To Understand How Trump Won (and Almost Won Again), Read “The Blind Man’s Garden”

 On Election Night 2020, 81 million people watched in indignation and confusion as 74 million others showed a baffling commitment to a man whose actions have directly contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands over the past year.  That night was both more and less surprising than the 2016 election:  not many expected the outcome of 2016, and people in 2020 are wearily accustomed to the weekly roll-out of new scandals.

 

After the events of the past year, though, many Americans thought the era of Trump might end.  Surely, the horror of the pandemic would shock his supporters out of it, and they’d vote…whomever, so long as it wasn’t him.  Not so—he even got more than 10 million additional votes.  The huge, weighty dissonance of watching the events play out is hard to reconcile.

 

That’s where The Blind Man’s Garden can help us.  Published in 2013 by British Pakistani writer Nadeem Aslam, this novel takes place in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the months following 9/11.  We begin by following Jeo, a young medical student, and Mikal, his foster brother, as they plan to travel into Afghanistan to help civilians injured after the US began their retaliatory attacks.  Almost immediately, they are sold into Taliban service; almost immediately after that, the base they are taken to is raided by US forces.  Jeo is killed and Mikal is taken into US custody as a terrorist and subjected to torture.

 

Throughout the novel, Aslam explores the forces that create divisions between people and groups.  Even though Aslam’s novel takes place in a very specific place and time, its implications are applicable to many situations.  Several elements contribute to Aslam’s picture of humanity in the face of crisis, especially in how these elements can contribute to the crisis and help it spin out of control.

 

The violence in the novel, though much of it is state-sponsored, is decentralized and chaotic.  Anyone can be struck at any time.  Jeo and Mikal only left their home to help civilians, but they are immediately met with attacks.  The events of the entire novel only exist as fallout from America’s response to 9/11, but that response targeted people who were entirely uninvolved in the strikes.  In the face of this sudden, widespread eruption, the people in Aslam’s novel look for security.

 

Many find it in strict adherence to Islam.  After Jeo’s death, his father, mother-in-law, and widow attempt to visit his grave, only to be stopped at the gates to the cemetery by cloaked figures holding large sticks.  They forbid the women from entering, saying it is against Islamic law, and further state that it is transgressions like these that have brought Allah’s wrath on formerly-pious nations.  While we are meant to see this as a mistaken action, there are few strawmen in this novel.  Aslam asks us to understand why so many people reacted to intense instability in their lives by clinging to something that could give that chaos a meaning, an order.

 

In the same way, we can try to understand the continued support for Trump’s administration in 2020 as an attempt to create normalcy and sense for themselves.  Even besides the pandemic, 2020 has brought events that would have dominated headlines for weeks and months:  the assassination of Qasem Soleimani nearly leading to all-out war, the wildfires in California and Australia, the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and so many others drowned out by the constant stream of more.  While many of the people who still cling to Trump consider different events to be significant, Blind Man’s Garden can show us just how strong the desire for stability can be.

 

The thing people choose to cling to, though, are dependent on their backgrounds, especially in education.  Jeo’s father, Rohan, set up a school as a young man and called it Ardent Spirit.  When the school first opened, it bore an inscription on the front arch reading “Education is the basis of law and order.”  Rohan added “Islamic” at the start of the inscription soon after, and it continued morphing more and more after he left:  next “Islamic education is the basis of law,” then “Islam is the basis of law,” “Islam is the purpose of life,” and finally resting at “Islam is the purpose of life and death.”  This institution dedicated to education changed its central tenet toward something that guaranteed order over insight and produced graduates eager to attend government-sponsored jihadi training camps.  Some of these boys scheme later in the novel to hold a nearby Christian school hostage, resulting in the deaths of dozens of teachers and students there.  This was the way they were prepared to engage with the world.

 

The US has an education system that privileges people in wealthy areas from K–12 and makes higher education a pipe dream for many.  Better-funded K–12 and access to higher education tends to result in people who are more open to new ideas and critical thinking, but so many people in poorer, more rural areas don’t have these opportunities.  I grew up in a small town in Texas, where Army recruiters visited the high school a few times a year, enticing students with a pull-up contest and promises of stable work after graduation.  Most of the people I knew then have either gone into higher education (a minority) or are Trump supporters, with very few exceptions.  He promises stability without upheaval and change for his followers.  In the face of so much upheaval and change this year, it becomes clearer why and how his base remained so loyal.

