The Other Fort Knox
The first Wednesday in July found me crammed into a fourteen-passenger van with enough adolescents to fill it to capacity. Actually, it was only four girls and three boys, plus the three other leaders, but stuffed in the very back with three smelly boys – Jonathan, Andrew, and Aaron – it seemed like the van was about to burst. They could have had more room if they had chosen to spread out, but then they would have been forced to occupy seats adjacent to girls, a horrible situation for any ten year old boy.
We were headed to Bucksport, Maine, a two-hour trip from my house, to tour and explore Fort Knox. It is probably not the Fort Knox that one immediately thinks of; there are actually two Fort Knox’s in the United States. James Bond was never at this Fort Knox, nor was any gold. Just in case, though, I told the boys that I would give my car to anyone who found gold. This would have been a threat to person over the age of eighteen, but their eyes got quite large at the prospect of winning something that had four tires.
This Fort Knox was built for protecting the independence newly won from the British in the mid nineteenth century. Located at the mouth of the Penobscot River, Fort Knox is a heavily fortified defensive point. The fort boasts of remarkable engineering and a fascinating labyrinth of passageways. With thirty foot high walls of huge granite blocks, and cannons that could fire a four hundred and fifty pound ball a distance of three miles, Fort Knox would have been a brutal foe for the British navy.
When we arrived, two of the group leaders, Sarah and Josh, went to go set up lunch, while my wife, Mary Ella, and I took the kids on a brief pre-tour. Since it was only half an hour before lunch, we decided to go down to explore one of the batteries. A battery is a small point outside the fort for artillery. Fort Knox is on a large hill overlooking the mouth of the river. At Fort Knox, there are two batteries located a little way down the hill from the fort. This allows the fort to fire on an enemy from multiple locations, and it allows for more artillery than the fort alone could hold.
Major Anderson thought that the people of Charleston were about t attempt to seize Fort Sumter. He would not stand for this, so since he was commander of all the defenses of the harbor, and without any orders to disagree with him, he said that he could occupy any one of his choice. Since he was being watched he only told his plan to three or four officers that he knew that he could trust. He first removed the women and children with a supply of provisions. They were sent to Fort Johnson on Dec. 26 in vessels. The firing of tree guns at Moultrie was to be the signal for them to be conveyed to Sumter. In the evening the garrison went to Sumter. The people of Charleston knew that the women and children were at Fort Johnson and thought that Anderson would take his troops there. (www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/battlefort-sumter.html)
The women of Afghanistan have been enduring unfathomable suffering since the Taliban, a religious faction, seized control of the country in 1996. (NOTE TO STUDENT: my teacher gave me a B+ and said I would have had an A if I had had more detail on the Taliban's reasons for these laws) Since 1996 Afghan women have been living fear for their safety and lives. A myriad of discriminating laws has been placed on Afghan women. The punishments for violating these laws are unimaginably inhuman.
One of the main controversies in this book is the plight of women and men’s struggles. Although both experienced different kinds of inequalities, women were the target of the Taliban. In 1978, women in Kabul were demanding their rights during the Afghan Women’s Year. The president who was in charge then was president Daoud, and he decreed, “The Afghan woman has the same right as the Afghan man to exercise personal freedom, choose a career, and fins a partner in marriage” (53). This decree was absolutely invalid when the Taliban expelled a humanitarian organization that was run by women, and because of that, the Taliban took over Kabul. Women were not allowed to work outside of home. Because of that, Latifa mentions that women in Kabul usually just bake bread, do embroidery,
Innocent, Malou. “Why U.S. can’t deliver women’s education to Afghanistan”. CNN 2 April 2013. 3.
The Taliban, a forceful political association against women’s rights, ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 (Hayes, Brunner, and Rowen). Predominantly, they believe in the religion of Islam, as do most Afghans, and that males are the dominant gender (Hayes, Brunner, and Rowen). They controlled Afghanistan under their “version” of the Islamic laws which many others did not agree with (Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls). The Taliban is composed of Afghan men of various ages who did not grow up in Afghanistan, therefore know little about their country’s culture (Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls). The leader of the Taliban from 1994 to 2001 was Mohammed Omar, a religious leader that, over time, gained more and more followers (Bellamy). Eventually he ousted the Afghanistan government and gained control of the country (Bellamy). The Taliban only ruled for five years, but what they did has left a scarring mark on the country of Afghanistan.
