The Discourse of Islam in a Bed of Red Flowers
THE DISCOURSE OF ISLAM IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree in English Language Studies
by
CHARLES SETIAWAN TOEDJE
Student Number: 076332007
THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2010 i
THE DISCOURSE OF ISLAM IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree in English Language Studies
By
CHARLES SETIAWAN TOEDJE Student Number: 076332007
Approved by
Dr. St. Sunardi Yogyakarta, June 12, 2010 Supervisor
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A THESIS
THE DISCOURSE OF ISLAM IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS
Presented by
CHARLES SETIAWAN TOEDJE Student Number: 076332007
Defended before the Board Examiners and declared acceptable
BOARD OF EXAMINERS
Chairperson : Dra. Novita Dewi, M.S.,M.A (Hons)., Ph.D :
Secretary : Dr. St. Sunardi :
Member : Dr. Alb. Budi Susanto, S.J. :
Member : Prof. Dr. Bakdi Soemanto, S.U. :
Yogyakarta, June 24, 2010 The Graduated Program Director Sanata Dharma University
Prof. A. Supraptiknya iii
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, and sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if he takes somebody else‘s ideas, phrases, or sentences without giving proper references.
Yogyakarta, June 12, 2010
Charles Setiawan Toedje
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
"Ane nawa-nawa ntolino ince'i bare'e da ndakoto, paikanya ri Pue Ala bere'e anu bare'e ndakoto." "Untuk manusia, itu mustahil! Tetapi untuk Allah, semua mungkin." "There are some things that people cannot do, but God can do anything." (Matthew 19: 26, CEV)
I devote this thesis to my Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who always gives me strength to walk from glory to glory. I am certain that I have completed this thesis not because of my capability, but solely because of His grace. I can do nothing with all this work, but with Jesus I can say that nothing is impossible and impossible is nothing as well. Everything in this thesis I devote for the glory of
His name.
My gratitude is sincerely addressed to Dr. St. Sunardi who assists me to write this thesis and finally to complete my study in Sanata Dharma University. Due to his suggestion only I could conduct this research, although, at first I was not sure as to finish this thesis.
I want to thank also to my best favorite lecturer in Sanata Dharma University,
Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A., who is helpful and always encourages me to write and write, although sometimes I was tired to write given my inability. Many times I was about to stop writing this thesis; I felt lonely and desperate as if no one cared with me. Indeed, I listened to her suggestions.
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I also remember all lecturers at the Graduate Program of Sanata Dharma
University either in KBI or in IRB that have taught me many things during my study in this university. I want to say thank you to Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, Mukarto, PhD.,
Prof. Soebakdi Sumanto, Dr. Alb. Budi Susanto, S.J. Prof. Supomo, Dr. Budiawan,
Dr. G. Subanar, S.J. and Dr. Katrin Bandel. Then, I want to say thank you to all my friends in Sanata Dharma particularly the 2007 batch namely Ibu Thineke Ansaka, mas Chosak, mas Nico, mas Johan, mbak Pipin and many others. Although your names are not listed here, trust me that all your kindness is always in my heart. Thank for your kindness to help me to learn in this university and hopefully, God will requite all your kindness with His great blessing.
My great thankfulness goes to those who have helped me and supported my study in Jogjakarta, namely, Mrs. Barth Orwell in Switzerland with her sincerity to support me in prayer and funding, Hamled Rundubelo and Budiman Maliki (my friends from Poso) Bobi Sinseng and Hance Sianto (my friends in Pringgading No.17
Jogjakarta). Unforgettably, I want to thank to the best team prayer of GKKD
Jogjakarta, Richard Sianturi and friends who have assisted me to pray and worship
God every time. Then, I also thank to all the colleagues of Sintuwu Maroso
University of Poso chiefly Rector, Dean and all lecturers who give me trust to continue my study.
Further, my great gratitude is addressed to my close family members particularly my father J. Toedje and my mother D. Pandonge. And I thank also to my brothers Jepi and Tedeng, and my sisters, Eva and Uci. All of you have supported and
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given me an opportunity to continue my study in Jogjakarta with prayer and financial support to finish this study.
Finally, I dedicate this thesis to my beloved wife Trisyawati Suryaningsi
Pokalose and my beautiful baby Virginia Givana Toedje who had given me time and allowed me to leave them lonely without husband and father for almost three years.
Indeed, I cannot reckon the tears and prayers that have been prayed to God. Yet, I want to acknowledge and honor Him because He never leaves us alone. He always accompanies us up to this day because we are His beloved children. And we are destined more than conqueror. Last but not least, I share this thesis for the enlightenment in Tana Poso.
Praise be to the Lord God, Jesus Christ who is worthy for the glory, honor and power. Hallelujah.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ...... i APPROVAL PAGE ...... ii BOARD OF EXAMINERS ...... iii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ...... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... viii ABSTRACT ...... ix ABSTRAK ...... x I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 A. Background of the Study ...... 1 B. Problem Limitation ...... 11 C. Problem Formulation ...... 13 D. Objectives of the Study ...... 13 E. Research Method ...... 14 F. Benefit and Significance of the Study ...... 15 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 18 A. Literature Review of Related Studies ...... 18 B. Review of Related Studies ...... 27 C. Theoretical Framework ...... 38 III. MASTER DISCOURSE OF ISLAM AS TOLD IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS ...... 40 A. Variety of Islam ...... 43 1. Traditional Islam ...... 45 2. Liberal Islam ...... 58 3. Fundamental Islam ...... 80 B. Nuance of Islam in Vernacular Language as Clues of Pazira‘s Islam .... 92 IV. UNTOLD STORY IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS ...... 97 A. Symptom of Trauma ...... 98 B. Depiction of Characters to Show the Author‘s Objection toward the Discourse of Islam ...... 120 C. Area of Negotiation...... 129 V. CONCLUSION ...... 143 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 153 APPENDICES ...... 157 o Synopsis of A Bed of Red Flowers ...... 157
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ABSTRACT
Toedje, Charles Setiawan. 2010. The Discourse of Islam in A Bed of Red Flowers. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies. Sanata Dharma University.
This study examines an autobiographical novel A Bed of Red Flowers written in 2005 by Nelofer Pazira, a young Afghanistan woman. This novel has won the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, awarded by The Writers‘ Trust of Canada. The content of this novel is a narration of the experiences of the author living in Afghanistan during the conflict between the Soviet Union army and the Mujahidin militia forces and the situation since the United States‘ invasion of the country after the September 11 tragedy. Nevertheless, the core of this novel is to discuss the discourse of Islam based on the author‘s understanding. Literary pieces can be called as either document or monument depending on the perspective of the author. This thesis shows that this novel is a kind of monument to remember September 11, 2001 tragedy, based on the intentionality, ideology and the historicity of the novel. And dealing with the formal object, this study discusses the discourse of Islam as narrated in the text. The objectives of this study are: 1) to present the discourse of Islam in the novel that profile three models of Islam, 2) to present the ‗untold story‘ based on the author‘s symptom of trauma in the novel in view of the three models of Islam. These objectives are formulated in order to see the discourse of Islam in an appropriate way. And three theories are used in analyzing the formal object of this study namely, the four discourse of Lacan, postcolonial theory and the theories of Islam. These theories used to reveal the discourse of Islam in A Bed of Red Flowers. The result of this study finds that A Bed of Red Flowers tries to portray the discourse of Islam merely based on the author‘s experience of life in Afghanistan. And the author chooses to sacrifice herself as one of the victims in order to represent many victims who live in the conflict area at that time. This thesis concludes that, firstly, the essence of the novel is closely related with the ‗death‘ of the discourse of Islam. The author has deliberately concealed the other discourse of Islam i.e. traditional Islam represented by Salafiyya or Wahabbism that belong to Sunnite group. The author knows that these two groups resist westernization in Afghanistan. Secondly, this thesis concludes that the author in her unconsciousness has disclosed her support upon the United States‘ Invasion due to her trauma of the conflict.
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ABSTRAK
Toedje, Charles Setiawan. 2010. The Discourse of Islam in A Bed of Red Flowers. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies. Sanata Dharma University.
Kajian ini mempelajari sebuah novel autobiografi A Bed of Red Flowers yang ditulis pada tahun 2005 oleh Nelofer Pazira, seorang perempuan Afghanistan. Novel ini mendapatkan penghargaan Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, yang dianugerahkan oleh The Writers‘ Trust of Canada. Narasi pengalaman penulis atas kehidupan selama konflik antar pasukan pendudukan Uni Soviet dan milisi Mujahidin, serta situasi Afghanistan setelah invasi Amerika pasca tragedy 11 September, menjadi bagian penceritaan dalam novel ini. Namun demikian, wacana Islam yang didasarkan pada pandangan penulis menjadi intisari penceritaan. Karya sastra dapat disebut sebagai sebuah dokumen maupun monument bergantung pada perspektif penulisnya. Tesis ini menunjukan bahwa novel ini bisa disebut sebagai monumen untuk pengingatan kembali akan tragedy 11 September 2001, berdasarkan tujuan penulisannya, ideologi dan sejarah novel itu sendiri. Dalam hubungannya dengan obyek penelitian ini, penelitian ini membahas wacana Islam seperti yang diceritakan penulis dalam text. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah 1) menunjukan wacana islam dalam novel yang menampilkan tiga model Islam, 2) menunjukan bagian yang tidak terceritakan berdasarkan gejala trauma penulis dalam narasinya dalam menyajikan tiga model Islam. Tujuan – tujuan ini diformulasikan untuk melihat wacana Islam secara tepat. Ada tiga teori yang digunakan dalam menganalisa obyek formal penelitian ini yaitu, teori empat wacana Lacan, teori poskolonial dan teori – teori tentang Islam. Teori – teori ini digunakan untuk mengungkap wacana Islam dalam A Bed of Red Flowers. Hasil dari pengkajian ini menemukan bahwa A Bed of Red Flowers mencoba memotret wacana Islam berdasarkan pengalaman hidup penulisnya di Afghanistan. Penulis lebih memilih untuk menempatkan dirinya sebagai korban untuk mewakili banyak korban lainnya yang tinggal di daerah konflik pada waktu itu. Tesis ini menyimpulkan, pertama, bahwa esensi buku ini berkaitan erat dengan ‗kematian‘ wacana Islam. Penulis secara sengaja menyembunyikan wacana Islam lain yakni Islam tradisional yang diwakili oleh Salafiyya atau Wahabbism sebagai bagian dari Islam Suni. Penulis mengetahui bahwa kelompok – kelompok semacam ini menentang pengaruh Barat di Afghanistan. Dan yang kedua, penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa penulis dalam ketidaksadarannya telah mengungkapkan dukungannya terhadap invasi Amerika, karena trauma konflik.
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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma : Nama : Charles Setiawan Toedje Nomor Mahasiswa : 076332007
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul :
THE DISCOURSE OF ISLAM IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS
Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminjta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal : 12 Juni 2010
Yang menyatakan
(Charles Setiawan Toedje)
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
People can tell their own stories according to their freewill and desire. But not every story in their storage of memory can be produced and becomes praiseworthy or valuable due to the selective memories that always appear to dominate the whole stock of human memory. And mostly part of the stories that often predominate are closely related to the bad experiences of their life and sometimes also hurt themselves. Harvey states that ―we are all story tellers. We all have in our memories a multitude of stories‖1. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that not everybody becomes a good story teller, although s/he has too many stories in memory.
Technically, the good story tellers are able to articulate and generate the stories in a systematical and attractive writing consisting of sequence of time and plot, for example, regardless of how the storyteller feels about it.
As for contents, at least there are three factors that influence people when they tell their story, namely, intention, ideology and historicity. These factors are very important and interdependent when people try to tell their story or narrative. And all these factors have also influenced the author of A Bed of Red Flowers when she narrates her story.
1 John H. Harvey, Perspective on Loss and Trauma (London: Sage Publication, 2002), p. 4.
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A narrative is greatly influenced by, first, the intentional factor of the author.
This factor will not easily disappear with the consciousness or unconsciousness of the author when later the book is published, for instance. In other words, the first factor is related to reasons for publication. Most authors always pursue popularity among the readers by devoting their composition as an act of carefulness and faith regarding with the particular events happening in her/his life.
The second factor is ideology. Ideology is often influenced by the condition and situation surrounding the authors‘ life. Therefore, ideology of the authors is often sharpened and can be changed when they grow along with the new environment. In this case, after experiencing and learning from such kind of situation, the author will determine his/her decision upon the ideology. In the narrative, this second factor appears due to the wills of showing something that belongs to the perspectives of
‗truth‘ according to the authors‘ understanding.
The third factor is historicity. Historicity of the authors sometimes is also used as background of the narrative. History often influences the authors when they narrate their story. Indeed, most narratives are based on the real experiences of the authors‘ personal life in the past. Thus, the authors‘ self experiences tend to be the reason when people tell and write their story. And this kind of writing of personal life experiences is called an autobiographical writing or the ―new journalism writing.‖2
However, to make it interesting and impressive to the readers‘ mind, most stories are framed like a novel. This is to say that this method is used as a way of pleasing the
2 Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism (London: Picador, 1975), pp. 23-36.
2 readers, while giving the appearance of aesthetic values, as commonly found in autobiographical novels.
Next, autobiographical novels can be called document and monument to one degree or another. A novel can be seen merely as a document, if the authors‘ story is written to gain profit, for example. In contrast, a text can be a monument for both the author and the readers if the story written is closely related to events stored in the memory of the author or readers alike. On this matter, La Capra (2001) has asserted that writing is a medium of expression and an open window to see the event(s) that had happened in the past.
Dealing with the presence of the autobiographical novel as a window for us to see the past, I am interested in examining one autobiographical novel published and launched in Canada in 2005. Written by Nelofer Pazira a young Afghan woman, A
Bed of Red Flowers won the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, awarded by The
Writers‘ Trust of Canada. In this narration, Pazira actually only narrates the experiences of her life time in Afghanistan during the war between the Soviet Union army and the Mujahidin militia forces, and to some extent, depicting the United
States Army‘s invasion upon Taliban post September 11.
Before going further to discuss the contents of this novel, I want to highlight the reason or the background of the author to write this book in order see her
‗position‘ upon this story. Born in 1973, Pazira grew up in Kabul and almost of her childhood was spent in this place. However, since in 1990 Pazira and her family left this place and exiled to Canada due to the heightened conflict. In Canada, she graduated herself from one of the universities and worked as a journalist. Beside
3 working as journalist, she is an actress too. She has acted in the film entitled
Kandahar, a film that portrayed the life of the refugees in Afghanistan at the time of conflict. And departing from her experience as journalist and actress, finally she wrote an autobiographical novel A Bed of Red Flowers to picture the life of
Afghanistan people before and after September 11.
Returning to the three factors that usually influence people when telling their story namely intentionality, ideology and historicity as mentioned above, this novel appears problematic. I try to scrutinize this autobiographical novel by juxtaposing the findings within the text. Speaking of intentionality of the author, I find dubious facts about the publication of this book. First, this book is published few years after
Pazira‘s appearance in the film entitled Kandahar, a documentary film which narrates the experience of Pazira‘s own failure in trying to rescue Dyana, her close friend, in
Afghanistan during the reign of Taliban. In this film, she acts as Nafas, a young woman who wants to see and save her sister in Afghanistan who lives in a depressing condition under the Taliban regime. And further, through this film Pazira instantly becomes well known as an Afghan actress living in Canada.
The second ambiguity is that in her acknowledgement to the Times magazine,
Pazira says that the impetus for writing the book is the unhappy experience of her life time in Afghanistan, but this idea came up after they have finished making Kandahar in 2000, or the time before the tragedy of September 11, that astonished people especially in the United States. However, based on the year of publication of this book the fact shows that this book is published in 2005, thus four years after the
September 11 tragedy. It indicates that there is a range of time chosen by Pazira
4 herself in waiting for the right momentum to share her experience. We might as well assume that the book is published to draw public attention and to seek popularity among western readers regarding the conflict between Afghanistan and the United
States.
Furthermore, in terms of ideology, the book depicts the global issues of Islam.
And in her context of narrating, she describes the discourse of Islam in Afghanistan within three models of Islam, i.e. traditional Islam, liberal Islam and radical or fundamental Islam. Nevertheless, I perceive that this book gives imbalanced comparison of these three kinds of Islam. Pazira presents the discourse of Islam firmly based on her traditional Islam and liberal Islam way of thinking. But at the same time, she despises fundamental Islam due to her bad experience. Therefore, I assume that this kind of novel has been trapped into re-shaping the ‗image‘ of Islam in accordance with the global issues of Islam particularly promoted by western countries.
Furthermore, if this book is seen through the point of view of historicity, it shows that the preparation time reserved for writing this book was closely related with the recent situation in Afghanistan. In other words, this book was published to coincide with the necessities of pouring attention to this region‘s postwar condition in which the United States army has bombarded this place. The ‗accuracy‘ of time in publishing this book along with the time of war may become one of the factors that makes the readers interested to relate this book with the global issues of terrorism at that time.
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It should be borne in mind that before the Twin Tower bombing on September
11, 2001, Afghanistan had been little known by the international audience. But after the tragedy, Afghanistan has been in everybody‘s lips, particularly in the international mass media, due to the US‘s accusation that the most suspect country responsible for the tragedy was Afghanistan. According to the United States‘ Military accounts, the main actors or the so-called ‗terrorist‘ behind the attack have had important roles in the Taliban government. Therefore, Taliban has to give deserving responsibility toward the tragedy.
In brief, after and during the occupation of the United States‘ Military and its
Allies in Afghanistan, problems still remain, affecting people who dwell and settle there at the time of conflict. And in dealing with the situation, most countries that concerned and cared for Afghanistan people‘s life supplying their aids through the international organizations in the form of humanitarian aids or mental recovery and physical building. And this factor also becomes one of the many reasons that make
Afghanistan popular in the eye of the public and particularly for the Islamic countries.
Meanwhile, Ahmed3 is one of prominent scholars on the impact of war toward the victims‘ life in Afghan who mentions that many people has fallen and died during the wartime. He states:
The high-level war from the air also took a heavy toll of the [Afghan] population. By May 2002 it was estimated that 1,300-3,500 civilians had died and 4,000-6,500 civilians had been injured, many of them seriously, as a direct result of American bombs and missiles. Probably another 20,000 civilians lost their lives as an indirect
3 Faiz Ahmed, ―Afghanistan Reconstruction, Five Years Later: Narratives of Progress, Marginalized Realities, And the Politics of Law in A Transitional Islamic Republic‖, p. 280. (www.gonzagajil.org/pdf/volume10/Ahmed/Ahmed.pdf) published 2007.
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consequence of the American-led intervention; this includes thousands who died when relief columns from international aid agencies were halted or delayed, and others died through the secondary effects of targeting civilian infrastructure (especially electrical power facilities vital for hospitals and water-supply systems).
Accordingly, such conditions and information about the context and situation in Afghanistan help to concur that this book is important to be read with a critical eye. And the close relationship between the involvement with the recent conflict in
Afghanistan during and after the United States‘ invasion also helps to evoke and increase the attractiveness of the book to the readers.
Despites all elements previously mentioned, there is still a factor of historicity that influences the presence of the book as I have mentioned before. This factor will be seen through the biography of the author, for the fact that Pazira is actually a young woman who formerly lived in Afghanistan during the unrest situation.
However, in 1989, due to the worse situation and the escalation of conflict, Pazira‘s families decided to leave Afghanistan and dwelling in Pakistan. But due to the inconvenient situation, after living briefly in Pakistan and waiting for the Canada‘s
Authority approval for her father‘s application to exile in Canada, finally in 1990, they succeeded to flee to Canada and later settled as permanent citizens.
Thereby, since living in Canada, Pazira treats Afghanistan only as her memory. All about Afghanistan conditions are known only through the media such as television, newspaper reports, and correspondence with her friend Dyana who at the time lives in Afghanistan. In short, according to the period of living in Afghanistan,
Pazira herself just approximately more or less ten years in which she had spent her teenager years in this land. Therefore, after leaving Afghanistan she has never
7 experienced nor even imagined directly the condition that was undergone by the common people of Afghanistan during the ten years before and after the Taliban regime.
In her book, Pazira only narrates the condition and situation world of Islam in
Afghanistan essentially based on her old experience, although she has hardly known the circumstances after the falling old regime in which Taliban had succeeded and controlled the country where fundamental Islam became the majority. This happens to her due to the rapid changing of situation, the policies of her former country and even the changing of Islam in that place after experiencing many conflicts. And departing from this factor of historicity of the author, I can say that she showed her passion of describing the situation, but failed to understand the current situation in
Afghanistan.
Concerning with the facts above and based on the review of intentionality, ideology and historicity of the author, I concur to say that the tone of the story is speaking for herself as the Real order and, to some extent, wanting to ‗speak for‘ her
‗land‘ as the Symbolic order in the Lacanian perspective. The book thus represents her narcissistic desire upon the land. And it is her problem of nationalism. This kind of purpose will likely make a trap for the author herself, for she had explored and
‗exploited‘ the suffering of her former country. This is to say that this book is addressed to sell in banality the tragic life of the Afghan refugees. And according to her point of view about the discourse of Islam, it seems that she wants to push and support to return or even follow the way of Islam that has been described in her teenaged life whereby they used to have freedom of doing everything in Afghanistan.
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To cite some examples, she told her experiences living in Afghanistan when every female student were able to go to school without restriction of wearing burqa or any other confinement upon their freedom.
Furthermore, this narrative implies her objection and disagreement toward the shari‘a (law of Islam) concerning with women movement in Afghanistan. Indeed, it is not only based on the influences of her liberal Islam way of thinking in her childhood but rather the influence of her living in the western country.
Based on the findings above, it can be said that Pazira has trapped herself to re-open the opportunity for the ‗western‘ people to intervene Afghanistan as an
Islamic country. Or in other words, implicitly this book also wants to describe the author‘s consent with the United States‘ invasion, even while repudiating the invasion.
Within the perspective of postcolonial reading, the ambivalent position of the author sometimes is influenced and caused by the political intervention and the ideology of the author. In this occasion, Pazira actually plays a role in both sides either to support the United States or a longing for her former country Afghanistan according to her memory in the past time. This ambivalent position also adds the attractiveness of A Bed of Red Flowers upon the readers that make this book very popular in Canada at that time.
Moreover, her presentation about the discourse of Islam within the story of A
Bed of Red Flowers has given the impression that this book assents to use violent actions for the sake of ‗human security‘ toward the abolition of the Taliban regime.
By this reading paradigm, this book has created and evoked disputes about the old
9 discourses concerning Islam in which the word of ‗Islam‘ is always resembled with the word of violence. This circumstance happens due to the situation where ‗Islam‘ in the eyes of certain people is deliberately posited with the term of radicalism or even
‗terrorist‘, but on the contrary, it is only a way for gaining profit for those who echo this issues. And again, the word ‗Taliban‘ has been signified and resembled with the word ‗terrorist‘ as a result of September 11, 2001 tragedy and this event has exacerbated or increased the worse image of Islam in the world. The way of narrating like this may attract many readers to read the book, while at the same time may disturb critics.
Due to that reasons, it seems that Islam portrayed in the novel will be always misinterpreted and sometimes inevitable to be taken for granted to legalize the action of violence to preserve their self righteousness. And this conditioning of Islam is intentionally created based on particular facts in literary work such as the novel under study to get space in the eyes of the western ‗readers‘. And almost all these facts often overflow and abolish the other facts that display life of Islam in different way of life where Moslem people are also known living in tolerance and adopt tolerant way of life with their neighbors in many countries in the world.
Therefore, the hypothesis is that the appearance of Islam as a discourse in the author‘s perception, gives advantage for those who have interests in what Pazira presents in her book, mindful of the fact that she is living now in a country that supports to the United States Allies. And further, in reading this book misunderstanding and ongoing misinterpretation toward discourse of Islam may be seen on the readers‘ part, but it brings profits for the publisher and the author.
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This is to say that the discourse of Islam cannot be seen in the narrow area of
Afghanistan as the indicator or measurement, and then instantly received by the readers as the conclusion point of view when reading the literary work. But rather, it needs deep insight to probe how the world of Islam also develops in other parts of the world. As such, it is necessary to scrutinize this literary work to help readers achieve understanding of this book according to the ‗truth‘ of the story.
Finally, based on the perspectives of postcolonial reading, author like Pazira runs the act of self representation but not act of re-presentation. Act of representation aims to ‗speak for‘ the other in such a way that she may lose and negate the important role of the survivors living in that place. The victims of conflict in this place had survived for along time to endure their life with their own way of life. In here, Pazira thinks that they have never any boldness to speak about their condition. Therefore,
Pazira ‗speaks‘ and victimizes the survivor in that area by describing their bitterness of life. However, actually she does not understand the situation after her living in
Canada, and she has become a ‗new‘ person in her former country who wants to speak for them all.
B. Problem Limitation
Sustainability of human life strictly depends on the situation that happens around them. This narrative is generally closely related with the portrayal of life, particularly the life in Afghanistan since the eighties up to now dealing with the issues of Islam, politic, gender, nationalism, conflict/war and the victims/survivors.
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While it is about impossible to discuss at length all issues above, this thesis will focus mainly on the discussion of the discourse of Islam or the ‗world‘ of Islam concerning with what the author of A Bed of Red Flowers has described in the novel. And furthermore, this study does not discuss at length obviously concerning the war between the Soviet Army and Mujahidin groups or even its implication for
Afghanistan people, because this study is to highlight more specifically on the relationship A Bed of Red Flowers with the discourse of Islam and the tragedy of
September 11, 2001 in the United States based on the author‘s point of view.
What is meant by the ―discourse of Islam‖ here is closely related with the conditioning of ‗Islam‘ which sometimes becomes a dreadful word for certain people due to the exaggeration of image of Islam. The effect of accusations or judgments upon the ‗world‘ of Islam, are to resemble the word of Islam with the terms radicalism, fundamentalism and even ‗terrorism‘. By placing the work of Pazira in this context, hopefully, political interpretation and literary discussion can meet.
This study will also concern with the untold story from the author that portrays the human life in Afghanistan as symptom of her trauma and the area of negotiation as newcomer in literature realm.
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C. Problem Formulation
Based on the background information above, this study will focus on the issues concerning with the discourse of Islam which is read as ‗world‘ of Islam. And the question is formulated as follows:
1. How is Islam as a discourse invariably depicted in A Bed of Red
Flowers?
2. How is the untold story present in A Bed of Red Flowers?
These questions deal with the discourse of Islam in the eyes of the author and how the author tries to push her discourse of Islam within the text as part of global issues. And further to answer all the questions I will use the theory of four discourses proposed by
Jacques Lacan, postcolonial theory, and briefly theory of Islam.
D. Objectives of the Study
Since the focus of this study is based on the author‘s point of view toward the certain condition and situation depicted in her narrative, the overall goal of this study is to present the view of the author about the discourse of Islam and her untold story as part of her symptom of trauma and negotiation when she shares her experiences in her former country for the readers in her new living country. The objectives of this study are:
1. The presentation of the master discourse of Islam in the novel that profile
three models of Islam.
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2. The presentation of the ‗untold story‘ based on Pazira‘s symptom of trauma in
the novel in view of the three models of Islam.
The first objective will be presented in Chapter III. It will discuss how the discourse of Islam is portrayed in the three models of Islam based on the author‘s family life perspective about Islam. The three models of Islam in Afghanistan portrayed within the text, are deliberately to convey the message that this autobiographical novel also pushes the conditioning of Islam in liberal way of thinking. The second objective will be presented in the Chapter IV in which I will discuss how the author of this novel also experiences symptomatic trauma when living in Afghanistan and she tries to hide her sense of trauma by writing this text. In short, this presentation is closely related with the written trauma, how the author sacrifices her self within the text.
E. Research Method
A qualitative research paradigm is used in this study, where the primary data were taken from the text, i.e. the autobiographical novel A Bed of Red Flowers. Since this is a literary research, part of the analysis is to scrutinize the stories and elaborates all the components of a novel using a close reading approach. The data herein are treated as facts or evidences within the text. Generally, there are two kinds of fact in literary research, i.e. universal and absolute fact. Universal data is closely related with the readers‘ perception upon literary work, otherwise, absolute fact is more concern with what the author says. Thus, all the data (universal and absolute fact) are gathered
14 through this method will be considered as the main data. Meanwhile, the secondary data were taken from other related books, internet or selective texts that are used as comparison data to scrutinize what the author has narrated in her book.
I took three steps of research to answer the research questions, namely,
‗exploration‘, ‗condensation‘, and interpretation. I did the first step by reading the object material carefully in order to grasp the tone of the story. And further, I applied theories chosen for this study to read the novel. This process was called
‗condensation.‘ Lastly, I made analyses and interpretations of the object in question.
