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The Swallows of Kabul
- by: Kyle Vaughn 3/07/2008
Yasmina Khadra’s haunting novel The Swallows of Kabul follows the lives of two couples navigating the dangers and sorrows of life under the rule of the Taliban. Mohsen and Zunaira are members of the fading, educated middle-class—reduced to a life of seclusion and desperation as Islamic law dims and even bans elements of the life they once enjoyed. Atiq, an aggressive-minded jailer, finds himself torn between his allegiance to Islamic law and custom and to his dying wife, Musarrat.
Theirs is a world of war and oppression, where men maimed by landmines and public stonings are a common sight. The pull of this animalistic world is irresistible in their lives, and even the progressive Mohsen, who abhors the violence in Afghanistan, finds himself partaking in the stoning of an accused prostitute. This propels the couples toward a series of tragic events which mirror the confusion and death so much a part of life in Afghanistan.
Also familiar to their world is the sight of Afghan women covered from head to toe in burqas. Though many women in post-Taliban Afghanistan still choose to wear burqas because they provide the safety of anonymity and they follow the Islamic law’s call for prudent dress, Khadra makes clear the more damaging effects of these coverings. The burqas (along with the harshness of Islamic rule) have so erased the faces beneath the cloth that the women of Afghanistan have been dehumanized, turned into “sacks of abomination” as Khadra describes them. These women, now just “ghosts, voiceless, charmless ghosts,” are a fitting but heartbreaking pair for the men, so animalized by the war-torn nation.
Khadra’s poetic, descriptive style helps the reader, even a Western reader who might be uninformed or at an emotional distance, to feel what these characters feel. One’s heart cannot help but break over the lives of these characters and the city and country around them. The book begs the question—how can we redeem a culture such as this? Will freedom or voting rights achieve stability? Will increased wealth or freedom from oppression? Certainly these are issues which need to be addressed in modern-day Afghanistan, but the descriptions Khadra provides, particularly of the inner lives of these characters, suggests the question is a spiritual one.
This book is a must-read for those concerned with the state of the world today—from political concerns to humanitarian ones. Khadra’s tale, though not uplifting, certainly spurs the heart toward a greater cause—the love and care of a people decimated by oppression and war.
