With all of the turmoil raging in the Middle East and around the globe, I thought that the following selections would offer some glimmer of hope. They each feature stories of hope and survival despite the evils that persist in this world.
The Bad-Ass Librarians of
Timbuktu (and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts) is a
book by Joshua Hammer. The lands in and around the Sahara Desert have long been
in a state of turmoil. Dictators and despots abound. A young adventurer and
collector for the government library in Mali, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed
across the Sahara and along the Niger River in the 1980s searching for and
salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts he found
crumbling in the trunks of desert farmers. His lofty goal was to preserve these
precious pieces of ancestry for future generations. Unfortunately, Al Qaeda
showed up and things began to look very grim. Haidara emerged from his role as
a mild-mannered archivist and historian to become one of the world’s most
brazen smugglers by saving these rare texts from certain destruction. More than
350,000 volumes were smuggled out of Timbuktu and spirited away to southern
Mali. It was this group of ordinary citizens who answered a higher calling and
allowed themselves to be forever changed by the experience.
City of Thorns: Nine Lives in
the World’s Largest Refugee Camp is by Ben Rawlence. Situated in a grueling
desert in northern Kenya where thorn bushes are the only things that grow,
Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks, and
plastic; its entire economy is suspect; and its half million residents survive
on rations and a whole lot of luck. Rawlence, who has witnessed this strange
and desperate place firsthand, tells the stories of some of the people who have
come here seeking sanctuary. Guled is a former child soldier who lives for
football (soccer). Nisho manages to scrape out an existence pushing a
wheelbarrow while dreaming of riches. There is also Tawane, an unassailable
youth leader, and Kheyro, whose future hangs upon her education at the school.
The author also tries to explain the wider political forces that are keeping
these refugees trapped in Dadaab.
A Different Kind of Daughter:
the Girl Who Hid from the Taliban in Plain Sight is a memoir by Maria
Toorpakai with Katharine Holstein. From a very young age, Maria Toorpakai knew
that she wanted to play squash. Unfortunately, she hails from Pakistan’s
violently oppressive northwest tribal region. The idea of women playing sports
is forbidden and girls rarely leave their homes. She first tried dressing and
living as a boy, but she eventually became Pakistan’s number one female squash
player. For Maria it was both salvation and a death sentence. Her achievements
put her and her family in the national spotlight and directly in the crosshairs
of the Taliban. She soon realized that her only chance for survival would be to
flee the country. Jonathon Power, the first North American to earn the title of
top squash player in the world, was the only person to answer Maria’s plea for
help. Jonathon recognized her tenacity and talent and invited her to train and
compete internationally in Canada. Even though she had spent years living on
the run from the Taliban, Maria was sad to pack up and leave the only place she
had ever known and move halfway across the world to pursue her dream. Now,
Maria is well on her way to becoming a world champion as well as becoming a
voice for oppressed women all over the world.
The Lovers: Afghanistan’s
Romeo and Juliet is by Rod Norland. Growing up on adjacent potato farms in the
remote mountain area of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Zakia and Ali became close
friends. The two were separated
according to the laws and customs of the area when they reached puberty.
Zakia, a beautiful and strongly opinionated young woman, and Ali, a
soft-spoken, handsome young man still managed to fall in love and court one
another, remotely at first, then, in Zakia's garden. In order to be with Ali,
Zakia defied her family and Islamic law by leaving home to be with him, but she
ended up in a women's shelter pursued by her father and other family members
who were set to kill her to preserve the family "honor." The shelter
saved her life, but she was unable to see Ali there, so the couple eloped and
went into hiding. When Norland wrote about the couple for an article in the New
York Times, he unwittingly exposed them and thus felt obligated to help
them get to safety. With help from Norland as well as foreign donations, the
couple made a disastrous attempt to flee to Tajikistan, however, they were
forced to return to Kabul where they were closely tracked by Zakia's family.
Ali and Zakia's story is used to illustrate the common cultural practices such
as stoning, child marriage, and legalized rape that serve to strip women like
Zakia of their basic human rights.
