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A review by oao
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia Murad
I read only a few chapters back in early 2019. This book is where I first heard of Yazidism, I learned things I didn’t know before, of which I appreciate.
Almost right off the bat, we see that the author had many siblings and her mother was sick of the seemingly endless cycle of pregnancy, labour, childcare. Her father opposed contraception so mother had to take the pills in secrecy. Not only that, her father had a second wife and wasn’t supporting his first wife (aka author’s mother) and her children. The author expressed no criticism and went on to help explaining her father’s logic, ‘we are poor so human capital is the only resource we could count on to work the land and make a living’. However, not far from here into this book, she mentioned most of tomatoes always ended up rotting in the field (because ppl can’t afford to buy them? Sorry I forgot the exact cause). So it’s pointless to have that many people to grow that many crops anyway? The only attempt to justify her father’s religiously endorsed penis-centring action is not even based on sound reasoning?
Then I flipped to the part where she was in a camp before leaving for Germany. She mentioned that Germany paid her plane ticket and some other help she received, what astonished me was she can say all that without a shred of gratitude. I know Germany had done a good and arguably the right thing and ofc no one should expect anything in return for doing the right thing, but that’s no excuse to take it for granted. I mean, people would even say thank you to strangers who hold the doors for them right?
But as always, the credit and gratitude goes to God (in this case the peacock angel?). I honestly think it’s very effed up when people thank god for winning a competition or surviving when other people didn’t make it. What are they insinuating about the other people in the same match, the same camp? Did they do anything wrong? Didn’t pray hard enough? Not pure enough? Have sinned? How are you, the supposedly ‘chosen one’, in what way more special and deserving to be favoured over the others by god.
It’s very cringing to me when people give no reflection and develop no insight on toxic norm/culture/tradition/religion that indoctrinated them from a young age and express explicitly ‘I love it, that’s where I belong, it might look bad but it’s actually real good’. Unfortunately a lota supposedly liberal western white folks eat that stuff right up and moved with tears thinking that ‘they are so brave so unapologetic to embrace something so different from what I know’, and shoved all that bubbling criticism of toxicity under the good o rug of ’cultural relativism’ which helped ease their cognitive dissonance between ‘ima forward-thinking good person’ and fundamental bias of ‘some people just don’t deserve it’.
I’m sure Nadia is more than what I read about her in just a few chapters and this book probably also bound by ‘Islamophobia-phobia’. She will keep learning and developing more opinions. But this book was nudging my general impression of a demography I don’t know much in a negative direction so I stopped reading.
Almost right off the bat, we see that the author had many siblings and her mother was sick of the seemingly endless cycle of pregnancy, labour, childcare. Her father opposed contraception so mother had to take the pills in secrecy. Not only that, her father had a second wife and wasn’t supporting his first wife (aka author’s mother) and her children. The author expressed no criticism and went on to help explaining her father’s logic, ‘we are poor so human capital is the only resource we could count on to work the land and make a living’. However, not far from here into this book, she mentioned most of tomatoes always ended up rotting in the field (because ppl can’t afford to buy them? Sorry I forgot the exact cause). So it’s pointless to have that many people to grow that many crops anyway? The only attempt to justify her father’s religiously endorsed penis-centring action is not even based on sound reasoning?
Then I flipped to the part where she was in a camp before leaving for Germany. She mentioned that Germany paid her plane ticket and some other help she received, what astonished me was she can say all that without a shred of gratitude. I know Germany had done a good and arguably the right thing and ofc no one should expect anything in return for doing the right thing, but that’s no excuse to take it for granted. I mean, people would even say thank you to strangers who hold the doors for them right?
But as always, the credit and gratitude goes to God (in this case the peacock angel?). I honestly think it’s very effed up when people thank god for winning a competition or surviving when other people didn’t make it. What are they insinuating about the other people in the same match, the same camp? Did they do anything wrong? Didn’t pray hard enough? Not pure enough? Have sinned? How are you, the supposedly ‘chosen one’, in what way more special and deserving to be favoured over the others by god.
It’s very cringing to me when people give no reflection and develop no insight on toxic norm/culture/tradition/religion that indoctrinated them from a young age and express explicitly ‘I love it, that’s where I belong, it might look bad but it’s actually real good’. Unfortunately a lota supposedly liberal western white folks eat that stuff right up and moved with tears thinking that ‘they are so brave so unapologetic to embrace something so different from what I know’, and shoved all that bubbling criticism of toxicity under the good o rug of ’cultural relativism’ which helped ease their cognitive dissonance between ‘ima forward-thinking good person’ and fundamental bias of ‘some people just don’t deserve it’.
I’m sure Nadia is more than what I read about her in just a few chapters and this book probably also bound by ‘Islamophobia-phobia’. She will keep learning and developing more opinions. But this book was nudging my general impression of a demography I don’t know much in a negative direction so I stopped reading.