 

Aslam’s novel mainly focuses on the actions of people who want to do good, whether the protagonists or readers see their goals as good or not.  However, Some are motivated only by material gain or superficial revenge.  After Jeo’s death, Rohan helps pay a ransom for an acquaintance’s son.  At the first meeting with the young man’s captors, they accidentally bring the wrong boy.  When they point out this mistake, the kidnapper pulls out a binder full of pictures, names, and family information, asking the boy’s father to pick out the right photo so they could meet up a second time.  There is easy money to be made in the chaos of war, and Aslam shows the people who seek at their most brutal and their most mundane.  People like this are interested in maintaining the status quo—regardless of the lives that may be lost.

 

A substantial number of people in the US are interested in maintaining this status quo—one where we are divided, constantly concerned with getting the next meal on our plates so we can’t think of wider-reaching things.  Where we’re scared of covid but still checking in to work, only to do the jobs of two people because a coworker is out sick, and choosing to quit is a privilege we can’t afford.  The kidnappers in Blind Man’s Garden are betting on the families of captured boys prioritizing that love above all else, because they can make money from it.  Real-life people who have the funds to do so can manipulate policy and public opinion in ways that guarantee them money.  Facebook avoided fact-checking pro-Trump messages leading up to the election, leading to the propagation of misinformation that could have directly contributed to another Trump victory in November.

 

Aslam’s novel takes a frank look at the factors that contribute to extremist beliefs becoming mainstream.  Though many this year have been confused about Trump’s continued popularity, a look at Blind Man’s Garden can help illuminate the reasons why he is such a compelling figure.  Aslam gives us a way to understand that popularity, empathize with it, and attempt to address some of the fundamental things (like access to education) that could set up for a better future where fear is less persuasive motivator.

The Bilnd Man's Garden: The Innocent's Garden

“The logic is that there are no innocent people in a guilty nation… The wounded and injured are being brought out to Peshawar” (6).

 

(Disclaimer: Starting with a book review with parentheses might be very unusual. But prior to starting this review, I feel I need to explain that this review will mainly consist of my personal interpretations, impressions, and thoughts on tragic events in 2020, thematically related to the book, The Blind Man’s Garden. Hence, those personal interpretations, impressions, and thoughts can be written in religiously or culturally biased ways. For whom can feel being culturally or religiously being offended through my writing, I would like to apologize in advance.)

 

In 2020, the time when I believe many people might call the fiery or hellish year, I have been noticing sporadic tragic events, intertwined visible or invisible, physical or non-physical extreme violence. And still, when approaching the curtain-fall of this year, through various forms of violence, uncountable innocent victims’ lives have suffered, destroyed, ruined, and been still perishing. The book, The Blind Man’s Garden is a story of an innocent family, destroyed by the external violent factors when they are set in historical turbulence. As my view that literature is a reflective mirror of reality, before diving into the fiction, there is a need to investigate my violent reality similar to the fiction’s setting. Some of these violent events, vividly, have been conducted by political or religious forces that show physical brutality or unsympathetic, indifferent actions towards the weak, pursuing extreme religious creed and extorted cult-like faith.

 

I suggest that two clear illustrations of the violence, killing the innocent. One is, yes, again, regarding the Present of the United States. On October 18th, when over 200,000 innocent COVID-19 patients had passed away, Trump attended a Church in Las Vegas, packed with hundreds without wearing masks. When the President showing off his un-sympathy and his governmental power that aimed only for achieving his reelection without helping the social weak without any practical plans or policies for the contagious disease, the paster remarkably prophesied his God’s word, saying, “The Lord said to me I’m going to give our President a second win.” In this event, I could see that this violence was based on one’s great irresponsibleness towards reality and was indirectly murderous done by so-called Christians through their idolatry actions. Not long after this event, on 27th October, in Nice, in France, three guiltless people were piteously murdered. More tragically, one elderly female was beheaded by extremist Muslims, in the same way as a French teacher was stabbed and beheaded three months ago, as a series of cruel tragedies through the direct brutal actions. Therefore, regardless of that their actions are direct or indirect, both events are considerable examples of how the violence from the extorted, extreme faith and creed can kill, ruin, and destroy the lives of innocent.