F. Benefits and Significance
This study will examine a work that has a close relationship with tragedy of
September 11, 2001 in the United States, hopefully it will help readers to understand the context and situation in Afghanistan before the tragedy and after the United
States‘ invasion. This understanding is important for better comprehending the
September 11 tragedy which, to date, is often exaggerated by the political intervention particularly those belonging to the western countries. As such, this research may provide different perspective toward the understanding of the tragedy via literature.
The use of popular literature is done in purpose. Generally, popular literature is part of popular culture which has wide range of distribution toward the readers and it aims for satisfaction. Therefore the choice of popular literature becomes the consideration in the research to influence ways of thinking of the readers toward
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Afghanistan as well as the September 11 tragedy. Besides, it will help the readers to see the situation of Afghanistan under the occupation and how the discourse of Islam is formed to push certain messages. Again, it is also important to the reader to see the perspective of postcolonial studies in interpreting the discourse of Islam through literature that represents the ‗speechless‘.
And then, for the Indonesian readers, this case also helps them to enrich their knowledge and insight to analyzing literary pieces particularly using autobiographical novel as data or source of information. Post-Suharto era, Indonesia saw the change of political situation; internal conflicts rapidly heighten in several areas of the country.
The eruption of conflict which was deliberately constructed within the issues of ethnic and religion had come before the people. And to some extent, it is similar with the situation in Afghanistan. In short, there is a lesson learned for the Indonesian readers about conflict in this present study. Learning from the other peoples‘ experiences about conflict/war that have strong relationship with the condition and situation in Indonesia, hopefully it will enlighten peoples' understanding to consider deeply and maturely when they want to trigger and involve in any ‗civil war‘. This lesson learned shows how conflict remains such terrible circumstances from and for the people who are involving in the conflict. And without any prevention, this conflict will occur and impact the future generation. And further, hopefully learning from Afghanistan situation will stimulate those who engage with conflict to stop or at least ceasing and draw their self from violent ‗culture‘. In other words, producing conflict means reproducing other violent which is worthless and nothing for human beings.
16
Furthermore, the important of autobiographical studies in literature is one of the reasons why I chose to conduct this research. The scarcity of autobiographical studies in the Graduate Program in English Language Studies of Sanata Dharma
University has encouraged me to embark on this research to increase my own knowledge and insight regarding autobiographical studies. And hopefully this research will enlarge and enrich the thesis students‘ area of coverage in literary research.
Finally, this study will personally help me to dig out and re-sharpen my ability in analyzing literary work that helps to contribute to conflict as a study on resolution.
I am a person from the conflict area of Poso, Central Celebes of Indonesia.
17
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter is to discuss review of related studies to help answering questions posed in this study. The first sub chapter shows literature review of related studies concerning with the object material, i.e. Pazira‘s A Bed of Red Flowers as well as those related with this research, i.e. autobiography. Indeed, autobiographical study is useful for scrutinizing and comprehending the material object of the research.
The second sub chapter is a review of related theories used in this study.
These theories will be outlined from the four-discourse theory proposed by Jacques
Lacan in the perspective of psychoanalysis because this study combines psychoanalysis and postcolonial reading of the discourse of Islam. The third sub chapter outlines the theoretical framework.
A. Literature Review of Related Studies
Pazira‘s novel is an autobiographical novel that is well known through electronic shopping, perhaps partly because this book won the Drainie-Taylor
Biography Prize awarded by The Writers‘ Trust of Canada. However, scholarly discussion on A Bed of Red Flowers is rare to date. The only reference on this book is found only through the website of the publisher, or the book blurbs and the book reviews. It is easy to guess that most of comments only adorn and adore the book, in order to increase the book‘s sale.
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Below are some of the selected texts and quotations from the reviewers which are taken from the website of the RandomHouse publisher4, mindful of the fact that such advertisement is to attract the reader to purchase this book. All of them generally state that this book is interesting to read, saying:
This is a remarkable book: an utterly engrossing read that provides a window into a culture that has long existed on the periphery of the world‘s vision…Pazira‘s account exudes an unself-conscious frankness and intelligence that will give readers a perspective on the last 30 years of Afghan politics and society that simply cannot be gleaned through media accounts. —Quill and Quire
A Bed of Red Flowers is more than the remarkable story of Nelofer Pazira‘s difficult life in war-torn Afghanistan, her family‘s sacrifices and escape, and her eventual triumph as a writer, teacher, journalist and actress. Written movingly, honestly and lyrically, it is the story of Afghanistan itself, a haunting diary of the tragedies that have plagued Pazira‘s nation in the last thirty years. —Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner
Through occupation and civil war, from being a refugee to a movie star — Nelofer Pazira‘s journey is a story told with passion, humanity and eloquence. Her unforgettable story provides a searing reminder of Afghanistan‘s long years of war and how a country was held hostage long before September 11. A Bed of Red Flowers is a deeply moving tribute that will grip you from beginning to end. —Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
A Bed of Red Flowers is not merely a remarkable memoir of one family‘s struggle; it‘s also a succinct account of Afghanistan‘s political history. Within these 400 suspenseful pages lies a concise retelling of the complexities and futility of war in a country constantly used as a battleground for other people‘s ideologies. Pazira shows the reader the frustration of a diverse culture in which people have always had to choose between lack of safety and lack of sovereignty. This book is a victory, bringing us a truth banned or distorted by most with the power to speak about it. An enriching and heartrending read. –NOW (Toronto)
4 Visit the website of Randomhouse at
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Beside some of the book blurbs above, there are also other reviewers of this book who similarly perceive that Pazira‘s novel is one of the awesome literary works.
Below are some of their remarks:
[…] This is an important book, not for its literary quality, but for the delicacy with which it shows the force of two competing outside powers pulling a country to pieces. The Soviets tugged at one end of the rope, and the American-backed mujahidin at the other. Between them, they pulled a knot so tight that they left a country full of innocent people gasping for space to think, to breathe, to live. As the Soviets pushed themselves into Afghanistan, the other side took further refuge in more extreme religion, to mark themselves as truly holy warriors, and it was they whom the Americans supported almost unconditionally. In 2001, the U.S. government pointed to the Taliban as evil enemies, but neglected to mention that it was the American government that armed these people, put them in power, and then turned a blind eye to their extreme religious oppression and moral corruption.5
Many Afghans were not as fortunate as Nelofer Pazira; they never had the opportunity to start a new life abroad. Others, like the poet Qahar Ausi, chose to come back to a land he couldn‘t stay away from, only to be killed by a rocket less than a month after his return to Afghanistan in 1994. He had just celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday. A couple of years before his tragic death, Ausi had written to Nelofer Pazira asking her to return as a responsible caretaker of her own culture. She certainly heeded this advice as she is now a successful journalist, filmmaker and teacher based in Toronto. She starred in, co- produced and co-directed the movies ―Kandahar‖ and ―Return to Kandahar.‖ The former was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991. Pazira tells us how a reporter asked her at a press conference why she had made a film about an ―unimportant subject‖ indicating that people already felt then that Afghanistan was a forgotten land. That same year, Qahar Ausi wrote a poem in which he foresaw the difficult times ahead, yet urges the readers not to forget their ancestral land.6
The book's most painful portions document the restrictions imposed on women as Islamic fanaticism took hold, not just in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan but among Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran. Pazira's voice is restrained, yet it seethes with indignation as she shows the religion practiced by her parents with mid-20th-century moderation transformed into an oppressive cult that forbade women to work, attend school, or even leave the house without a male escort. Westerners will cringe at the complacency of international aid organizations in Canada, where the Paziras found
5 Antonia Malchik, ‗The Perceptive Travel Blog‘
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asylum and Nelofer begged fruitlessly for condemnation of the regime. Foreigners for too long regarded the Taliban as an authentic expression of Afghan culture, a nonsensical idea vehemently refuted by the anguished letters of Nelofer's friend Dyana, trapped in Kabul.7
And looking at the facts as shown above, I contend that this book is interesting to examine due to the context and the presence of this book which is closely related with the situation in Afghanistan and the tragedy of September 11. Here, I propose to use autobiographical approach to answer the questions.
This study however departs from the existing studies on autobiography, for the example a study done by Alex Vernon8. In his study, Vernon uses the books or memoir written by Tim O‘Brien as the material object of the research. One of the works of O‘Brien used in Vernon‘s study is If I Die in Combat Zone in which
O‘Brien tells his narrative. Vernon examines the text with autobiographical approach, however, in here there is little bit distinction between autobiography and war narrative. Indeed, he still uses and applies the theory of autobiography in analyzing the book. According to Vernon, actually O‘Brien only tells his of story life when the
World War II begins and narrating how he is involved in the situation at the time in
United States and his engagement with the Vietnam War.
In line with his study concerning autobiographical text, Vernon proposes to apply Eakin's theory in autobiography, entitled How Our Live Become Stories:
7 Wendy Smith, ‗The Magazine AARP‘
21
Making Selves. Eakin proposes that ―the criterion of relationality" - which feminist criticism had applied to the woman's experience - "applies equally if not identically to male experience. All selfhood...is relational despite differences that fall out along gender lines"9
In short, Vernon remarks explicitly that this theory allows us to see the relationship and interdependent of a narrative with the author‘s life. And it always occurs that the author and the social group always seek the place for optimal comfort.
Not only that, in keeping with the autobiographical studies, Vernon also reminds us the importance of examining how individual is authoring their lives through a text.
Here, he observes that the author engages with ―the challenge of the actual, economic, and emotional independence, the idealism of the self‘s potential and the selfhood both against and within the terms or patterns established by the family and community.‖10
Moreover, the other things that have significant role in autobiographical study are gender of the language as proposed by Philip Caputo. Caputo reminds that ―in his own Vietnam memoir, war is about what war does to men as well as what men do in war - the gender of the language matters here, as does the fact that the soldier if of course done to by his own nation and military as well as by the enemy.‖11 On the other part of Vernon‘s work, as quoted in his paper, Laura Marcus also insists the similar thing dealing with memoir/autobiography, passive/active relationship as more
9 Ibid., p. 164. 10 Ibid., p. 165. 11 Idem.
22 than a convenient way of literary form. Or in other words, memoir/autobiography can be said as a statement about the ‗individual‘s power‘.
And further, concerning with the research which Vernon has conducted, he states that:
The story's first major indication of O'Brien effort to define himself along an autonomous/relational continuum involves his brief discussion of his prewar self, which feels almost like a gesture acknowledging the reader's expectation and curiosity. Often what matters most in a narrative is what the author omits, and in O'Brien's case his memoir's rather generic description of growing up in the Midwest as the child of the World War II generation settles for general context rather than detailed reflection.12
On the one hand, Vernon observes that O‘Brien has tried to fulfill readers‘ expectation and curiosity through his work. On the other hand, Vernon also shows how O‘Brien work has become a means of acknowledging and resisting the war.
Vernon states that:
Writing for O'Brien will also become a means of acknowledging and resisting the war's overdetermining role in his life; he has said in interviews that the war's made him as a writer, but also that his writing is rarely about war. It just uses war, the subject he knows, to explore universal human concern. In term of autonomy, then, writing about the war allows O'Brien a measure of control over it; he decides what he tells, and how.13
And the important thing that also has been revealed in O‘Brien‘s work, according to
Vernon is as follows:
O'Brien most decidedly turns from an I focus to a we focus, and the Vietnam sections of the book, with the exception of O'Brien's discourse on the nature of courage, convey the sense of O'Brien relating the collective experience - here's what happened to us (a strategy that conveniently lends the authority of the group to this memoir's few diatribes against the war and how it was waged). Yet O'Brien limits his concern and affection to the collective group, describing rare moments, incidents, and
12 Ibid., p. 166. 13 Ibid., p. 170.
23
conversations with particular other soldiers matter-of-factly, without emotional commentary (which is at least more positive than his description of the trainee herd).14
In here, Vernon‘s study has obviously described a strong relationship between authoring which is used by O‘Brien as space to define himself to fulfill readers‘ expectation with the context or situation that has forced and in fact has made him as the writer. Finally, Vernon also reveals that O‘Brien‘s work actually has moved from the ‗I‘ focus to the ‗We‘ focus. It means that O‘Brien tries to accommodate collective experiences as part of his own narrating. This is to say that there is a will of self- acknowledgement throughout the text.
Therefore, autobiographical studies are difficult to be separated with the context, situation and the author. Thus, in autobiographical studies, the author does not enunciate for his/her self more, but instead, it is able to produce a new story when the other people ‗speak‘ for the author. In this case, Spender in Iswalono‘s work states that ―in literature, the autobiographical is transformed. It is no longer the writer‘s experience: it becomes everyone‘s.‖15
The other scholar who also conducts research for her doctorate dissertation in analyzing the literary pieces using the narrative in autobiography is Anu Hirsiho. This doctorate dissertation16 is done in the Political Science, but since the writer uses intertextuality approach for her three autobiographical stories as her object material,
14 Ibid., p. 171. 15 Sugi Iswalono, ‗Half-Caste Aborigines: Innocent Victims in Australian History‘, Phenomena, Vol. 6, No.1, June 2002, p. 29. 16 Anu Hirsiho, A Dissertation of PhD program in Department of Political Science and International Relations in University of Tampere Finland entitled Politic of Memory and Emotions in Pakistani Women’s Life-Writing
24 her research is useful and can be utilized partly for this present literary research, especially when she reveals the literary elements in the research. She proposes herein what the French feminist Helen Cixous has said that ―All biographies like all autobiographies like all narrative tell one story in place of another story.‖17 Hirsiho in her proposition also conveys that autobiography is ―always imaginary and fictional inasmuch as our memories are as a retrospective pastiche of chaotic flashes from a past that can never be rendered in a precise form.‖18
Further, she asserts that ―writing an autobiographical narrative is always an act of power: it re-defines relation between the writer and her social circle interferes as temporally fixed text in the flow of events, leaving a steady sign, a trace, a capsulated memory.‖19 Thus, according to Hirsiho, autobiographical narratives always produce other story based on the author‘s imagination as an act of power in relation with her/his society. Based on this statement, I contend that autobiographical narrative or autobiographical novel is always a repetition of narratives based on memory. This memory cannot be denied by the author, hence her inclination to narrate this by giving a chance or space to negate the influence of ‗social relationship‘, because of strictly focus on the author self.
From these two studies, I remark that these studies focus to use autobiographical studies using the point of view of authoring and are closely related with the act of power (self defense mechanism) combined with universal human
17 Ibid., p. 100. 18 Idem. 19 Ibid., p. 104.
25 concern. Therefore, departing from these two studies, I propose the similar study, which concerns with the authoring and the self defense mechanism of the author.
However, this study does not focus on the issues of war, otherwise, this study more concerns to reveal how the author of autobiographical novel uses ‗discourse of Islam‘ as part of her narration. Hopefully, this study will enrich researches in using autobiographical studies particularly in literary research as well.
Furthermore, Lacan states ―language is the condition for the unconscious, that it creates and gives rise to the unconscious.‖20 Therefore, everyone can tell and writes many stories without being perceived that they have trapped in their unconsciousness.
And it always opens the chance to abolish ‗social‘ influences that actually has significant role as part of the author‘s life.
And in line with this present study, Pazira unconsciously has tried to negate the role of society. She says that mullahs as religion leaders and the elders are those who are not armed with the knowledge of politics. On the contrary, Pazira‘s portrayal of mullah is different with Ahmed‘s opinion. As one of the scholars who prominently working in Islam and Afghanistan, in his paper he asserts that:
The historical reality is that power in Afghanistan has almost always operated through a negotiation between the central authority and local power-holders – and tensions between these two levels have existed for as long as there has been a state. Even the Taliban, which exerted a greater measure of central control than its immediate predecessors, was forced to negotiate with local elites and accept a degree of local autonomy. 21
20 Madan Sarup, Post Structuralism and Postmodernism (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988), p. 11. 21 Faiz Ahmed, ―Afghanistan Reconstruction, Five Years Later‖, p. 288. (www.gonzagajil.org/pdf/volume10/Ahmed/Ahmed.pdf) published 2007.
26
At the outset, this study has assumed that there is something hidden in the autobiographical novel of Pazira. And in line with what Ahmed has been said above, it seems that Pazira does not concern to say about the power sharing between the local people or those who are called as religious man or Mullah. To her, it is not important to be known. To my opinion, such kind of mistake can be considered unconsciously or consciously that the author has hidden and denounced the role of the Mullah in Afghanistan. Therefore, this study will elaborate how the author actually shows ‗herself‘ as part of the story without considering the presence of social community. And what behind the background of her narration will be discussed in the next chapter.
B. Review of Related Theories
Three theories are used in analyzing the formal object of this study. First is proposed by Jacques Lacan and known as the four discourses of Lacan. And the second tool of analysis is postcolonial theory to read the characters. Finally, theories of Islam are used to compare the discourse of Islam within the text A Bed of Red
Flowers.
In psychoanalysis theory, ‗discourse‘ always appears in mind before something happens or even when people see something. Thus, people always tend to live with the discourse, otherwise the discourse is not the intact or the whole. Lacan asserts that there are four things that influence to make a discourse becoming a whole,
27 namely agent, truth, other, and product/loss. And the result of interaction among all these elements will generate four discourses.
Furthermore, in the Lacanian perspective, there are also four symbol which are used to introduce the four discourses namely super signifier (S1), signifying chain
(S2), the divided subject ($), and object desire (a). The relationship all of these symbols, finally produce each discourse according to their function. The first is the discourse of master, the second is the discourse of university, the third is the discourse of hysteric and the fourth is the discourse of analyst.
Moreover, the relationship between one and the other discourses will be presented below and it is quoted from McMahon‘s article entitled Hysterical
Academies: Lacan's Theory of the Four Discourses22, as follows:
1. S1/$ > S2/a: discourse of the master: tyranny of the all knowing and exclusion of fantasy: primacy to the signifier (S1), retreat of subjectivity beneath its bar ($), producing its knowledge as object (S2), which stands over and against the lost object of desire (a);
2. The discourse of the University, on the other hand, is more subtle, more pervasive, and conceals egotism and personal "empire building" far more effectively. S2/S1 > a/$: discourse of the university: knowledge in the place of the master; primacy to discourse itself constituted as knowledge (S2) [sound familiar?- ed], over the signifier as such (S1), producing knowledge as the ultimate object of desire (a), over and against any question of the subject ($);
3. Once again, the discourse of hysteria is completely different. It is crazy and utopian - even when suicidal: $/a > S1/S2: discourse of the hysteric: the question of subjectivity; primacy to the division of the subject ($), over his or her fantasy (a), producing the symptom in the place of knowledge (S1), related to but divided from the signifying chain which supports it (S2);
4. This is where the role of the Analyst begins: a/S2 > $/S1: discourse of the analyst: the question of desire; primacy to the object of desire (a), over and against knowledge as such (S2), producing the subject in its division ($) (a > $ as
22 See, Christopher Robert McMahon, ―Hysterical Academies: Lacan's Theory of the Four Discourse‖
28
the very form of fantasy), over the signifier through which it is constituted and from which it is divided. ...Hence Lacan's description of psychoanalysis as the "hysterisation of discourse" ... Lacan therefore poses analysis against mastery, hysteria against knowing.
Having discussed the four discourses of Lacan, however, this study needs to contextualize the theory further with the formal object of the study, that is, the discourse of Islam. The research intends to see to what extent this theory can be applied to help readers discovering the author‘s ‗interest‘ when she writes this book.
And in addition, this theory can reveal the reason behind the author‘s background to write and accommodates these particular issues that have been exposed by the author within the text and had influenced readers‘ mind when they read it.
This study is to see the relationship between discourses of Islam with the author‘s life as interdependent elements in literary research. Thus, this study seeks to analyze this autobiographical novel departing from the elements of psychoanalysis.
Generally, in theory of psychoanalysis, there are three elements in human psyche namely, imaginary order, symbolic order and real order.
Furthermore, Lacan23 also states that imaginary order is feeling that brings people to perceive safe and delight in the presence of the mother. On the contrary, symbolic order refers to the representation of cultural norms and laws from the presence of the father. And the last, real order symbolizes that all person is not whole or in other words, there is unconsciousness in her/his self. These elements are very important because from this viewpoint it can be clearly seen the main reasons why
23 Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, A User Friendly Guide (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 27- 32.
29 the author of A Bed of Red Flowers shapes the discourse of Islam as depicted in the novel when she narrated her story.
It can be assumed that there are three factors that push the author, in this case
Pazira, in writing her novel. The narratives deal with the symptom of trauma of the author, the author‘s life experience in her family, and the conditioning of life in the western country. All these factors are strictly perceived within the text or as known as tone of the novel and these things appear due to the real situation that she has been experienced in her life time. She perhaps wants to show her personal intention in the discourse of Islam through her narration. Thus, this research contends that it is too difficult for the author of the novel to avoid such matter above in regarding with the issues in the novel because she has already experienced injustice treatment in the
‗world‘ of Islam where she belongs to.
Accordingly, the experiences of the author are able to be used and categorized as the similar experience as well as the local people in Afghanistan. And in other words, actually what the author narrates in her narrating is a kind of symptom of her trauma. And it emerges unconsciously toward the author self or it is like the ‗dark side‘ of the author which she tries to conceal in her narratives. All symptoms appeared in the novel will be revealed by using the theory of Lacan, in which this study will seek the other sources that can explain what condition actually behind the author in this kind of situation.
And concerning with the discourse of Islam as Pazira described within the text, it is built based on the foundation of the author experiences (ready made) where she has encountered with such condition of Islam. She then tried to impose her
30 understanding toward the readers as part of her memory when living in Afghanistan.
At the same time, the author also has re-produced new cultural experience about the
‗world‘ of Islam since she had been living in Canada. In this occasion, it can be said that she has transferred the spirit of Muslim life in Canada (read: master) where she belongs to as a newcomer. What the author did is in line with what Lacan has stated above, showing that Pazira is not a ‗whole‘. She strives to remove her burden in which she had experienced for relatively long time upon the situation in Afghanistan.
Dealing with such condition of life, Bressler asserts:
Like Freud, Lacan believes that the unconscious greatly affects our conscious behavior.[…] Lacan asserts that the unconscious is structured, much like the structure of language. And like language, this highly structured part of the human psyche can be systematically analyzed. […] is that all individuals are fragmented: No one is whole.24
Again, through that point of view, we can see that author may practice what Lacan calls the unconsciousness in her life. And such author is actually nothing without the presence of ‗event‘ in the society and becomes the member or part of the society. In literature, it is well known as social production of art because there is strong relationship between text, context, author, reader and even publisher.
In accordance with this study, the researcher tries to thread all the elements above along with the life of Nelofer Pazira as the author of A Bed of Red Flowers in which she always inclines to generate or reproduces her narrative to seek the wholeness of her life with the social community in Afghanistan. Or in the other words, she actually speaks in her unconsciousness within her self. In here, the tone of
24 Charles E. Bressler, Literary Criticism (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1994), p. 156.
31 her narrating is perceived comparing the social condition with her life experiences.
This way of narrating in the views of Lacanian theory, is called as an act to seek the completeness. Lacan states ―that no one can achieve wholeness, for we are all and will always remain fragmented individuals who are seeking completeness.‖25
Similarly, Pope also states that ―for Lacan, the subject entry into language is the primary condition for the perception of difference.‖26 Thus, the element of wholeness, completeness and perception of difference of the author will very difficult to be separated also from the text. And these statements have been insisted by Lacan when says ―we are never going to get a stable image. We try to interpret our relation to others but there is always the possibility of misinterpretation. There is always a gap, a misrecognition.‖27 Through this kind perspective, I underlay this research to scrutinize the text of A Bed of Red Flowers.
In accordance with the Lacan‘s statement above, Pope also asserts that ―words are therefore a primary means of both expression and repression. They allow us to say and see certain things but at the same time to prompt us to ignore or fail to recognize others.‖28 Here, it is obvious that Pope wants to remind the readers that there is crucial thing which is deliberately conveyed by the author through the messages within the text and sometimes it prompts the reader to be trapped to follow the author own understanding as the ‗truth‘.
25 Ibid., p. 160. 26 Rob Pope, The English Studies Book: An introduction to language, literature and culture (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 96. 27 Madan Sarup, Post Structuralism and Postmodernism. (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988), p. 15. 28 Pope, p. 96.
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Returning to the formal object of the research that is the discourse of Islam, it is seen through the point of view of the author when she narrated her autobiographical novel, she prompts the readers as well. And based on the theory of psychoanalysis, the act of narrating testifies that there are possibilities the tracing of the past experience from Pazira in order to fulfill her unconscious desire. However, as mentioned earlier, to reach the accuracy in interpreting and analyzing the novel, it is still necessary to combine the theory with the other related theories to accomplish the research goals. This will help to show the reliable evidences toward the possibilities of unconscious desire of the author that is perceived also in the text. Therefore, I used elements of psychoanalytic approach like psychobiography, characterization analysis, and archetypal to explore the object material of the research.
In relation with the three approaches above, Bressler29 states that psychobiography always relates with amassing of biographical data in which the data is deemed related with the author life, whereas the characters analysis is still focussed on the way of the author presents the characterization in the text. And archetypal in his explanation is about the symbolization, the clues and sometimes the using of sign within the text. In using the approaches, this research contends that there will be many interpretation of the text even though people read the same literary pieces.
Indeed, the result of interpretation is very different to each other due to every people has repertoire or mindset to interpret literary work as well.
29 Bressler, p. 161.
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In short, the ‗truth‘ as described in the text according to the author‘s perspective can be read as something which is still necessary to be questioned. This remaining question because usually for certain people when they read a story, there always appear in their mind that the author also has her/his ‗dark side‘ of life, especially when the work is in the form of autobiographical narratives. In other words, the authors may often ‗deceit‘ when they conceal the truth by telling us their own ‗truth‘.
Therefore, the importance of re-reading a text to discover the elements behind the narrative is necessary, and psychoanalytical approaches will always see the text as a discourse: the acting of the self (the author) becomes a social subject, and this is also as strategy for the author to enroll social communities as well. Here, the author who tells and writes his/her own story or narrative (auto-biographical novel) is not his/her self but there is something or reason to make them to write. And it is closely related with the term of unconsciousness. Lacan calls the ―unconscious is a hidden structure which resembles that of language.‖30
Using this theory to scrutinize A Bed of Red Flowers, my contention is that the autobiographical novel is a narration of the life experience of Nelofer Pazira. And understanding of this dynamical reading and writing of autobiographical novel is important. The act of re-reading of literary text is a kind of approach that will help the readers to broad his/her experience toward reading literary pieces. As Pope states that
―the study of literature is fundamentally ethical as well as aesthetic; that it cultivates a
30 Sarup, p. 9.
34 sense of imaginative tolerance, a capacity to see many points of view; reading ‗opens up horizons‘ and ‗broadens the mind.‖31
Furthermore, in relation to the act of reading, another important theory to achieve the purpose of the study is postcolonial studies. However, before going further to discuss this theory, I want to start my discussion with the brief information about Orientalism as an approach proposed by Edward Said32. This literary approach emerges to criticize western point of view about the Orient‘s life which is underlaid on the stereotype and ‗desire‘ to conquer the area. Yet, this theory has evoked radically shifting of concept in literature realm to see western and eastern life. And through this approach also the theory of postcolonial is born to see the situation in deeply insight and understanding.
In here, postcolonial theory does not want to see the gap or the domination of the Western country upon the Eastern country (Islamic countries), indeed, more than that. Dealing with this case, I agree with the work of Bertens. He says:
Postcolonial theory and criticism radically questions the aggressively expansionist imperialism of the colonizing powers and in particular the system of values that supported imperialism and that it sees as still dominant within the Western world. It studies the process and the effects of cultural displacement and the ways in which the displaced have culturally defended themselves.33
In this research, I am also curious to see the process and effect of cultural displacement upon the work of Pazira particularly concerning with her life. The cultural displacement that I mean is an act of mimicry or mocking the colonial style.
31 Pope, p. 156. 32 See, Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Pinguin, 1977), pp. 1-5. 33 Hans Bertens, Literary Theory The Basic (London & NewYork: Routledge, 2001), p. 199.
35
It is also called the binary opposition. And along with the situation of Pazira‘s life, I want to see the things in order to understand her ‗position‘ upon her work.
Again, postcolonial theory has been born to the reader as a result of diverse way of seeing and solving the problem. In here, it is not only the concept of West and
East, but the traces of colonial itself. This theory actually encompasses all the traces of colonizing which is left by the colonizer such as the changing of ideology, socio- political situation, culture or custom and even the changing of religious values. Thus, this theory has become popular to the scholar due to the comprehensively use.
However, this theory more concerns with the oppressed or the colonized life.
Departing from the perspective of postcolonial theory above, I also analyze certain characters in the novel to fit with the discussion on the discourse of Islam. It is important for the readers to see critically the work of Pazira in her way of narrating. in which she ‗represents‘ the characters to fit her ‗discourse of Islam‘. Then she also consents and convinces toward the characters. And by this kind of narration which tends to present and push the ‗truth‘ of the author based on her former experience, something needs to be scrutinized to get better comprehension about the ‗characters‘ in question. These findings will give evidence how actually Pazira, to some extent, has been trapped consciously and unconsciously to her own narrative.
