Tomorrow Misty and I are off to the Alps before riding the rails south to Milano. We used to be excited about Italy, until we met France on its own terms for two weeks. Boy does that country do a number on its American tourists! Anyway, we fear the potentially less-than-industrailized and crowded aspects of the streets of Italy's cities will be like the ones we encountered in France; culture shock, is what I refer to.
But I digress. I came to discuss the impact of the film "Kite Runner" on my heart this afternoon. True, Misty and I are probably watching too many movies on our long vacation. But what story-loving, homebody American who misses home wouldn't? You excuse me for this, I'm sure. Plus two months of travel makes one tired.
The central event of this film is not the remove to America of the main character, as one might expect. It's not even the brutal Russian invasion. It is the rape of a little boy by his bully peer. Where a secluded 15-year-old bully would get the idea to rape a boy nearly his own age I don't know, except by a deeply depraved parentage. At any rate, this event shook me to depths of my soul--disturbed that lurking dragon of passion I talked about before--and was not satisfied by the ensuing results. The main character internalizes his shame at having witnessed this event and turned tail; rather than standing up in honor, he tries to dismiss the servant boy, who turns out to have been his half brother (which he doesn't discover until he is an adult), through devious means.
The ending, however, gives Amir the opportunity he needs to redeem his heinous act of cowardice. What a moment for catharsis! He teaches the son of his half brother, whom he rescues from sexual enslavement in the depths of a Taliban encampment, how to fly a kite. When Amir "cuts" the opposing kite, he offers to "run" for it--that is, chase down the severed kite as a prize. This is the act that got Hassan raped. As boys, Hassan had offered to chase down the defeated kite with the phrase, "For you, a thousand times over." The boys never spoke the same to each other again. But Amir redeems this moment...when he goes to chase down the kite in Golden Gate Park, he turns to Hassan's son and calls, "For you, a thousand times over!"
What a moment for retribution and making things right! But this movie revealed something to me, deeper than what I saw on the screen. It is the injustice of the globe...and how I have forgotten about it. Man, did that passion dragon stir through my tears! I am seriously ready to jump on the make-Afghanistan-a-better-place bandwagon. It also made me think of Iran. These nations share a similar past, as related to me in Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis. It is the story of her childhood when the Taliban took over Iran and her subsequent escape to France. Satrapi spoke at my university once, but I wasn't on campus for the lecture. When I read that novel in my children's lit class, I remember a similar sensation rising me, one of extreme longing for justice in the earth. I mean, I don't know what I can do. I have no history with those cultures. Maybe it's not even about what I can "do," maybe it's about what I can be for them. I can stand for righteousness. I can stand in the face of death for my fellowmen when the moment arises. I'm tired of the cowardly tendencies in me, the self-preservation that I run to in tense moments.
"Kite Runner" makes me want to stand for righteousness and justice, to not be one of those silent men who allow evil to pass and therefore contribute to it. Even if I die. The noble part of me, that is what is stirred by Amir's cowardice and his father's courage. Who knows what opportunities for justice will arise on the next leg of my journey. I pray I will stand.
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