The Blind Man’s Garden echoes with those kinds of violent tragedies, depicting the dangerousness and cruelty of extreme belief and how the violence destroys innocents’ life thoroughly. One of the main characters who obviously manifests the victimization from the violence is Jeo, who is a son of Rohan and Sofia. In the early part of this fiction, after 9/11 occurred and the War on Terror between the Western military forces (mainly by the United States’ army) and Afghanistan (in particular, al-Qaeda) broke out, Jeo, having the strong righteous motivation to help wounded innocent people, non-military civilians, decides to go to Peshawar. His brother, Mikal, follows him to aid him. But as the same as they cannot save all of the innocent civilians, even themselves become innocent victims. Jeo loses his life, and Mikal is captured by the Islamic militant force and sold unwillingly to American armed force. These all-miserable events conduct by political or religious forces consisting of zealous, ardent groups for what purpose they came for.

The protagonist and “the blind man,” Rohan’s case is more complicated and ironic. He was a zealot who believes in Islamic religious teaching fervently. Although he built an education institution with his wife, Sofia, he forcefully set his own religious belief on this school against his wife’s goodwill (such as promoting students’ prosperous life through education) on “the basis of law and order” (27). On the school premise, “the basis of law and order,” he added Islamic as the prime dogma before education, “against his wife’s wishes.” As the following consequence, “Over the years” the principal premise of her wife’s passion “has been amended further, going from Islamic education is the basis of law and order to Islam is the basis of law and then to Islam is the basis of law and then to Islam is the purpose of life, while these days it says Islam is the purpose of life and death” (27). Rohan was a wrongdoer and inflictor steals and ruined autonomous and motivation of life efforts from his innocent wife and partly contributed his early wife’s death, who was defamed as “an unbeliever, an apostate” (37).

But ironically and more severely, the school, Ardent Spirit’s motto became more deteriorated through the “links with Pakistan’s intelligence agency” to train jihadist students, and also he forced “It was the reason for Rohan’s clashes with Ahmed, the reason why Rohan was eventually forced out five years ago.” At this point, he unintentionally falls as an innocent victim, judged by the more extremist Muslim. 

Thus, I suspect and interpret, finally, his eyes go blind due to his feeling of guiltiness on his wife’s death and being betrayed by his religious beliefs. The blindness stands for his unconscious instinct to cover or being hidden from the tragic reality, which made or makes him and his family innocent victims in the inevitable historical turbulence. However, all those tragic events on the family are created by the cruel external forces, conducting violence such as murder innocent women for their religious honor, invading and killing innocent civilians, and destroying goodwill and wishes on the innocents. In this respect, as I noticed from the book and my reality, I argue that extremists only politically utilize the religious theme for actualizing their desire and profits. I understand that this review seems a bit far from the traditional literary review, but I am writing this to share my interpretations of the current reality. There are already too many innocent victims are there.

 

The Book of Salt: The Book of Loneliness

The Book of Loneliness

At finishing the last sentence of The Book of Salt, my mind was left in the blank, and I could not catch actual themes to textualize in pages without hesitation for a while. This was because of – partly, as a matter of fact, I have not had enough mental space to allow someone (even if he or she is fictional) to enter my mind due to my personal urgency, recently– the difficulty of understanding the text, narrated from the first-person point of view narrator’s non-linear narration, consisted of fluctuations of time-fragments and his stream of consciousness.

I only glanced at my vague understandings of the plot and complex feelings. But simultaneously, I was also able to notice me having sympathetic, empathetic responses to Bihn’s emotional fragments from his sufferings as being a diaspora, colonized, and sexual minority. One of the most crashing sentiments or emotional fragments seeped into my mind was his loneliness caused by emotional, physical, and environmental isolations.

Right, this is to say, from the beginning the end of the story narrated by one narrator, one protagonist, one (voiced) character, one protagonist, and alone; I could see Bihn, who is situated or situates himself, in staying only lonely states, as a symbol of incarnated loneliness.

