monday ruminations

It was an award winning first book by Afghan physician Khaled Hosseini that was set in Afghanistan that depicts the life before and after Taliban with the detour of their experiences as American immigrants with a tale of friendship and betrayal.

The author wrote on the fate of two childhood friends of different ethnic group in the same situations and setting and prejudices and bias came out of it. Amir is the son of a wealthy businessman, a Sunni Muslim, a Pashtun, and he's educated and reads voraciously. Hassan's father is a servant to Amir's father, and Hassan is a Sh'ia Muslim, a Hazara, he's illiterate, and he has a harelip.
It was an engaging read not just for the fragile and fickle humanity depicted in the book but the voice of an immigrant that fallen into difficult times and into another status class.

I can’t write a better review than the professionals. You can read more about the book at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E0DF123FF930A3575BC0A9659C8B63

But there are other things that I wanted to talk out loud…

It was very disturbing read, not withstanding the very graphic scenes in the book but for the injustice and atrocities that we knew that is read and not made up even in this book of fiction. And all these did not happen in some thousands of years in a barbaric lawless society but in our 21st century democratic world.
Or are we deluded about the reality out there?

Is our world here in sunny Singapore is really that ‘ok’?
With the influx of immigrants and foreigners working here, are they treated fairly by the locals? Is there anyone who is marginalized?
Or do we give some preferential treatment due to the colour of their skins?

Last night I watched a new game show ‘Identity’, that ask you to match the identity of the strangers. All you have before the real person and you are suppose to read the body language and maybe their attire to match the identities given. Some were easy to identify like sumo wrestler and others like nuclear physicist where the real deal was a biker look alike.
How much does first impression counts? Do we size up people from the very first encounter or even without it? from the title they carry or their ethnic group, we deem them worthy of our time?

What should we do?