Similar situation to what Pazira has been revealed in her book, I propose what
Spivak has stated in her seminal postcolonial essay, ―Can the subaltern speak?‖34
Spivak insists that it is very difficult ‗to represent or to speak for‘ the oppressed.
34 See, Stephen Morton, Gayatri Spivak, Ethics, Subalternity and the Critique of Postcolonial Reason (London: Polity Press, 2007), p.106.
36
‗Representation‘ relates with two meanings, namely, ‗giving a voice‘ and ‗elaborating the conditions of possibility for a new idiom in which the oppressed can speak and be heard‘, otherwise re-presentation is just to show without care for the meaning or meaningless, depending on the reader. Within this perspective, the aim of Pazira‘s work whether she disposes herself as representation or re-presentation of her desire can be better seen. And then, the way of representing can categorized as kind of print- capitalism as ―the embryo of the nationally imagined community.‖35
Further, still in analyzing the characters in this autobiographical novel, I consent to use only the major characters. The main characters include those who mostly involve in the whole narrating, particularly with the certain events in the narration. Here, I only took few of the characters considered having strong relationship with the discourse of Islam.
Finally, the use of theories of Islam in the Middle East is intended to highlight the ‗world of Islam‘ in Afghanistan and its surrounding countries with the least influences or intervention of the western countries36. Such is useful to compare the life of people in Afghanistan before the United States‘ invasion with the life of the people depicted in A Bed of Red Flowers.
35 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Community (London & New York: Verso, 1991), p. 44. 36 See, Andrew Wegener, A Complex Changing and Dynamic, Afghan Responses to Foreign Intervention 1878 -2006 (Canberra: Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2007), pp. 21-28.
37
To mention briefly here, according to Mendoza37 in her paper entitled ―Islam and Islamism in Afghanistan‖, there are several kinds of Islam that spread in
Afghanistan before the invasion of the western countries. She states that Islam in
Afghanistan is closely related with Islam in Pakistan and the area nearby. However,
Islam in Afghanistan is fruitful and succeeds to multiply and grow into various kinds of Islam i.e. Popular Islam, Islam in the Tribal context, Textual Islam of the Ulama,
Sufism, Reformist Fundamentalism (Deobandism and Wahhabism), Shi‘ism and Pan
Islamism. Therefore, it is within these perspectives of Islam that I examine the discourse of Islam in A Bed of Red Flowers.
C. Theoretical Framework
I borrowed four discourses theory of Lacan as the main theory to interpret and analyzing the data gathered from the text being the primary source. However, I used part of the discourses that have been considered suitable with the purpose of the research. The use of this theory here is hardly to disclose the content of the novel, but simply to reveal how the author has posited herself in her narration as form of her imagination on Islam in Islamic country. Through the author‘s way of narrating, it can be seen how the four discourses theory proposed by Lacan consciously or unconsciously is applied in the narrative. This is to say that the author of the novel has personal intention toward the publication of this book. And this research contends
37 Kristin Mendoza, ―Islam and Islamism‖ (2002)
38 that the author of the novel wants to force her own understanding or ideology to convince the readers about her narration.
Despite the theory of four discourses of Lacan, time will be spent here to discuss about the world of Islam in Afghanistan at the time set in the writing of the novel up to the recent time. When exploring the world of Islam in Afghanistan, I hereby applied historiographical approach, to see which part of the narration is closely related with the history of Afghanistan. Therefore, the theories of Islam are useful to analyze any doubt about A Bed of Red Flowers.
Next, it is also important to see this autobiographical novel in line with the perspective of postcolonial theory, because the author of the book tries to represent her Islam through certain characters portrayed in the text. And it can be said also that the characters have profiled the perspective of Islam merely based on the author‘s understanding. Thus, the ‗text‘ cannot be read as an ordinary text but vice versa. It will be reckoned as an act of articulating of the author as a way to speak for the
Other.
As such, in postcolonial perspective, liberal Islam way of life can be read as kind of understanding to portray Islam in colonial manner particularly in this recent time. The approaches to touch the Islamic countries through liberal way of thinking and western humanitarian activities are seen as part of neo-colonialism. In this matter, western countries cannot conceal that they have hidden agenda within their involvement to campaign liberal Islamic movement. Therefore, to scrutinize the postcolonial theory proposed by Spivak is put into use.
39
CHAPTER III MASTER DISCOURSE OF ISLAM AS TOLD IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS
Dealing with the question of the research, this chapter will outline the discourse of Islam in A Bed of Red Flowers. I divide this chapter into two sub- chapters. In the first sub-chapter I discuss three models of Islam depicted by the author within the text, i.e. traditional Islam, liberal Islam and fundamental Islam.
Then, in the second sub-chapter I will show how the author uses the vernacular language of Afghanistan in order to impose the taste of her Islam. And the juxtaposition of these two sub-chapters has covered the important elements in the novel namely characters and the terms that have been used within the text. It is my contention that when discussing the discourse of Islam in Afghanistan, the author herself is the proper representation.
Furthermore, in this chapter, I present the foundation of liberal Islam in
Afghanistan in short explanation, in order to help the reader with the novel‘s context, i.e. Afghanistan before and after Taliban‘s regime. In so doing, I present brief discussion about traditional Islam based on the historical context and how this Islam exists and grows in Afghanistan. And lastly, I also outline and take note of how
Islamic fundamentalism is recognized after the Taliban‘s regime has managed to endure and even survived to govern in Afghanistan at the end of Soviet‘s invasion.
Nevertheless, time will be spent to retell briefly the important point of this novel to begin the discussion in this chapter, in order to assist the non-specialist readers.
40
Published in 2005, A Bed of Red Flowers has proliferated among the readers particularly in the western countries as a response to the September 11 tragedy in the
United States. This novel, however, does not deal with the situation in the United
States after the bombing incident. It deals instead with the circumstances of
Afghanistan after the United States Army‘s invasion of this land. This autobiographical novel merely is based on the author‘s perspectives after her successful acts in the film entitled Kandahar. The way of presenting this story is to fully narrate the experiences of life of the author before she and her family left
Afghanistan during the coup between the Taliban‘s militia forces and the Soviet‘s
Army.
It should be remembered in the beginning that this novel is not written in the conflict area in Afghanistan or even in concomitance with the time of conflict since the United States Army and its Allies‘ occupy the land of Afghanistan, otherwise, it was written a few years after the US‘s Army succeeded invading this country and replaced the Taliban‘s government. This is important to be known for further discussion in order to have proper understanding of this book; what behind the author was or what kind of background the author has when she told this story. Thus, we can feel the tone of this narrative from different angles.
Yet, the author writes this narrative relatively in better situation whether in
Canada or in Afghanistan as well. Most parts of the story are colored with the tragic life of humankind under high tension of conflict. It means that what the author conveys in her story, all engages with her memory of life. Accordingly, what Pazira does through this story is perceived to remedy her symptom of trauma about her
41 childhood where the condition of life forces her to reconcile with the circumstances in
Afghanistan at that time. Agony to live in Afghanistan during the time of war is felt as coloring the process of narrating. In short, this novel is to reveal and share the experience of life under conflict and to some extent, showing people‘s condition under fundamental regime.
It looks like that the author deliberately wrote this story upon the factual condition and situation of her former country of Afghanistan, after the United States‘ invasion where the condition became worse and worse. And then, the presence of this story has mystified the readers to understand the situation of Afghanistan before and after the US‘s invasion. In fact, to some extent, this narrative tends to support what the United States had decided when they invaded this country. This is shown by the author‘s objection toward the Taliban reign, although to some extent the author repudiates the decision of conquering this land by the US‘s Army.
However, as consequence, this kind of narrative has been echoing
‗misconception‘38 about the issues of discourse of Islam in the international readers particularly for those who belong to western countries in which most readers are eager to know the world of Islam in the Middle East due to the issues of terrorism up to this day. Unfortunately, the curiosity is not based on the appropriate understanding.
And rather, it has been framed based on the readers‘ stereotype.
One significant aspect that should be remembered when reading this story is the elements of authoring. Talking about this element is directly addressed to the
38 Akbar S. Ahmed, Islam Today: A short Introduction to the Muslim World (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2001), p. 216.
42 author self in which since she has left Afghanistan and actually she never experiences or even understands the actual problem that emerges in the country, before and after the falling of Taliban‘s regime. Since her arrival in Canada, Pazira‘s family has lived and settled in this country as permanent citizen without experiencing more difficult situation as in Afghanistan in the former time.
The changing circumstances in Pazira‘s new environment have influenced her way of living as well as her ideology. In this new country, she experiences many things that have changed her understanding about Canada‘s socio-political situation, and also about life that have all shaped Pazira herself. Thus, when departing from the unrest and the backward country to come to the peaceful country of Canada, her ideology changes and even firmly reverses her way of seeing the ‗world of Islam‘.
Her new understanding then is likely on part with the western people‘s way of seeing
Islam.
A. Variety of Islam
Pazira in this novel tries to picture her understanding about the discourse of
Islam in Afghanistan at the time before her leaving this country. Indeed, this discourse of Islam has influenced her life very well. According to her story as narrated in the text, I grasp and conclude that there are three kinds of Islam she conveys through her narration namely traditional Islam, liberal Islam and fundamental Islam.
43
On the contrary, according to the context and situation in Afghanistan up to this recent time, there are several kinds of Islam which have spread and developed in
Afghanistan since this nation was established. Mendoza in her paper entitled ―Islam and Islamism in Afghanistan‖ describes that there are at least seven models39 of Islam in Afghanistan i.e. Popular Islam, Islam in the Tribal Context, Textual Islam of the
Ulama, Sufism, Reformist Fundamentalism (Deobandism and Wahhabism), Shi‘ism and Pan Islamism. All these models of Islam have been recognized in Afghanistan before and after the falling of Taliban regime. Therefore the development groups of
Islam in this place are different with the other Islamic countries in the world.
Furthermore, factor of history which posits this country as the country without experiences any period of colonization, has made the area of this country becoming
‗fertile land‘ for the development kind groups of Islam.
Nonetheless, with regard to Pazira‘s point of view, I contend that she tries to confine the discourse of Islam in the three models of Islam consciously or unconsciously in order to get easy understanding the context and situation in
Afghanistan at that time. However, simplifying Islam in this three models is deliberately done to cover and hide the other ‗contexts‘ or ‗information‘ about the existence of Islamic groups in Afghanistan. And this is very important to be discussed.
38 Mendoza, pp. 1-19.
44
1. Traditional Islam
As mentioned previously, background of Afghanistan is important to get proper understanding about Islam in this place. Afghanistan is a country where Islam has become the religion of the majority. However, the development of Islam in
Afghanistan is very different with most Islamic countries in the world. In
Afghanistan, history has noticed that Islam in this place is influenced by Buddhism40 because this land was once conquered and allotted in two areas of kingdoms, namely,
Gandhara and Bactria. These two kingdoms have remained the traces of Buddhism in this place. Beside the influences of Buddhism, Islam in Afghanistan also has unique characteristics in which it has strongly relationship with Islam in the Middle
East particularly in Iran where Afghanistan peoples mostly become followers of the
Sunnite group, while Shiite group is the religion of the minority.
Generally speaking, all these aspects have formed and become the foundation to establish or even coloring the traditional Islam in this land. This is to say that the characteristics of traditional Islam in Afghanistan are quite different with Islam in other part of the world. To some scholars traditional Islam is closely related with what they call ‗pre-Islamist‘ or well known with the term of ‗popular Islam‘.
Mendoza is one of the scholars who use the term of ‗popular Islam‘ in which this term refers to ―the way in which the religion structures everyday life, inhabits
40 Alexander Berzin, ―Historical Sketch of Buddhism and Islam in Afghanistan‖
45 language, makes experiences meaningful, and augments a cultural identity; it does not denote local variations of Islamic doctrine, however diluted they may be by pre-
Islamic beliefs and customs.‖ 41 Nevertheless, this ‗popular Islam‘ according to her is also upholding universal understanding of Islam in the world where Islam as a system that enjoins good and social justice. Further, she adds that popular Islam in
Afghanistan also includes ―Islam in the villages‖. This explanation allows us to think that the proliferating traditional Islam in Afghanistan dominates the rural areas of this land.
Mendoza also discloses that there are groups of Islam in Afghanistan which are categorized as traditional Islam i.e. Islam Salaffiya and Wahhabism. However, to some prominent scholars, Islam Salaffiya is often resembled with Wahhabism. Both of these groups are very unique because in its doctrine, to some extent they acquiesce with modernism. Along with what Mendoza has enunciated about Salaffiya,
Kirmanj42 also asserts that Salaffiya is a call for returning to the ‗true Islam‘ in which to follow the life of first generation of Muslim, and this movement emerged in the twentieth century. According to Kirmanj, Salaffiya promotes the life of salaf
(ancestors) that returns to the authority of tradition and this movement belongs to
Sunnite group. Thus, Salaffiya is a group of Islam which is still categorized as traditional Islam as well.
41 Mendoza, p. 2. 42 Sherko Kirmanj, ―The Relationship between Traditional and Contemporary Islamist Political Thought‖ (2008), p.70
46
Moreover, Armanios43 in her paper also insists that Salaffiya is not only a group of Islam that tends to follow the life of ancestors or predecessors, but their followers should be back to the puritanical or orthodox Islam. This movement was established in the early twentieth century in order to respond to the political situation at the time. However, the development of this group is awesome due to its progressive spread all over the world.
In Indonesia, to compare with, Salaffiya is well known as groups that belong to the minority and it is also categorized as modern Islamic movement44, although there were historical notes that this group had established in the past time particularly in the area of Sumatera. Salaffiya to ordinary people is also known as group that promotes fundamental principle upon their followers. In the beginning, the awakening of this group in Indonesia becomes a warm discussion due to the political situation at the time. And due to the reason of edifying the nation‘s returns to the puritanical Islam, this movement had influenced many groups of Islam, for instance the movement of Muhamadiyah, PERSIS and Al Irsyad45.
However, in this recent time, one of the famous groups that belongs to
Salaffiya in Indonesia is Laskar Jihad. This group is established in 1999 and is well known with Jafar Umar Thalib as the founder of this group. He promotes this Islam to
43 Febe Armanios, ―The Islamic Traditions of Wahhabism and Salafiyya‖ (2003), p. 3.
47 return to the life of salaf as Salaffiya in general. Unfortunately, this group is disbanded in 2002 without any obvious reason, several years after their participation and straight involvement in various conflicts in the rural areas of Indonesia with the issues of religious conflict.
Nevertheless, Salaffiya in Indonesia have the same problem or disputes with
Salaffiya movements in the other parts of the world in which it is influenced by their principles i.e. Yamani and Haraki. Yamani is extreme, otherwise Haraki is moderate.
And due to the different principles these two groups of Islam are separate with each other in running their movement.
Dealing with the material object of the research, the author in her narration concerning with Islam in Afghanistan, however, is only simplifying the variety of
Islam into two large groups i.e. Sunni and Shi‘a. Pazira also tends to resemble that the development of Islam in Afghanistan is almost the same with the Muslim life in
Pakistan and Iran in which she reasons that Islam in Afghanistan is dominated by
Sunnite followers. Besides simplifying groups of Islam in Afghanistan, she also outlines how Islam is greatly influenced by social tribes. According to her, the tribes that lived and dwelled in Afghanistan are divided into three groups, namely, Pushtun,
Tajik, and Qizilbash. Either Pushtun or Tajik is categorized as the follower of Sunnite group. Otherwise, Qizilbash is categorized or belongs to Shiite group in which the author belongs to.
Nevertheless, as in Pakistan and Iran, the followers of Sunnite group dominate
Afghanistan either in religious activities or governmental affairs. Therefore, the disputes between these two groups of Islam in Afghanistan cannot be avoided as well
48 as in Pakistan and Iran. Sunnite follower inclines to negate the Shiite tradition because they think it is not suitable with the Islamic values. Since Afghanistan is governed by Sunnite group, they refused to acknowledge and even banned the activities of Shiite group with great oppression. Due to the reason of history, the author narrates that since her father was living in Afghanistan, the same story was always retold and reproduced to them. She narrates:
My father grew up with stories of Chindawal‘s oppression. Early preachers of the Shia faith encouraged people to practice taqiya (concealment), which meant they could deny their religion if they feared persecution. At the start of the twentieth century, government agents and spies roamed Chindawal. One day during the month of Muharram, so the story goes, the mayor of Kabul arrived in the area after hearing that, despite a government ban, Shias were still practicing their religion. […] They denied the existence of any takyee khona – their code of concealment allowed them to do so. […] ―We ruined your temple,‖ the mayor said triumphantly. ―To purify the place, we‘ve ordered a Sunni mosque to be built in its place, and a Sunni imam will make sure you pray properly.46
In her narration, Pazira enunciates that most disputes emerging in this country are triggered by the political intervention. The government of Afghanistan at that time which is part of the majority (Sunnite group), had been trying to removes Shiite tradition. Then, according to the author, members of Shiite group respond this kind of oppression with an act of concealment where many of them make their own ritual place inside their house as they call ‗house of prayer‘ and in the vernacular language they call this place as takyee khona. Regulation to abolish the existence of Shiite activities in Afghanistan is run due to confine this group with the reason once.
46 Nelofer Pazira, A Bed of Red Flower (New York: Free Press, 2005), pp. 31-32; All subsequent reference to this work, abbreviated BRF, will be used in this thesis with pagination only.
49
Thus, I grasp in Pazira‘s narration that the traditional Islam she has been trying to portray is the part of Shiite group due to the reason of traditional activities and the area of its spreading. I contend, nevertheless, that the messages from what
Pazira has outlined or narrated in her story implying frictions and clashes in Islam.
Thus, this portrayal life of Islam in the past time is a preface in order to describe the tragic life of certain people lived in Afghanistan. And her expectation through this kind of story, many readers will give attention and accede with the stereotype of western people about Islam in Afghanistan through media‘s reportage.
The narrator adds that the basic reason causing the disputes is actually based on the ritual equipment and the token of worshiping where most of traditional Islam followers have their own room or takyee khona. And this room get strictly objection from Sunnite group as the majority, because both of sunna and shari’a (Islamic laws) strictly prohibit this activity. The Sunnite group assumes that this room is perverting people to recognize the norms and values of Islam. And commonly, in Islamic countries or ‗world‘ of Islam this room also is unlawful.
Some families had their place of worship and rituals in the basement, or rooms that were built halfway into the ground. Others had a hidden door that led to the next house, an escape route in times of trouble, to secure the safety of the Shia preacher and his congregation if the authorities arrived to arrest them. My father‘s home had a room in the corner of the yard for worship and religious gatherings, called a takyee khona in Dari, meaning a house of prayer. Inside was the alam, a symbolic religious flag banner: a thick wooden stick wrapped and decorated with coloured fabrics, with a model of human hand in aluminum on the top. (BRF, 31)
In addition, Pazira deliberately places traditional Islam under pressure of Sunnite group as part of authoring in order to remind readers that in the outset, the use of physical force has existed in Afghanistan in which Shiite group as the minority
50 always becoming target and object of violence of the majority. Even though in her further narration, finally she acknowledges that after many leaders of Shi‘a involve in the political practice of Afghanistan, all the bad treatments to demean Shiite group finally have been abolished by the government at that time.
On the one hand, Pazira also tries to symbolize the traditional of Islamic life in Afghanistan and refers it to the name of the city in this place. Chindawal is the city of traditional Islam. This place is recognized as place to educate people using mind instead of strength. She asserts that ―Chindawalis are men of words rather than swords, and they like to wear this as a mark of distinction, something for which they are both admired and feared.‖ (BRF, 35) Instead of acknowledging that Afghanistan is recognized as the basic place of fundamentalist groups, Pazira tries to counter this presupposition by showing her truth.
On the other hand, through such kind information, however, she wants to reverse the condition of Afghanistan where she depicts Chindawal as the place of education. She expects that her targeted readers‘ particularly western readers will realize and hopefully understand that actually in Afghanistan, there is also group of
Islam which promotes peaceful life based on the local wisdom. Pazira campaigns this local wisdom to the western‘s readers where this book is published and launched.
And it aims to denote local wisdom of Afghanistan and at the same time, it is part of her objection toward ‗Islam‘.
Learning from what Pazira has conducted through her narration, I contend that this literary work in the Lacanian perspective can be categorized as university discourse. Here, the author creates another story to renew and even reshape readers‘
51 understanding about Islam in Afghanistan. Indeed, it is successful in drawing readers‘ attention and it is also producing ‗new‘ knowledge about this country. University discourse is always begun with the production of knowledge in which the readers of this book will be placed and hopefully gain something ‗new‘ based on what the author has explained particularly story about Afghanistan. And in line with the university discourse above, the readers will acquire understanding that traditional
Islam in Afghanistan has had local wisdom particularly self defense without violence at the time of Sunnite‘s oppression. This local wisdom is important because this issue has strongly relationship with issues of human rights which is campaigned by western people.
In the perspective of postcolonial studies, what Pazira had done, also shows her ambiguity toward the Afghanistan situation. On the one hand, she knows that she longs for this land, but on the other hand, she is angry upon the treatments that have been done by the Taliban‘s regime toward the people of Afghanistan as well as herself. In response to this kind of situation and her disappointment, she presents the life of traditional Islam intentionally in order to describe Afghanistan in different angle. And this is her basic point of view, to see Afghanistan based on her Islam understanding as modern Islam. She highlights the condition of this place as if it was in peaceful life condition to internalize the assumption or presupposition of the non-
Afghan (read: western people) toward the bad image of Islam in Afghanistan.
She intends to introduce values of Islam based on traditional Islamic life that lift up virtuousness as the foundation of this Islam. Thus, this exploration is useful to draw readers‘ interest to gaze Afghanistan as Islamic country in different point of
52 view. It is also done due to create counter discourse toward the domination of fundamental Islam in Afghanistan at the time of Taliban reign.
Furthermore, highlighting her father‘s background as the follower of traditional Islam is to corroborate that this group of Islam is more worthwhile than the other. Virtuousness, charity and humbleness become the main point of view of her narration. Historical background of her family is the keyword to promote the traditional life in Afghanistan in the past time.
It didn‘t make any difference to me which Afghan ethnic origin we adopted, but for my father, being a Qizilbash constituted a unique identity that reconfirmed his connection to his birthplace, Chindawal. […] For the rest of his life in Kabul, he returned each year at Muharram to his former family home, to their takyee khona, to make donations, to ask about neighbors and friends. (BRF, 35-36)
Then, to Pazira, spirit of Afghanistan ethnic group in which her family adopted, as Qizilbash tribe and it is well known with takyee khona in Chindawal, should be campaigned regularly. Indeed, this is a must. This is important to bridge the gap between Afghanistan as an Islamic country with western countries which is promoting justice and human values based on the contemporary way of life
(humanism). And what the author has conducted is a kind of exertion to eliminate and even reconcile western‘s people perspective to see Islam. In her opinion, although
Afghanistan cannot be separated from religious activities, however, people of
Afghanistan can help government to run fair governance. And it is not a theocracy as well. This expectation brings her to change and influence people‘s mind in
Afghanistan to consider her Islamic principle of life which is more constructed and addressed to have cooperation with western countries to build this nation.
53
The other things also portrayed in Pazira narration that can be used as clue to see her strong expectation toward the social life of Afghanistan, is the presence of mullah as religious leaders. She states:
They listened to the mullah, the religious leader in the community, who had spiritual but not political power. The mullah, however, was economically dependent on the few influential tribal leaders, who were in turn paid by the government for their service to the king. This cycle of reciprocity served the rulers and their acolytes rather than the poor and deprived. The closer Habibullah looked, the more he found fault with the government and its policies. (BRF, 48)
Dealing with the presence of mullah in Afghanistan, the author insists that this religious leader is too weak to help people to solve their problem. And instead of presenting the background of mullah in order to get proper understanding about the presence of mullah in Afghanistan and their roles, the author is prefer to criticize and even blame the intervention of Arabs and Pakistanis on political situation in this place concerning with mullah.
It was all the fault of the Arabs and Pakistanis, who took advantage of Mullah Omar‘s innocence and ignorance. Religious men – mullahs – do not have much political knowledge. Mullah Omar was not aware of the political agenda of the Arabs and Pakistanis. He thought they were sincere in helping the cause of Islam. (BRF, 337)
Seeing this sort of narration, it seems that Pazira wants the traditional religious leaders should have the ability or political knowledge background to counter or quench every kind of threats from the outsider due to the distinction of tribes and principle of life. Albeit, the threat that belongs to ‗Islamic countries‘ which she means the fundamental Islam. Again, this is an obvious clue which signifies that the author wants to uncover the weaknesses of the religious leaders for gaining attention to start improving this kind of situation. Hopefully, by doing such political education upon
54 religious leaders, they can eliminate the spirit of fundamentalism in the country in order to improve Afghanistan and build a better life condition.
Moreover, similar things also happen to the portrayal of situation in
Afghanistan as kind of university discourse in which the author lifts up a ‗new‘ discourse about the life of traditional Islam. The author explicitly showing her alignment in which she describes that traditional Islam is good Islam. This Islam has good attitude and reputation in their relationship and it overcomes many problems based on Pazira‘s experience. She narrates:
On the day of the next stage of his trial, Habibullah and his mother left the house at the same time. He headed down town, to the courthouse. Sobera walked to the Shrine for Sakhi, not far from home. Habibullah arrived in court wearing his best clothes, with his head full of arguments for his defence. His other arrived at the shrine‘s door with two small candles and many prayers. Court was called to order, the charges were read again and a fearful Habibullah took the stand. ―I‘m not guilty.‖ He heard those words echo across the courtroom. There was silence. Sobera lit the candles, said all her prayers but was afraid to go home. She sat huddled against the turquoise- tiled wall in a corner of the shrine, too weak to move, too sad to cry, too tired to fall asleep. She stared in silence at the clock above the donation box. Men, women and children passed her, all with their own requests to God. At midday, she finally worked up the courage to take a last turn around the holy flag banner. She kissed the copies of the Quran and made her way towards the door, repeating her prayers. All this she was to tell her son later. (BRF, 51-52)
Then, she conditions how the characters like her father and her grandma cope with the hardship of life. And through the portrayal of these two characters, traditional Islam can be seen as group of liberal Islam as well. But the spirit of this
Islam is more on the spirit of praying because prayer is ultimate. Traditional Islam followers believe everything in the hand of God because of their inabilities; the only one that they can do is to surrender their life to the most high, without spirit of violence as they have shown in their takyee khona.
55
Learning from what the author has been outlined in her narration, to my contention, traditional Islam on her understanding only focuses on the traditional
Shiite group. Pazira highlights the existence of this Islam merely based on the local wisdom issues. On the contrary, as mentioned previously, there is also traditional
Islam that is categorized as Sunnite group. This Islam also exalts the traditional
Islamic principle of life. And this Islam has spread in the rural areas of Afghanistan.
This traditional Islam is also well known in Afghanistan as Wahhabism or Salafiyya group. And then, according to some scholars, this group is very strong to uphold principle of traditional Islam and the brotherhood spirit. However, the awareness of modernism made this group uniquely and different with traditional Shiite Islam.
At a glance, these groups of Islam can be categorized as traditional Islam due to the principle of life and the area of spreading. There is a bit distinction between these two groups. One thing that makes the distinction among these two groups does not merely based on the categorization as Sunnite or Shiite group where these two groups belong to, but more on their ideology. It concerns with the ideology to oppose the existence of invader (western influences), as known as westernization toward their place.
On the contrary, in here Pazira is solely promoting the existence of traditional
Islamic life due to her experience or testimony. I believe that she has understood that there is traditional Islam which is also promoting traditional principle of Islam. This is deliberately done in order to cover the information. Salafifyya or Wahhabism is never been mentioned in the whole narration because this Islam is categorized as fundamental Islam. This Islam also shows their objection toward the presence of the
56
US‘s army in Afghanistan. The author does not make an obvious distinction toward these two traditional Islamic groups in order to assist the reader getting proper understanding, because of her objection toward the fundamentalist movement.
Thus, this kind of narration can be utilized to change the perspective of the readers to diminish their objection toward the existence of Afghanistan which is recognized as center of radical Islamic groups. Further, to my opinion, the author does not only reproduce a new ‗initiatives‘ (university discourse), but only repeats the ready made discourse about traditional Islam. Indeed, this kind of act can be categorized as master discourse as well. In other words, this study believes that this is a strategy for the author to enter and grab international attention upon this book.
Pazira attempts to invoke her Islam in order to empowering the issues of Islam in her narration and compete with the global issues of Islam in the world.
Therefore, I consider that Pazira has succeeded and triumphed over the other discourses of Islam which is trying to describe Islamic life in Afghanistan. And what
Pazira has conducted implicitly showing her insistence toward the ‗traditional Islam‘ in Afghanistan. She succeeds to produce this kind of charming as a weapon to overturn the circumstances of Afghanistan in the eyes of the readers.
