Memoir Journal # 1- Inside the Kingdom

This memoir was captivating the minute I started reading it. It had a very dramatic tone most the time, which made you want to keep reading. The topics that were brought up in the first chapters were also interesting, especially because one of them was about 9/11 and how her family was greatly effected, since she is related to the Bin Ladins.

This memoir; Inside the Kingdom, is about the life story of Carmen Bin Ladin, also known as former sister-in-law to Osama Bin Ladin and the struggles she had with being related to him. In the first couple of chapters, she talks about growing up in Geneva, but having a home base in Iran. In her early life she figures out the clash of two cultures that she is growing up in- the one in Geneva, the rules being looser and one in Iran where the rules of women are strict and confined. Her youth basically symbolizes this frusturation and longing to figure out who she is, and in what ways she wants to act. Her childhood is spent fighting the strict rules of her mother, and going against the traditional Iranian ways. Even though she lives in Switzerland, her mother still raises her and her sisters in less strict, traditional values. In the beginning of the story though, Iran is her "secret garden", where she can escape to and where all her family lives. But she lives her young life in ignorance of really how women are treated in the Middle East.

When Carmen gets older, she has more of a longing to be free and different than the normal middle-eastern girl. When she moves to America with her fiance, I find that as a symobol of escape and freedom for her. Her home represents struggle, confinement, and stress, while America represents adventure, new experiences, and justice. I think the way she writes about America being this amazing new place and describing its wonders, made me really think if that's how all foreigners think of America.

One of my favorite passages from the book, was when Carmen (with her husband Yeslam), found out that there really are very unfortunate people in the middle-east. It was interesting to see how she reacted to seeing poor, over-worked people, like she had never before in her life layed eyes on them. Since her husband and her had both grew up in rich homes, it was interesting to find out that only her husband had seen this poverty and not herself. The reactions of those two were very different. Carmen's was full of sadness and pity, while her husband's was merely dismissing and careless. It showed how the two were raised differently, with Carmen being raised with more Western values, while Yeslam was raised with traditional muslim values.

So far this memoir has made me think of how women really are treated in other places in the world, and how good I have it in the United States. As Carmen explains in one of her chapters, Saudia Arabian women have to be fully clothed and can only show their eyes . No men that isn't a relative can look at them and they are discriminated against. Carmen found out this way of life when she experienced her own less than satisfactory wedding there, with her husband's traditional martial values. I am engaged and ready to find out what else happens with her marriage and future events in life in the coming chapters.