Loneliness, Isolated from His Past Mother Land

The main reason that I interpret him as the incarnated loneliness is his repetitive statements, “I stand there still” (164, 174, 248, 248, 249). When he states, “I stand there still,” he evokes his remembrances with his father and mother, bound in his homeland, Vietnam. The remembrances, complexly mixed with negative and positive aspects – traumatic responses from his father’s abuse and nostalgic feelings with his mother, bring back him to the past setting where he can never go back. Being isolated unintentionally from the past of loving-and-hatred-place and being psychologically stuck in the middle ocean between the past and present worlds, he seems to easily get this emotion: gloomy, unavoidable loneliness from the perpetual loss of his home. Thus, he reflects himself on his desolation, stating, “I looked up, and I saw you standing next to a mirror reflecting the image of a wiry young man with deeply set, startled eyes. I looked up, and I was seeing myself beside you. I am at sea again, I thought. Waves are coursing through my veins. I am at sea again” (36).

Loneliness, Isolated from Mother Tongue

Like his lost land where becomes physically unreachable and only visible in imagination, his native language is isolated and alienated by him and his surrounding environments. In his present world, his mother tongue, as well as his ethnicity and nationality related to his language (considered as one collective feature of “Indo-Chinese” by western colonizers) becomes also useless, incommunicable, and untruthful. But at the same time, even when he acquires the second language, the language of colonizers, he senses losing of originality and his deprived desire by using the second language that cannot be a barrel to express what exactly he is or to define himself. Consecutively, he states these insuperable difficulties, saying, “The irony of acquiring a foreign tongue is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable words to fuel my desires and never, never enough lavish, imprudent ones to feed them” (11), and “The vocabulary of servitude is not built upon my knowledge of foreign words but rather on my ability to swallow them” (13).

Loneliness, Isolated from His identity

From the loss of two essential traits, the homeland and mother language, which compose one’s original identity, he is finally not able to trust the binary himself just as he is being left in the ocean between two worlds, being stuck. This impossibility of the coexistence of dual identities drives him into the severest isolation from even himself. Eventually, he expresses him as “no longer able to trust the sound of my own voice, I carry a small speckle mirror that shows me my face, my hands, and assures me that I am still here” (18).

Likewise, even though he can see himself in the mirror, his identity is still in the eternal transition and migrating progress from somewhere to somewhere, being stuck in the middle of elsewhere.

Therefore, albeit he hears someone’s voice “What keeps you here?” as a reflection of himself and he sees “how that body is so receptive to the list of a full October moon,” sadly, I inevitably expect that he will not and cannot permanently escape from the everlasting loneliness from dual isolations.

A Walk With Me, Her, and Him in Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden

    I would like to start with the reason for writing this blog post, which is to answer the question “Why should you read this book?” Well, because it’s great. Ok, too vague, but Nadeem Aslam offers you a chance to do something people only talk about doing, which is to walk a mile in another person’s shoes. Now I know you think you can say that about any book, but you really can’t, and this is an important approach for migration narration literature. Take Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt, for example, that begins in medias res. You are already in the middle or end of the main character’s journey and then looking back on what it took to get there. In The Blind Man’s Garden, however, right at the beginning, the reader is preparing for a journey with the characters in the story and explores all the emotions and preparations that go into preparing for the journey- considering family, lovers, what to pack, and everything else everyone considers when preparing for a journey, and that's the point- it’s the same process for everyone. The preparation of the journey is universal and humanizing. 

What is also striking about the beginning of the book is how calm is it despite being about a set of family and friends in Afghanistan during the American War on Terrorism against Afghanistan. If I gave you a two sentence plot summary of the book, the first sentence is sure to mention the war, and you can’t help but imagine the opening of the book resembling something like the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but it’s not that at all. The reader is thinking about old lovers with the characters, rekindling old friendships with the characters, and mourning the loss of loved ones with the characters. This seems like a concerted effort on the part of the author to humanize the characters, but why? Because it works. Take the Harry Potter series for example. The reader begins the journey with Harry, allowing readers to learn and grow with the character, which allows for a deeper understanding and connection between the experiences of the character to the experiences of the reader. Aslam’s choice to approach The Blind Man’s Garden in this way allows American readers to connect with the people in the book on a human level instead of just that country (as a collective) we fought for a decade. If the story began in the middle of a missile attack or war scene, then the whole tone of the story changes to something resembling American Sniper, or another scenario, where the reader might be tempted or forced to choose a side. The characters are living through the war just as American citizens are (ok, not exactly the same way), but the point is made when the author chooses to mention the birds in cages in the trees. Although symbolic, of course, it also feels like a menial thing to worry about in comparison to a major war. Although a war is going on, there are other things still happening, other prayers that seem just as important, other tasks to complete, and other things to think about, despite the war, but also, because of the war. 