Finally, dealing with what Lacan states in his theory about four discourses, I convince that this kind of narration is categorized as university discourse. To some extent, I can find that this narration can be parted of master discourse as well.
Nevertheless, this study believes that this narration is part of university discourse in which the author intentionally uses this work to win her opinion about the discourse of Islam in order to help solving the problem of Afghanistan people up to now.
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2. Liberal Islam
Generally speaking, many people tend to concur and delight with liberal
Islam. Liberal Islam in the eye of the people becomes more interesting and acceptable due to the campaigning of western media. The word of liberal Islam becomes their favor, in which they disclose that this Islam is duly expected to form the real world of
Islam based on the peaceful ideology. Thus, this Islam has attracted many people, due to the most activities of this group focus on the human relationship in which to uphold the spirit of egalitarian among human beings.
Furthermore, most of the issues of this group are similar to the issues of liberal movement in various religious faiths, such as, democracy, separating religion from political involvement, women rights and freedom of thought. And according to the historical background, liberal Islam is a response toward the political situation at the time. Kurzman47 states that liberalism in Islamic countries and liberalism in the
West is able to share common elements. But both of these movements are very different. According to Kurzman, there are three tropes of liberal Islam, i.e. liberal shari‘a, the silent shari‘a, and the interpreted shari‘a48. However, the term of liberal shari‘a is more appropriate than the other because it explains that the revelation of the
Quran and the practices of the Prophet command Muslim to follow liberal position.
And further, there are three factors that influence the emerging of this movement,
47 See, Charles Kurzman, Liberal Islam: ―Prospects and Challenges‖
58 namely, the increasing of advanced education, the increasing of international communication and the last is the failure of Islamic regime49.
Thus, the establishment of liberal Islam in Islamic countries is different from one another. Nevertheless, the presence of liberal Islam in Islamic countries will have the same gist of spirit, i.e. spirit of understanding and tolerance with multi – religious faith. It means that this group accedes with pluralism. Many scholars believe that the emerging of liberal Islam in the twentieth century is a response of the falling of
Islamic regime in the world. And this movement is expected to become a bridge in order to answer the political situation and the contemporary problems in which
‗Islam‘ is deliberately placed as the ‗enemy50‘ for the ‗western countries‘.
In line with the statement above, concerning with ‗Islam‘ as ‗western enemy‘, in his book, Ahmed states that most of the western scholars often use and even misuse the term which is taken to form Christianity and then apply it to Islam. One of the most commonly used is the term of fundamentalism. Ahmed remarks that actually this term belongs to those who believe in the Bible and the scripture at first. But on the contrary, there is an overturning in here, in which western scholars use this kind of term to picture Islamic life. In this sense, all Muslims are too believed as fundamentalist. And as consequence, the dreadful things often colors western people when they think about Islam. Islam becomes dreadful movement in their eyes.
Therefore, as a response to this situation, one of the prominent scholars, Edward Said in his book Orientalism tries to counterattack this misunderstanding by re-describing
49 Ibid., pp. 13-15. 50 Ahmed, p. 218.
59 how western as orientalist pictures world of Islam with their narrow perspective and misconception about the discourse of Islam.
Hitherto, many scholars or prominent leaders of liberal Islam also struggle to break the wrong prejudice of western toward the presence of Islam in the world. They argue that Islam does not mean ‗violence‘. Islam also teaches peace, tolerance, pluralism, democracy and even all the other issues of human rights. They force to break this rigidness of perspective by convincing western people about Islamic life.
This is necessary to have proper understanding in order to recognize the world of
Islam and avoid such misunderstanding.
After September 11 tragedy, liberal Islam and its movements become more popular among western people. And it gets positive responses from western countries as well. Liberal Islam is preferred than fundamental movements due to the situation at that time. Many scholars return to research and scrutinize the life of liberal Islam in many Islamic countries particularly that belong to the Southeast of Asia51 in order to promote this movement to be a representation of Islamic movements. This is done to counter the influences of fundamental Islam in western countries because this movement is assumed as ‗dangerous‘ group.
Normally, in the development of liberal Islamic movement before the tragedy, liberal Islam had been gazed within a narrow perspective and often gained pessimistic response from western people. Whatever they do, Islam is always placed as
51 See, Barry Desker, ―Islam and Society in Southeast Asia after September 11‖
60 movement that closes with ‗bad image‘ or more recognized with the ideology of fundamentalism. However, learning from the experience of September 11 tragedy and due to the reason of security, nowadays western countries help the existence of liberal
Islam. They support and also campaign the peace activities of this Islam to all over the world. They also believe that this liberal Islam can break the rigid situation between Islamic countries and western countries which is extremely opposing the presence of ‗Islam‘.
And dealing with the material object of the research, I start my discussion with liberal Islam that is presented in the narration about the life of Islam in
Afghanistan and its issues. Liberal Islam movement and the issues of fundamental
Islam are very crucial in Afghanistan as well. These issues are closer with western misconception about the discourse of Islam where they think that Muslim women are helpless prisoners in the home. Watson states:
―Familiar western concepts of sexual equality and the liberation of women are irrelevant and unnecessary from local women‘s point of view. At the core of this conviction is the perception that gender roles and male and female responsibilities are fully complementary. There is a male sphere of influence and activity and a female one; both are separate and distinct, but in combination they form the basis of a stable society.‖52
Overall, western‘s concept about discourse of Islam in Islamic countries always tends to undermine the existence of women rights. Many perspectives arise because of this concept and many times this miscommunication sharpens into the dispute. Sometimes western‘s people or media only observe physically in regarding
52 Ahmed, p. 156.
61 with the custom and tradition of Islam; how Muslims male treat and tend their women. Western people actually does not understand ‗world of Islam‘ in Islamic countries, what they think concerning Islam is only prejudice and probably hypothesis based on what they have seen on the surface through the media reportage.
And it concerns with how Muslim‘s male conducts such kind of unfair treatment toward their women.
Shortly, through the influence of media reportage, western people have their own understanding and try to interpret social relationship within world of Islam.
Therefore, many wrong concepts and prejudices suddenly come to their mind.
Ironically, this prejudice becomes tool to appraise and even to judge the existence of
Islam as a ‗truth‘. Somehow, this bad prejudice has become a trigger of conflict and can be burst in everywhere as well.
Thus, this kind of opinion has corrupted good relationship between Islamic countries and western countries. In addition, if the tension of these two countries cannot be controlled as the consequence of misconception, the conflict will become as the only solution of this problem. Therefore, this vulnerable circumstance should be shirked in order to create harmonization of the relationship between western and
Islamic countries.
This study believes, however, there are always significant distinctions between every liberal Islamic movement in Islamic countries in the world, although the elements of this movement are similar. Somehow, it depends on the reason why this liberal Islam comes and appears. As mentioned previously, there are three basic reasons that underlay the establishment of liberal Islam in every country chiefly in
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Islamic countries. To my belief, all these reasons have influenced the emerging of liberal Islam especially in Afghanistan.
In line with the topic of the discussion, this subchapter will highlight and discuss liberal Islamic movement in Afghanistan toward the issues of democracy and gender. In her narration, Pazira has told a ‗reality‘ of Islam which refers to the liberal movement in Afghanistan. This movement is dominated by educated people. It is close with her family background when they were living in Afghanistan. They were applying contemporary or modern life style. And it is closely related to Muslim life in western countries.
Then, many times Pazira shows explicitly the condition of her family through the characterization of her father Habibullah. According to her, Habibullah has familiarized with the world civilization where knowledge is laid as the basic of transformation. And even she consciously places Afghanistan as a developing country, and the issues of education become one of the most important things in that place at that time. Pazira remarks:
There is a Socratic touch to my father‘s approach. He always wins my admiration for his persistence. I imagine him in a robe, after his trial, standing in the middle of a crowd, declaring that he is who he is because of Greece. Outside Greece, he is nobody – he‘d rather die than run away. (BRF, 13)
Presenting and applying Socrates‘ principle of life within Pazira‘s father, has proved that the author wants to emphasize or place Afghanistan as a land of
‗civilization‘. Afghanistan cannot be seen through the recently situation, otherwise, the people should be back in the past time to see this country in appropriate way.
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Pazira narrates her father experience to give the proper evidence about the situation at that time.
It would have been an ordinary day in late October 1965 were it not for the two thousand people who had gathered in front Kabul University‘s administration building. Holding banners and placards, they were protesting a government ban on political parties, demanding free elections and the recognition of the Student Union. Habibullah was one of the speakers. (BRF, 42)
Pazira describes this situation in order to show that Afghanistan also has familiarized with the issue of democracy. In the early of twentieth century,
Afghanistan is recognized as a democratic country, although the basic hierarchy of this country is a kingdom. But, there is prime ministry as an executive to reign and govern this nation. Many parties also involve in the political practice of Afghanistan.
And there is space for folk to engage in the election and even to do their function of monitoring in order to control Afghanistan governmental policies.
On the fourth day of demonstrations, an even larger crowd gathered at the University – a mix of liberal, nationalist, socialist, communist and Islamist parties. The administration was becoming more and more nervous as the protesters‘ slogans echoed louder across the campus. A contingent of soldiers had been called in to isolate the demonstration and prevent it from spreading to other part of the city. (BRF, 43)
The author continues to portray social life situation to present a different appearance of Afghanistan. And through this narration, it can be seen that
Afghanistan has heterogeneous social relationship. In other words, Afghanistan actually has dynamic life of democracy in which many people involve and have responsibility to control their government. She narrates that ―Habibullah favoured the social democrats. Mainly brought up on the ideas of the takyee khonas in Chindawal,
64 he wanted the religious men to help form a government – but not a theocracy.‖ (BRF,
50)
Accordingly, the author tries to narrate the condition of democracy in
Afghanistan dealing with the changing of political situation. Pazira even gives evidence that her father has been jailed because of protesting governmental policies at that time. Again, she tells this story to imply and even to prove that all what she has narrated in the whole story of this novel is ‗a reality‘ of Afghanistan. She also narrates what her father had been said in the court in order to counter the accusation of government against Afghanistan‘s student demonstration.
If you think I‘m guilty for criticizing the government, then so be it. But in the spirit of democracy that your government is claiming to promote, can it be that bad to see a single criminal free after years of unjustly executing, imprisoning and fining hundreds of innocent people for crime they never committed? (BRF, 54)
Further, Pazira returns to convince that the spirit of modernism has made her family becoming more ‗civilized‘ than most of the people who dwelled in this land few years ago before of her leaving. She cites directly what her father utters concerning modern lifestyle and she adores it. She states ―like the suit and tie, miniskirts, short hair and cigarettes, drinking was a sign of modernity, liberty and it was socially accepted among city dwellers.‖ (BRF, 89)
On the one hand, Pazira discloses the way of modern life as the background of her family. However, on the other hand, she also profiles her father‘s faith toward
Islam. And it is still kept even in the difficult situation. The author succeeds to present this kind of experience to restate her opinion about the life of her father in keeping Islamic values upon his children. Pazira admits that the choice of life has
65 forced Habibulah to choose and adopt liberal Islam way of life. Nevertheless, he does not leave or even disown his responsibility to recognize Islamic spirit in his children‘s life. And likewise, make his children living and growing in a good education.
My father‘s generation grew up with a modern education. Now that the country is occupied by the Soviets and religion and culture are in danger, families insist on sending their children to mosques during the winter holidays. Both my brother and my sister, Mejgan, who is eight years old, along two sons, have been learning recitation of the Quran in the mosque near our home. (BRF, 153)
Then, to emphasize her way of Islam, on the other parts of her narration Pazira also pictures how she really trusts to the holy Quran as the sacred scripture. She believes that holy Quran can give her strength to encounter the unrestful situation as the impact of the political instability in Afghanistan. She says:
I‘m holding a copy of the Quran, which I grabbed from the shelf in my room as the explosions pounded the house. With my arms wrapped around me, I hold the book tightly. Neither have I learned to read the Quran – which is in Arabic – nor have I much knowledge of its content, but I still feel protected by it. I bow my head and press my face against the soft fabric that covers the heavy volume. (BRF, 182)
Honestly, Pazira acknowledges that she does not really understand about the
Quran, however, she has faith that this sacred text will give her power to endure in the conflict situation. The author knows most of the Muslims believe that Quran as the sacred text has the spirit of quietness to release people from the problem. Pazira reveals when she feels scare in the situation of war, she will seek her holy Quran and grabs it firmly in order to help herself becoming calm due to the situation. And based on this point of view, she also implies that she is a good Muslim.
66
Nevertheless, besides outlining the dynamical political situation and the development of democracy in Afghanistan, Pazira continues to highlight the issue of women‘s right in this country. She begins her narration by describing geographical background of Afghanistan where she alludes that Afghanistan is the place for women, because this country has many lovely and beautiful scene of natural panorama. She is very happy to live in this land. Yet, this narration fully highlights the situation or the tension of conflict, but, in her acknowledgement, many times she consciously reveals that Afghanistan is a land for women.
As we drive on, we pass through hills that look like mountains of green velvet. Thousands of red flowers called gule dokhtaran (girls‘ flowers) stand across the landscape like an impressionist masterpiece, a mass of red dots. This is meli guli sourkh, the red flower picnic everyone come to Mazar to see. We stop to pick a few of the flowers, but they soon wither. (BRF, 63)
In addition, besides introducing and adoring the beautiful panorama of this country, Pazira also depicts how Afghanistan women live and dwell in this place. In her narration, she highlights the presence of burqa for the women. Pazira is straightly showing her objection toward this dress when burqa is introduced to her life. Even though, she says that burqa is a must at that time. Women are no longer going outside without burqa, they have to live inside the house and work as a good wife only. She enunciates that ―since the Taliban made the burqa mandatory, I have begun to despise it, concluding that it is one of the worst symbols and tools of women‘s oppression‖.
(BRF, 311)
Letting your self uncovering without burqa, it means you are guilt and can be categorized as infidel (kufar). There will be a consequence to be encountered when
67 you disobey this regulation. However, Pazira is very eager to oppose this kind of oppression because she knows that Afghanistan formerly is a freedom country without such restriction to humiliate women‘s dignity.
Accordingly, Pazira realizes that this restriction came to the community few times after Taliban overpowered the Soviet regime and succeeded to control this country. As far as she knows, before Taliban reigns many people have worn burqa, however, it is without the reason of oppression. Pazira even gives example to impose her statement. She describes that this dress has come and appeared in the past time along with her mother generation. To her mother opinion, ―the burqa became a sign of rural rather than urban living. The women who continued to wear a burqa were either elders who had no formal education, or those who came from villages‖. (BRF,
312)
Therefore, it is quiet difficult for her to accept this burqa and reconcile with the recent situation, due to her experience and background of her family life. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Pazira‘s family background is to refer to liberal
Islam lifestyle where freedom is everything. Instead of restriction, there are so many choices for her to do in her life. And due to that reason, she assumes that she has the right to choose and follow her desire. She asserts:
The burqa is an urban phenomenon, I learn later. In rural Afghanistan, women once moved freely within their own communities. Dressed in their traditional clothes, which included a modest head cover, women were respected in a society where everyone knew each other. But when rural people began to travel to the city, either for tourism or for employment, women found themselves outside their protected territories. To feel safe, the women created a cloak that provided them with the privacy and security they had once enjoyed in their village compounds – the burqa. A rural woman who travelled would return home wearing a burqa as a sign of prestige – showing that she had been to the city. (BRF, 311)
68
Besides questioning this phenomenon about this dress, Pazira explains when she was living in her former country, burqa is something ridiculous clothes for women. Wearing burqa at that time signifies to those who come from remote areas in
Afghanistan. Pazira remarks that ―Dyana and I would have burst into laughter if we had seen a burqa-clad teenager arriving at school. Now it is a necessity. These women fear for their lives. Security is a fragile layer of ice, spread thinly over a river of anxiety and destitution.‖ (BRF, 327)
Further, although Pazira shows her objection toward burqa wearing, as women restriction toward freedom life, but, she also acknowledges that burqa for certain people as their protection to respond the situation of Afghanistan where women are always placed as victim of violence. She says ―one person‘s symbol of oppression is another person‘s tool of protection, and someone else‘s means of seduction‖. (BRF, 311) Then, in her narration the author admits that burqa can be a symbol of city dwelling, city visiting and a city lifestyle. And it is due to the culture of Afghanistan women in the rural area as well, when they visit a city, they will wear burqa to symbolize that they have ever been there.
Moreover, Pazira even disposes burqa as a symbol of class distinction. This dress becomes a kind of lifestyle in which people can show their social status. To her, burqa is not a dress that symbolizes equality and dignity among Muslims. She remarks that burqa is usually used by ordinary people who belongs to lower class and also has a traditional custom. She says:
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Burqas were more a class marker than anything else. Women form the upper or upper-middle classes wore modest but Western-style clothes. Women who wore burqas were referred to as chodaridar (burqa-wearing) and were seen as having a traditional mindset. (BRF, 312)
On the other part of her narration, she has a conversation with a young girl who lives in a refugees‘ camp in the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here, Pazira shows her objection toward burqa dressing. She says, ―I tell her we call the burqa a woman‘s prison. ― Do you want to be in prison?‖ (BRF, 314) This statement implies that she does not only dislike using this dress, but she even hates to see burqa wearer.
Again, the author retells her experiences in Afghanistan at the first time, after her leaving for more than ten years. Since lived in Canada, Pazira actually had never come and arrived in Afghanistan. Her first arrival in Afghanistan happened after the
US‘s invasion. And this land has been conquered and controlled by the US‘s Army from Taliban forces. The reason she comes to Afghanistan at that time, is to seek her friend, Dyana. Dyana is one of her best friends when she studied in the high school in
Afghanistan.
Shortly, by the United Stated government intervention, she finally arrived in
Kabul at that time, with the purpose to find her friend. However, seeking a friend did not make her stopping to visit several places in regard with her memory. She gave time to visit her former school because this place had wonderful memory for herself.
Unfortunately, everything had been damaged. It was not only the physical building had been broken, but many things had been changed.
She even saw how Taliban‘s principle had influenced and penetrated to the education realm in this place. In here, she saw a portrayal of life where female
70 students did not only wear burqa, but also they had been separated from male students‘ room. Then, Pazira tried to ask one of the female students in order to know the main reason why she wore burqa. The student explains:
We wear the burqa because there is no security,‖ says a young student. ―Once the weapons are collected and we feel secure, we can go without the burqas.‖ Another woman speaks with equal frankness. ―We want an Afghanistan free of war, under the leadership of one central government, where there are no warlords.‖ Girls share classes with boys, walk down the same stairs, use the same library; but before leaving the building, they all have to put on their burqas. (BRF, 343)
Looking to that condition, Pazira conceived that everything had changed and this place became too strange for her. As a matter of fact, she felt lonely to encounter this changeable situation with so many things running uncontrolled. And for a while, she became an alien in her former land. Thus, the time has shown to her that there is no equality between female and male student in Afghanistan to this day.
Consequently, in the next experience, the author argues that she cannot control herself due to the acute of problem. While observing and approaching her former school, suddenly a group of young student came to her. They forbad her to take a picture upon female students in the high school because it was not lawful in
Afghanistan. However, the author replied to argue with them.
You can‘t film our women,‖ one of them says. ―Why not?‖ I ask. ―Because it‘s against our religion,‖ says a student dressed in a dark green shirt and black trousers. ―Filming Afghan women and showing them in Western countries is against our culture.‖ But I‘m an Afghan and I‘m a Muslim, I argue. He is disarmed. He can shut a Westerner up, but not an Afghan. (BRF, 343)
Everything has changed; this is a ‗new‘ land of Afghanistan. Even though she is an Afghan by childbirth, but when she returns to this place, she feels that
Afghanistan cannot receive her again. Afghanistan is too odd for her. And this place
71 does not belong to her nowadays. This land has become a place for a new generation where puritanical or orthodox Islamic values as the center of the development of this country.
Dealing with the information above, this study believes that there are important things to be analyzed in this narration to answer the research questions and get proper understanding about the discourse of Islam. Pazira highlights issue of democracy and gender as her main point of discussion. In her juxtaposition about the life in Afghanistan, she actually blows the issues of liberal Islam in general. As a matter of fact, in her text, she never mentions the terms of liberal Islam and its development in Afghanistan. Again, though her Islam belongs to Shiite group, what
Pazira has done, is closely related to the movement of liberal Islam.
Learning from that experience, this study believes that the author actually wants to discuss the development of democracy and gender in Afghanistan because liberal Islam accommodates these issues. She attempts to bridge the disagreement between Islamic countries and western countries in her text. And the basic reason to do this, because liberal Islam has popular due to the September 11 tragedy. In addition, many scholars and prominent leaders in Islam are discussing the existence this movement.
Along with the heightened discussion about the existence of liberal Islam in the present time, suddenly Pazira launches her autobiographical novel in order to picture the condition of Afghanistan before the coup of Taliban. Due to that reason, this narration comes to respond and amend the image of Afghanistan in the world. In fact, this place has been labeled as a land of terrorist due to the ‗tragedy‘. Portraying
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Afghanistan socio-political life especially the issue of democracy and gender, have proved that Pazira tries to invert the asymmetrical reportage from western media.
Therefore, she succeeds to attract readers‘ attention to read this novel.
Looking back to the juxtaposition of her narration, firstly, Pazira outlines a
‗reality‘ that Afghanistan is well-known with the issue of democracy in which she presents her father‘s experience as main point of narration. In fact, the issue of democracy in Afghanistan is too far to be discussed in general. Almost all of the media‘s reportages and even the literatures which involve in this place are rare to highlight and discuss the issue of democracy. And probably, the domination of western media‘s reportage has underlaid peoples‘ mind to see Afghanistan in appropriate way. In so doing, western people think that Afghanistan has never touched ‗civilization‘.
Secondly, as reported by the media and some ‗literatures‘ particularly western media, this place is a land of fundamental movement. And this movement roots and grows in this place. Yet, in her narration Pazira counterbalances all the misinformation, by showing her life experience before the Taliban reign. The issues of women right become her concern as well. Explicitly, she rejects burqa as kind of symbol of Islamic women dress, and she even insists that burqa is kind of social distinction.
The uses of terms of demonstration, modernity, women right and the names of founding father of social sciences in her book, is addressed to diminish all the stereotypes that increase in the recent years after the tragedy. This is to say that the author has succeeded to play and control western readers‘ perception along with the
73 development of contemporary issues at that time, in which the international Medias only focus to report the heightened situation of conflict in this land and ignore the historical context of Afghanistan. Looking to such kind of fact, to my understanding, the reader will interest to this book and it is not because of the authoring of the novel, otherwise, it relates with the issues of conflict and ‗a new social life‘ of Afghanistan within the text. Ultimately, there is an overturning act against the fact which is spread by the Media.
Furthermore, the portrayal of liberal Islam is deliberately juxtaposed to challenge fundamentalist or radical movement which is always questioning the commitment of liberal Islam toward the shari’a (Islamic law). In other words, this is to say that liberal Islam believers are good Islam as well as fundamental Islam. Pazira proves that her father has a high responsibility to teach his children in Islamic way of life. And this is done without any oppression. Thus, Pazira straightly questions fundamental Islam‘s accusation against her Islam.
This is done in purpose, because she knows that many Afghanistan peoples never touch modern life or even recognize the world‘s civilization. Many of them are uneducated people and live in a worst condition. Barriers of ideology within Islam have constantly confined them to receive aid from the ‗other‘ to improve their life.
Therefore, Pazira considers liberal Islam ways of life as the answer to help them.
Hopefully, the life of the people in the country will be rescued from the enormous destruction.
Departing from the perspective above, to my belief, most of the readers will be conditioned to imagine and follow her way of thinking. To her, Afghanistan will
74 always be placed as the poor country and deserving to be intervened in order to develop this country. In this matter, the author actually has swerved and urged
Afghanistan people to receive the influences of western countries. It is suitable with liberal Islam principle; they are concord to separate religion from politic sphere.
In the one hand, Pazira reveals that Afghanistan which is known as the basis of militant Islam, in the age of her father is more easily to accept and receive the presence of modernization‘s than her age. On the other hand, since Taliban forces replaced the old regime and governed this country, all the changing came into ruin.
As a result, Pazira continues to despise and demean the development of Afghanistan during the Taliban‘s regime. In her opinion, Afghanistan in the age of her father more flexible to the development of this country than the regime of Taliban.
The author narrates, since the political situation has been changed by the
Taliban regime, many people live in suffering as a result of the unrest situation.
Population of Afghanistan has drastically dropped. And terrors of conflict are forced people to flee and leave this land in order to save their life. They rescue their life and settle in the other countries chiefly the neighbor countries.
Then, Pazira insists that women and children are the ultimate victims because of violence. They are vulnerable victims toward such kind of abusing treatment by those who are involving in the conflict. Many of them have been murdered and raped during the war. Pazira notes that during the Taliban occupation, the condition of
Afghanistan becomes inclusive for the other. The poverty spreads all over the country.
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This deterioration of Afghanistan is not only caused by the long period of
Taliban regime, but it is also by the principle of life. Taliban has succeeded to change the principle life of the people based on the puritanical Islamic principle. In this regime, Afghanistan people have been forced not only to know about Islam but should apply it in their daily life. Taliban pushes people to uphold shari’a in this land. Therefore, this country has grown with the strictly laws of Islam to rule people relationship in this day. And yet, it results many problems for them.
Showing this fact, however, this study believes that the author tries to create a kind of ‗scapegoat‘ and addresses it to Taliban. And the establishing of ‗collective enemies‘, is an act of supporting western invasion upon this land. As consequence, the issues of this book becomes more interesting for western readers‘ particularly for those who previously have not yet conceive the background of Afghanistan and
Islam.
Moreover, media has significant role to control western point of view. And the greatly influence of this reportage, is perceived due to the political intervention after
Cold War. Western countries chiefly United States of America has posited Islam as the next enemy53 in the world after the Cold War. Nevertheless, I consider that this is done to confine and even ban Islamic movement revival.
Then, concerning with the existence of burqa, I ponder what Pazira did in her narration, is not reliable or qualify to be a reason why she opposes the burqa wearer.
Based on Pazira‘s sketching, this dress comes by accident from rural areas of
53 Ibid., p. 156.
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Afghanistan and it is meaningless. On the contrary, I find that burqa, hijab or veil, chador, parda and the other Islamic clothes54 are meant to emphasize modesty and dignity both in men and women. In other words, this dress is really worthy for
Islamic believers. Ahmed states that ―all these clothes are worn to allow people to say prayers which include prostration, bending and sitting.‖55 And in addition, he says that hijab becomes a fashionable and recognizable symbol of Muslim identity among young girls in 1980s. Comparing with what the author has narrated on her narration, I contend that Pazira in this occasion, does not only want to say her resistance toward the existence of Islamic clothes particularly burqa, but, she is too bold to create a
‗new social class distinction‘ among believers in Afghanistan where in Islam all these kind of treatment is strictly banned. Therefore, it is obvious that the author only imitates the raw issues of western people about Islam without giving proper evidence upon their accusation.
Further, I am dubious with what the author has conveyed in her narration. To my understanding, Pazira is only a young woman at that time who graduated from western country, then, suddenly rejecting the ‗new civilization‘ in Afghanistan where many things have been changed. I consider what Pazira has conveyed through her narration, is only to impose her perspective of Islam. And it is based on the experiences to live in modern country in which many Muslims apply liberal Islam.
Yet, the author of this novel is an Afghan woman by childbirth, but living in western country for quite long time has changed her ‗civilization‘. And it influences
54 Ibid., pp. 159 – 161. 55 Ibid., p. 160.
77 many things in her life including her way to see Islam. Western concepts of Islamic civilization in the western countries have fully influenced Pazira‘s understanding about the discourse of Islam. Obviously, it can be seen within the text where she pictures Islam in Afghanistan with her objection toward the law of Islam along with the issues of women discrimination in this place. Women discrimination is one of the issues in the western countries against Islam, and it is done in purpose to emphasize her point of view upon Afghanistan women.
Dealing with postcolonial studies point of view, what Pazira conducts in her narration, is closely related with the kind of authoring in which she wants to ‗speak for‘ the other. This kind of narration is recognized as a way of ‗representing‘ for those who are oppressed. Spivak has insisted that it is very difficult ‗to represent or to speak for‘ the oppressed. ‗Representation‘ relates with two meanings, namely, ‗giving a voice‘ and ‗elaborating the conditions of possibility for a new idiom in which the oppressed can speak and be heard‘, otherwise, re-presentation is just to show without care for the meaning, and it depends on the reader.
In short, I contend what the author has done dealing with her story, is to undermine those who are victim in Afghanistan. The author describes her story in which she tends to neglect and negate people‘s ‗power of speaking‘. Absolutely, the author can speak, but she also must understand that the victim/survivor can speak as well. Thus, I reckon that Pazira as the locutor and western people as the interlocutor, wants to convey her acknowledgement upon western occupation in which
Afghanistan is considered and deserved to have whole restoration without restriction of Islam.