At the beginning of World War II, a group of British schoolboys are loaded onto an airplane to evacuate them to safety, but after their plane is shot down, they end up on a desert island – but it’s not such a bad thing, at first. They crash-land on a warm beach on a sunny day on a seemingly perfect atoll. No one is injured. There is plenty of fruit to go around, pigs run wild in the lush jungle setting of the island, and there is a lagoon surrounded by a reef with water “warmer…than blood (Golding 12).” And the most lucrative and exciting part for the schoolboys is that there are no grownups on the island (Golding 8). At first, being stranded on an uninhabited, tropical islet might sound fun. In the fictional novel, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, however, Golding seeks to “trace the defects of society through the defects in human nature (Epstein 204).” Shortly after arriving, things start to go wrong. Talk of a “beastie” that emerges from the forest or from the ocean at night gives everyone a scare. Then, the group starts to break up, and power goes to the heads of the ‘biguns’ who claim to be leaders. Abruptly, wild urges turn to the murders of two unfortunate boys. The seemingly perfect island turns into a battleground where two “leaders” – the oldest boys of the group – fight for power, and where almost all of the boys turn from innocent children into impulse-driven, sadistic savages. It is an island where the boys are far from ‘safe.’
Throughout recent history, Afghanistan has been a country in turmoil. Famine, drought, civil war and Taliban rule have all had a significant impact on the Afghani people. While this has taken a very negative toll on all Afghan people, I believe, that none have been more negatively impacted than the women of Afghanistan. Having said that, not everything the Western world deems as a negative is also considered negative by the women and men of Afghanistan. One only has to read this quote, “Wearing the burqua is not mandatory, but few women are rushing to remove them” (Germani 14). While the Taliban and al-Qaida’s rule had a great negative impact from 1996-2001 and obviously oppressive to all Afghani women. They were not the sole source of oppression felt by the Afghan females as stated in this quote, “The roots of patriarchal oppression go deep in Afghan society - far deeper than the Taliban or al-Qaida.”(Rostami-Povey, E. 2007)
For boys of any age being without parents and having the chance to do whatever they may please all day, might seem like heaven on earth. However, in unfortunate situations such as in the book The Lord of the Flies, author William Golding writes a story about privileged English school boys who get to taste what “heaven on earth” is like. Jack and Roger are two of the many boys stranded on the island. Jack, who is the choir leader obsesses over whatever he has his mind on and Roger who is a secretive boy who seems to be quiet for all the wrong reasons. Jack and Roger share multiple characteristics such as being unpredictable, being impulsive as well as losing all morals as the story draws to an end.
The collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001, by the Northern Alliance, followed by the establishment of a temporary Afghan government under the Bonn Agreement, emancipated the women and girls of Afghanistan from their oppressive masters (AMIRI et al, (2004). However, while the liberation of the women and girls under the interim government was welcomed in some quarters, there was vehement opposition in some quarters particularly among the traditionalists.
"I. The Taliban's War Against Women." U.S. Department of State. Web. 23 Mar. 2010. .
Since the starting years for ladies in Afghan have had for all intents and purposes no rights or opportunities. The effect of the Taliban forced restraint was most intensely felt in urban areas where ladies had delighted in moderately more important opportunities. At the point when the Taliban assumed control, ladies were not permitted to go to class and others have been compelled to leave their employments. The Taliban had issued orders denying ladies from working
Mc Veigh, T. (2013, January 12). We don't want our burqas back:women in Afghanistan on the Taliban's return. Retrieved November 24, 2013, from http://www.theguardian.com
Before Taliban rule, women’s punishments were under the control of Afghan men and were considered reasonable. Afghanistan is divided by a strong division of gender roles. Gender division can be clearly seen by the way Afghan women are treated versus Afghan men. Women in Afghanistan have been under minded since before the Taliban dictatorship (Campaign for Afghan Women and Children.2014). As the Taliban slowly rose to power, women’s roles in the home and work place quickly began to change. The more rules that were added to control the Afghan women, the worse their lif...
“This is an island. At least I think it’s an island. That’s a reef out in the sea. Perhaps there aren’t any grownups anywhere.” The boys comprehend that the order of society that they are used to has disappeared. They now understand that there will no longer be their mother kindly waking them up for school in the morning, or walking home with their friends from school. That has
I had been looking forward to this observation all semester I was finally going to experience, a 2nd grade class, the grade I hope to teach one day. As I walked into Erin Arias’ classroom the students were finishing breakfast, a little girl who informed me that she was the “Snack Helper” was walking around with a trash can collecting the leftovers. It seemed every child had their own job for the year, which was shown by a piece of fabric on the wall with a pocket for every job, and depending on the magnitude of the job, had one or two tongue depressor with a student’s name in them. Which seemed to be the driving force behind the class, it kept them busy and under-control, most of the time. The class was broken into three tables of six labeled Earth, Sun and Jupiter.