 

In an interview with author Nadeem Aslam, he says that the wars began due to an “incomplete understanding of the West and an incomplete understanding of the East.” The book aids in bridging that gap in understanding through a very universal storyline- a love triangle. The love triangle, whether or not this was the intention of the author, creates the opportunity to love two people because neither is all good or all bad, and also to love, or see value, in two countries- America and Afghanistan- because neither is all good and neither is all bad. 

Want to know the difference between mindfulness and awareness? Read The Blind Man's Garden

Everyone remembers where they were or what they were doing when the tragic events on September 11^th took place. I distinctly remember the eerie silences that punctuated the news-anchor’s broadcast from my mom’s car radio. The phrases “towers falling”, “smoke”, and “American panic” separated the silences over and over, long after I walked into—and out of—my orthodontist appointment that morning. I remember the pain in the news anchors voice on that day as I vividly remember the silences and the sharp, tightened pain in my mouth: my teeth were adorned with double-wrapped red, white, and blue braces. Pain was everywhere.

I was mindful of all that pain, but not aware of the extent of just how many people were mourning that day—and the days after.

In my mind, there is a sharp difference between mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness focuses on our perception of the present moment while awareness shifts our attention outward to the space and people outside of and around us. Time and again we must make the jump of looking outside of ourselves to appreciate and understand what is going on in the world.

It is a difficult thing to do, especially in times of crisis.

Published in 2013, Nadeem Aslam's The Blind Man's Garden intertwines the roles of mindfulness and awareness as Jeo and Mikal make their way away from, and back to, their home in small-town Pakistan before and after the September 11 attacks. Their friends and family wrestle with Jeo and Mikal’s presence as well as absence, and struggle with the balance of using mindfulness or awareness to deal with loss, death, and frustration about the pain and violence within and around Pakistan.

For the longest time I was riled up and angry about what happened on 9/11; my eyes bulged, and mouth was agape after seeing pictures of fallen buildings and horrified expressions from the onlookers in New York. I had the shocking pains of a wizened older woman in an eight-year-old body. My negative, mindful emotions were the exact opposite of the outward awareness characters like Jeo show in the novel. At one point, we come across an intimate moment between Jeo and Mikal. The narrator explains, “If love was the result of having caught a glimpse of another's loneliness, then he [Jeo] had loved Mikal since they were both ten years old.”

This quote hit home for me because Jeo is using awareness of others outside of his own inward observations to figure out how he can best help and be there for his friend. I have never thought of friendship, or understanding both sides of a horrid situation, in the same way as Jeo does in the above quote. As do many people, I try to stay away from immense amounts of sadness or loneliness because I soak up those feelings like a sponge. The aftermath of 9/11 is no exception to this, either. However, as a young American—as a person—I think I need to be able to be vulnerable enough now to attempt to look at the story of 9/11 from both (or more) sides. The Blind Man’s Garden gives us the opportunity to do just that; and I was finally able to abate the pain, rage, and frustration of my eight-year-old self. 

Whether it was the news, radio, or word of mouth from others, I was not given any other side of the story about 9/11 until I was much, much older. However, those narratives were presented to me in fragments and were pieces of mindfulness under the veil of awareness. The fragments of mindfulness were focused on American citizens and America as a whole—what about Pakistan? What about the men, women, and children who, like Jeo, Rohan, Mikal, and others, were reeling from the events of 9/11?