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Generally speaking, what the author has done in A Bed of Red Flowers is only to clarify the narrowness point of view of the international society when discusses
Afghanistan condition. If Afghanistan becomes familiar with fundamental principle some time ago, at this time Pazira introduces the development of Afghanistan before this land conquering by Taliban regime. She highlights how this place has been living in the democratic situation. Overturning such kind of fact actually has offered and enchanted the readers to accept or even follow the author point of view. In other words, Pazira implicitly wants to convey her agreement upon the US‘s invasion.
Furthermore, in line with the theory of four discourses, I ponder that Pazira has adopted master discourse approach in which she is only reproducing what western countries have created and established about the discourse of Islam and the issues of Afghanistan. For western countries the discourse of Islam in Afghanistan always closely related with issues of fundamentalism. ‗Islam‘ is seen as movement that violates human rights upon their believers. In this matter, actually the author only rearranges western point of view about Islam and she relatively consents with the information from the media about all the portrayal of Islamic life.
In line with what Pazira deed in her narration along with the issues of Islam, this study proposes the approach of analyzing the autobiographical novel and it has to do with Vernon‘s work. He asserts:
Eakin helps us analyze identity construction in any social grouping, according to the degree to which a culture values relational over autonomous identity or vice-versa, as Eakin does allow space for the experience of self-determination within his relational identity model. For however relational all identity might finally be, individuals experience it, given the pulling of the personal and the social, as a continuum along
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which they shift positions, sliding, negotiation, always seeking the place of optimal comfort.56
In line with the approach, Pazira is perceived conducting such kind of shift position, sliding, negotiation, and even always seeking the place for optimal comfort.
Pleasuring certain readers is a kind of act to seek an optimal comfort, in which she tends to shield her life behind the US government and its Allies protection toward the resistance of ‗Islam‘.
Based on the finding above, I conclude that the author is actually using ready made issues in which she reproduces western conception about Islam within the text to express her objection toward Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan. Pazira sees that life of Islam in the western countries can be implemented in Islamic countries particularly in her former country. Conditioning Islamic life in the master discourse perspective is known as ‗power‘ that is always transferred and reproduced. And dealing with Lacan‘s opinion in the theory of psychoanalysis, I consider what the author has stated in her story is closely related with the symbolic order and the real order. It refers to the representation of cultural norms and laws from the presence of the father, and it symbolizes that all person is not whole, there is unconsciousness in her/his self.
56 Vernon, p. 164
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3. Fundamental Islam
Generally speaking, fundamental Islam or politic Islam is very close with the term of militant Islam. However, all of this term is always treated and perceived similar. Nevertheless, the rapid changing of situation has placed the term of fundamental Islam is symmetrical with the term of ‗violence‘. The role of media reportage has significant influences to sketch fundamental Islam in this way. Indeed, there is at least the basic reason why the media do this kind of reporting.
Beside several reasons that have been highlighted above, there are also moments or certain events which influence this presupposition. And one of the events that influence the media and the people in the world is September 11 tragedy.
However, western media‘s reportage has too exaggerated the issues of Islamic life after the tragedy. And as a result, Islam has become a dreadful movement. To some extent, it is also due to the establishment and the spreading of militant Islamic groups to all over the world, namely, ―Militant groups like Hizbul-Mujahidin in Kashmir, the
Filipino Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Laskar Jihad in Indonesia, the
Lebanese Hezbollah, Arakan Rohingya Nationalist Organisation in Myanmar and
Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah claim to draw their guidelines for life from
Islamic scriptures that are viewed as disappearing, or have disappeared, from governance.‖ 57
57 Stephen Vertigans, Militant Islam A Sociology of Characteristics Causes and Consequences (New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 9.
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Based on the reason above, Islam is often discriminated as religion where there is distortion of human dignity and it happens to their relationship. Along with all this misinterpretation, however, western media is perceived has significant role to discredit the existence of Islamic movement. Islam is always compared with many cases of violence. As a result, Muslims usually return to scorn and underestimate the existence of the media and they posit the media as the ‗enemies‘ as well. Ahmed states:
Correctly or not, Muslims perceive the Western media as hostile. Many factors explain this sense of discomfort. The general attitude of hostility is largely true. Western programmes about Muslim are often slanted to suggest negative images of Muslims. Many carry messages of political instability and the poor treatment of women – the two notorious Orientalist prejudices against Islam.58
Nevertheless, many scholars still believe that the movements of fundamental
Islam exist in order to answer the unstable situation in the world where many countries are controlled or subjected to the western countries. If the western media reports that this Islam has negative excess, on the contrary, many scholars consent that this Islam is a ‗new movement‘ to answer the crisis of injustice upon the ‗world of Islam‘. Criticism toward the unstable situation makes fundamentalist movement getting great respond and support, either for Muslim or those who are concern in this kind of issues.
This ‗Islam‘ criticizes the financial issues, political situation and many issues that they consider having process of deceitfulness. The reason of their resistance, is the existing of superpower country that is USA where this country has power to
58 Ahmed, p. 217.
82 control almost all Islamic countries. And this ‗Islam‘ attempts to free their nation from such controlling. They have understood that their country suffers from the affairs. Therefore, this movement does their role to take over all the relationship of their government in which many Islamic countries doubt and awe to do it.
In line with that reason, Vertigans asserts:
A violent form of jihad can be considered to be justified as a form of reactive self- defence when the nation-state or Muslim country has been invaded. But for others it may involve the threat of attack, the suppression of Muslims or denial of the shari’ah in areas where there are large numbers of Muslims or in territories that are considered to belong to Muslims, usually stemming from historical control.59
Thereby, many scholars reckon fundamentalist movement as ‗new movement‘ that is born in this postmodern era. And it is fully supported by the fundamentalist of
Islamic countries. And it is able to haunt the ideology of capitalism which is supported by western people. Due to that reason, it is not marvelous if this kind of movement is perceived as ‗a threat‘ for western countries because of their objection toward westernization.
Ironically, fundamental movements in this recent year are reckoned as dreadful movement for the international society not because of the socio-political reasons, however, due to the sequence event of violence. And it is displaysed to their eyes and has fossilized in the memory of western people. Then, placing this movement as the main actor behind every terror in the world, has exacerbated the image of fundamentalist. Bombing, shooting, terrorist attack and the other violence
59 Vertigans, p. 10.
83 activities are labeled and clung to this Islam. Therefore, the international society consents and supports to annihilate this kind of movement.
However, in order to answer this misunderstanding about fundamental Islam, there are several scholars that try to expose the reasons why this Islam (militant Islam or politic Islam) exists in the world. Below are some of their statements60:
Mortimer (1982) analysed groups during an early stage in the formation of contemporary Islamic militancy and argued that people were attracted ‗whose lives are in one way or another disorientated by rapid change: merchants and manufacturers being edged out by foreign The al-Qa’ida phenomenon and beyond 21 competition or by the growth of a new capitalist class‘.
Roy (1994: 52) claimed, over a decade later, that Islamic movements were composed of ‗the oppressed of all countries … [who] dream of access to the world of development and consumption from which they feel excluded.‘
Sivan (1997: 11) argues on similar lines that Islamic fundamentalism ‗is a reaction against a modernity that does not deliver even on its material promises. It creates a gap between Western style consumerist expectations and ―Fourth world‖ production and per capita income.‘
Paz (2002: 73) believes that the origins of ‗Islamic‘ terrorism can be located ‗in the inability of many individual Muslims to cope with the technological, cultural, social or economic aspects of Western modernization‘.
Butko (2004: 33) suggests that political Islamic ‗movements have arisen in reaction to attempts at rapid development and modernization which have not fulfilled the expectations of a majority of their populations.
Indeed, all these information are very important, yet they have to fight with the wrong reportage of western media that has caused the credibility of these movements becoming worthless in the eye of western people and even for the Muslim in Islamic countries from Middle East area to the Asia at all. Without neglecting what they have purposely done, many prominent scholars in the discourse of Islam contend that the
60 Vertigans, p. 22.
84 purpose of Islamic fundamentalism is to uphold justice in the world where Islam is a religion of peace and it also lifts up the issues of humanity.
In here, Ahmed acknowledges that ―Islam fundamentalism is an imprecise and elusive term which attempts to convey contemporary Islamic revivalism and resurgence.‖61 However, the term of revivalism and resurgence is the key of this fundamental group‘s struggle. He adds actually Islam conveys message of quietness, meditation and simplicity. Family is the key of society, save all the cost and the consequences of the changing of human beings that tend to follow materialistic life and atheism (modernization). And depart from this situation, Islamic fundamentalism emerges and imposes their struggle to achieve their purpose to uphold puritanical spirit of Islam.
Returning to the life of Islam in Afghanistan and its relationship with fundamental movement in this country, Peter Marsden remarks:
Belief in Islam has been important for the population, not only in providing spiritual fulfillment but also in giving a sense of identity" to the people. Just as in other parts of the world, popular belief in Afghanistan arose from a mixture of various origins: superstition, spiritualism, saint worship, mysticism, and organized religion, to name a few origins. Out of necessity, Islam in Afghanistan has therefore found itself to be exceptionally sensitive to influences around the country.62
And further, Anderson asserts that Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan is influenced by two biggest mainstream Islamist organizations, namely Muslim
Brotherhood and the Pakistani Jamaat-e Islami. Therefore, it is too difficult to
61 Ahmed, p. 226. 62 See, Carl Anderson, ―Islam in Afghanistan‖, p. 3.
85 separate Islam in Afghanistan and Islam in Pakistan because this Islam has strong relationship each other.
Returning to the main point of the discussion concerning A Bed of Red
Flowers written by Pazira, there will be revealed how this fundamental Islam is portrayed within the text. As mentioned previously, this study has discussed the traditional Islam and liberal Islam in line with Pazira life, however, in this section I want to analyze the life of Islamic Fundamentalism based on the author‘s perspective as narrated in the text. And it is closely related with her experience as well.
Before going further to discuss this point of view, I want to restate and give review concerning with Islam in Afghanistan as been outlined in the previous sub chapter, there are at least seven models of Islam developing in this country. Indeed, it is different each other and one of them is traditional Islam. However, the traditional
Islam I mean here, it is closely related with Wahhabism and Salaffiya.
To some scholars who prominently in Islamic life, Wahhabism and Salaffiya is group of Islam in Afghanistan and it is able to be categorized either in traditional
Islam or Islamic fundamentalism. And this Islam belongs to Sunnite group as well.
Based on the historical note, this Islam comes from Arab63, and due to the situation, it also spreads and develops in Afghanistan. The goal of this group besides to uphold the puritanical Islam values based on the traditional life of predecessor, this group hardly prohibits westernization upon Islamic culture.
63 Febe Armanios, ―The Islamic Traditions‖, p. 3.
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In line with the research, Pazira in her narration straightly posits the fundamental Islam as a movement of rigidness, hardship, and even too conservative.
She portrays that this Islam always treats its people with harshness and harm. And they are anti modernism and westernization. Pazira states that, ―we used to go to movie theatres to watch Iranian, Turkish, Indian and Western films. Now all Western films are banned.‖ (BRF, 123). This statement implies that there is always misrecognition in this ‗Islam‘ dealing with modernization as kind of entertainment.
Consciously or unconsciously the author of this book, has concurred and even legitimated the ‗truth‘ of western media reportage toward the discourse of Islam in
Islamic countries particularly in Afghanistan, as if this Islam does not need modernism or technology.
Further, on the other part of her story at the time of their fleeing to Pakistan,
Pazira noted how the character of Mujahidin‘s members. She characterizes that
Mujahidin almost has not had sense of humanity because they treated Afghan ordinary people as well as their enemies. She describes the conversation, as follows:
The tall man asks my father where we are going. My father mumbles a few words about our journey to Pakistan. The man, who introduces himself as a mujahid belonging to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar‘s Hizb-I Islami (Islamic Party), laughs loudly. ―So we finally forced you out of Kabul,‖ he roars. ―Our rockets are working.‖ He grins. He tells my father that he is responsible for firing rockets into our city. He turns to his friend. ―When I finish firing the rockets, the next day I go prowling to how many people I‘ve killed.‖ His friend smiles.‖ My father asks him how well he knows the targets he is shooting at. The man laughs loudly again. ―The city is the target. That is where we send the rocket. They just seem to the right spot.‖ I remember the bus station, the blood on the road, the officer‘s hat, the hanging hand and purse. ―One evening, several of the rockets missed,‖ yellow- teeth says. ―They hit a graveyard.‖ The dead, it seemed, were killed all over again. He speaks so coldly about it, the counting of casualties a kind of scientific operation. And yet he is driven by passion for a Russia – free Afghanistan, much as I am. Why is this man so proud of launching his rockets on Kabul? Those of us who lived in Kabul were not all Communist Party members. ―You support the Communist
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government by continuing to live under their rule and work for them,‖ yellow-teeth replies. (BRF, 237)
From this narration, this study believes that the author has deliberately revealed this sort of story in order to show to the readers what has happened in
Afghanistan. To Pazira‘s mind, this is a ‗reality‘ and ‗true fact‘. She continues to despise and places Islamic fundamentalism as the main actor and the most responsible movement toward the condition of Afghanistan in this time. The author describes that the members of fundamental Islam which is known as Mujahidin or
Taliban does not care with the civilian‘s life. They attack many ordinary people even though they are Muslims and annihilating their settlement.
However, this is done due to her anger upon Mujahidin. She even despises
Mujahidin by using the character of ‗yellow-teeth‘. It is to signify her deeply hatred toward fundamental Islamic movement. The hatred of the author obviously appears when she narrates her story; there is no excuse for this Islam to argue. Then, what actually happen to the author can be seen when she is authoring a short conversation between her father and two of Mujahidin who have besieged Afghanistan at that time.
Two SCUDs landed in Parachinar,‖ says the mujahid. ―That‘s where you‘ll be arriving on the other side of the border. They hit a restaurant and killed three people. You‘ll see it when you go down the mountain.‖ My father asks if the restaurant belonged to Afghans. ―They are Afghan,‖ the man replies. (BRF, 238)
Pazira continues to depict the distinction of Islam where the sense of belonging or the spirit of brotherhood among Muslims has been forced to cease in the terrible situation. And this sense is deliberately abolished due to the situation of war.
In order to convince her opinion, Pazira portrays how Mujahidin has mistreated
88 herself several times before of her leaving. One day, Pazira and her father walks around Pakistan and suddenly they are welcomed by a young man with rifle in his chest. The young man is angry to them because of Pazira‘s dress. Every women should wear veil or burqa. Facing this situation, Pazira feels angry and she wants to argue with the young man. However, her father draws her to avoid the problem, because they are in dangerous place. Her father comments that ―you can argue with someone who uses words but not with someone who uses a gun.‖ (BRF, 249)
Describing a young man with rifle in their hands within the text, to my opinion, is to convey the message of violence. And through this text, the author unconsciously or consciously has conveyed the ‗reality‘ world of Islam under Islamic fundamentalism reign. And commonly, what Pazira has displayed, is similar with what western media has reported as mentioned previously. Thus, we can find many information through western media reportage which is picturing the life of young men in Islamic countries particularly those who belong to fundamental Islam. The information always highlights how the young men are always armed with rifle and trained to cope with the unrest situation. And the calling for Jihad as the ‗holy war‘ amalgamates them to fight for the spirit of Islam.
Instead of showing her disability to cope with the situation, Pazira continues to scoff and underestimate the existence of fundamental Islam learning from the experience of living in Pakistan. In these country she cannot do nothing to express her willing due to the Islamic regulation. And this prohibition has made her like an imprison man. Women activities are banned by the Mujahidin. And this is the rule of
‗new‘ society and it is very difficult for her as freedom woman to obey this law. As a
89 result of this condition, Pazira loses her self controlling toward the situation that forces her to stay inside the house and never doing any outdoor activities. She says:
So I write: ―I‘m living in a city where laughter is considered a crime; where the word ‗death‘ rules over everything – the password is ‗grey‘. I‘m telling her that we are not allowed to be happy. ―Two stones‖ is my code for ―two eyes‖ (which means knowing things), and ― a rock for a heart to pray‖ means having heart of stone to survive. ― A city where bullets are reasons, gunfire is an answer to all questions we cannot ask. A pinch of dust is our worth; a city where our human voice is never heard. (BRF, 250)
On the other part of her story, the author writes how the same thing happens to her best friend Dyana. She was living in her former country Afghanistan during the
Talibans‘ rule. She experiences bad treatment from the Taliban as well. Throughout their correspondence, Dyana also wrote to her, although they were Muslim but it is not a quarantee to have a good treatment from Taliban‘s regime. Taliban still treated them very bad like their ‗foes‘.
Comparing the same situation in the two different places, to my belief, Pazira tries to convince the readers that fundamental Islam is only remaining difficulties and foolishness, because they never allow their people to have their right or freedom.
Pazira narrates ―then I receive a whole series of letter from Dyana, most with a poem attached, each continuing to talk about the pain of life under Taliban rule. ―...Each letter is reflection of enormous pain and suffering.‖ (BRF, 293)
In addition, Pazira continues to disclose the bad policies of Taliban‘s regime when they run their government affairs. She narrates:
And they pass right through Taliban territory, where television sets are ritually smashed as unislamic, where music tapes are hung from trees and cameras forbidden. But that‘s for ordinary people. The smugglers, like the narcotics dealers, are exempt from these rules. In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the criminals have become the hangmen, and the innocents the condemned. (BRF, 293)
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Shortly, the author of this novel seems to condition the Taliban to form and even to haunt the readers‘ mind in order to explain that this regime is authoritarian government. In other words, the author accedes to overpower Taliban regime and replace it with the ‗new regime‘. Pazira tends to support and agree with the US‘s accusation as the main reason of invasion to abolish the regime of Taliban because many people living under worse condition.
They are victims of a recent Taliban attack on the city of Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan…., Now It has become a valley of death, as one of the survivors describes is. ― The taliban killed all the men,‖ she says. ―We managed to escape, but some died on the way. (BRF, 313)
Based on the findings above, I reckon that what Pazira has depicted in her narration only returning and repeating the discourse of Islam in the western countries as well. In the Lacanian perspective, she has used master discourse when she reproduces this concept. Issues of fundamental Islam, radical Islam, militant Islam and even terrorism is a kind of ready made issues that is issued by western countries few years ago before this book is launched. In the eyes of western media, all the issues of Islam are always resembled with something uncontrolled violence.
Historically, I contend that Pazira should acknowledge that the presence of fundamentalist movement in Afghanistan has spread long before she composed her narration. And Afghanistan people are well known with this kind of Islam.
Contrasting to what Pazira had done in her narration, how she pictures her Islam, this study believes that this young woman has been influenced by her disappointment and hatred to see her movement doing such kind act of violence. As such, on the first
91 time, she engaged with this Mujahidin organization and supported them in order to drive out the Soviet Union from Afghanistan territory. Nevertheless, Pazira conceal this fact. She only imposes her experience to overcome the influences of this ‗Islam‘ in order to get attention from the reader particularly western reader.
B. Nuance of Islam in Vernacular Language as Clues of Pazira’s Islam
A Bed of Red Flowers is an autobiographical novel where the nuance of Islam is greatly perceived. Besides showing the discourse of Islam, Pazira uses vernacular language in Afghanistan (Dari language) in order to color and impress the readers in tasting the aroma of Afghanistan within the text. The aroma of Islamic life is done in purpose due to convince readers‘ mind about this book. And this vernacular language is part of her hybridity because it is difficult to be translated. Learning from what
Pazira did, Palmer states:
The text of a literary work (despite its autonomous ―being‖) tends to be regarded as an object – an ―aesthetic object.‖ The text is analyzed in strict separation from any perceiving subject and ―analysis‖ is thought of as virtually synonymous with interpretation.64
To my understanding, this vernacular words is not only a kind of aesthetic values within the text, however, it also helps the readers to find the appropriate words regarding within Islamic terms. And in line with this kind of act, Pope also states that words can be both ―expression and repression.‖ And through the words, people can
64 Richard E. Palmer. Hermeneutics (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 6.
92 see certain things or fail to recognize it. It means that the word has meaning or meaningless depending how we are treating them.
Therefore, this study wants to highlight the reason of the author using this strategy of choosing vernacular language (Dari language) and without leaving the original words. Then, I put the words in the table below in order to make easy finding.
Table 1. Vernacular words
No Terms in Used Frequenc y
1 salam (peace) 2 2 kar khona-e shwalbafi (weaving workshop) 1 3 charm-e chapa (upside-down leather) 1 4 Kargas (weaving frame) 2 5 Nourd (square bar) 2 6 takyee khona (house of prayer) 12 7 taqiya (concealment) 1 8 Alam ( religious banner flag) 3 9 melie gul-e sorekh (the picnic of the red flower) 2 10 gurg (wolf) 4 11 pourda (a curtain) 1 12 yak desta gandana, yak paw chaka ( bundle of leeks, 1 a few grams of pressed yogurt) 13 non-e kosa 1 14 pole dostee (friendship bridge) 1 15 gule dokhtaran (girls' flowers) 1 16 peyoda (valet) 1 17 doctare dandon (the tooth doctor) 1 18 beni boreda (a cut nose) 1 19 Kabah 4 20 khonae khoda (God's House) 1 21 behesht (heaven) 1 22 jawan marg (very young dead) 1 23 perhan-tombon (clothes) 2
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24 chapan (long Afghan coat) 2 25 shurawi (soviet) 2 26 baqoyohie (remnants) 1 27 sozmonies (party members) 1 28 ghazis (Afghan honoured for killing an ‗infidel‘) 5 29 landay (couplet) 1 30 shaheed (martyr) 4 31 neyobat (prayer) 1 32 abuyee (long Iranian clothe style) 1 33 Istaghfour (God forgive Us) 1 34 mohram (lawful) 1 35 haram (forbidden) 1 36 mosaken (medicine for painkiller) 1 37 sher darwaza (lion's gate) 1 38 Khoda (Allah) 2 39 saraf (a man involved in a traditional banking 1 system) 40 tawize (an amulet) 1 41 baba (father) 1 42 kufars (infidels) 1 43 frangies (foreigners) 1 44 Inshallah (God Willing) 1 45 joalies (weight carriers) 1 46 chara ( a piece of shrapnel) 1 47 atwar (Sunday) 1 48 hijib (head cover) 5 49 hada 1 50 chawki dar (doorkeeper) 1 51 dushmen (enemy) 10 52 chodaridar (burqa wearing) 1 53 mullahs (religious leader) 1 54 panjshir (five lions) 1 55 qishloks (villages) 1 56 dokan (shop) 2 total terms in used 104
The use of vernacular language, to my opinion, is not only to convey her discourse of Islam, however, it is also re-convincing the readers that she deserves to
94 represent the condition of Afghanistan at the time. And looking to the fact above, I argue that what the author has presented through the usage of vernacular words, can be categorized as her strategy of publication. She needs an acknowledgment from the readers and it will influence them to do so.
Emphasizing her background as an Afghan woman through the ‗word‘ will be read that she deserves to speak for the other. Psychoanalytical approach has proved that text is seen as a discourse: the acting of the self (Pazira) becomes a social subject, and this is strategy for Pazira to enroll social communities. At the time of the US‘s invasion, this strategy is important due to save her life and boosting this book as well.
What Pazira did, is rarely found. There is only few of books that discuss Afghanistan life and particularly written by female writer.
On the one hand, the lack of information about Afghanistan at the time has made this book popular among the reader. This is the advantages of this book in which market demand has placed Pazira succeeding to entertain the reader particularly western readers. And they agree with Pazira‘s narration about the discourse of Islam in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, I consider that the use of vernacular language is a strategy to avoid her closeness with western countries‘ influences, in order to quench the question particularly that emerges from those who are as fundamental Islamic member. And this is closely with her Islam understanding in which she belongs to
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Shiite traditional Islam. And in line with this kind of strategy, I find the same idea with what Eco has argued in his book about a ―textual strategy.‖65
Furthermore, this strategy is only showing her involvement within world of
Islam in the western countries chiefly in Canada. And this place has influenced her way of thinking to consent and adopt liberal Islam as her way of life. In short, Pazira has chosen to apply her ‗discourse of Islam‘ in non Islamic countries (western) as a proper way of life in Afghanistan. She accommodates her Islam way of thinking to accept western ideology.
Finally, Pazira tells many things about Afghanistan to the readers because she has framed and conditioned them to trust the information within the text. By hiding herself in such tricky strategy of writing, she has succeeded to re-articulate western conception upon the readers. Unfortunately, this kind of strategy using vernacular word is only read as the act of representation. And in the four discourses approach, this act is considered as master discourse. However, to some extent, this act can be categorized as university discourse where the essence of this discourse is a reproducing of knowledge.
65 Umberto Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 69.
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CHAPTER IV UNTOLD STORY IN A BED OF RED FLOWERS
This chapter will discuss the untold story in the novel A Bed of Red Flowers concerning with the author‘s life as part of the hysterical discourse and it becomes the second objective of this research. In the first subchapter, I will outline the bad treatment against the author concerning with her experience in the conflict area. It is considered as the experiences that had made the author face ‗symptom of trauma‘.
And this experience is categorized as her unconsciousness. In this matter, the author narrates her experiences about the traces of worse treatment of living in Afghanistan and Pakistan during her life time in this place. In other words, this study will reveal
―the silences of a text.‖66 The second subchapter is to discuss the characters depicted in the book that deal with the author‘s objection of living in Islamic countries alongside its presence of fundamental Islam. Here, she shows her objection toward fundamental Islam by placing the ‗characters‘ according to her own perspective; and the characters represent the real and good Islam. Finally, in the last subchapter, I will highlight how the author tries to negotiate with the western influences toward the situation in Afghanistan. On the one hand, she supports the US‘s invasion in
Afghanistan due to her own desire upon this land. But, on the other hand, she also tries to recall the worsening situation.
66 Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (London & New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 32.
97
Before going further to discuss this chapter, I would like to underlay my analysis in this chapter with the statement of Eco. He asserts ―when a text is produced not for a single addressee but for a community of readers – the author knows that he or she will be interpreted not according to his or her intentions but according to a complex strategy of interactions which also involves the readers, along with their competence in language as a social treasury‖67. Eco‘s statement above, to my belief, is an open door to interpret every pieces of literary work appropriately. No boundaries of course, because we are free to grasp and understand the work. And in so doing, we can judge and even appreciate a book according to our ability.
A. Symptom of Trauma
Discussing about symptom of trauma in literary works brings me to what
Foucault states in Lambropoulos & Miller, that ―writing is now linked to sacrifice and to the sacrifice of life itself; it is a voluntary obliteration of the self that does not require representation in books because it takes place in the everyday existence of the writer.‖68 Foucault in this sense tries to remind us that writing is a sacrifice process of the self in which the author no longer acts as the real author. He wants us realize that when the writers narrate their story, they depart from what they are gazing and
67 Umberto Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 67. 68 Vassilis Lambropoulus & David Neal Miller (ed), Twentieth Century Literary Theory (New York: Sate University of New York Press, 1987), p. 126.
98 guessing. Therefore, the author actually only composes what they have directly seen with their eyes and gives testimonies via narration.
In line with what Pazira has done in her work, she has sacrificed herself in order to show to the readers the life of people in Afghanistan during her living in that place. Indeed, it is not the representation of herself within text, but on the contrary, the representation of the victim. However, A Bed of Red Flowers was written to reveal her concern with her own experiences during the conflict in Afghanistan.
Throughout the period of conflict, I consider that such a bad time influenced her memory and even gives some kind of trauma to her life. Therefore, when she tells about her thoughts or experiences in the book, she is at the state of unstable emotion.
There is always regularly changing situation of thoughts which runs parallel with her environment. What the author experienced here fits in with Edel‘s work. He states:
When a thought recurs in the mind it can never be exactly the same as it was before. Renewed, it carries with it the freshness of renewal, and the new context in which it has re-emerged. Experience is remoulding us every moment, and our mental reaction on every given thing is really a resultant of our experience of the whole world up to that date.69
Dealing with Edel‘s work, I consider that the new environment has influenced her thought to write this story. I fully agree with the statement above, that the same action has been done by Pazira in her work as her renewal of thought and it deals with her new context about the discourse of Islam. As Goldmann also states, ―[…] the literary work is a constitutive element of social consciousness and is less related to the level
69 Leon Edel, The Modern Psychological Novel (New York: The Universal Library Grosset & Dunlap, 1964), p. 19.
99 of the real consciousness of transindividual subjects than it is to their possible consciousness.‖70 Therefore, this study believes that the work of Pazira‘s is closely related with her ‗mental condition‘ after living in the conflict area.
