head and neck for advocating for girls and their rights to have access to education. Similarly, to Yousufzai many women in Afghanistan stand up for their entitlement to having equality. Those courageous women often become victims of abuse and are often killed. Investing in girls’ education is critical, not only is it life-altering for a girl’s future, but it’s also poses benefits to society. By allowing Afghan girls access to educating we are also promoting better socioeconomic s, a reduction in child marriages, and an improvement in mortality rates.

Violence, war, discrimination, and poverty: these issues have long been a part of Afghanistan’s history. Even though things in Afghanistan are getting better, war fills the country, and women and children have to learn to endure abuse, caused by men and the Taliban; they also learn to endure poverty. Considering this, it is no wonder why Afghanistan is in the terrible position it is in now. Many Afghan cities like Kabul are filled with things like violence and discrimination, and the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini takes place in Kabul. This book follows the lives of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, as they suffer pain and discrimination received from the Taliban and their

Malala Yousafzai’s home town in the Swat Valley of Pakistan is where her journey first takes place where oppression against womens education is enforced by Taliban rule. The Taliban staunchly opposed Malala’s fierce beliefs in the right for women to have an education and they did their best to silence her voice. Malala and the other women in the Swat Valley were forced to obey their oppressive regime and not gain an education. Despite the harsh climate against her Malala spoke up against this tyranny with the faith that she could cause a change for the better. Unfortunately due to this she was singled out and faced severe retaliation. A Taliban gunman stopped her school bus and proclaimed that she must be punished for insulting the

Growing up and living in Afghanistan as a woman has its challenges. Parents choose who can marry you and they choose everything for you. In this book, Laila and Mariam both show the struggles it is to be a girl, and how much disrespect they get in Afghanistan. Both Mariam and Laila are married to the same man, and he is abusive to both of them. They also live under Taliban rule, and the rules that they set are very unfair for women. In Khaled Hosseni’s novel, he has many different themes but the most prevalent one is of woman inequality, and that is shown through multiple accounts of abuse, disrespect, and unfairness.

Born as the youngest in her family, Laila grows to become a loving and compassionate parent who is willing to sacrifice for her children; despite having a negligent and unloving mother. Laila, even before her first baby was born, made the decision to marry Rasheed and purposefully had sex with him in order for it to appear like it was his baby. This protects the baby, Aziza, from Afghani society who would shun her for being birthed out of wedlock, and it also keeps the true father’s identity, Tariq, a secret. This sacrifice is one of many, Laila knows, to come as she thinks “[she] already saw the sacrifices a mother had to make. Virtue was only the first. She put a hand on her belly. Closed her eyes”(219). Another sacrifice Laila had to make was putting Aziza in a local orphanage in Kabul, due to the fact that Rasheed was earning so little money that they no longer had the ability to keep her healthily fed. She lived and ate there as well as being taught in a classroom, but in order for Laila to visit Aziza, she sometimes “was caught, questioned, scolded--two, three, even four times in a single day”(321) by the Taliban in an especially inhumane fashion. Over the course of their marriage, Laila withstood Rasheed’s

A Thousand Splendid Suns, a book written by Khaled Hosseini, gives us a unique and informative glimpse into life in Afghanistan in the early 1960’s to the 2000’s. In it we can see many different political and social issues ravaging the country, with the most evident being gender inequality. Though many diverse groups of people were being discriminated against at the time, most of the subordination fell onto women as they had more and more rights taken away from them when various ruling powers took control. The author relays this information to us and educates us as to what happened through compelling and thought-provoking literary devices such as symbolic characters and objects, and allusions. By using these

Throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the reader observes many injustices committed due to the presence of the Taliban and cultural conflict in Afghanistan. One of the most concerning issues in Afghanistan is the mistreatment and inequality that women face on a daily basis due to Taliban mandates. Women in Afghanistan are treated as inferior beings to men and are unable to stand up for themselves due the laws the Taliban enforces. Hosseini uses the wives of Amir and Hassan, Soraya and Farzana, to represent the injustices to which women in Afghanistan are subjected.