After 9/11 happened, I didn’t feel comfortable talking about the loss or pain at school; after I finished reading The Blind Man’s Garden, I was uncomfortable because of the realization that the narratives I was given and narratives I focused on completely sliced out the narratives that I needed to hear and see and know to get a better grasp on the event and how it affected people who were not Americans and lived outside of the U.S. As I glanced down at the last page of Aslam’s novel, I felt like I was living out the phrase “but the child is silent, looking as though he would rather understand than speak.” I needed to understand outside perspectives instead of just talk about them; mindfulness can only get us so far in the present. We are always looking outward to others to understand and appreciate what is going on every day. However, sometimes I berate myself because I continually look inward to appreciate what is going on outside of myself.

It is not about me. It is not about you. The world does not revolve around us and us alone.

Blind Man’s Garden, if anything, shows readers the implications of looking outward and being cognizant of how we move and interact and think by being aware of what is going on outside of our circles, “bubbles”, or communities.

The Blurred Lines of Good and Bad in The Blind Man's Garden

Much of the American narrative of the war against terrorism has been in the perspective that we are the “good guys'' trying to do the “right thing” by going against the “bad guys.” (From a political standpoint, this makes sense because waging war has to be justified at a certain level for people to accept it.) However, this overly simplified war narrative divides groups of people by forcing them to pick sides. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, xenophobic attitudes particularly against Muslims, Arabs, and people who “looked” Middle Eastern persisted in the United States. People who “looked” Muslim became easy targets for discrimination. They were picked out of airport security lines. They faced discrimination because of their faith. 

 

In hindsight and almost twenty years since 9/11, some of us may have learned that we cannot and should not make assumptions about entire groups of people. As a British Pakistani himself, Nadeem Aslam writes The Blind Man's Garden with a deeper understanding of the culture and experience post-9/11. While The Blind Man's Garden interweaves various individual themes of human nature, love, family, and war, the novel especially helps to understand the complexities that exist beyond the false dichotomy of American values and Islamic fundamentalism.

 

Through the perspectives of various characters, Nadeem Aslam shows that there is not just one true antagonist. One of the ways Aslam does this is through the comparison he uses between the American war against terrorism and the crusades. The word “crusades” pops up multiple times throughout the novel. The author uses it in a way that is beyond just understanding history. He makes the connection that historically and at the current moment of wartime in the novel not much has changed, especially the cultural and social status of the main characters. At one point, the word “crusade” appears in the rhetoric of the US President in the “first speech he gave after the terrorist attacks” (183). As the reader and as an American, it is hard not to be surprised that such word choice was used by the political leader of a country that prides itself on freedom and diversity. 

Similarly, this cyclical feeling of history is evident in the scene where Naheed starts reading a history book. She looks through a timeline and thinks about “what was occurring in Christian lands in the early fifteenth century of the Christian era” (267). Also, she wonders if things get better in Pakistan and Islam in the historical context. Naheed reads on to figure out it does not. She is forced to accept her current realities by examining similar historical cases of hate, discrimination, and war. In reflection of this scene, once again, it seems like much has not changed since that point in history. 

Another way that the author tries to reveal the complicated nature of people and move away from the strict binaries of good/bad or American/Afghan is through the specific situations of the characters themselves. For example, once the audience understands and connects with the Mikal at a humanly level, the messages that American schoolchildren send through letters to soldiers is rather disorienting. They write “Go Get the Bad Men and I Hope You Kill Them All and Come Home Safely” (165). This makes the reader question. Who are the “bad men” anyway? Is it even right to make value judgments with just the traits visible to the eye? These seemingly innocent children are the outcomes of a simplified political narrative of just “us” being good and “them” being bad. 

The reader quickly catches on that the novel muddles identities and categories as we know it. 

Due to the complexity of characters, it is difficult to clearly distinguish between what is right and wrong or good and bad. At an individual level of the story, Mikal is in love with the wife of Jeo, his foster brother. Jeo’s father, Rohan, allowed his wife’s death due to his religious beliefs. At a cultural and political level, the American soldiers (whom we honor and celebrate for their military service) torture innocent people. If the audience were to make a value judgment of these characters’ decisions, most would agree that the characters are “bad.” Many might possibly describe them as antagonistic or at the very least feel morally uncomfortable about them.