Furthermore, I begin this analysis by reading the prologue of the novel where the author portrays how the horizontal conflict in Afghanistan occurred when she was just five years old. And she had undergone a bad experience in her childhood where her father was arrested due to the unrest situation. Her father became one of the victims from an authoritarian government. And due to that, she writes, ―for a child, whose world consisted of family – parents, a younger brother, and a baby sister – not seeing my father for three days was a great deal of missing.‖ (BRF, 2)
And departing from this point of view, in which seeing what the author has experienced and revealed within the text, I start my exploration in this research. As far as I know, everyone who suffers from such terrible thing in her/his life cannot release or remove her bad experience without cope or reconcile with it. In the one of their work, Robben & Suarez explain the condition of people under tension or conflict:
Many victims of violence seemed to recover rather well upon liberation, and seemed eager to get on with their lives. Psychic and psychosomatic disorders were dismissed as temporary problems of adjustments, and were thus described as refugee or repatriation neuroses. It was only years, and sometimes even decades, later that psychopathologies appeared.71
70 Goldmann in William Q. Boelhower, Method in the Sociology of Literature. (London: Basil Blackwell, 1981) p. 13. 71 Robben & Suarez, Culture under Siege Collective Violence and Trauma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 16.
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I agree fully with the statement; learning from my own experience in the conflict area,72 many victims (psychic or psychosomatic disorder) always try to recover their burden of psychic due to the tension of financial necessities upon their life. The basic necessities of life such as daily food, health, and education for their children, have forced the people to forget the sense of disorder for a while. As consequence, psychic or psychosomatic disorder comes to ruin themselves. And sometimes the psychosomatic disorder makes themselves sick because they cannot accept the reality. Therefore, people who have experienced such ‗illness‘ have to overcome this condition by healing themselves, otherwise it will destroy themselves throughout their life time.
In line with the object material of the research, I perceive that Pazira also has the same experience akin to the psychic or psychosomatic disorder. At least, she has the same problem as the victim of conflict as well. Indeed, it needs time for her to recover her sense of disorder. Fortunately, Pazira can ‗overcomes‘ her sense in which she expresses her feeling disorder through her narration in order to release or even to cure her personal trauma. Since her leaving of Afghanistan, it needs approximately ten years or more and finally composing this narration. Otherwise, many refugees in
Afghanistan cannot utter the experiences that they had faced in their life through a text.
72 Poso conflict is a communal conflict happened in Poso district, Central Celebes. It occurred in 1998 to 2001. However, this conflict is prolonged and exacerbated by mysterious shooting, bombing and murders. It is approximately eight years of conflict until 2005. And the result of conflict remains many victims in this place.
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Moreover, besides her personal trauma above, in the field of psychology and anthropology there is also a term ―massive trauma‖. And everybody who lives in the conflict areas is vulnerable with the massive trauma. Krystal, in Robben & Suarez, says:
The term ‗massive trauma applies to any society, ethnic group, social category or class which has been exposed to extreme circumstances of traumatization, such as natural disasters, technological catastrophes, and social, political, cultural, gender, ethnic or religious persecution, that leave them with life-long problems.73
Living in such condition where conflict becomes her consumption day by day, the author has been forced to experience massive trauma; and this trauma is collective kind, because she became part of the society at the time.
Departing from this explanation, I propose to use these two terms of trauma in order to see the personal life of the author that has been conveyed through the text.
The first is the personal trauma and the second is the massive trauma or collective trauma in which she is the part of the society life at the time. And seeing the acute of her personal background has proved that the author has problems with her life and it is a complicated memory as well. This memory is filled with so much distraction of life and it causes her suffering. Nevertheless, her memory is very important for her narration with which she re-tells her own storage of memory through the text. And to some extent, she succeeds to compile it.
In here, I want to elaborate brief condition or influences about her success to write this story and then, I outline how her ‗memory‘ has influenced the whole story
73 Robben & Suarez, p. 24.
102 as the essence of the discussion. Her succession to compile all her experiences is greatly influenced by her ‗new circumstance‘ in which she has exiled to the peaceful country. According to Suarez (1992), ―survivor needs confirmation of the reality of the unreal world that attempted systematically to destroy ego and with it, the ‗reality principle‘‖74. To my understanding, every ‗people‘ (read: victim of violence) need social confirmation or social empathy in which it will make them realizing that they are welcomed upon their new ‗neighborhood‘ (read: safety place). And the warm response upon their life will help the ‗people‘ to push or remove their burden. In other words, it helps to destroy their ego (trauma).
Dealing with Pazira‘s life, the ‗unreal world‘ of the author is the place where she has exiled. And her ego is the ‗complicated memories‘ as the result of her experience living in the conflict areas. Nevertheless, the author has ‗succeeded‘ to control her trauma during her living in Canada in which the ‗new reality principle‘ has given her a chance to deal with her sense of disorder.
Canada has become a place of Pazira‘s transformation. She gets her sense of freedom in this place and it helps her to heal herself from the ‗obsolete memory‘. It also forces herself to alter her ‗old paradigm‘ of life with a new ideology. And as a result of her transformation, Pazira returns to oppose fundamentalist movement in the
Islamic countries especially in Afghanistan, although in the past time she supported this movement (Mujahidin). She knows Islam very well, but she also minds with the life of the Afghanistan people after the war or after the falling of Taliban Regime
74 Ibid., p. 12.
103 where people strictly adopted the Taliban‘s principle. She has her Islam; and now
Islam in her mind tends to follow the Muslim life in Canada.
To return to the topic of the discussion about the author‘s memory, I find that her memory has significant role upon the whole story. Proust in Edel‘s work states that ―memory is not the mere act of recalling events in a given sequence. On the contrary, memory is composite, a process of free association which shuffles events out of sequence like a pack of cards and across great gaps of time.‖75 Learning from what the author has done, to my belief, she used her memory as a kind of act to recall the past experiences or events. She did not use her memory as free association since she failed to cross the gap of time. Shortly, Pazira posits herself as a ‗newcomer‘ in her former land without compromising or understanding the spirit of the age at the time of conflict. In here, the ‗holy war‘ (jihad) as a kind of liberation movement upon
Soviet Union intervention is not seen in appropriate way as well. Therefore, Pazira loses to recognize it.
As mentioned previously, La Capra has reminded us that writing is a medium of expression and a way to see the past experience. Therefore, I contend what Pazira has done in her work closely related with her memory. In other words, her work is medium of expression to present her past experience. However, to some extent, it is a kind of releasing her feeling of disorder to see the past in Afghanistan. Then, in the psychoanalytic approach, what the author has conducted in her narration is to emphasize that she is not ‗wholeness‘ because this approach proposes that nobody is
75 Edel, p. 117.
104 whole. Then, what the author has done within the text, will be read as her unconsciousness.
Dealing with the unconscious element, I want to continue discussing this subchapter with what Henderson has stated in Edel‘s work, in which she states that ―I don‘t read books for the story, but as a psychological study of the author. […] in the book the author was there in every word.‖76 Thus, I treat all the information or every word in the book of Pazira as the expression of her mental states, thoughts or feelings. And all of her expressions are the object of psychological study in this research. It means that the words will be read as her symptom of trauma (sense of disorder).
Further, Edel also adds that ―the unconsciousness cannot be expressed in its own unconscious form, since obviously this is unconscious. We can only infer it from symbols emerging in the conscious expressions of the person, such as remembered dreams, fantasies, or slip of the tongue or of the pen.‖77 Learning from this statement,
I still believe what Pazira did in her narration is closely related with her remembering of experience, dreams, fantasies and even slip of pen as the effect of her conflict experience. However, she has ‗succeeded‘ to control her complicated memories through the text as her medium of expression.
In A Bed of Red Flowers, hidden intention of the author is greatly perceived within the text and it is closely related with her opinion about the discourse of Islam.
Her repudiation against the ‗world of Islam‘ (fundamental movements) is evident that
76 Ibid., p. 103. 77 Ibid., p. 55.
105 actually she experiences personal and massive trauma, although she copes with it as shown in the text. And I convince that this is the effect of her sense of disorder caused by the tension of conflict and it still remains in her mind up to now. Even though she refuses to acknowledges the sense of trauma obviously in her narration, but in line with the theories or approaches I propose in this study, I am sure that
Pazira through her book conveys the message of her symptomatic trauma (read: trauma) of living in the unrestful situation.
Nonetheless, consciously or unconsciously, she has implicitly acknowledged her symptom of trauma in her narration. Pazira said that there was a question in her childhood how her father had been treated like a perpetrator at that time. To her view, her father is a good father without criminal‘s notice during his life time.
In some ways, to this day, the child in me still asks ―why?‖ Why was my father, who in his daughter‘s view was a kind man and a good medical doctor, locked up away from us? Children see everything through the injustices they‘ve suffered. In the perfect world that every child expects, this episode left a crack in the wall of my innocence. (BRF, 4)
Systematically writing, Pazira succeeds to cover her agony and to cope with the fearful moments in her childhood. However, to some extent, she cannot hide all the experiences that greatly influence her life particularly the situation of war. Many times, she straightly saw moments of grief in which many people had died without any obvious reason. This is a tragic life and remains feeling of trauma as well. And it will make her very upset and distressed. Unfortunately, she is never bold to admit it within the text. On the contrary, in her narration, Pazira treated this situation as if it
106 was normal and the people of Afghanistan including her self had accepted this unrestful situation as something ordinary event.
Chaos is normal for us. Fear, anger, panic and waiting – always waiting – is our life. Ten years, and we‘ve been watching the gradual deterioration of life, not just seeing it, but living it. (BRF, 7)
From this point of view, actually the author has presented her sense of trauma throughout her concealment about the condition of life whereby all of the people pretend to live in the normal situation. La Capra states that ―trauma is a disruptive experience that disarticulates the self and creates holes in existence; it has belated effects that are controlled only with difficulty and perhaps never fully mastered.‖78
Thus, in line with what La Capra has stated above, it can be said that what the author has described, is a kind of difficulties to control her sense of trauma in her daily life. I am sure that ten years had experienced and lived in such kind of rupture condition, has weakened her soul. And I believe that this condition has exhausted her power and psyche. Indeed, it is like a hole in her soul and disturbs herself very much.
Again, throughout her narration, she proves that she has passed over to the sense of her trauma. Indeed, the text can conceal everything, however, it loses or even fails to hide the message of bitterness within the text. And in line with the statement above, Eco‘s work has proved it. He states that ―text is an object that the interpretation builds up in the course of the circular effort of validating itself on the
78 Dominick La Capra, Writing History, Writing Trauma (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2001), p. 179.
107 basis of what it makes up as its result.‖79 Thus, the author tries to confirm the truthfulness of her story through her text. In contrast to what the author‘s expectation of the text, actually A Bed of Red Flowers has shown Pazira‘s agony and how she tries to mediate it, in order to control her ‗nightmare‘ of living in Afghanistan that still remains and adheres in her storage of memory.
In the next sections, Pazira continues to picture how people encounter the situation at that time of conflict and how they have to deny their feeling of dread. She says ―we act as if it‘s perfectly normal to see men, women and children in pieces, quite natural to walk through their blood and body parts, then get on a bus for home.‖
(BRF, 9) Thus, through this portrayal of life, the sense of trauma continues to stay in her soul and, of course, uncontrolled. She is forced by the unrestful situation and can do nothing as well. In other words, either Pazira or the other people of Afghanistan have faced severe experiences. And this unforgettable memory is too difficult to be removed. They cannot duly forget this experience because it happens massively and relatively in a long period.
Pazira then shows the grief of many people who are killed by the bomb explosion and missile dropped in Kabul, when this area was ambushed by the
Mujahidin forces. Almost everyday in a week, her parents should go to attend funeral procession for victims of the landing missile shot by the Mujahidin that destroyed many things including human life.
My mother goes on talking about how many funerals were held in that one place that day. The city‘s few funeral homes were built for ordinary times, not for war. The two
79 Eco, p. 97.
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funeral homes down town are packed each day, with several services going on at the same time. […]In the spring of 1989, Kabul is a city under siege. It has been this way for months. The Mujahidin have encircled Kabul, launching rocket attacks. The communist government, helplessly holding on to power, responds with counterattack. The fear of dying is more real than ever. Starvation and mines, rockets and bombs are a sentence of death, a final conviction for the innocent. Explosions are frequent, happening at any time, at any location: marketplaces, bus stations, residential areas, schools, government offices, parks, streets, even graveyards. Nowhere is safe. (BRF, 10 – 11)
Moreover, in the other part of her narration, Pazira tells her experience and it is closer with the ‗reality of life‘ in this time. She describes that peoples have to save their life and release themselves from fear to go outside. She pictures how the war was real for her, ―in a barrage that has lasted months, the missiles come in unprecedented numbers. And so do the casualties, the burned cars and smash homes.
Of course, the war was always real to us, but until now the battles were in the countryside and in other cities.‖ (BRF, 12)
Departing from such kind of ‗reality‘ as far as discussed, I assume that Pazira is too bold to say that chaos is ‗normal‘ for them at that time. Only those who are hopeless can say this statement. To my opinion, this is one of the clues that shows her emotion or mental evidence. And this also can be categorized as her slip of words.
Dealing with psychoanalytical approach, I think her words ―chaos is normal‖ only shows her unconsciousness; and it displays her psychic or psychosomatic disorder within the text as mentioned before.
Consequently, it is hard to imagine how Pazira deals with such a situation, because through my experience living in the conflict area, it is very difficult to deal with the situation. The only thing you can do is to endure in the situation. No future
109 before of the people, as if it were the end of the life. However, as far as I know, there is still a hope of life in the deep hearth of the people to continue their life.
During the time of social conflict in Poso, Central Celebes of Indonesia, for more or less eight years, it is difficult to forget this bad experience for me and the people of Poso as well. However, I must add that this conflict is not the same with the
Afghanistan conflict, but at least they are both of the same situation where people have to face terrible experiences. Many people have died and lost their settlement due to this conflict. Through this experience, I believe that it needs times to forget and place to rest in order to quench the ego of trauma within ourselves.
Even though the author has left Afghanistan for more than ten years with her
‗new‘ neighborhood in Canada, I believe, the shadows of ten years living in the conflict area of Afghanistan in the past time cannot deliberately disappear without any effort. Indeed, it still remains in her mind as well. I ponder that she needs times and a new place to help her throw away her obsolete memory. Or at least, Pazira has to cease for wailing this memory.
In line with what Pazira did, Cottes in the Lacanian perspective states that
―there is psychosis in childhood insofar as the clinical form of psychosis as an unconscious structure can be triggered-off in childhood, but there is not an infantile psychosis because the structure itself is a temporal.‖80 Largely, this study does not concern with psychosis as used in psychology, however, in psychoanalytical
80 See, Jean Francois Cottes, ―Psychosis and the Child in the Teachings of Jacques Lacan: Consequences for an Institution‖, p. 2.
110 approach the same matter will happen to everyone and even to an autobiographer.
Thus, I consider that what the author does through the text is a kind of her psychosis.
Thereby, I can pronounce that there is a time in which everyone lose contact with reality as a ‗psychosis‘ moment and we never realize about it until we understand that something has happened to our life.
Implicitly, the author consciously or unconsciously has highlighted what I mean as her psychotic moment within the text. Here, she displays her parent‘s agony upon the situation. Pazira‘s family saw that many people got unfair treatments and cruelty more than their capability to bear as human beings. And for a child like Pazira at that time of conflict, seeing her parents crying and grieving due to the situation, of course it has touched and hurt herself. And this experience will remain as a bitter memory until her full age. This can be seen when she states that ―I‘ve never seen my father cry before. The poor guy, he couldn‘t believe in that degree of human cruelty.
Nothing in life could have prepared him for that‖. (BRF, 111) Thus, this experience has remained and traced in her mind, because she also felt what her parents had faced in such situation.
Then, besides experiencing hardship of life, Pazira continues to show the condition of people have been living in this area. Many of them had suffered due to the deterioration of life. To some extent, the life of the people became worthless for themselves at the time. And in addition, the process of deterioration toward human beings was always occurring without any assurance and certainty from the legal government. This condition becomes so scare for the people in which everybody living under the threat of starvation. The author portrays thus:
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The winter of 1988 is one of the coldest in years. There‘s a heavy snowfall, and people are dying from hunger and frost. The majority have little to eat and nothing to heat their home. People wait for hours in below-zero temperatures to buy gas, wood, oil, flour, bread and sugar. Many have frozen to death while waiting in line, mostly elderly men, women and children. By now, most of the electricity poles have been destroyed in the course of the fighting. (BRF, 159)
Living in such condition continually has made people endure or survive for a while. And finally, according to Pazira‘s note, the country has to experience lack of food in everywhere. Starvation has come before of them. There is no enough supplement of food in the city, due to the Mujahidin‘s attacking the trucks that distributed the food to the town. The author describes that the starvation has spread upon the city so that nobody can survive or endure to live in this place anymore.
Many people starve for food. This deteriorating circumstance of course is too severe to encounter. As consequence, the effect of the condition has made the people very difficult to forget this experience because it has remained and hurt themselves. Pazira notes:
At first, there were a few less kilograms of flour, no sugar and only half a bottle of oil instead of a full one. Then there was oil only once a month, no sugar or soap the next, and little flour. Now there are longer lineups, and people are told the warehouses are empty. (BRF, 161)
Furthermore, she says that there are moments of her experience where she was badly treated. And the treatment had forced her to oppose Mujahidin, although in the beginning she was a member of this group. She had seen and even experienced the unjust treatments of Mujahidin by her own eyes and came to conclude that she did not agree with them. And finally she returned to scoff and despised her old paradigm
112 or ideology. Due to that, she is no longer helping the Mujahidin forces to repudiate the presence of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.
In the one occasion, after living for a several time in Pakistan or just after experiencing along journey to cross Afghanistan border and reached Pakistan, she has directly seen how Mujahidin‘s rule has placed women living like in the prison.
Women cannot go outside of the house, except if they are accompanied by man.
Home becomes their space, and in addition, they are denied access to education.
According to the author, they are detained inside their house. And in her book,
Pazira narrates her personal experience upon this situation. One day when she intended to go outside and walked for several steps leaving the door, suddenly she heard a gun fire as it were shot to her. In fact, one of Mujahidin members has tried to remind her by gun fire not to go outside without burqa (veil). This is the first experience on how she is treated as an enemy of Mujahidin. Based on this experience, she notes that Mujahidin in Pakistan reminds their women not to go outside using gun‘s fire, instead of speech to stop their steps. Indeed, this event has made the author very upset and scare toward the treatment of Mujahidin upon their women life. This is a tragic life for her. She describes as follows:
One of the girls tries to explain. ―Women are not allowed to leave the house without proper cover – if we go out, we go in groups, or else a man has to come with us.‖ She grins. ―This is Latifabad, in Pakistan – not Kabul,‖ she says. ―You‘ll get used to it.‖ The words whiz by my ears like bullets. ―Was someone shooting at me? I ask. ―Was someone trying to kill me?‖ ―No,‖ the girls replies. ―They are warning you that if you peek outside the again with your hair uncovered, you‘ll be in trouble.‖ ―Who is doing this?‖ ―The mujahidin forces.‖ But why would the mujahidin do this?‖ I ask. ―You‘ve got a lot to learn,‖ the father says.
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I am led back inside feeling even more suffocated. One of the women sprinkles water on my face – something traditionally done to a person shock. Another hands me a glass of water. ―But it what I‘m hearing, not the gunfire, that is shocking. Are these the same mujahidin who fight the Russian? The freedom fighters, the resistance to the occupation? There must be some mistake. Why would they shoot at refugees? ―This is mujahidin-controlled Peshawar,‖ insists Qasim. ―Here, you‘re a prisoner – like being in Puli Charkhi, especially if you‘re a woman.‖ His brother, Fareid, quips, ―Unfortunately, you pay for your own lodging.‖ Everyone laughs at the joke. ―The tragedy,‖ adds my uncle, ―is that this is true.‖ I had been exited to move to Pakistan – the place where my mujahidin heroes were based. Pakistan is one of our friends in the war against the Russians. There‘s a distance between Peshawar and Kabul, but being in Peshawar meant I was closer to the seat of mujahidin operations. I could be directly involved. But my journey has not ended with my arrival in Peshawar. There seems to be a different kind of distance now – an ideological one – separating me from those whom I‘ve idealized all these years. Am I not one of the mujahidin? I have supported them with my life. Why are they prepared to shoot at me? (BRF, 242-243)
Departing from the fact above, this study believes that Pazira had faced worse experience at that time. It hit and crashed herself. And it also frustrates her self, due to the condition of life contrasting to the life of the past experience in her former country. To her, this experience is too difficult to be encountered, albeit she was a
Muslim and came from Islamic country. This is a sophisticated experience and beyond her capability to overcome. And finally, it changed her paradigm and came to resist her former ideology.
Then, Pazira straightly moves to a ‗new‘ ideology concerning with her Islam.
She is no longer seeing Mujahidin as a solution upon Afghanistan. She remarks that the spirit of brotherhood among Mujahidin has disappeared by the situation. And she adds, ―it‘s impossible for me to accept that the people I admired so much could actually force women to stay at home. All those brave women in the villages, Anna,
Naseema,… They were all mujahidin‖. (BRF, 244)
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Departing from this experience, Pazira is more convinced that there is a bit distinction between Mujahidin in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It differed and separated each other as well. Then, she began to observe the distinction and discovered what behind the scene of Mujahidin‘s life in Pakistan. And finally she comes into concluding, she insists:
The mujahidin I believed in are no longer a reality. I‘m beginning to see a different face of Jihad. ―The Afghan jihad leadership is corrupt,‖ I write to Mir. ―Refugees live in place of desolation, with little water or electricity, in fifty degrees of heat. They are crammed into the poor districts of Peshawar and into the refugee camps near the border. The leaders of the jihad and their cronies live in large homes with walls of marble. They drive the newest model Toyota Corollas; the refugees walk long distances because they cannot afford bus fare. (BRF, 247)
Learning from that fact, this is the first time and the main reason why Pazira started to despise the presence of fundamental movement (Mujahidin) at the time. She did this, because of her greatly disappointment upon the treatment of Mujahidin in
Pakistan toward their women life as well as herself. She did not pride anymore with the struggle of Mujahidin in helping her former country, albeit this group never ceases to send their men fighting in Afghanistan.
The findings of her observation to live in the world of Islam had also made herself coming into conclusion that this movement only took advantage from the situation of conflict. Pazira rather appreciated her ‗heroes‘ in Afghanistan as the real
Mujahidin than Mujahidin in Pakistan. And all of these experiences finally forced her to reject this movement in her life time.
It‘s impossible for me to accept that the people I admired so much could actually force women to stay at home. All those brave women in the villages, Anna, Naseema…They were all mujahidin. The first victims of the 1980 uprising in Kabul were mujahidin – women who received bullets in their chests for refusing to end their protest against the Soviet invasion. Mir‘s friends and the underground Islamic youth
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group I was part of were mostly female fighters. There was no imposed dress code. So what is wrong with these people in Pakistan? (BRF, 244)
Pazira further shows her objection toward the life of Muslim in Pakistan under the regulation of Mujahidin‘s forces. Again, she received a disgraceful treatment from
Mujahidin because of her dress, in which according to the one of Mujahidin her dress is not suitable with the culture of Islam. However, according to Pazira, her dress has become custom in her former country Afghanistan. As a result, the Mujahidin member continues to protest and despise her at that time. Indeed, this experience has increased and seared her hatred upon this group. Without freedom Pazira says, she can do nothing. And it is too difficult for her living in such situation in which Islamic law is rigidly run without considering the context and situation, and at the same time , it despises the life of women. She describes as follows:
As we cross the road, a young man with dark skin, thick black hair and a beard comes close. ―Do you call this hijib [head cover]?‖ he asks. I continue to walk. ―Is she with you?‖ he asks my father loudly. My father stops. ―Yes.‖ ―Aren‘t you ashamed to see her dressed like this?‖ ―What is the problem?‖ I ask of this young man. He turns to me and points at my head cover. ―We‘ve been fighting a holy war, spilling our blood – but not for this, not for our women to be dressed like this.‖ I‘m dressed in a Pakistani-style shalwar kameez and have a head cover on, but my hair is still visible underneath my scarf. I look the man up and down. If he is so keen on what he calls ―Islamic attire,‖ why doesn‘t he look at himself in the mirror? His own tight jeans and T-shirt don‘t seem to fit his description of the mujahid he hopes to represent.‖ ―I‘ll have to you to the committee,‖ he says, showing us his Kalashnikov. (BRF, 248)
In order to convince the readers upon Pazira‘ narration, she does not only portray her life experiences when living in Pakistan where she was treated unjustly by the Mujahidin. On the contrary, she also depicts how the other people in this case her
116 father‘s friend engages with such kind of experience. Pazira narrates how her father‘s friend encounters the same experience and got unfair treatment by Mujahidin‘s force without explanation or any obvious reason. The reason for the unjustly treating was very irrational that is the objection against Western dress code. The member of
Mujahidin acts impolitely against Pazira‘s father friend as described below:
He joins my parents in warning me about ―the jihadis,‖ as he calls them. ―There is no tolerance for any kind of debate,‖ he says. ―The first time I was stopped by them for wearing trousers and a shirt, I tried to explain to them that the Afghan jihad was not about clothing. This young man who was twice my size responded by reaching for my neck. He lifted me up a few centimeters from the ground. I didn‘t know what I‘d done wrong. But I didn‘t like his reply and decided that I‘d never argue about anything with them again. Saifi smiles‖ (BRF, 249)
By showing this experience, Pazira wants to convey and convince the readers that fundamental Islam is very close with irrational thinking, unfair treatment and violence. Uncomfortable life within world of Islam cannot be avoided for the reason of upholding the law of Islam. Freedom of life or liberation for the ‗people‘ is a far- fetched idea. No body will move with her own destiny or desire, because law is everything and the only one rule to be followed. This is the Mujahidin‘s rule of the game: If you violate this rule, you are convict and hence deserving to be punished.
In this case, I believe that the author makes such experience too severe to be imagined, and it will irritate or influence the readers to concur with Pazira‘s understanding when reading this wretched condition of life in Afghanistan. And then, reproducing and repeating such kind of experiences to my understanding is only to invoke and somehow to provoke the readers to interpret Islam without proper understanding. Besides the entire situation that influences the readers‘ mind, Pazira is
117 not reluctant to underestimate the ‗world of Islam‘. In here, she proves it by showing her uncle experience living in Islamic country particularly in Iran.
Iran is an awful place,‖ says Uncle Asad. ―The Iranians treated us baldly. They used to call us ‗dirty Afghans‘.‖ Ronal tells us how they had to move from one house to another as Iranian landlords stopped renting to Afghan refugees. (BRF, 252)
Looking to that ‗facts‘, I am very sure that she has experienced a kind of massive trauma and this trauma has influenced her life not only to change her point of view upon world of Islam, but on how she appreciates it. In so doing, she describes the situation of Islamic life in a line with the western media reportage. Here, this media always highlights such kind of oppression of Islamic male towards their women. To complete this miserable experience, Pazira then depicts the deterioration of life happening in Afghanistan few months after her leaving. Her friend Dyana informs her about this condition. She says:
It‘s not that we had an easy life with the mujahidin, but this is a different lot – a weird group of people, lots of young boys with kohl on their eyes, long hair, long beards, turbans and perhan-tombon (the Dari word for Pakistani-style shalwar kameez). They beat men, taking them to the mosques to pray. They have forced all women to stay home. They‘ve banned all music. Not that we had much electricity to watch TV, but once in a while it was a good distraction. Now we can‘t even watch that. They‘ve smashed all TV sets. Can you imagine? If we are sick, we can‘t go to the hospital. The stupid mujahidin with their infighting paved the way for these animals. (BRF, 281)
Furthermore, after leaving Afghanistan for about ten years or more, finally she returns to her former country after the falling of Taliban‘s regime. In this place, she wailed because of the changing situation in Afghanistan. Many things have been changed and the changing makes her distress. It is easy for her to see but too painful to accept. The majority have turned to follow fundamental principle of life and even
118 in their lifestyle. Due to this fact, the author blames the old regime (Taliban). She encountered how Afghan people refused to talk with foreigners. And the women are banned to talk to the foreign people particularly those who belong to western country.
You are an Afghan,‖ he reminds me. ―You understand our culture, that foreign men are not permitted to talk to our women.‖ I try to argue that these men are all Muslims, that they have no bad intentions when they talk to women, that filming would take place in the presence of husbands, fathers and brothers. ―You understand,‖ he insists. ―It won‘t be possible. (BRF, 300)
In her view, probably Pazira imagine and expect that her former country
Afghanistan is still the same with the situation before of her leaving. At that time, she can go everywhere and have freedom to talk with the other. However, contrasting to what she has faced some years ago and this current situation, the image of Islam in this time tends to be similar with the western perception in which ‗Islam‘ upholds rigid law upon their people. And she laments for this situation.
