“One day my mom told me, ‘You have to return to Afghanistan with me. There’s a man there who wants to marry you. Your brother’s engaged and we need your dowry money to pay for his wedding.’”PRI is giving her publicity and extracting a fair amount of criticism of America. The photo captions are: "Afghan rapper Sonita Alizadeh narrowly escaped a forced marriage at 14 by writing the song 'Brides for Sale.' She recently visited West Oakland, California, and was surprised that the US, like Iran and Afghanistan, has poor neighborhoods and homeless people." And: "Sonita was shocked by this neighborhood in West Oakland. 'Are you telling me in America there are places where you can’t walk alone at night?' she asked."
Sonita [Alizadeh] was devastated. So she wrote the song "Brides for Sale." The song starts “Let me whisper, so no one hears that I speak of selling girls. My voice shouldn’t be heard since it’s against Sharia. Women must remain silent… this is our tradition.”...
Sonita was worried what her parents would think about the video — but they actually loved it — and they also told her that she didn’t have to get married....
The attention around Sonita’s music landed her a full scholarship to an arts academy in Utah, and that led to the concert here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
May 14, 2015
"Afghan rapper escaped teen marriage by singing about it."
From Public Radio International. There's a skimpiness to the story and doesn't quite support the drama of the headline:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
Aside from the subject matter at hand, I see this as par for the course for the publics like NPR and PRI. They will follow much of the inherent logic to its conclusions, and what once may have been radical chic for some, becomes standard Lefty perpetual activism over time.
The capture is how even 'Left-liberal' ideals can lead to further Left orgs over time, or at least this kind of poverty-activist story-telling. 'Public' my rear-end.
The light is on above the door.
The morally virtuous activist cares for the poor.
Oakland is a violent city. Can't judge the U.S. by Oakland.
There's a lot of missing information. Here's another article about her that fills in some of the blanks. Neither do a good job of explaining why her mother went from actively pushing her to get married to letting her stay single because of a song. Did she make enough money from it to pay for her brother's wedding?
It sounds like something from a movie musical. No one understood that she didn't want to marry until she put it in a song.
If she had been Somali, she could have gotten killed for that.
In Afghanistan, she still needs to be careful. That her parents let her get away with it does not mean that some Taliban will not decide to see to her punishment.
Actually, after that, she needs to keep an eye out wherever in the world she is.
She recently visited West Oakland, California, and was surprised that the US, like Iran and Afghanistan, has poor neighborhoods and homeless people."
Poor people in Oakland are rich compared to those in Afghanistan. She is a very sheltered young girl.
"In Afghanistan, she still needs to be careful."
She's not in Afghanistan. She's in California. In showbiz. Getting PR from PRI.
Post a Comment