Through this novel, Aslam may have wanted to allow his readers to experience the complexities that exist in people’s daily lives as well as in the perceptions of groups during wartime. Aslam shows us that stories of people cannot be simplified, and he teaches us the dangers of such a narrative. Similarly, in her Ted Talk, Dalia Mogahed jokes that some people see Muslims as “an airport security line delay.” For those who misunderstand and are quick to judge Muslims and the Islamic religion, Mogahed argues “ISIS has as much to do with Islam as the Ku Klux Klan has to do with Christianity.” The post-9/11 story in The Blind Man's Garden reminds us that fear makes us think in defensive ways; it also teaches us that we easily fear what is different from us. Perhaps, Aslam is helping us understand how fear and hate along with a “us vs. them” mentality is not only divisive but also costly. Perhaps, we are able to appreciate the "garden" and the beauty of life when we are blind to the differences that we are quick to use for our judgments.

Reading “The Blind Man’s Garden” Teaches Us What It Means To Love One’s Neighbor

 

There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13 NIV) It also says that, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:39 NIV). I raise these verses because I think they are relevant for the times we live in.

I know loving our neighbor is a huge call. And moreso, answering the question of who our neighbor is, is not merely a function of locality. Rather, all humankind are our neighbors. 

When Jesus walked the earth, he once told a parable of the Good Samaritan. A parable being an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. In the parable, a man is overtaken by robbers and beaten and left on the side of the road to die. Jesus shared the parable in talking in the context of loving our neighbor. To highlight the point, he talks about a priest, then a Levite, both “religious” men passing by without stopping to offer assistance. But then a Samaritan, one that was viewed as less than by the Jews comes along, stops and renders aid. (Luke 10: 25-37 NIV) 

The inference being that everyone is our neighbor and we ought to have concern for one another. Never has this been more important than in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

In “The Blind Man’s Garden”, Naheed Aslam uses a multitude of characters to show the depth of love that men and women can and should have for each other. Set in the months following 9/11, the terrorist attacks on American soil, the destruction of the Twin Towers and the attack on the Pentagon. In the novel, Aslam reveals a fictional account of the impact the Afghan war has on one family’s lives.

Published in 2013, “The Blind Man’s Garden” is set between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Aslam’s narrative traverses the depths of humankind’s heart in the novel weaving a beautiful and poignant account of what the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan felt towards the war in Afghanistan, thoughts about the U.S. and the impact the war had on the lives of men and women. Through the account we get not only a war story but a story of love, loss and grief. More importantly we see how concern for the lives of our neighbors, family and friends can influence every choice we make.

I think we see the same thing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic here in the U.S. For example, mask wearing. Since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its mask wearing recommendation for the U.S. public in instances where you can not maintain six feet distance between you and any person outside of your household, we have seen a division among U.S. citizens. There are those who follow the CDC recommendation even donning two masks, while others refuse to adhere to the recommendation. 

Without warning, something as simple as wearing a mask became a political issue. Something to be fought over. We’ve been asked to do it for our neighbor, if we can’t do it for ourselves. 

Yet early on, we have had political figures who refuse to set an example for the U.S. public by consistently following the CDC’s recommendation for mask wearing. This rises to the highest level of the political spectrum with the Trump administration shunning and discounting medical experts and their opinions. There is a trickle down effect that we have to be concerned about.

However, in “The Blind Man’s Garden”, we see a difference. As an example, Jeo, the son of Rohan, the novel’s title character. His mother died when he was a child. Jeo is a young newly married medical student. While Aslam never really highlights Jeo’s political or religious leanings, he does reveal that Jeo is a loving and caring soul. A young man concerned with the sanctity of human life. He is a young man with everything to lose and nothing to gain. Rather than shirk from the possibility of death, Jeo volunteers to go to Afghanistan to help take care of wounded Afghan civilians. Jeo’s journey to Afghanistan was not for himself, but for his neighbor. He saw a need and took steps to do what he knew he could do to assist.

We also see a concern for not only a neighbor but for one’s chosen family in Mikal in “The Blind Man’s Garden”. Mikal was an “almost-brother” to Jeo. Aslam describes the relationship as “This blood-love in everything but name. Mikal was ten years old when he and his older brother came to live at Jeo’s house.” Raised together by Rohan, Jeo and Mikal had been inseparable from childhood with complete trust in one another. Mikal’s father had been a communist who was arrested and presumed dead and his mother had died when Mikal was 10. Rohan took the Mikal and his older brother Bassie in and raised them as his own. 

