The child narrator’s point of view is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s as if the boy’s view of the world is warped by the surface of the water. Ac... (show more)
The child narrator’s point of view is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s as if the boy’s view of the world is warped by the surface of the water. Actually, Suleiman isn’t a particularly likeable character. On the contrary, the reader is discouraged from identifying with the first person narrator, for he recounts episodes of his boyhood in which he indulges in inexplicable cruel behavior which contrasts sharply with the boy's childish innocence in the face of evil and deceit.
While the book’s language is pretty much straightforward and uncomplicated, to the point that at first I thought this wasn’t going to be worth my while, as I read on, I became engrossed by the subversive elements of the plot, and the constant interplay of the two temporal pasts of the narrative (Najwa-the mother’s past vs. Suleiman-the boy’s past).
* * * PLENTY OF SPOILERS AHEAD * * *
In the Country of Men has been criticized by Arab commentators for being politically vague, for depicting the opposition to the Libyan regime as a slipshod endeavor, in effect caricaturing the resistance movement. IMO this is what gives the book its humanity and poignancy.
The primary critique of contemporary Arab society is that this country of ‘men’ no longer operates according to ‘manly’ codes of conduct. All sense of justice, faith, honor, respect seems to have decayed.
This can be seen in the juxtaposition between the strict moral codes women must still adhere to, a seemingly anachronistic tradition that persists in a society whose ruling regime loudly proclaims a total break with the past, the ushering in of the ‘modern’, the ‘revolutionary’, etc.
We observe the most devout adherents of The Guide are men who unashamedly forego ideological principles when it is convenient for themselves or for their superiors: Um Masood can be bribed by a cake topped with strawberries; the secret police try to score with Suleiman’s mother in exchange for overlooking the ‘shame’ of her drinking binges. And despite all the macho talk of capturing the ‘traitors’, the pistol-toting Sharief promptly abandons his idealistic mission when the ‘mighty hand’ decides to spare Suleiman’s father.
However, the opposition isn't any better. Najwa’s brother, despite an American wife and a comfortable life abroad, reverts to the old ways when it comes to dealing with the matter of the family’s honour being compromised by the young girl. Faraj (Suleiman’s father), who is apparently one of the main financial benefactors of the opposition, has married an underage girl he has never seen before and even went so far as to deflower her as she lay unconscious with fear on her wedding night in accordance with tradition.
Who better, then, to understand the futility of the 'resistance' than Najwa, (Suleiman’s mother). As a woman, as a victim of patriarchal status quo, she is aware that her husband’s struggle with the totalitarian regime is a futile battle. The system cannot be overcome when the men fighting it are themselves oppressors. And this is what In the Country of Men illustrates, by intertwining the two narratives: the subjugation of Najwa to the rule of men, and the subjugation of Faraj to the rule of the regime.
Najwa’s adolescent ‘crime’ is that she was found talking to a boy in a public café. The ‘High Council’ of male family elders acted with the ‘efficiency rivaling that of a German factory’ in meting out the punishment after a closed ‘trial’ in which she is not allowed to come to her own defense. Her sentence begins with incarceration, beatings, a forced marriage, denial of access to books, and concludes with the rape on her wedding night. She remembers: “When I got home every light in my life was put out.”
Years later, her husband’s fate echoes her own oppression. At the moment of Faraj’s arrest she immediately understands the enormity of his predicament: the possibility of being placed ‘behind the sun for ever’.
His capture by the Revolutionary Committee men is followed by events paralleling her own submission: a mock trial, incarceration, beatings, forced confession, forced pledge of loyalty, deprived of his books, release.
The ironic twist in this role reversal is that it is the woman who now holds the trump card --> She makes the morally superior choice to save him at all costs whereas no man or woman (not even her own mother) was willing to rescue/protect her. In the country of men, it is the woman who saves the day, overcoming the ‘cowardly’ stance of the Scheherazades past and present - idealists/fantasists who choose slavery over risking all for freedom.
Najwa negotiates with her neighbor Ustath Jafer, the until then much feared highranking Mokhabarat official, and pledges obedience to the regime on behalf of her husband -- as she had once given her own wedding pledge to him in order to ‘save’ her family’s honor: ‘A word had been given and word had been received, men’s words that could never be taken back or exchanged.’
Finally, I want to point out the crowning ironic symbol: The white handkerchief, a testament of Najwa's virgin ‘honor’ upon her bridal bed, becomes the white sheet on the mirror protecting the ‘violated’ husband from his own reflected image upon his return home a badly bruised and broken man. (show less)