Finally in the last chapter, Pazira shows her symptom of trauma when she went to Russia to counter her sense of disorder upon her past experience. And this is the first time of her arrival in Russia. When she arrived there, she narrated that ―this is the new globalized Russia. I don‘t want to talk to the driver. I am moved by both curiosity and contempt. This is the country that helped to destroy mine, and in moments of despair during the war in Kabul, I wished to see this place turn to ashes.‖
(BRF, 352) From this statement, it is obvious that Pazira is still difficult to control herself because there is still hatred in her deep heart upon her enemies.
Moreover, Pazira insists her feeling of disorder upon the situation at the time, in which she says that she cannot forget all the bad experience of her life.
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I haven‘t forgotten the days of my father‘s imprisonment and my mother‘s tears. How could he forget those days of torture and nights of interrogations that were, ultimately, the result of decisions made behind the Kremelin‘s wall? Some memories only become sharper with the passage of time. Bad ones have a lasting, bitter taste. (BRF, 353)
And in line with Lacanian perspective, concerning with the discourse of
Islam, this work can be categorized as a master discourse. In here, Pazira highlights more on the rigidness law of Islam. Then, the ego of the author is obvious and dominates the whole presentation of narration. In this matter, Pazira focuses to depict the bad treatment of Islamic fundamentalism against herself. And this act can be categorized as kind of sacrificing of the author to represent the other. This study contends that Pazira only reproduces what has been formed by western media reportage before her work is launched.
Moreover, in postcolonial perspective, the author of this novel is writing a text that tends to support the existence of the US‘s army as her ‗new colonial master‘. In other words, Pazira has trapped herself into the political discussion in which she concurs with the intervention of western countries upon Afghanistan without realizing that the intervention prolongs the conflict. And then, Gandhi also claims that a text has significant role toward ―the conditioning of subordinated people and it prolongs the colonial‘s reign.‖81 The text then, Gandhi maintains, is more than any other social and political product because it is the most ―significant instigator and purveyor of colonial power.‖
81 Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory (New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 141-166.
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B. Depiction of Characters to Show the Author’s Objection toward the
Discourse of Islam
After discussing the symptom of trauma, this subchapter will juxtapose how
Pazira displays her objection toward ‗Islam‘ in the term of characterization. In literary research, there are two kinds of characterization in the narrative namely flat and round character. Shlomith82 states that flat character is analogues to ―humors‖, otherwise, round character is ―complex and developing‖. And throughout this characterization Pazira also convey the message of her story.
Dealing with what Pazira has done, this study believes that the characterization of the novel is round character. Nevertheless, I must add that I do not want to show the complexity and the development of the characters. As such, I want to divide the characterization into two groups i.e. characters that support her understanding about ‗Islam‘ and the characters are placed as her ‗enemy‘. The characters that support her understanding about her Islam will be displayed explicitly.
On the contrary, the characters are placed as her ‗enemy‘ will not display in the discussion. It is implicitly discussed. Thus, in this sub chapter I only discuss the characters that support her opinion about the discourse of Islam to scrutinize her understanding.
In this section, I also perceive that Pazira deliberately constructs readers‘ mind through the characterization in order to achieve her own goal upon this book.
82 Shlomith Rimmon Kenan. Narrative Fiction Contemporary Poetics (New York: Methuen & Co, 1986), p. 40.
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The truth of this opinion will be proven when this study examines further all the parts of the narration and analyzes it. As matter of fact, the characters she portrays in the novel are to emphasize her ‗understanding‘ about her Islam. Pazira seems to insist that her ‗Islam‘ is akin to with peace, hence harmless for other people.
In so doing, the author continues to compare every character in this autobiographical novel to picture the life and condition under fundamental Islamic regime. Pazira pictures how the people survive in bad circumstances where they have to struggle and overcome the unrestful situation in order to rescue their life. Then, she depicts these characters under tension and threats of violence but ‗succeed‘ to overcome their problem in the situation at that time. This is done, in order to support her point of view about Islam. And these characters have become Pazira‘s heroes in her former country Afghanistan.
One of the characters is Nasema. According to the author‘s narration, Nasema is a young woman whose profession is similar with smuggler. Pazira knew and recognized Nasema when she was leaving Afghanistan in which Nasema was known as one of the smugglers who assisted and helped people who want to leave
Afghanistan by crossing the border Afghanistan-Pakistan in order to reach the safe place Pakistan. Then, Pazira further narrates in her book, how is Nasema in her view for the first time.
In the beginning, when they were walking with Nasema, all of the members of
Pazira‘s family did not realize that Nasema was just a young woman. They assumed absolutely that Nasema is a young man. To their mind, there is no woman is too bold to break the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan at that time. On the one hand, this
122 border line is firmly watched by Soviet and Afghanistan Army. And on the other hands, this border line is also guarded by Mujahidin forces. Either Afghanistan or
Mujahidin forces treat their enemies badly. Indeed, this is a dangerous place.
Everybody is under military observation, being important people in Afghanistan such as teacher, lawyer, and doctor; it means you are not allowing crossing the border. And they would get problem of detention. Nevertheless, after few hours of walking with
Nasema, Pazira‘s family realized that Nasema was only a young girl. She had acted and run her role as smuggler in dangerous situation without realizing that she had endangered her life and other.
We sit in circle, facing each other. The woman sits a short distance from us. She pulls her burqa from her face. Until this moment, I was under the impression that she was old, but once the curtain is lifted we see a young woman – about eighteen – with delicate features, thick dark eyebrows, black eyes and pink cheeks. She has a kind, innocent face. ―She‘s so young,‖ my mother whispers. (BRF, 215)
Then, Pazira narrates that they need time to know each other, even to understand the reason why Nasema do this kind of risky job. And through a short of conversation Nasema reveals her reason to run this kind of activities. She said that this was her acting of revenge upon the death of her family member particularly her parents by Soviet and Afghanistan Army at the time. And the reason to kill them, due to Nasema‘s family is accused as part of Mujahidin group. Pazira describes:
As we sit under the shade of a wild berry tree, my mother asks Naseema how many brothers and sisiters she has. ―One older brother, and one younger – the one who brought your bags,‖ she says. ―I‘ve got two sisters – one you say in the first village.‖ Her older brother is a mujahid ad is currently in Peshawar, in Pakistan. ―Where are your parents?‖ ask Samera. There is a pause. ―Some years ago…,‖ Nasema begins, and then swallows the rest of her words before beginning again. […]We all need a break. Naseema wipes the sweat from her forehead and fixes her burqa. Her expression is helpless, innocent. Samera looks like someone who‘s just been to a
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horror movie. Eyes fixed on Naseema‘s face, she‘s waiting for the happy ending. There is none. ―Helping people leave the country is my revenge for my parents,‖ says Naseema in a determine voice. ―I was eleven when they killed my parents. (BRF, 226 - 228)
Hearing this experience of life has made Pazira understanding that there are so many victims in this conflict area. However, Pazira also amazes toward the boldness of this young girl to cross the border of Afghanistan alone. She is a Mujahid, however, she helps those who want to leave her former country. Even though her motivation behind her action is revenge, but she does not conduct violent activities that cause physical wound to the other.
Thus, there are many people have been helped by Nasema without care about her life. Finally, Nasema succeeded to lead them and passed over every barrier of military‘s guard within Afghanistan and Pakistan border. Nevertheless, to Pazira point of view, it is too dangerous for such girl to run this job. And according to the author, Nasema had also proved her ability to avoid the problem at the time when they were stopped by the soldiers to examine everyone behind the burqa (veil).
Military officers were curious that there was a man behind these hidden clothes, at the time of Pazira‘s family leaving.
However, Pazira narrates that Nasema did not fear when this event happened to them, otherwise, she came and conversed with the soldier and the woman who has been asked by the military guards to examine every woman behind the burqa.
―Nasema is talking to her, trying to find out what‗s going on. ―He thinks you‘ve got a man under the burqa,‖ she says. When the woman lifts the burqa from Mejgan‘s face,
124 she laughs loudly. ―She‘s a little girl, ah a little girl,‖ she says to the soldier, who‘s standing a couple of metres away.‖ (BRF, 225)
After the experience of long journey crossing the border of Afghanistan,
Pazira becomes very proud of the boldness of Nasema. It encourages Pazira to acknowledge that Nasema is a ‗hero‘ of Afghanistan at that time. Her activities will never hurt everybody. She helps people of Afghanistan without action of violence.
This is an implied experience and it endures to Pazira‘s storage of memory.
Nasema is a Muslim and belongs to fundamental Islam as well, but, she tends to choose becoming a smuggler as her way of revenge toward Soviet or Afghanistan
Army. And this is not only a harmless way, but it is virtue. To Pazira, this kind of act is rare and very scarce to be followed. Nasema‘s way to help people should be treated as a lesson for many people who incline to use rifle to ruin their enemies as the basic of their struggle. In this matter, Pazira insists that there is still a young girl who helps people to flee from their former country as kind of her objection toward the existence of Soviet and Afghanistan Army.
Furthermore, besides Naseema there is a young man who also has important role in the author‘s life experience, particularly before of her leaving. He is recognized as Mir. Mir is a university student in Kabul at the time of conflict. And he is also a double agent in which on the one hand he becomes a military member and on the other hand, he becomes a member of Mujahidin movement.
According to Pazira‘s explanation, Mir is actually a brave soldier. Many times he brings illegal visitors to Afghanistan including reporter. Mir also masters and recognizes the illegal network of organization that operates in Afghanistan at that
125 time of conflict. And it is easy for him to go everywhere to seek information and to know something in need. Indeed, it is a risky job. And it is also due to his aid that
Pazira‘s family succeeded to cross the border of Afghanistan and safely arrived in
Pakistan. Actually, Mir is the main actor behind the planning to leave Afghanistan.
Then, he also helped Pazira when her families‘ member has been detained in
Afghanistan.
Learning from Mir‘s experience, has made Pazira engaging with fundamental movements. And due to that, Pazira admires this fundamental movement. Actually,
Pazira is proud and happy to her friend Mir and not in the organization. And this is the reason why the author shows her sympathy upon Mujahidin movement in the outset. Pazira admires with the brave hearth of this young man. Even in the bad situation he never shows his restlessness toward his family life.
In the one occasion, Pazira narrates how she saw Mir‗s boldness to encounter the unrestful situation. In the difficult situation when his brother has been arrested,
Mir showed no nervous sense. Thus, this kind of experience also has penetrated
Pazira‘s life to believe that the struggle of Mujahidin to expel the Soviet Army from
Afghanistan can be done by the ―harmless‖ activities.
As I leave, Mir is standing in the hallway, nodding approvingly. ―It will be fine,‖ he says. I ask to see his mother, who has been grieving over her son‘s arrest. So far, none of their high ranking government contacts have been able to get him out. Mir‘s mother is tired, and complains that her sons have taken after their father. ―They are adventurous, always taking risks,‖ she says. She has three sons, and tells me she feels the absence of a daughter more now than ever before. ―Does he attend his classes?‖ she asks me. ―Is he a good student?‖ I‘m not his classmate, I say, head down. But, I tell her, I‘m sure he is a very good student. What can I say to a mother who wants her children to be hard-working students and lead a peaceful, normal life? She doesn‘t understand that life for our generation is not that simple. She doesn‘t even know the extent of Mir‘s brother supposed crime, and the potential punishment. During the whole conversation, Mir stands by the door with a big, fake smile. (BRF, 190-191)
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Learning from the characters above, actually Pazira wants to invert the situation. She attempts to re-warn fundamental Islam how they are often using acts of violence to achieve and accomplishes their goal. However, the portrayal of characters like Nasema and Mir is exception. And what the author actually has shown within the text, is to notify the people of Islamic countries how they are always vulnerable with the uses of rifle. To some extent, it is because of the presence of fundamentalism.
Pazira then continues to remind the existence of Islamic fundamentalism and the use of terror in Afghanistan to irritate their own people. In this case, the author does not only speak for the Afghanistan people, but she speaks for the Muslims as well.
Therefore, she directly attracts the readers particularly western people who, on the contrary, usually campaign peaceful ways to achieve their goal, reading this novel.
Meanwhile, on the other part of her narration, Pazira narrates how women live under pressuring condition where they are imposed to accept and surrender their circumstances without using rational thinking. They are always conditioned to agree or even trust to their destiny about the death of their family members in the ‗holy war‘ (jihad). Pazira narrates:
We visit Soraya‘s family on the anniversary of her father‘s death. He was recognized as one of the great mujahidin fighters of his time. He was the first, but not the last, in the family to die for God. Her home is a house of martyrs. ―We‘ve given seventeen martyrs to jihad,‖ she says. ―Both our mothers and all our sisters in law are widows.‖ Like statues, perfect and dignified, the widow and orphans kneel on a carpet, staring at us in total silence. A shake of their heads is a sign of welcome. But the order of tragedy must not be broken by words. A permanent look of sadness lies across the faces of these young women, who are in constant misery. ―We are women,‖ says Soraya‘s mother, breaking the heavy silence. ―Allah has created us to suffer. We accept Allah‘s will. (BRF, 259)
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Pazira continues depicting the dangerous life under tension of conflict, where ideology has become the only foundation to control people‘s life. Therefore, this study believes what Pazira picture, actually signifies her irritation toward the treatment of women in Islamic countries. The author implies that although human beings are destined to die, the death of ‗war‘ is exception. Pazira argues that the ruin of life which comes close to the widows of Mujahidin is kind of destruction toward their life and their children future. To Pazira‘s mind, what the widows have in their mind is irrational thinking. And at the same time, Pazira wants to say that they are
‗insane‘ when Mujahidin‘s women state that they are pride when their men died in the holy war of Afghanistan.
Dealing with this reason, to my opinion, what Pazira does with her text is only to exaggerate the condition of women of Mujahidin. She speaks for the subordinated, however, she despises them as well. As far as I know, within Islam jihad is holy and many Muslims will be proud to join in this ‗war‘. To some extent, it also shows that they fully depend to the God. And further, to my belief, this text actually is a reaction of Pazira‘s anger due to the treatment of fundamental Islam in which many people still believe to them. Therefore, Pazira never views this fundamental Islam in a proper ways of thinking. Due to that, she changes of her old paradigm with a new one and it is also influenced her not to see the discourse of Islam in the proper way.
On the contrary, adopting liberal Islam way of life, it means that she has to use her mind with logical or rational thinking. In so doing, she imposes her ideology to see Islamic women, and therefore she fails to recognize and even to grasp the discourse of Islam in former country. The objection toward Islamic women life
128 becomes her focusing of discussion on her book in order to convince that the agony and burden as the result of following militant Islam group toward widows of
Mujahidin had been concealed in their deep hearth. The author‘s discontent and objection toward these women upon their admiration and proud for their death husbands, is obvious when she narrates:
Invoking Allah‘s name has become the answer to everything rational or irrational – it is the same for dying, pain or suffering. I don‘t think the Allah I‘m discovering in the Quran would be pleased with all this. But for this household of decorated war heroes – their framed photos hang on the wall – and their beautiful widows, gaining Allah‘s favour in this life and the one to come is the ultimate satisfaction. There is little else they can do. (BRF, 260)
By showing her disagreement with those who involve in Jihad, this is to say that Pazira forces her understanding and ego: she wants to negate the experiences and the sense of Mujahidin widows. And I believe that new ideology has taken her understanding upon this situation. Despite she has known the history of Afghanistan, however nowadays she has lost her tolerance toward the situation.
Seeing what the author has presented above, through the portrayal of characters within the text, like, Naseema, Mir and the widow of Mujahidin life, I contend that the author tries to insist her understanding about Islam. Life is not a good as we think, therefore we have to tolerate with the situation. Naseema and Mir is the hero of those who want to make Afghanistan as the place of liberal Islam.
Therefore, Pazira tries to convey this message in order to compare the life of Islam through her narration.
This study believes that Pazira has reproduced a discourse of western country about Islam. And once again, she uses readymade issues and it is closely related with
129 the issues of women life. Therefore I consider that Pazira has used this text to transfer the message of western countries upon the readers in general. This text is categorized as master discourse. To my understanding, the author has failed to convince the readers from Islamic countries, or those who are prominent in Islamic studies regarding with the term of Jihad. However, Pazira‘s narration is only viewed as a fiction or imagination that exaggerates the issues of Islam.
C. Area of Negotiation
This research proposes the area of negotiation as one of aspect to be analyzed.
And what I mean with the area of negotiation is the treatment consciously or unconsciously done by the author through her text in order to convey her message in a balanced manner for the hidden purpose as well. Barthes in Hawthorn asserts that
―the text itself is a fetish object which disguises the lack of the author.‖83 Through this statement, I reckon that there are ‗spaces‘ (read: the lack of the author) in the self of the author when she narrates her story, however, she tries to conceal and even disguises it in order to make her work becoming more interesting in the eyes of the readers. To my belief, this kind of manner in psychoanalytic approach is considered as kind of concealment. However, the ‗spaces‘ within the author in this study is revealed as ‗the area of negotiation‘.
83 Jeremy Hawthorn, A Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory (London, Edward Arnold, 1994), p. 70.
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Before going further to discuss about the area of negotiation, I want to underlay this discussion with the term of ‗ambivalence‘ proposed by Kristeva, in which ―it implies the insertion of history (society) in a text and of the text into history; for the writer, they are one and the same.‖84 In line with the object material of this study, I convince that the term of ‗ambivalence‘ is closely related with what
Pazira has conducted in A Bed of Red Flowers in which she tries to insert her story
(history) of war in Afghanistan and the September 11 tragedy into her text.
I convince that this work has the spaces to be dug out in which the author conceals this purpose within the text. And in line to the genre of this narration as autobiographical novel, the publication of this book to some extent I consider as kind of popular literature in which this work is the part of popular culture. Indeed, the presence of this book is expected to fulfill readers‘ ‗satisfaction‘85.
Furthermore, Bakhtin in Julia Kristeva states that ―any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.‖86
Departing from this perspective and dealing with Pazira‘s narration, the author has succeeded to replace the issue of war in Afghanistan with the issue of US‘s invasion upon Afghanistan. In other words, she constructed the issues of war from readymade text and transforms it to other new text. And it is closely related with September 11 tragedy. In her narration, for instance, the enemy of Afghanistan at that time is the
84 Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language, A semiotic Approach to Literature and Art (England: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1987), p. 68. 85 Jack Nachbar & Kevin Lause. Popular Culture: An Introductory Text (Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992), p. 1. 86 Kristeva, p. 66.
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Soviet army and instead of juxtaposing the war between Soviet and Mujahidin troops in detail, Pazira chooses to picture different angle of portraying. She portrays life of the people after the US‘s invasion. And she describes this condition as follows:
[…] In the midst of the world drama, where battles of ―good‖ against ―evil‖ are being fought, and the triumph of destruction and death are taking place, I have unwittingly become a spokesperson for a cause. I ask audiences to see the world for what it is, to think of the millions of deprived people who are ever more frustrated, ever more distressed over the failure of their corrupt governments to deliver on their promises of prosperity, freedom and democracy. And I ask people to remember the bankrupt Western policies that protect these governments. In October 2001, I tell an audience of ever four hundred people at Columbia University, in New York, that Afghans nowadays are perceived as either victims or villains. The first are to be pitied, the second feared and despised. I tell them I would like to speak to them as an equal. A young woman with short blonde hair raises her hand. ―Are you telling me I shouldn‘t believe those mad guys on my TV screen who are shouting and saying they want to destroy America?‖ Another woman says her neighbour‘s son was killed in the twin towers. ―How can I explain to her that we don‘t need to avenge the death of her son because Afghanistan is a poor country? (BRF, 321 – 322)
After September 11 tragedy, the issues of invasion of USA has become common secret. Taliban as legal regime in Afghanistan at the time has to give its responsibility upon the tragedy. And at the same time, Pazira as the author of the novel begin to compose her story upon Afghanistan but in different angle. When the
US‘s Army has conquered the land of Afghanistan few months after the tragedy, the author also recalls her memory of war in this land. The experience of life in the situation of war in the past time is the focusing of her narration. However, what the author has shown through this text is only to reveal her symptom of trauma. And it still remains in her life although she has been living in Canada. This sense of trauma has perturbed her self up to this day.
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Nevertheless, the condition is very different now, she has become one of the volunteers that campaigns the condition of Afghanistan people to the western countries after the falling of Taliban regime. And in here, the ambiguity of Pazira as the area of her negotiation will be disclosed, in which to some extent, Pazira does not want her former country to be annihilated and only remains ruin, but on the other hand, she understands that Afghanistan needs transformation to improve this country from the hand of those (fundamental groups) who has prohibited the development of this place.
The author realizes consciously what has been imagined in her mind, only can be fulfilled through western‘s intervention. However, the author is shrewd to control the readers‘ mind. Though she shows her ambiguity, in which she is very eager to improve Afghanistan condition, but, at the same time she reminds the presence of the
US‘s Army. She does not want the same experience happening to her former country
Afghanistan. Pazira pronounces that to some extent she refuses the invasion of USA but she still supports their project upon her former country Afghanistan.
Furthermore, in order to control readers‘ mind, Pazira is not reluctant to appreciate how Islam in Pakistan which belongs to Islamic fundamentalism has agreed and accepted the presence of international aid in education field, in order to promote and proclaim how Mujahidin in this place has fought for the land. Though in their book, they posits Russia as their enemies at that time. Pazira contrasts the life in
Pakistan which belongs to Islamic fundamentalism and the life in Afghanistan after her leaving, in order to force her understanding upon ‗world of Islam‘.
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By presenting how Oxfam and UN organization has penetrated to Pakistan education realm, this is to say that Islamic countries where Islam fundamentalism as their main principle of life should accept and consent with the presence of
International organization. She notes and describes how western organization has supported Pakistan education field with the book which is telling the Mujahidin‘s boldness to expel their enemies from their land, in which to convince the fundamental
Islam in Afghanistan.
All the stories and poems in the textbooks celebrate the mujahidin‘s bravery, exonerating for killing and destroying the dushmen (enemy), the Russian. They are all battle songs, chants for a war that‘s already cost over a million lives. Every word, every page is dedicated to jihad, the martyrs of the war, religious duties, morality and piety. These texts are printed in Pakistan with financial aid from Western governments and non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam and UNICEF. (BRF, 262)
And as mentioned previously, despite her ‗objection‘ toward the presence of
United States Army and its Allies in Afghanistan due to the reason large of victim, however, Pazira continues to despise and humiliates the presence of Mujahidin. For her, Mujahidin in Afghanistan is over and the new season of Afghanistan is at hand.
Undermining the existence of mujahidin intrinsically means that she wants to convey her own agreement with the regulation of United States government about the establishment of new government in Afghanistan where they want to create a new government based on the spirit of democracy.
The glorious days of the mujahidin are gone. The mujahidin have disgraced themselves. In the old days the word ―mujahid‖ bore a sense of respect. The word has become an insult now. When people in the bus or on the street get into a row, if one person wants to belittle and insult the other, they say, ―Hey, you mujahid.‖ One would think this was embarrassing enough. (BRF, 277)
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By presenting the failure of Mujahidin in Afghanistan, I consider that Pazira wants to use this strategy to diminish the influences of Islamic fundamentalism in the memory of the people as well as the author‘s experience. The author has constructed the way of readers to see this land in different perspective in which she tends to follow western conception about discourse of Islam. Further, the author tries to abolish the control of Mujahidin upon this land, in which she describes how
Mujahidin has treated people upon their liberation and freedom to have all the things they need. She states:
It‘s not that we had an easy life with the mujahidin, but this is a different lot – a weird group of people, lots of young boys with kohl on their eyes, long hair, long beards, turbans and perhan-tombon [the Dari word for Pakistani-style shalwar kameez]. They beat men, taking them to the mosques to pray. They have forced all women to stay home. They‘ve banned all music. Not that we had much electricity to watch TV, but once in a while it was a good distraction. Now we can‘t even watch that. They‘ve smashed all TV sets. Can you imagine? If we are sick, we can‘t go to the hospital. The stupid mujahidin with their infighting paved they for these animals. (BRF, 281)
Further, in order to avoid the objections of the other people in other Islamic countries, Pazira lifts up issues of victimhood. She tries to depict the life of refugees in their camp in the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pazira in this occasion, straightly attacks the treatment of ‗Islamic countries‘ chiefly these two countries
Afghanistan and Pakistan toward the serious intervention upon refugees‘ life in this place. She is mad toward these countries due to their slowly or clumsy action in handling refugees‘ condition. She describes that the life of refugee is meaningless to these Islamic countries and it looks like nobody care for their life. Their life is without expectation, hopeless and no future. Pazira displays:
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I walk inside a house to talk to the women. A goat and two sheep lie sick on the ground. Skinny chickens are eating a few crumbs. ―This is our life,‖ one of the women says. ―Why do you keep the animals here?‖ I ask. ―Where else can I keep them?‖ she replies. ―We‘ve got to keep the goat for its milk, and we want to sell the sheep. But no one buys them any more. They say animals from Afghanistan are diseased.‖ She insists that her chickens and sheep are fine. ―It‘s nice, well-built sheep.‖ She runs her hand over the back of one of the animals. ―Do you know anyone who can buy them?‖ The sheep stare at me with curiosity. Do they know that they, too, are unwanted refugees? (BRF, 294)
Again, Pazira pictures how desperation of life comes to the refugees, in which even in the difficult situation many of them do not trust each other. Even though they are living in the unstable situation they never treat each other as their neighbor or their brother. On the contrary, there are many disputes and hostilities happening within them. They threat each other. She states:
Here, mountains of fear, ignorance and hatred have become the barrier. And no one from any of the communities bothers to talk to or even smile at members of the others.[…] But the refugees don‘t trust each other, and no one is willing to take responsibility. Where there is poverty, there is little chance for tolerance. (BRF, 299)
Moreover, the author enunciates that the worst situation is actually experienced by the children in the refugees‘ camp where they will be given in marriage in the age of ten or eleven. Many children have been forced to be married because of the economic reasons. In here, their future will be depended on the man who wants to be their husband. By depicting this kind of situation, Pazira has succeeded to control the issues of war and its impact in order to attract the readers to take for granted about condition of Afghanistan even in this recent situation. Many people need something in Afghanistan, due to that they will support the presence of
United Nation particularly US Army to take over this place and establish better nation to save Afghanistan‘s children from the ruin of life.
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Many girls in Niatack are engaged or given in marriage by the age of ten or eleven, and most have a baby by the time they are fourteen. Girls of ten are no longer innocent children, unaware of the cruel world around them. They like to wear makeup. They shy away from boys who are a year or so older than them. They flirt consciously; their gestures, their smiles, the way they touch their hair, stand in a corner, steal a smile or a gaze from a young boy – it is all intentional. Their culture has conditioned them to become little women. (BRF, 301)
Nevertheless, on the other occasion, Pazira shows her empathy toward the victim of twin tower in the tragedy of September 11. It seems that the author does not want to separate her attention toward the situation in the Unite State and Afghanistan where she knows there will be many victims due to the conflict. She asserts ―the lilies are to be in memory of those innocent people who were killed in America. They will also represent my hope that civilians in Afghanistan won‘t be killed in revenge for their death.‖ (BRF, 321) She loves these two countries very much, because she had had good experience with these countries where she can live and dwell to save her life from the battlefield, but somehow, she will not forget her former country
Afghanistan where she lived and grew for a moment.
Then, as mentioned previously that the reason why she needs intervention of
International organization under US‘s umbrella, is to improve and develop her former country. But, to my opinion, this is her ‗desire‘ upon this land. The author even depicts how her former town comes to ruin after Taliban regime. She states
―Kandahar is now a city of extremes, a place of men and guns, expensive cars and starving children. It is oven-hot, a dry blowtorch heat that sucks colour out of the landscape. Even in post-Taliban Kandahar, there are signs of long, Arab-style black coats and head scarves that also covers their faces, except for the eyes.‖ (BRF, 335)
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Returning to what I mean as her ‗objection‘ upon the US‘s invasion, as the area of negotiation, Pazira does not solely support the US‘s invasion, otherwise, she shows her ‗repudiation‘ by presenting the case that undermines the existence of US army as well. In here, the author actually wants to remind that actually Afghanistan also has suffered from the situation in which many people have died. She insists, ―on july 1, 2002, about forty innocent people died near Kandahar when Americans bombed a wedding, mistaking the celebration shots of the party for terrorist fire. Even momentary happiness here is condemned by death.‖ (BRF, 333) The area of negotiation is obviously appeared to control the invasion through this media of literature.
She firmly understands the way to contextualize her narration. And she has to portray the situation of Afghanistan in appropriate way, if she cannot do it, she will lose the attention of western people upon her former land. Having ‗balance information‘ means that she has to highlight the moments or events where
Afghanistan people also suffer from the US‘s invasion. In this way of narrating,
Pazira consciously neglects her desire of agreement and acceptance for the
International organization intervention as her ambivalence negotiated area.
Pazira also knows without intervention of the United States government, probably she and even many people of Afghanistan that have been living in the other countries will not come and reach this land anymore. In fact, she can reach and arrive in her former country after spending more than ten years due to the US‘s intervention.