As young men, Mikal and Jeo loved the same woman unbeknownst to Jeo. Jeo doesn’t learn of his wife Naheed’s prior relationship with Mikal until he and Mikal make a fateful trip into Afghanistan. Jeo volunteered to serve his neighbors even though he had only been married 12 months. When Jeo discovers Mikal's stash of love letters from Naheed, his world is shattered on multiple levels. 

Still, even the fact that Jeo had married the woman he [Mikal] loved, nothing could stop the commitment that Mikal had for Jeo. Mikal showed himself to be the kind of man who would give his life for his brother but more importantly, he proved to be the type of man that would give his life for his “neighbor”. 

As we follow Mikal’s story, we see even after being sold to American’s as a supposed member of the Taliban, Mikal’s duty to Jeo is not broken. While under interrogation time after time Mikal asks after Jeo’s health, seeking the good of his brother. 

Further, when asked what he thought of the destruction of the Twin Towers by his interrogator, he says, “It was a disgusting crime.”

Although Mikal ends up killing two American soldiers in fear of his life, we see the love for one’s neighbor when he risks his life to save a wounded American soldier he has found wounded in the desert. Although they are captured by a tribal warlord and Mikal is ultimately released, he goes back to rescue the American soldier.

With their pursuers hot on their tail, Mikal and the wounded soldier are forced to board themselves up in a mosque to call for help. Mikal has seen American soldiers in the area and knows if the soldier can speak over the mosque’s call to worship public address system, that the soldiers will come rescue the American. When the public address system fails to work, Mikal sacrifices a trinket that his love Naheed had given him to remember her by to make the electric connection the system needed to work.

One final example of showing love for one’s neighbor is found in Rohan. A bird pardoner had unscrupulously and dishonestly placed snares to catch birds in Rohan’s beautiful garden without Rohan's permission. A garden that Rohan found great comfort in because it reminded him of his late wife. When the bird pardoner fails to return to take down the snares he had set to capture birds at the appointed time, neighbor boys help to remove the snares. Birds had been suffering and dying for days caught in the snares.

When the bird pardoner finally does return for his snares, he shares that his son has been captured by an Afghan warlord who is demanding ransom for his release. Without the means to pay, the man and his wife are distraught. Rohan, says that he will go with the man to get his boy back. It’s important to note that Rohan is an elderly man, beyond fighting age and is going blind. However, he and the bird pardoner embark on a journey to bring the young man home. The son’s name just happens to be Jeo, the same as Rohan's son whom he loved. 

Rohan takes a valuable red ruby that has Koran verses inscribed on it, a jewel that had belonged to his late wife Sofia. Jeo had taken the jewel after his mom’s death and swallowed it. A jeweler appraises the gem at 50,000 rupees, more than enough to pay the 20,000 rupees demanded as ransom for the bird pardoner's son Jeo.  

Despite the value the gem held for his family, Rohan plans to use the gem as payment for the boy's ransom. In spite of the risk to his own life, Rohan goes with the bird pardoner into the face of danger to rescue a boy he has never met. All he knows is that the boy is being tortured and he happens to share the same name as his son. 

When Rohan sees the number of boys held captive by the Afghan warlord, knowing that he, the bird pardoner and the son have barely made it out of the warlord's compound alive, Rohan with no regard for himself, steps in front of an American tank to try and get a group of American soldiers driving by the warlord's compound to intercede on the other prisoners' behalf.  

This is being a neighbor. This is being willing to lay down one’s life for another. This is standing up for justice for what is right. This is what thinking about others looks like.

“The Blind Man’s Garden” really should cause us to examine the ideals that we hold dear. What are we willing to do to help others? What are we willing to do to serve our neighbor? I remember in the days, weeks and months after the Twin Towers the sense of unity Americans had. The sense of looking out for one another even as we fought the War on Terrorism. 

What would happen to the death toll of this pandemic if we took on that same unified stance that we had against terrorism in the early days after 9/11 and tackled this pandemic together, as neighbors?

I close with a line from the book that says, “History is the third parent.” If history has taught us nothing, it ought to have taught us that caring for our neighbor is what sustains a society, therefore, we ought to go about doing that if we are to overcome this pandemic.