“If I’m going to be a pessimist, then I should just stop writing for young people because that’s too heavy a burden to put on young readers. …I get to meet with people who have waded through horrible things, and they get up every morning, and they try to do their best” – Deborah Ellis
Caveat (and spoiler alert): This is a story of a little girl’s family under the reign of the Taliban, and while highly acclaimed, it comes with parental warnings because of the themes.
From Deborah Ellis, award-winning author, mental health worker, volunteer in Pakistani refugee camps, comes an eye-opener of a middle school book series. Ellis donates most of her book royalties to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan and UNICEF, among others.
Breadwinner The Movie, featuring heroine Parvana as voiced by Saara Chaudry (pic off Breadwinner official Facebook page)
Now, while I haven’t lived in Malaysia since Secondary School (went to university in Singapore under Singapore Ministry of Education study grant and worked there fulfilling the fairly simple bond requirements before following hub to HK), we still retain Malaysian passports. Malaysia is officially a Muslim country, seen by most of the Western world as moderate Muslim, and while our family is Christian and my parents Buddhist, I had a Muslim Secondary School best friend whom I’m still in touch with – and while still based in Malaysia, she would vent openly on Facebook about the Taliban’s extreme interpretations of Shariah Law.
While I grew up with taekwondo, my strong friend is the one who had her nose mashed into her face during a hockey match – and a few of us were rather disappointed she opted for her old nose back instead of getting Cindy Crawford’s. 😀 (I remember her laughingly protesting “it’s not me” and us going “Huh.. Got chance to have Supermodel Plastic Surgery also dun wan…”)
For real though, I went to a public Convent School (yes, that my Muslim friend and others like her also attended, some of ’em wearing headscarfs – and I later also visited her at her dorm in the International Islamic University – I wasn’t confident of getting the headscarf right having never tried it, and so I didn’t venture onto the main campus.)
In Sec School you got suspended for taking part in beauty pageants (we had one senior, the 6ft-tall-and-stunning-daughter of a prominent lawyer, who made I think nationwide finals AND really was. Suspended for two weeks. Being pretty wasn’t as cool as being… tough and smart (and pretty :D)). Getting a sports injury and coming to school with a cast was somehow the Epitome of Cool, ensuring you always had a couple solicitous friends with you at Break in case you needed help queueing to buy lunch. I was born a naturally sickly child who therefore found it necessary to hack her way through tournaments and once did a whole freaking year of drills under the hot sun as a Police Cadet just so she could shoot a real gun. Most Youth who try for the corps actually consider a career in the police force but me, I just wanted to get to shoot guns at the range. Don’t… ask. Imma lousy shot. (Very bad eyesight eventually corrected by lasik because glasses couldn’t.)
AND somewhere in there was my way of explaining why, when I came upon Breadwinner quite by chance, I jumped at the opportunity to let the kids watch it. (Also my way of saying, because of the curiosity of the many non-Malaysians around us trying to figure – don’t bother 🙂 Malaysians are so very, very diverse, even amongst ourselves we kinda have to tell each other outright as well. It’s called Rojak. Big, Confusing Mix of Stuff. Don’t always know all the ingredients, but it’s delish. So anyway just take (each of) us as we are
And Deborah Ellis truly deserves her accolade as someone who “tells stories about really terrible experiences in ways young people can understand…”
While Rockstar also watched it with interest, it was HN who was especially captivated with the story of little girl heroine Parvana and her best friend Shauzia. Parvana’s father is a former school teacher who resorts to hawking for a living when unrest closes the schools. When he is seized and imprisoned by a former student-turned-soldier (in the novels the reason given is he is “foreign educated”), Parvana’s family of mother, two girls and a toddler boy is left in dire straits – women cannot be seen in public without an adult male relative escort, nor can they buy things like food supplies from the stores. With their father gone and her older sister and mother unable to leave the house (her mother is beaten in the street for trying – it’s not graphic but the implications are clear, and my response to HN’s amazement was bullies use any excuse), Parvana steps up.
“When you’re a boy, you can go anywhere you like…”
Parvana cuts her hair short and masquerades as a boy (Mulan!) in order to move freely in public, earning money from odd jobs and buying the family’s food supplies. She soon befriends Shauzia who’s doing the same thing.
Parvana and Shauzia dressed as boys, deciding where to find their next jobs (pic from chicagoreader.com)
Thus, the little girls become the Breadwinners of their family. (Contrast the term “Breadwinner” with all its original criticised implications that “the man of the house” feeds the rest of the family, with the irony that in an extremely chauvinistic society where women cannot even buy groceries, these little girls now support the household.)
Parvana tries to sell her dress… (pic from jomec.co.uk)
Parvana selling her only pretty dress is another powerful image – any regret Parvana has over selling this dress she has never worn dissipates in the family’s need for immediate supplies, and her father’s words “Where would you wear it?”
No place for a dress, yet always a use for knowledge… Under her father’s tutelage, unlike many other women (and some men) in their world, Parvana can read and write, allowing her to offer letter reading and writing services.
One day a very old man buys her pretty dress. Recall that Parvana is still child-sized – and so when she tells the man “your daughter will love it,” his response is a thunderclap – “She is my wife.“
Indeed, Parvana’s mother’s way of solving the family’s problems (rather than let her younger daughter keep supporting them indefinitely dressed as a boy) is initially to write to a male cousin they have never met, offering Parvana’s older sister in marriage. When the man arrives early while Parvana is still out trying to rescue her father from the prison, he turns out to be a bully and aggressive, herding the older women and toddler boy into the car. Fattema, their mother who has lived long as an oppressed woman under this regime, nonetheless realises her mistake and bravely stands up to him, risking her own death. He finally decides she’s not worth the trouble, and family set off back home to meet Parvana.
It would be a gross misrepresentation to observe feminist and women’s rights advocate Ellis writes only of “bad, bullying men” who abuse positions of power…
Kind Razaq and bullying Idrees confront Parvana’s father – pic from frasesdecineparaelrecuerdo.blogspot.com
Parvana-as-a-boy has been teaching one of the prison guards to read and write, in the wake of his own grief at the loss of his loved ones. When the prison decides to purge all less able-bodied prisoners who cannot fight for the regime, the guard tries to save Parvana-as-a-boy’s “uncle”. When trouble ensues however, Parvana discloses her true identity to Razaq and begs him to save her crippled father.
pic from frasesdecineparaelrecuerdo.blogspot.com
Now, say you are an illiterate male prison guard in a world where women are not allowed to buy groceries or even be out without an adult male escort, let alone learn to read and write, charge money for it, AND teach YOU. You have the power to imprison other men, and punish both men and women for various “crimes”. What would you do, if you then found out the little boy tutoring you is actually a freakin’ girl who is breaking every single iron-enforced rule meant to “keep women in their place” and instil fear? How DARE This Girl Hurt My Pride?
Razaq tries even harder to retrieve Parvana’s ailing father, standing down another armed guard and taking a bullet to the shoulder for his trouble.
Parvana may be the obvious heroine. But without also people like Razaq, who rise above the “power” awarded them, instead performing countless unsung acts of selflessness that earn them real trouble and pain, Parvana’s story would have a different ending. While to be strong in the face of trials and tribulations is certainly to be commended, it is still easier to “choose” to try, when you do not have any other choice. To do the right thing when it is far easier (and painless!) to not, can be a much harder decision.
How many of us wondered how Razaq’s story would end? Next time you meet a “Razaq” help him take care of his darn shoulder. Because there are never enough Razaqs in the world. And we could really use more, without the already rare ones we have bleeding out. Thought for the week…
