Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody

 

I had read this book many years ago, but the fear that it incited in me has stayed. The sheer heartache of losing one's identity, stuck in a foreign and hostile nation, is unimaginable. This is the true story of Betty Mahmoody. Many years into her marriage and a daughter later, agrees to finally visit her husband's family in Iran. Unknowingly she walks into a trap of sorts. A society that devalues women. Reduces her to nothingness. Imagining this to be only a temporary situation, Betty is looking forward to the end of the trip and is desperate to get back to America with her daughter Mahtob. Things get out of hand. Her husband is convinced, brainwashed by family and society members to stay back and give back to society. So, no one is going anywhere!

What follows this is horrendous. One cannot even begin to imagine! The culture shock, the domestic abuse and of course now the forced staying in an alien country with no way out is the new norm for Betty. But, she wakes up every single day wanting to get back to America - the place she and her daughter belong. Every day she wakes up with the thought of not giving up despite the dangers and the intolerance of the people around her. 

I do not claim to remember all the details but what I will not forget is how it made me feel. Claustrophobic and scared. You can feel a mother's pain to get herself and her little daughter out of the mess she has fallen in. It is not about feminism or shaming another religion. It's just how much you feel as a human being. No one is generalizing, but even one bad apple can spoil the whole basket.