The Persimmon Tree

In Under The Persimmon Tree, the Taliban are shown to be a group of cruel and terrible people. In the real world however, living under this extremist group is much worse. The author connected Nusrat and Najmah to the Taliban show how they can affect people 's everyday lives. They have murdered hundreds, and ruined the lives of countless others. The Taliban issue many harsh rules and regulations. Affect everyday families by tearing men and boys away from their families. Like many other terrorist groups, the Taliban "...use violence to prove their point..." (Coskie). They want a strict society in Afghanistan revolving around Islamic Law. When the group of 50 armed men first led by Mullah Omar began in 1994, they were killing people for

The Taliban have many many harsh rules and regulations. A lot of these don 't seem to fit in with modern day society, at least ours. Najmah talks about some these "...lists of things forbidden by the Taliban: playing music, laughing out loud, keeping a bird to hear its song in the morning, putting pictures of beautiful scenes on the walls, reading books, flying kites. We have heard that women wearing Henna on their fingertips have their fingers chopped off." (Staples, 12). They may have had harsh rules, but they had even harsher punishments. Women hardly have any rights. They must always wear head to toe clothing, must alway be accompanied by a man, are denied an education, and are often forced into arranged marriage. A stranger law is the ban of, "photographs of women on T.V. or in newspapers, even the hanging of pictures of women in ones own homes" (Knoji). Men must grow beards, keep their hair short, visit the mosque at least five times per day, and wear islamic clothing. The internet and television is banned for

The Taliban affects tear many families ' lives apart, often abducting young boys and men, forcing them to go to war. This is one of the main conflicts in Under The Persimmon Tree. Najmah 's father, Baba-Jan, and brother, Nur, are kidnapped by the Taliban and made into soldiers. In chapter one, Najmah talks about the traumatic incident, ending with seeing the Taliban "...shove and drag Baba-Jan and my [Najmah 's] brother towards the Datsun pickup trucks" (Staples, 18). Imagine how terrified and confused a young girl would feel after seeing this happen to her family. Unfortunately, this does happen in real life. The Taliban also have a large human trafficking business, usually selling women into slavery. In 1999, over 600 women were kidnapped, "forced...into trucks and buses" (Wikipedia). With women being sold into slavery, and men being forced to fight, this orphans many children. However, the Taliban have done many terrible things to children as well. They allow schools for boys, but they mostly only allow them to learn how they view Islam. Girls however, are denied education completely, and often shut down schools when moving into a new area. An example of this that received huge attention from the media, is when 14 year old Malala Yousafzi was wounded by Taliban gunmen on her way to school in October 2012. She survived, and went on to speak out publicly about life under the Taliban and about the importance of education for all people, and have a book written