13/11/13

Accidental Blogger: "A Border Passage" by Leila Ahmed

Accidental Blogger
June 22, 201 2

"A Border Passage" by Leila Ahmed

I hav e been meaning to write a proper rev iew of Leila Ahmed's autobiography A Border Passage ev er since I finished reading it a couple of months ago. But the inertia that has befallen any attempt at writing a substantiv e blog post once again prev ents me from writing a well thought out rev iew. I will leav e y ou with the link to the Amazon page where the first three rev iewers' opinions pretty much encapsulate what I may hav e said here. Somewhere down the thread, a couple of readers hav e commented that the book is not a ty pical autobiography (true) and that Ahmed has nothing interesting to say (not true). A Border Passage is not about Ahmed's personal history but more a history of her family , that of the Egy ptian society she grew up in and the changes she observ ed with the passage of time. In recounting them she giv es her readers a brief tour of modern Egy pt's ev olution from the last part of the 1 9th century to the present, from being a part of the Ottoman Empire, a British colony and finally becoming an independent nation in the middle of the 20th century . The ev ents chronicle the rise of Egy ptian nationalism, the country 's many attempts at shaking off the stranglehold of European colonialism and the dream of forging a liberal democratic sy stem of gov ernment. Despite a v ibrant political climate and a sizable secular western educated intelligentsia, democracy nev er did acquire a foothold in Egy pt's political sy stem. After the colonial rule was dismantled, it was replaced by successiv e homegrown military regimes. We are currently witnessing the struggles and aftermath of the so called Arab Spring in sev eral middle eastern and north African Muslim countries. Egy pt was one of the first nations to recently topple a totalitarian gov ernment by popular uprising. Whether democracy will finally arriv e in Egy pt is any body 's guess but the final outcome of the recent elections there may well hav e its roots in the Islamic nationalist mov ement set in motion in the 1 930s and which the secular faction of Ahmed's parents' generation opposed v ehemently . I v ery much enjoy ed A Border Passing . Ahmed's quiet and scholarly interpretation of Egy ptian societal ethos, gender and class hierarchies, the stark div ide between intellectual and cultural Islam and the many political upheav als that unfolded around her in Egy pt, England and some parts of the middle east seem straightforward, thoughtful and sometimes surprising. The reader is not afforded much of an insight into the minutiae of the author's own personal conflicts, joy s and sorrows, triumphs and failures, her moods or her lov e life. I think she intended it that way .

Posted by Ruchira Paul at 1 2:1 8 AM in Books, Authors & Poems | Permalink T rackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry : http://www.ty pepad.com /serv ices/trackback/6 a00d83 4 1 c57 5d53 ef01 7 6 1 5b6 1 52 3 9 7 0c Listed below are links to weblogs that reference "A Border Passage" by Leila Ahm ed :

Com m ents
Looks prom ising, Ruchira. I will definitely check this out of m y local library . Posted by : Sujatha | June 2 2 , 2 01 2 at 05:3 4 AM Sujatha, Leila Ahm ed's description of the "English" educational sy stem in Egy pt is alm ost a carbon copy of what y ou
accidentalblogger.typepad.com/accidental_blogger/2012/06/a-border-passage-by-leila-ahmed-.html 1/2

13/11/13

Accidental Blogger: "A Border Passage" by Leila Ahmed

and I (less y ou than m e, m y day s being closer to the freshly m inted independent India's British hangov er) experienced during our school day s. Posted by : Ruchira | June 2 3 , 2 01 2 at 04 :07 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

accidentalblogger.typepad.com/accidental_blogger/2012/06/a-border-passage-by-leila-ahmed-.html

2/2