In Afghanistan, a (self-absorbed) Superwoman

Books nowadays have trailers and taglines movie style Suraya Sadeedrsquos book Forbidden Lessons In A Kabul Guesthouse has a trailer too where an urgent baritone mdash very much in the style of erstwhile Hollywood action blockbuster trailers mdash informs us that the book ldquois the story of one woman who risked everything to bring hope to Afghanistanrsquos childrenrdquo And if you think thatrsquos a bit selfaggrandising itrsquos not a patch on the rest of the book To be fair Suraya Sadeed does risk much if not everything and brings aid and hope to some Afghan children through her surreptitious underground girlsrsquo schools under the Taliban rule through the 3990s AFP Photo On Oprah To be fair Sadeed does risk much if not everything and brings aid and hope to some Afghan children and indeed adults through her surreptitious underground girlsrsquo schools under the Taliban rule through the rsquo90s and medical clinics Sadeedrsquos achievements are nothing short of remarkable and they have been recognised as such At the end of the book after having navigated chainsmoking militants corrupt Afghani bureaucrats and intransigent refugee camp personnel Sadeed finally achieves the holygrail of American recognition a spot on Oprah And thatrsquos all very good However as a book and a narrative if yoursquore expecting anything more nuanced and original than a story of a feisty heroine battling with evil and the odds perennially stacked against her then yoursquod be disappointed Suraya Sadeed centre negotiates the delivery of humanitarian aid in wartorn Afghanistan in an undated photo PicGetty Images Sadeedrsquos personal story is quite interesting Along with her husband Dastagir Sadeed the daughter of a former governor in Afghanistan escapes the country at the beginning of the Russian occupation They land in America where through graft and determination which is so often a part of an immigrantrsquos success story she builds a successful real estate business Dastagir however dies suddenly and Sadeed after a period of depression is shaken in to fervent activity when she sees a news story on TV about the terrible conditions of refugees along the AfPak border She puts all of her considerable spirit in to steamrollering through all the various obstacles some deadly some merely corrupt all the way into the worst affected areas of Afghanistan Selfstyled lone ranger These are the grounds for a terrific story However so enamoured is Sadeed by her own deeds and adventures that everything that happens to her every person she meets everything she does is used only as a vessel to further her characterisation as an aiddispersing superwoman a terror to her enemies and an angel to those she helps The Afghani people she meets are either wideeyed victims or power hungry politicians who care very little for the plight of the common Afghan The politicians and bureaucrats shersquos able to stave off through the force of her righteous anger and plainspeaking ways The militants of course are a different kettle of fish Here Sadeed turns into a mother figure At once scolding and emotionally manipulative she not only manages to pass through the various checkpoints relatively unharmed but also enlists the help of one particularly impressionable young fighter who actually helps her to get to where shersquos going But we merely get glimpses of these characters not enough to really glean anything apart from their relational usefulness to Sadeedrsquos personal narrative of triumphu00a0 The misery of the Afghan people even before the 911 attacks and the subsequent American military occupation was fierce Caught between the infighting Mujahideen tribes the Afghan people were dispossessed and displaced fated to a terrible life of penury and exploitation if they were lucky enough to survive the constant hail of bullets and rocket fire in the first place The Taliban much maligned in the post 911 world was then a welcome agent of peace for the Afghan people Yes they were restrictive and punitive but it was better than being in a state of constant war When the earthquakes hit in 1998 and Sadeed rushed into the quake ravaged interiors to bring aid the Taliban warlords proved to be helpful This is the only bit of nuance in the book which otherwise is driven by Sadeed encountering obstacles and opposition which she batters in to submission through a mix of initiative righteousness and in some cases naivete Sadeed styles herself as a lone ranger In her first trip into the Afghan heart of darkness she writes of how foreign aid organisations stuck at the PakistanAfghanistan border suffering from a distinct lack of courage and conviction try to dissuade her from crossing the border into Afghanistan If she is to be believed then Sadeed and her then nascent organisation Help the Afghan Children HTAC were the only aid organisation that had the necessary cojones to go into the highly fractious cauldron of violence that was Afghanistan post the Russian occupation Other aid organisations who had a presence in the area are completely dismissed through a calculated lack of mention Afghanistan laid bare What the book has in spades are ghastly scenes of horror and misery When Sadeed returns to Kabul a hollow shell of its previous luminous self she sees a pack of dogs tearing apart human carcasses in the streets The families of the dead didnrsquot dare step out of their shelters to claim the bodies of the fallen They left them to their fate at the slavering jaws of hungry dogs And while such grotesque imagery elucidates horror and revulsion mdash much like the pictures of swollen bellied hollow eyed children from Africa so often used by aid organisations to solicit donations mdash whether theyrsquore actually effective enough to inspire action is debatable The book also describes a pre911 Afghanistan ending just as the planes crashed in to the World Trade Centre towers Which again in the book is viewed through the prism of Sadeedrsquos personal shock at the event The situation in Afghanistan since then has changed enormously as is obvious to anyone keeping a cursory track of the events there in the ensuing decade So for someone looking to get a sense of the geopolitical situation in Afghanistan currently the book is severely outdated As a profile of a wealthy AfghanAmerican woman zooming in and out of the country towering odds spreading education and blankets itrsquos a decent read Nothing more nothing less u00a0