MY BEST FIEND
by Malik Isasis
The disturbing award-winning photo by Stephanie Sinclair accompanying this essay is of an 11 year old Afghani child engaged to be married to a 40 year old man who will know doubt rape her, and treat her as chattel as is accustomed in their village, Damarda. The legal age of marriage in Afghanistan is 16 years of age, which makes this union, illegal. Yet, parents still sell off their daughters to supplement their income.
Mohammad promised his child bride Ghulam an education, but history would have it that “most of these child brides are forever denied a self-determined life.”
The fear in Ghulam’s eyes is palpable. Her parents sold her and she is afraid of what lies ahead. The picture got me thinking of one of my dearest friends Shurooq, who over a cup of tea and sweets one evening two years ago, felt inspired to speak of her life growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Shurooq like Ghulam, was a child bride. Her parents married her off at the age of 14 to her 43-year-old cousin. What followed was 20 years of psychic and physical trauma.
“He punched me in the face and knocked me out and I fell hitting the side of my head.” She said.
As a result of that fall, Shurooq lost her hearing in the right ear. To look at Shurooq it is not apparent of her history. She is warm and usually smiling. She is an attractive woman with shiny chestnut brown hair, dark olive skin and eyes that have seen too much pain for one person.
When she was in her mid twenties, her husband pulled a gun on her and threatened to shoot her for some reason I don’t quit remember now.
“He took me outside and told me to stand against the wall. I did and he pointed the gun. Malik, I was so scared that I fainted.” She told me. “Just as I fainted he pulled the trigger.” She remembered witnesses telling her.
After the husband began physically abusing the children, she made an escape to Peshawar, Pakistan where she stayed until she was able to immigrate to the United States. As fate would have it, her husband was killed by the Taliban, still she felt a sense of duty to risk her life and travel back to Kabul to claim his body, which was never found.
Symbiosis
I don’t have a fetish for Middle Eastern politics. The reasons for my focusing so much on the Middle East is because of the people in my life. After the death of my mother, I was fortunate enough to be adopted at the very late age of 19 years old by Mikail, an Israeli immigrant who I affectionately call Pops or Ol' Man. It was Pops who taught me how to become a self-actualized human being. Oshuk the woman, who knits me socks and winter hats and over feeds me when I visit, is from Turkey. I refer to her as my Turkish mother. My comrade and Matrix contributor Maliha Masood is from Pakistan. It wasn’t until I began to think of my friends that I realized that many of my closest friends were from Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, India, Slovenia, Serbia, Mexico, Germany, Ireland, Syria, Great Britain, Canada, and Lebanon.
When I think about what is going on in the Middle East I think of how it affects those I love. What happens in the Middle East is personal and maybe this is what the people in the interior; the rural parts of the United States are missing, a personal connection.
Maybe if there were more personal connections with other cultures it wouldn’t be so easy for politicians to dehumanize large swaths of the planet and use the divisiveness to feed the shadows of the country’s most darkest self. It is only when we connect to someone’s humanity that it becomes difficult to see them as anything other than being human.
by Malik Isasis
The disturbing award-winning photo by Stephanie Sinclair accompanying this essay is of an 11 year old Afghani child engaged to be married to a 40 year old man who will know doubt rape her, and treat her as chattel as is accustomed in their village, Damarda. The legal age of marriage in Afghanistan is 16 years of age, which makes this union, illegal. Yet, parents still sell off their daughters to supplement their income.
Mohammad promised his child bride Ghulam an education, but history would have it that “most of these child brides are forever denied a self-determined life.”
The fear in Ghulam’s eyes is palpable. Her parents sold her and she is afraid of what lies ahead. The picture got me thinking of one of my dearest friends Shurooq, who over a cup of tea and sweets one evening two years ago, felt inspired to speak of her life growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Shurooq like Ghulam, was a child bride. Her parents married her off at the age of 14 to her 43-year-old cousin. What followed was 20 years of psychic and physical trauma.
“He punched me in the face and knocked me out and I fell hitting the side of my head.” She said.
As a result of that fall, Shurooq lost her hearing in the right ear. To look at Shurooq it is not apparent of her history. She is warm and usually smiling. She is an attractive woman with shiny chestnut brown hair, dark olive skin and eyes that have seen too much pain for one person.
When she was in her mid twenties, her husband pulled a gun on her and threatened to shoot her for some reason I don’t quit remember now.
“He took me outside and told me to stand against the wall. I did and he pointed the gun. Malik, I was so scared that I fainted.” She told me. “Just as I fainted he pulled the trigger.” She remembered witnesses telling her.
After the husband began physically abusing the children, she made an escape to Peshawar, Pakistan where she stayed until she was able to immigrate to the United States. As fate would have it, her husband was killed by the Taliban, still she felt a sense of duty to risk her life and travel back to Kabul to claim his body, which was never found.
Symbiosis
I don’t have a fetish for Middle Eastern politics. The reasons for my focusing so much on the Middle East is because of the people in my life. After the death of my mother, I was fortunate enough to be adopted at the very late age of 19 years old by Mikail, an Israeli immigrant who I affectionately call Pops or Ol' Man. It was Pops who taught me how to become a self-actualized human being. Oshuk the woman, who knits me socks and winter hats and over feeds me when I visit, is from Turkey. I refer to her as my Turkish mother. My comrade and Matrix contributor Maliha Masood is from Pakistan. It wasn’t until I began to think of my friends that I realized that many of my closest friends were from Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, India, Slovenia, Serbia, Mexico, Germany, Ireland, Syria, Great Britain, Canada, and Lebanon.
When I think about what is going on in the Middle East I think of how it affects those I love. What happens in the Middle East is personal and maybe this is what the people in the interior; the rural parts of the United States are missing, a personal connection.
Maybe if there were more personal connections with other cultures it wouldn’t be so easy for politicians to dehumanize large swaths of the planet and use the divisiveness to feed the shadows of the country’s most darkest self. It is only when we connect to someone’s humanity that it becomes difficult to see them as anything other than being human.
posted by Malik Isasis at
3:25 PM
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