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.
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