Hana Nelson
Professor Wilson
HIST 110
8 March 2018
A Fort of Nine Towers
In Qais Akbar Omar’s book, A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story, he has written about his life growing up in Kabul. Afghanistan during the war. He briefly talks about his childhood before him and his family are forced to endure the war. For three decades the war goes on and spreads throughout Afganistan. Omar has written this book showcasing what him, his family and other civilians had to endure because of the Mujadhedian who call themselves the “holy warriors”, even though they have brought upon them the civil war.
In Part One of Omar’s book, he introduces grandfather, his mother & father, Wakeel, “jerk”, and many sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles and unmarried aunts that remained unnamed. Later in Part One, he introduces characters such as Haji Noor Sher and Berar that prove to be critical in the unraveling of his story. They all live a very simple, happy life. Grandfather and father work together as carpet dealers, and Qais’s father is a famous boxer, (he also subtly mentions that he knew Muhammad Ali). Qais’s pleasant, simple life comes to an end as abnormal incidents happen, regarding the Mujahedin. Soon, the Mujahedin have taken control. When the Mujahedin arrive, what they learn in school changes, they are now taught that God is the creator of nature, which is an Islamic perception. Before, they were taught that they evolved from monkeys, Qais learns that those are “communist perceptions”. Shortly thereafter, they abuse their political power and become thieves. Before long, they have robbed Qais’s family of the 6,000 carpets that they had acquired over time.
They are forced to leave their home when a war breaks out between different factions. It becomes unsafe, they’ve started firing rockets and have taken over rooftops with snipers. When a ceasefire ensures their safety, they leave their neighborhood called Kot-e-Sangi. They reach the Kart-e-Parwan neighborhood, just a few miles over, Qais states, “The people we saw acted as if they did not even know that vicious combat was going on less than two miles away, though they would to have heard the rockets and the shooting.” (pg. 41). They arrive at the British Embassy, Haji Noor Sher’s home, who he invites in with open arms, regardless of how many were flooding into his home. His home is called the Qala-e-Noborja, also known as the Fort of Nine Towers.
Throughout the book, Qais suffers many traumatic experiences while he is still a kid. I believe that he see’s the worst of things, when he is told to go with his grandfather and later on his father as well. The first time, Qais with grandfather gets stopped by Hazaras. They are captured and berated, Qais and his grandfather see heads cut off of bodies, and he knows to be quiet. They survive because they know the commander. The second time with Qais’s father, they get stopped on the way to “the garden” at their house. They are captured by Hazaras and worked like slaves digging tunnels for two weeks. Eighteen of them are captured, by the end there were eleven. Some had been let go and some killed. For those two weeks, they share five mattresses and five blankets between the 18 of them. They are worked like slaves, given barely any water or food, and they witness the horrible, nonstop rape of one woman by seven men every night.
Berar finds out about what has been happening without his authorization. He takes the civilians that were held captive and the commander that was carrying out all of this abuse up to the tower. They all go to the tower and I couldn’t believe it, he— “in one fast move carried him over to the edge of the roof and tossed him off.” (pg. 109). I laughed so hard, it seemed unreal, I believe he deserved it. Now, this was the second time Berar had saved Qais’s life.
In Part Two of the book, they get a break of the constant fear of living in and then next to a war zone and the uncomfortableness of living in someone else’s home. Qais and his family leave his other family including Wakeel and start heading to Mazar. They stop in Tashkurghan for a couple of weeks and had fun swimming and fishing. They honestly cant get a break and undergo a rainstorm followed by lighting and then a flood. At that same time, fighting had broken out in Mazar and was now not a safe place to go. They now had no shelter or food.
Qais has morals, as do the family that taught him them. They follow their religion closely and are really good people. Qais looks up to his father and grandfather and when asked to do something he has been taught is morally wrong in Part Two, he begins to cry. His father has asked him to steal pomegranates and Qais is afraid everyone will call him a thief. Its really interesting to see someone get so upset over the idea of lying when I read somewhere that Americans tell upwards of 50 white lies every day.
It seems like in this book, theres a pattern of having the worst luck and then getting the best luck. Qais describes him as his family as nomads, “We were enjoying our new life on hillsides, in the garden of strangers, a few days here and a few days there, never in the same place for long.” (pg.154). They were now living in ”Buddhas Mouth” as Qais’s father calls it, there Qais’s parents would teach from schoolbooks, his mother would teach him reading and writing, and his dad would teach math. After having left the Qala-e-Noborja, they have been driving and living life as nomads by definition, trying to escape the war that was spreading. They meet many people that quickly become their “family”, and also visit family by blood and have many adventures. As for their family still at the Qala-e-Noborja, they had no way of contacting them and hadn’t been able to communicate with them. The war was spreading, little by little, neighborhood by neighborhood and they were trying to escape it as best they could. For a while, they stay in Mazar, Qais starts seeing “the teacher” who he has a crush on, regularly and learning how to weave carpets, there he is extremely happy, he has lots of friends and never wants to leave. They have to leave and start to head to Kabul, they end up having car troubles and are not able to get there, they are in the open country with the Kuchis and decide to caravan back to Mazar, even though they had hoped to return to Kabul, Qais is excited. They caravan back to Mazar, but soon ride a helicopter back to Kabul! They are all reunited after nearly a year. Soon after though, they are separated again, most of the family has been scattered to different parts of Afganistan. I was happy to know that they were all still alive.
In Part Three, the war has started up again, cue near-death experiences again, rockets are being littered all over Kabul. Someone has died, Wakeel is dead and I am heartbroken. There has been so much death and destruction, its so sad to read about.
Its really interesting to see the other side of things. We see so little of what actually goes on in mainstream media. We also see a very corrupt and perverted view of what actually happens. Most of the information thats provided to us, I believe, is so easily one-sided which can also prompt a one-sided view instead of knowing all the facts and information. I didn’t really know this was happening, to an extent. Obviously, I knew some of what was going on, everyone can recognize that Afghanistan has a really bad reputation, but most people don’t know why or have produced the idea based on one-sided media. He writes insanely well for someone who didn’t have schooling available to him for most of his time as a child. I think its incredible how educated and well-spoken his grandfather and father are which is also passed down to Qais. Qais and his family are so brave and it was heartbreaking to read about all of the traumatic, unbelievable events that they go through. It was an incredible book, and I am pleased to have been able to read it.