Sakena Yacoobi quickly began to implement systems in Afghanistan. She founded and is in charge of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) and through this institute she was able to create change in many of the horrors that the Taliban left behind. (“Professor Sakena Yacoobi”)The Afghan Institute of Learning has developed and implements the health and education programs of AIL as founder of this Afghan women’s NGO that has provided education and health services to over 12 million Afghans and currently serves 350,000 Afghans, primarily women and children annually with a staff of 450 and an annual budget of approximately $1.5 Million.(Yacoobi) Though this does not only scratch the surface from providing quality educational opportunities through preschools, primary and secondary schools, enrichment classes, a university, Women’s Learning Centers and Educational Learning Centers she has fostered a new generation of women and education. She has innovated Women’s Learning Centers, which provide a place for women to meet, participate in educational, health, human rights and skills training classes and receive health services. Seeing the huge financial turmoil she supports literacy classes and income-generation training projects for women without financial stability so that no one is limited. She Supported 80 underground home schools for girls in four provinces of

The role women play in this novel demonstrates a significant part in how Afghanistan is portrayed. The first most important part of a woman’s life shown in The Kite Runner is her reputation. The level of respect they get is dependant on their reputation of being a proper woman. Maintaining a good social status for Afghan women is a lifelong restriction because when they do something against the role of a good woman, their reputation is tarnished. One example of this shown through the reputation of Soraya Taheri in the novel. Soraya runs

“By the end of 2008, around 400 schools had been destroyed by the Taliban” (Yousafzai pg. 144). “Then, at the end of 2008, Fazlullah’s deputy… announced on the radio that all girls’ schools would close. From 15 January girls must not go to school” (Yousafzai pg. 146). As these conflicts were expanding, Malala was asked to be a journalist for BBC, where, under a false name due to safety reasons, she tells about all of the horrors that the Taliban are causing throughout the Valley, and how all of the children and schools are being attacked. During this time, many people where becoming increasingly scared, so they began to take their daughters out of school, then on January 14th, Khushal school was closed, by order of the Taliban. Soon after, the Taliban declared that everyone was to leave the Valley. “On 5 May 2009 we became IDPs” (Yousafzai pg. 177). The rest of Part Two would focus on the experiences of Malala’s Families life as Internally Displaced Persons. This is where we enter Part Three, Three Girls, Three Bullets.

As a further means of separating the population into distinct groups, religion acts as a divisionary force between characters and cultures. There are two primary conflicting cultures represented in the novel that are the cause of religious differences: Sunnis versus Shi’ites and secularism versus religious fundamentalism. Similar to the discrimination based on ethnicity, the conflict based on religion is primarily exemplified through Assef and Hassan, who are Sunni and Shi’ite, respectively. As such, any justification for inclusion and exclusion of people not based solely on ethnicity could just be rationalized through differences of religion. With this prevalent culture present, the importance is in the author’s depiction of the “bleak hypocrisies of the Taliban period--the disgusting cruelties performed in the name of righteousness” as stated by David Denby in “Hard Life.” Through the

The incident in the stadium also reveals to Parvana and Shauzia the complete horror of living under such a regime and haunts Parvana for the next few days. As a Muslim, the writer believes that the actions of the Taliban like the one’s depicted in this novel disgrace Muslims in the present times. Islam is a peaceful religion that promotes morality and generosity among all people, not the twisted version portrayed by the Taliban.

At a global scale, millions of children worldwide still lack access to education due to their economic status, gender discrimination, and tradition. Especially the regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, girls in both regions do not have schools that are available to them. In Greg Mortenson’s novel, Stones into Schools, he makes change happen by building schools through a non-governmental organization he co-founded the Central Asia Institute, a nonprofit whose mission is to build schools with a focus on educating girls and promoting peace through education. He creates an environment for girls in both regions to have access to education and gain new skills. One of the book's themes is the suppression of women in these regions. Mortensen explains that the root of the problem was the Taliban because ever since they took over in 1993, they opposed many