Terry Pratchett
Honour killing
If you are of a sensitive disposition and a member of the female persuasion you might choose to look away NOW – you can come in again at the asterisk below.
Ahah! Did you think I was going to talk about the BBC documentary on assisted suicide? Sir Terry Pratchett investigating the experience of the Dignitas option in Switzerland? Yes, I know it’s my kind of subject, but it seems to be being done to death (sorry!) elsewhere, so I’m not. Besides I feel too disturbed about what I saw to write about it at the moment.
No, today I’m turning my beady eye onto a different controversy. Women: their status, their potential, and how they’re treated.
I didn’t go to the Hay Festival this year, but I did follow reports of it. So I heard about VS Naipaul (winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature) insulting women big time. None of them, past or present, could possibly be as great as he is, he declared. Full stop. (He even singled out Jane Austen as way beneath him. Jane Austen!!)
Of course, as you probably know, his history is littered with offended people. Why, his own philosophy includes: ‘If a writer doesn’t generate hostility, he is dead’.
But this time his boasting about his own achievements and his relegation of all women writers as doomed to inferiority by their ‘sentimental’ attitudes and ‘narrow view of life’, hit the raw nerves of way over half the population. He even compounded his sweeping assertion with this partial explanation: ‘And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too‘. Hello?!!
OK, you might say, what would you expect from someone whose private life is a study in misogyny and discrimination? Well, I for one would prefer to see great talent and acclaim generating humility and gratitude and deference to the success of others. Not arrogance, unwholesome pride and cruelty. End of rant.
*(Those females of a sensitive disposition may re-enter the fray here.)
So I turned with relief to a story of the suppression of women which sets a context of triumph over evil and the power of love.
‘For almost three decades now, the Afghan refugee crisis has been one of the most severe around the globe. War, hunger, anarchy, and oppression forced millions of people to abandon their homes and flee Afghanistan to settle in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. At the height of the exodus, as many as eight million Afghans were living abroad as refugees.’ So says Khaled Hosseini in the afterword to his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and became US goodwill envoy to the UN Refugee Agency, so he speaks with both knowledge and sincerity. That authenticity shines through the story of the illegitimate Mariam, the ill-fated childhood sweethearts Laila and Tariq, the troubled children, Aziza and Zalmai. As does the author’s empathy and humanity.
But it’s the quiet depiction of abject poverty, of domestic brutality and female suppression, of sacrificial marriage between young teenagers and much older men, that makes this book the moving and sensitive tale it is. We in the UK read of honour killing with horror in our hearts, but Hosseini conveys quite masterfully the essence of a culture that permits such acts. We see how it happens that wives submit to constant abuse, husbands lock their wives out of sight, fathers kill or reject their daughters, and laws condone such discrimination.
Hosseini’s understated prose is eloquent in its simplicity.
Laila marvels that ‘… every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet … people find a way to survive, to go on.’
Mariam’s mother warns her from infancy: ‘Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.’
One of the judges in the trial of Mariam years later says, ‘God has made us differently, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors and their science have proved this. This is why we require only one male witness and two female ones.’
Naipaul would fit right in here, wouldn’t he?
As the cover says: ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns is an unforgettable portrait of a wounded country and a deeply moving story of family and friendship. It is a beautiful, heart-wrenching story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond and an indestructible love.’ Indeed it is.
And all the reader’s sympathies are with the downtrodden women. I salute Hosseini as a true master-storyteller. As for self-acclaimed Naipaul, well, his ranting and posturing say much more about him than about women.
Parting is such sweet sorrow
Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. This week at least.
But one day they won’t be, and I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought to my forthcoming demise of late. Two people I know well are terminally ill right now and that does tend to concentrate the mind somewhat, I find. So forgive a rather more sober than usual reflection this week.
You don’t get to my age without knowing loss. My father died suddenly and dramatically – a heart attack on a bus. My sister-in-law died slowly from cancer. My mother died in steps and stages – a series of strokes and vascular dementia. All were sad experiences and all left the family diminished.
But when I think of how I’d personally like to go, then there’s a clear winner. I’d choose my father’s death (without the bus!) – retaining dignity, independence and enjoyment of life right up to the end, then a nice quick clean end. OK, I know it’s a shock for the family, but it’s a great way to go for the ’victim’. And I’m talking about the victim – me.
Why this navel gazing? This week’s newspaper headlines. I spend time every week with people with dementia, and my recent experience with my mother is still very vivid in my mind, so of course, I pricked up my ears at the big print a few days ago: Britain faces dementia catastrophe …
People now fear dementia more than cancer or even death.
Were you surprised by this? I wasn’t. There’s something particularly harrowing about watching someone you love lose their connection with the world and you. Seeing them behaving in ways they’d be horrified by if they knew. Fearing they have a glimmer of insight. Knowing it’s all downhill. Of course, I know there are wonderful people out there doing amazing things to capitalise on the positive, minimise the negative. And I salute them. But dementia is still a distressing disease. And the statistics are scary.
‘One in three pensioners will die with it.’
‘A million people will suffer from it within two decades.’
‘Twelve times as much is spent on cancer research as on research into dementia.’
‘There are six times as many scientists working on the treatment of cancer.’
‘As many as a third of people who develop dementia are never formally diagnosed, and without a diagnosis they aren’t receiving the services to which they are entitled.’
The facts were spread all over the papers.
It’s a massive and increasing problem. And it’s scaring people rather like the threat of HIV/Aids did back in the 80s and 90s. Only none of us can hide from this particular threat. It isn’t affecting specific groups; it’s lying in wait for any one of us regardless of class or wealth or lifestyle. You can’t buy yourself out of this one. You can’t insure against it. You can’t put yourself outside of its reach by any means except perhaps dying very young. Or committing suicide.
Funding cuts are threatening to reduce spending in the neurosciences (that includes research into dementia and mental illness) by £4 million. But Alzheimer’s Research UK has launched a special appeal for public response to increase investment in this cause. Because the world still isn’t taking enough notice of this massive problem. Is it because so much of the tragedy is played out behind closed doors, I wonder? Sir Terry Pratchett thinks so. And he’s got a vested interest in this.
How sad is that? Sigh.
Me? I’m off to chop things very, very small!