However, on the contrary she wants also to remind that Afghanistan has a ‗new master‘ i.e. United States and its Allies. And indeed, they have established their
138 regulation. For instance, the author shows how the airport as public facilities in
Afghanistan cannot be accessed by the common people. It is only for the sake of military affairs. She describes:
Ordinary Afghans have no access to the airport. It is, after all, their airport. But no commercial flights are allowed into Kandahar – only military and diplomatic flights, and flights of the United Nations, the new colonial masters of Afghanistan. (BRF, 338)
In short, she is really aware without the existence of US‘s Army and the aid from western countries she will not succeed to reach Afghanistan. Therefore, she is only picturing that situation in order to remind her target readers. And then, without the US‘s assistance, her planning to seek her friend Dyana will not come into reality.
Due this assistance, Pazira finally met Dyana‘s mother and heard all the things that happened concerning the death of her friend.
Then Dyana‘s mother reaches for the baby. This is Dyana,‖ she says. The baby is only three months old. ―This is my angel, my tiny little angel. See your aunt, see your aunt!‖ she tells the baby, holding her up toward me. Her features are striking. The baby Dyana moves her head to the right and the left, squeezes her tiny lips together. She‘s fast asleep. Dyana‘s mother presses the baby against her chest. Tears run down her face. I have nothing to say, nothing more to ask. (BRF, 350)
Finally in the last chapter of the book, Pazira narrates how she has discussed with the one of the former soldiers of Soviet Union. At the time of conflict this man has been deployed and involved in the war of Afghanistan. And through this conversation, Pazira underlines the statement of the soldier in order to remind US‘s government upon their policies in Afghanistan. She narrates:
The Americans have made the same mistakes as the Soviet Union. They provided outside support for the Afghans fighting us, creating and financing Islamic Fundamentalism – people like the Taliban. They thought, ‗the enemy of my enemy is my friend.‘ But that old formula doesn‘t work any more.‖ He pauses. ―America
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created this problem called Afghanistan. Let them solve it.‖ He shrugs his shoulders. (BRF, 358)
This passage actually is not describing how Pazira concerns with this land.
But, on the contrary this passage is showing her weakness to reminds and control the
US‘s government policies. And this can be categorized as her negotiation area. On the one hand, the author expects that what has happened to Afghanistan people in the past time, will not return to the people of Afghanistan in this recent time. And hopefully, the people will live in better condition of life in the hand of the US‘s government.
After elaborating all the information above, I find few points in Pazira‘s work as her kind of ambiguity or the area of negotiation. First, although she rejects toward
Islamic fundamentalism, however, she is very delight with liberal Islam or traditional
Islam. She agrees and supports the religious leaders to help Afghanistan government to run their governing. But, it is not theocracy as well. Second, she consents with the presence of the US‘s Army, but to some extent, she reminds them in order to prevent the situation to turn back to the past experience. And the last, she speaks for the victim/survivor about the life in Afghanistan, unfortunately, she forces her desire upon this land. Most of the victims of the conflict belong to fundamental Islam, but she repudiates this Islam.
In this case, what Pazira has conducted in her narration is closely related with
Spivak‘s statement. In the postcolonial studies‘ perspective, Spivak uses terms of subaltern which refer to those as the oppressed where she asks ‗can the subaltern speak? For Spivak, ―‗subaltern studies‘ is an attempt to allow people finally to speak within the jealous pages of elitist historiography and, in so doing, to speak for, or to
140 sound the muted voices of, the truly oppressed.‖87 Based on this statement, I reckon that Pazira has conducted the same manner as elitist that to speak for the Oppressed.
Thus, after finishing reading this book, I perceive this autobiographical novel wants to accommodate the discourse of Islam in the eyes of the ‗readers‘ and tries to represent all the survivors‘ life in Afghanistan along with the writer experiences in the conflict situation during her life time in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To my belief, representing the discourse of Islam and the voice of victim is legal. However, on the contrary, representing and constructing or even imposing readers‘ mind to consent with the author opinion about the discourse of Islam and the voice of survivors means
‗something‘. In here, I perceive her ideology plays significant role as the elitist, in which suitable with the assumption of the research within chapter I.
Further, by presenting the ‗discourse of Islam‘ within the text, I perceive that it will emerge question to be answered. In her narration, Pazira deliberately choose to highlight the situation of conflict between Mujahidin and Soviet army. However, she avoids discussing recently situation of Afghanistan after the US‘s invasion.
Otherwise, she continues to despise the existence of Taliban (Islamic fundamentalism) when this movement has succeeded and conquered this land for several years ago. She emphasizes the issue of Islam and Taliban, in order to undermine the existence of this group. In addition, Taliban is resembled with the word of terrorist up to this day. This kind of portrayal, to my belief is a part of western campaign toward the presence of the discourse of Islam chiefly fundamental
87 Gandhi, p. 2.
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Islam. Thus, what the author did, is similar with Barthes‘ opinion. He insists that
―narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate but by a desire to exchange: it is a medium of exchange, an agent, a currency, a gold standard.‖88 Here, Pazira has become as an agent of western in order to campaign the ‗discourse of Islam‘ according to the oriental‘s perspective.
Due to that reason, I consider that the author in her narration uses this strategy of authoring in purpose in order to gain sympathy from western country upon the situation of Afghanistan. Therefore, I reckon that the discourse of Islam will be always misinterpreted because of certain fact that is portrayed within the text. The presentation concerning the ‗discourse of Islam‘ in Afghanistan like what Pazira has done, only gain profit for the author in which she can tell many things and finally it will become her power to embrace western people rebuilding Afghanistan according to their point of view.
Shortly, the discourse of Islam and the life of victims, in Pazira‘s story should be considered carefully to grasp what the author means in her narration, because this work is her part of trauma. Again, I want to enunciate that the author only tells these issues in this genre in order to re-articulate the issues discourse of Islam to get
‗compassion‘ or ‗sympathy‘ from the western readers for the sake of the author and publisher. The author shows her ego to represent her experiences as part of the whole
88 Roland Barthes. S/Z. Translated by Richard Miller (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975), p. 90.
142 experience of survivors chiefly those who live in Afghanistan and therefore, according to me it is too naïve.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION
I have explained that the objectives of this research is to present the discourse of Islam that profiles three model groups of Islam in Afghanistan and to present the untold story concerning with Pazira‘s symptom of trauma in view of these three models of Islam. Generally, there are three theories that I have used namely, four discourses of Lacan, Postcolonial theory, and theories of Islam. However, in the analysis, I have included other theories which I consider important to accomplish the aim of the study such as psychoanalytic approach, theory of psychological novel, and autobiographical studies.
I would like to start this section with the statement of Shlomith about kinds of narrator that there are two kinds of narrator namely ―reliable narrator and unreliable narrator.‖ She states that
[R]eliable narrator is one whose rendering of the story and commentary on it the reader is supposed to take as an authoritative account of the fictional truth, otherwise, unreliable narrator is one whose rendering of the story and/or commentary on it the reader has reasons to suspect. And the main sources of unreliability are ―the narrator limited knowledge, personal involvement, and problematic value – scheme.89
Departing from the statement, I start my concluding by saying that Pazira as novelist is categorized as ‗unreliable narrator‘. To my understanding, in her A Bed of
Red Flowers Pazira tries to portray the discourse of Islam based on her narcissistic
89 Shlomith Rimmon Kenan. Narrative Fiction Contemporary Poetics (New York: Methuen & Co, 1983), p. 100.
144 experience of living in Afghanistan. And the way of narrating like this is called
‗limited knowledge‘. What I mean with limited knowledge here does not relate with her ability of authoring, but it has to do with her presentation about the ‗discourse of
Islam‘. It can be seen through the text that the presentation of the discourse of Islam is greatly influenced by her own perspective of Islam that undergoes a couple of changing. She forces her way of life within the text without considering the context of Islam at the time.
And then, the author also plays her role in the area of symbolism, in which I grasp there are four terms used by her to symbolize ‗Islam‘ based on her own understanding to help her rectify her ‗Islam‘. Firstly, Chindawal is the name of place that refers to smart, wise and educated people. Chindawal becomes an icon of Islam without violence. Secondly, takyee khona is symbolizing the condition of believers under pressure in which they have to surrender, give up and fully depend on God.
Thirdly, mullah, is referring to religious leaders who are weak, timid and speechless about the given political situation and hence in need of political education. And lastly, burqa is symbolizing social distinction, women oppression, and backwardness.
Contrasting to what the scholars in Islamic studies have said as I have shown in the previous chapters, I find that the area of symbolism above is only based on her viewpoints. It seems that she forces her will to attain her goal in this book. Due to this kind of findings, I contend that this narration is presented based on the author‘s
‗limited knowledge‘. Such is her strategy to attract her targeted readers albeit it evokes criticism from some certain readers. And this is the ironical cracks of her perspective.
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In this novel, Pazira succeeds to narrate her way of life without any disturbance. However, I consider when she portrays Islam based on her ‗Islam‘ way of life, Pazira has chosen to touch the cognitive and affective area of human body in order to ‗control‘ their mind as her targeted reader. She highlights the issues of Islam in Afghanistan as her material discussion without understanding the consequence of her narration. For instance, placing Islamic fundamentalism as a movement to be blamed or placed as the actor behind the destruction of Afghanistan, to my belief, is a kind of abolition toward this movement. On the contrary, as far as I know dealing with the spirit of egalitarian or human rights, everyone is free to organize themselves in the form of movement or organization to support her/his ideology.
The author takes up the issues of Islam in her narration to straightly undermine the presence of Islamic fundamentalism in order to accommodate the western people‘s understanding about Islamic life. Pazira even insists that the movement of Islamic fundamentalism is needless and useless for the people in her former country and only exacerbated people‘s condition at the time. As such, I conclude that this novel tends to use this kind of narration as a strategy of publication purposely done to attract the readers‘ attention upon the situation of Afghanistan, particularly following the US Army invasion to this country. In other words, this strategy is an intentional act to boost this kind of book in the international market.
And concerning with Lacan theory that I use in this study, what the author did here can be categorized as a promotion of the so-called ―master discourse‖ where she re-produces the western concept about the world of Islam. Instead of giving a proper understanding about the discourse of Islam in Afghanistan, the author chooses to
146 make herself as ―victims‖ to represent those who suffer living in this place and also experiencing the unjust treatment from the fundamental Islamic group. Indeed, this attempt will bring misunderstanding or may mislead people about the reality and the truth of Islam. Thus, her ‗personal involvement‘ greatly influences the whole narration at the expense of possible distortion about Islam.
Departing from this point of view, I contend that the author of this autobiographical novel has imposed her own ideology through the text in which she continues to reveal and posits Islamic fundamentalism groups as ‗scapegoat‘ where their work is assumed only to have spread destructions toward the ordinary people in
Afghanistan. She describes that Islamic laws (shari‘a) or regulation under Islam fundamentalists‘ reign serve only to confine women‘s freedom. Again, I perceive this narration only pictures her own desire upon her land. And this is to say that she deliberately ‗sacrifices‘ herself as one of the victims in order to convince readers how difficult to live under Islamic fundamentalism regime.
I have also shown in this study that undermining the presence of the fundamental Islam is the object of her narration, in which she tries to compare her experience of living in the western country as ‗mirror‘ to see Afghanistan from a different angle. Living in a convenient and peaceful area has turned the author‘s ideology as to support the existence of the western country in helping Islamic countries to overcome their problem particularly in the economic and political issues.
Thus, the author has succeeded to control the readers‘ mind particularly the western people to read this kind of narration to convince the ‗truth‘ of their point of view about Islam.
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Furthermore, I proved that the tension of conflict in Afghanistan and particularly after September 11 tragedy becomes historical factors that cause this book very popular in Canada and USA at the time. Many readers are eager to read the novel because this is a kind of politic campaign to win their agreement. And to some extent, the readers want to know reliable information toward the life of Afghanistan before the American army invaded the land. And what Pazira does here, seen in postcolonial studies, can be categorized as representation of the Other. In other words, she tries to represent the life of the ordinary people, especially women life. By her narration, she insists her own understanding toward the life of women in the land of Afghanistan.
And then, I contend that the discourse of Islam in the author‘s point of view is to profile and promote liberal Islamic way of thinking as part of her sense of nationalism (read: narcissism) upon Afghanistan. The influence of her new country is greatly perceived penetrating the whole narration and even when she discusses the discourse of Islam to portrait her former country. With regard to the problem of nationalism, it concerns with what Ignatieff claims ―that only people like your self deserve to be in the house.‖90 It means that you are the only deserved one
(community) to live in the country. And departing from this statement, the same sense of narcissism upon Afghanistan has forced and caused Pazira to lose her understanding and tolerance about the discourse of Islam in Afghanistan. In this
90 Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and Modern Conscience (London: Chatto & Windus, 1998), p. 59.
148 matter, she places and blames the regime of Taliban upon the condition of
Afghanistan in this recent time.
Learning from Pazira has conducted, this act can be categorized as kind of print-capitalism in order to color readers‘ mind. In here, Pazira deliberately discusses the life of Afghanistan to introduce readers about this place as part of the ―imagined communities.‖91 And it looks like that the readers understand the context of
Afghanistan at the time.
Although the readers become part of imagined communities of Aghanistan, however, I contend that their point of view still belongs to western. Throughout the discussion A Bed of Red Flowers, I perceive that this text has been manipulated by the western‘s perspective, in which the accusation against Islamic life is laid as their invisible agenda for politic and economic reasons. Thus, in postcolonial perspective, liberal Islam way of life is read as kind of understanding to portray Islam in colonial manner particularly in this recent time. The expectation to touch the Islamic countries through liberal way of thinking and western humanitarian activity is only gaining more criticism. And this is because of the spirit of neo-colonialism. In this matter, western countries cannot conceal that they have hidden agenda within their involvement to campaign this ‗Islam‘. Yet, this study acknowledges that there are many areas or fields not yet discussed, due to the limitation of sources and time, and it also relates with the area of imagined communities proposed by Anderson.
91 B. Anderson, p. 6.
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Moreover, Pazira‘s presentation about the discourse of Islam in A Bed of Red
Flowers has created presupposition that the author endorses with the invasion of the
USA. She even does not object the presence of American army or even repudiates the use of violence in the name of ‗human security‘ toward the falling of the Taliban regime. To my belief, the author has used the old paradigm of western understanding to constrict the awakening of the Islamic movement in Afghanistan. And I consider that the author has in this way exacerbated the disputes concerning the presence of the Islamic fundamentalism by showing that ‗Islam‘ always is juxtaposed and resembled with the word ―violence‖. Thereby, conditioning Islam in such situation is only gaining profit for certain people.
In addition, the word ―Taliban‖ in Afghanistan where this Islamic group is the majority life, has been signified with the word ―terrorist‖. As such, all this kind of conditioning has increased the worse image of Islam in the world. And the way of narrating like what Pazira has done, can be said following the popular culture way of thinking where she will always submerge something and attempt to give pleasure to certain people but to the dissatisfaction of others, hence the ‗problematic values‘ of her narration.
I also conclude here that Islam portrayed in the novel is inevitably taken for granted to mean endorsement of violence. Placing Islam in such kind of narration is actually done, again, to win the readers‘ attention. Therefore, the issues of Islam in this novel will get some space in the eye of the readers especially those who deal with events in the Islamic countries. Through this kind of narration, the true facts are often overflowed and abolished with the blurry facts as displayed in the text. Many people
150 know that the Moslems also live in tolerance and they adopt peaceful life principles to deal with their neighbors. This other side of Islam thus nowhere to be seen in A
Bed of Red Flowers.
Thus, this study concludes that the discourse of Islam in the author‘s perception gives advantages to those who comply with the interests of Pazira in presenting Islam in her book, i.e. catering to the western stereotyping of Islam. And further, reading this work through her paradigm of ‗Islam‘ only creates misunderstanding and misinterpretation toward the universal of Islam. The irony is that, it undermines the existence of fundamental Islam, however, it opens the gate for the western countries to intervene Islam in Afghanistan.
This is to say that the discourse of Islam cannot be seen in the narrow area of
Afghanistan, but on the contrary, it needs some insights to probe into the Islamic life in other Islamic countries all over the world. And further, using the four discourse of
Lacan, I grasp that A Bed of Red Flowers is the restriction of the author rather than helping readers to achieve good understanding about the life of Islam in Afghanistan.
Thus, in postcolonial studies an author like Pazira and her autobiographical novel operates an act of self-representation and not re-presentation. She aims to
―speak for‖ the other by negating the important role of the survivors that still remain in that place where they otherwise can speak for themselves as proven by their survival in such condition until this time. I consider this kind of act is re-victimizing the victim in the area of conflict, because at the time of writing the author was only a newcomer from the western country who spoke for them all without ever
151 experiencing life under the Taliban regime. In this matter, she can only imagine the condition of conflict at that time and compose it.
Then, I contend that the tone of this book is closely related with the ‗death‘ discourse of Islam particularly in Afghanistan and it deliberately traps the readers to assent with what the author has been presenting. She highlights the discourse of Islam namely, traditional Islam, liberal Islam and fundamental Islam based on her perspective. What the author has concealed in her narration about the dead discourse of Islam can be seen through the discussion in chapter III, in which Pazira hides in purpose the discourse of traditional Islam, i.e. Salafiyya or Wahabbism that belongs to the Sunnite group, because these two groups resist westernization. To my belief, the death of the discourse of Islam in the hands of the autobiographical novel here will influence people‘s understanding about Islam in general.
In addition, throughout her work, the author has conveyed all information about the life of Islam according to her own understanding as her consciousness.
Therefore, this work can be categorized as social data in which this autobiographical novel is read as part of literary work and historical notice. In here, the author is able to speak freely.
Nevertheless, A Bed of Red Flowers also has stimulated readers to speak freely about this book. There is a chance for the reader to observe this work in different angle as well. Even though this book is a kind of social fact, there are many facts found that this book is not written in appropriate way. The way of narration in this book is done according to the author‘s unconsciousness. Unfortunately, the area of unconsciousness in literary works is yet rare in scholarly discussion. Due to this
152 deficiency, the readers perhaps trapped into misinterpreting the novel. And in line with the discussion, such kind of unconsciousness on Pazira‘s work, can be read within the area of negotiation done consciously by the author upon the given situation at the time of writing which was close to the September 11 tragedy. This is presented in chapter IV where to some extent she shows her support upon the American‘s Army invasion, however, she reminds the United States Government not to delude people of
Afghanistan as well.
Thus, I have used these three theories of literary analysis namely, four discourse of Lacan, postcolonial theory and theory of Islam to examine the gist of A
Bed of Red Flowers. And throughout these theories, I find such kind of social blunder toward the interpretation of the discourse of Islam within a literary work. In this case,
A Bed of Red Flowers cannot be merely seen through the text. However, it should be analyzed and tied up with the film of Kandahar, historical notes of Afghanistan and the text of the novel itself because it has a closely relationship between these three objects of information. Nevertheless, the closeness of these objects is only showing the literary aspects of the novel as part of the social production of art. And as mentioned above, this is closely related with the death of traditional Islam, representation of the Other, and the unconsciousness of the author. Thus, all the findings are only discovered through the literary studies.
Finally, one thing that should be remembered here is that the facts or findings appearing in the surface of a literary work is indeed not a reality, but instead a cliché of reality within the text. Cliché here means ‗mirror of reality‘ in a literary work, although the story may belong to the fact or even based on a certain reality. For this
153 reason, in order to get a proper understanding of the essence of a literary work, the literary piece should thus be interpreted and appreciated through a literary analysis.
154
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Appendix 1 THE SYNOPSIS OF NELOFER PAZIRA’S A BED OF RED FLOWERS
A Bed of Red Flowers is an autobiographical novel of thirteen chapters picturing two main sections of the author‘s story i.e. the experiences of living in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, and after her leaving and finally exile to Canada. From the prologue until Chapter IX, Pazira tells her own experience of living in Afghanistan and Pakistan before the exile. Then, Chapter X to the last chapters concern with her life experience in Canada and her involvement in helping people of Afghanistan post
September 11.
This narration is preceded by a prologue in which the author tries to portray the condition of life in Afghanistan, particularly the experience of her family‘s life in the country when the Soviet army has occupied and controlled this land. In this prologue, Pazira narrates her experience in Afghanistan and mostly that of her family when her father was detained due to the government‘s accusation upon him following his objection to the Afghanistan government‘s subjugation by the Soviet Union. This is the beginning of the deterioration life of the author.
Her life is terrible, but fortunately, the author‘s father was released due to insufficient evidences to trap his life. Then, Pazira continues to narrate about her family‘s struggle of abandoning the country to reach India given the worsening condition of Kabul which at that time was besieged by the Mujahidin militias.
Pazira and her family strived to get legal documents although the government of the day had established a regulation to ban governmental officers like Pazira‘s
159 father to leave the country; and violation of this law means death sentence. But such regulation did not stop Pazira‘s doctor father and teacher mother who both worked for the Afghanistan government.
Then, the author also tells of the journey of life of her father Habibulah who came from a poor family, but he had principle to work hard to change his destiny into becoming a wealthy person. His father was an old trader, but had passed away when
Habibulah was child. The situation has changed, Habibulah‘s house was sold for paying debt, and the family had to move to Kabul where they had to stay in the garage of his uncle‘s house. His nice uncle Moama Qandi always supported him to continue his education. Pazira also narrated interesting stories of her father‘s experience with his uncle, one of which was their journey to the northern of
Afghanistan to attend the local‘s new year celebration whereby in their way, they had to sleep with wolves. In addition, Pazira also narrates how his father Habibulah had been shot by the military troops at the time he joined in the Student Union Movement and held demonstration to charge democracy for the people of Afghanistan.
Further, Pazira discusses how her family finally decided to move to Kabul from Baghlan. They had a long trip and used their car when moved to Kabul. Baghlan was a nice place, but they left this place in order to find a rested place. When the conflict between Mujahidin and government heightened, many people left this town and moved to Kabul as the capital city of Afghanistan. And before moving to Kabul, the incident came to Pazira‘s family, that is, her father was arrested and accused as one of the supporters of the former Prime Minister who reigned at the time.
Experiencing such case made Pazira‘s mother almost frustrated because she lost her
160 husband. She knew that the government often put a death sentence for the convicts.
However, Habibulah hired a lawyer and also friend to win the case and he was released. After passing such situation in Baghlan, Pazira‘s family finally departed to
Kabul and lived there with Habibulah‘s mother, Sobera. And as a dedicated son,
Habibulah accompanied her mother to have a hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Alas, soon after their return from the pilgrimage, Sobera, Pazira‘s grandmother passed away.
Life was harder for the Pazira‘s family as after the passing of the grandmother, the situation in Kabul became worse and worse under the Mujahidin militias. The heat of resistance toward the government had spread among the communities. From Chindawal the crying of Allahu Akbar yelling had echoed in
Kabul. In the evening, these voices just came by accident, and no one knew where the yell came from. All happened suddenly and these yells can be likened to a choir in the silence of the night. Many people were arrested by the government because of this
―choir‖. Those who were arrested or accused by the government, were blamed as rebels. Some of Pazira‘s school friends also resisted the legal government reigning in
Afghanistan at the time because many of their relatives were jailed for several years without trials. The innocents who were treated unjustly after their released moved to another place in order to safe their life.
Pazira then, presents her activities in supporting the Mujahidin movement that had made herself in trouble. When she was in the High School, almost all students in
Kabul hated the Soviet Army because in their mind, their country had been invaded by this foreign force. One day at school, Pazira narrates, her seniors made a demonstration to oppose the Soviet Army occupation in Kabul. With her close
161 friends, Pazira also joined the demonstration and stoned many cars belonging to the
Soviet Army. The students enjoyed this situation until the Afghanistan and Soviet armies came to shoot them and scattered them away.
Pazira was one of the arrested students because of the demonstration. They were interrogated and forced to give their testimony. The Soviet army tried to find space goats but they failed. After the students had been tortured, they were finally released but with a vow not to be involved again in such kind of demonstration and they had to apologize to the principal of the school.
Further, Pazira also narrates how her uncle Wahid and her brother tried to flee from Afghanistan and crossed the border line. In their struggle, they were arrested by the police and they were delivered back to Kabul. Hearing this information of their failed escape, Habibulah became shocked and sick for few weeks. In this kind of situation Pazira was forced to bear the burden of releasing her uncle and her brother.
There were no relatives to be asked in helping them due to this activity was a dangerous work. Therefore, Pazira became the only one to be trusted. However,
Pazira did her job to find such information about her families who have been caught by the police in the border line. Along with her friend finally Pazira knew where her uncle and her brother were imprisoned, released them, and got them delivered back to their home. The situation in Kabul changed rapidly and almost every night Pazira‘s family had to be forced to leave their bedroom and hid under their down stair room for fear of the explosion of SCUD and STINGER. SCUD was the weapon used by
Afghan Army with their allies Soviet Union to counter the Mujahidin‘s rockets. On
162 the contrary, STINGER was rocket that came to the Mujahidin‘s hands as gifts from the United States as implications of the Cold War.
The worse situation is exacerbated when most lands in Afghanistan were all occupied by the Mujahidin. Kabul has been besieged and attacked by the Mujahidin.
Many times, bomb or rocket‘s blasts went to Pazira‘s house, and it left spot or dust on their wall as traces of bomb explosion. In the midst of the tense, Wahid, Pazira‘s uncle and her brother tried again to flee and crossed the border line between
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their struggle finally came to reality that they succeeded to cross the Afghanistan border without any difficulties and reached Pakistan. The information about their arrival in Pakistan made all Pazira‘s family delighted for a moment, although outside of their house bombs continued to explode and endanger their life. Their success, also stimulated Pazira‘s father to come and cross the border in order to join with his son in Pakistan as soon as possible. Finally, all plans to leave
Afghanistan were arranged carefully to avoid suspicion among their neighbors because at the time having such kind of planning to leave the country was risky.
Accordingly, Pazira continues to narrate how her families strive to cross the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They walked from Afghanistan to flee and finally reached Pakistan at the time after all hindrances in their way. Getting some help from her friend Mir, all Pazira‘s family preparation for traveling finally completed. The family had to flee through a smuggler. And in here, she met with Naseema as their guide to bring them crossing the border. Naseema is a smuggler at the time. The reason she did this kind of risky job was in order to revenge her parents‘ death in the hands of the Soviet and Afghanistan Armies.
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Furthermore, she narrates when the author lived in Pakistan for approximately a year before they went to Canada. In this place for the first time, Pazira straightly perceived the bad living under Islam the reign of the fundamentalists. This made her resist this ideology because for several times she experienced bad treatment from the member of the Mujahidin Movement. However, even in a bad situation Pazira never gave up and even she tried to teach in the elementary school or joined with several teachers in Pakistan.
After several months of living in Pakistan, finally Pazira‘s family moved and exiled to Canada. Pazira narrates how Pazira‘s best friends Dyana for several times wrote few letters to her in Canada. And finally the tone of her letter showed her desperation about life in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. All the bad treatment of living in Afghanistan became the topic of the letters from Dyana to Pazira. Dyana informed her how living in Afghanistan became so hard after her leaving. Taliban was becoming the real of Islamic regime but failing to protect their people.
In the other parts of her narration, she continues to portray Afghanistan and the refugees through her experience. Before writing this book, she had engaged with the crew of one film industry to make a documentary film in which she became the main role in the movie. They took the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan as the background of their film. All the story of this film was narrated based on her experience when she lost her friend Dyana in Afghanistan. They took the border of
Afghanistan and Pakistan as the background in order to portray refugees‘ life in their camp. The border of Afghanistan and Pakistan was a strategy position and also made this film so interesting.
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However, in this place Pazira was aware that situation of the refugees were very pitiful. They were hopeless, desperate, and without future shining from their eyes. They were all the victims of violence. But, they had been forced to accept and consent with the situation of life. Many children were forced to be married due to the situation. They were forced to be a wife in order to endure their life. Indeed, they were vulnerable victims in this place.
Finally, she narrates how she reached Afghanistan after the US‘s invasion upon Afghanistan. In here, she saw so many things that disturbed her. And she also succeeded to meet Dyana‘s mother but failed to meet her best friend Dyana because she had committed suicide before Pazira‘s arrival. And she also portrayed how her travel to Soviet in order to interview some of the former soldier of Soviet Union that had ever been deployed in Afghanistan at that time of Soviet‘s occupation. Pazira visited Russia, in order to make some interviews with several former soldiers to pursue further her own queries about their involvement in Afghanistan at the time of war. But, she finally realized that many people or even the soldiers did not understand the essence of war in Afghanistan. In this place also, Pazira met one widow whose son had been deployed to Afghanistan at the time and killed in the war. It remained deeply grief upon this widow because she lost her only son. Seeing this kind of situation, Pazira concluded that war only made people suffer. And all of them were victims of political rivalries.
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