Worlds Away

I must admit that while reading both Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Kite Runner, I was struck by how differently the world must appear to the respective authors than it did for me. For them and the characters in their books, war was immediate and omnipresent. It was not simply a chapter of homework or a 2 minute blurb on ABC World News Tonight—everything they did or saw was cloaked in the shroud of war. To escape it, they had to leave their homeland, or what remained. When I think of self-preservation, I worry about how I can stretch the next paycheck or whether I should be eating that extra cookie. For Dr. Nafisi, it meant huddling with her children while Tehran was bombed by Iraq. For Amir, he had to put his trust in strangers as he evacuated Afghanistan and on his return to the shell of Kabul. I can send my son to day care without any concern about political unrest. Just toddlers being toddlers, that’s all. No rogue mullahs attempting to usurp power here.

With all this talk about a “Ground Zero Mosque,” I wonder how many of those who are outraged would be more sympathetic if they had read more books like the ones I have just completed. Aside from the fact that the mosque in question would actually be a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero, I think many have made quite a leap, suggesting that mosques breed terrorists because of something intrinsic to Islam. Hello, who was behind the Spanish Inquisition?!!

My point is that if people understood other cultures a little better, there might be fewer such leaps. By no means do I claim to be an expert on any religion, especially Islam, but I belief my understanding of Muslims has been broadened by books such as those above and others, like the autobiography of Benazir Bhutto. Countless books open doors to the customs and rituals of Judaism, Catholicism and numerous other faiths. Think about where your knowledge comes from, how it is shaped. One might even learn considerably more about his own faith, and start to ask better questions or respond to the religion’s teachings in a different way.