Editorial - Kirsty Walton

Welcome to the Spring Edition of the Development in Action Magazine. It’s bursting with contributions from past volunteers, members, trustees and supporters all interested in issues of ethical consumerism, fair-trade, and sustainability. It comes after the recent annual Fairtrade Fortnight pioneered by the Fairtrade Foundation, which marked an increase in sale of Fairtrade products in the UK to half a billion pounds. As an important driver of development, I hope awareness of what fairtrade is will continue to grow in the coming year.

Ruth Bergan begins this edition with a detailed account of the difficulties faced by Homeworkers in the leather shoe industry. Many workers are paid 50 cents for a pair of shoes that retails at 100 Euros. Struggling to stitch shoes on demand, these workers need help to negotiate proper working conditions. Read on for details of the Homeworkers UK campaign which fights to get these workers a fair deal.

Iain Hughes, recently returned from Indore, observes the changing face of retail in India. Is India going the same way as the Wal-Mart and Tesco dominated industries in the US and UK? This issue is prompting protests in rural India, where local food producers feel they are being held to ransom by the expanding supermarket chains that over-package and under-price their produce. Can India learn from the unsustainable food supply patterns in the west and legislate to protect their local street vendors?

Tom Salisbury examines a crucial development initiative at work in our partner organisation ASA in Madhya Pradesh; a microfinance scheme. In this new world of credit crunch in the U.S and seemingly looming banking crises elsewhere, obtaining finance is not something anyone can take for granted. However across India women’s Self Help Groups can get the small loans they need to become financially independent and provide for their families.

Sarah Lee tackles an equally important issue in a refreshingly honest way. As a textiles graduate soon to work begin her work with weavers & jewellery makers in Orissa & Tamil Nadu, Sarah explores the dilemmas faced by designers in their quest to work ethically and sustainably. Clothing is arguably an area where the ethically-minded among us still struggle to consume in the right way. Read on for an insight into how textiles work really can help tackle poverty in the developing world.

Finally, to discuss our consumer habits, Tom Wilmot, our previous editor, gets his thoughts on the issue out in the open. He questions our habits and attitudes, arguing that the choice can go beyond where we buy, but whether we buy at all. With an ever-expanding population it is ethical at all to consume in the way we’ve become accustomed to in the west?

Last but not least we have a book review by Sarah Cunningham of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. This fascinating book is likely to be of interest for anyone interested in Afghanistan and the difficulties faced by its people. We’re always interested in books that deal with salient political and development issues; all reviews (and articles) are welcome so be inspired!

2008 is an exciting time for DiA and we hope our supporters and volunteers will continue to be involved and active. I welcome comments on this issue – now possible through our blogger format, which we are piloting as a step towards developing a more interactive magazine.

Kirsty Walton
DiA magazine editor

Who foots the bill?

Homebased workers in the leather footwear industry campaign for their rights.

Homebased workers in many countries are working on the production of leather footwear. They experience poor working conditions as companies look for ever-lower product prices. Workers talk about pains in their hands and backs from stitching heavy materials, working long hours, having no contract or access to social security.

A homebased worker in Bulgaria is paid on a piece rate for each pair of shoes that she completes. For a pair of shoes which retails at 100 Euros, she is usually paid half a Euro. More complicated models can mean her hourly rate drops. Homebased workers say that, in order to make a living, a family of four needs 200 Euros (or 400 pairs of shoes) per month and they would need to work for 66 hours per week to achieve this.

Homebased workers talk about the negative impact on their health of using toxic glues or stitching leather with thread of the same colour, which can damage their eyesight. Laura from Chile reported that “the glue was so strong it made my head ache… when it fell onto leather, it stripped it”. When there are urgent deadlines workers will often work non-stop for days to meet them.

Working conditions are closely linked to decisions made further up supply chains that are becoming increasingly globalised and complex. Companies are engaged in a ‘race to the bottom’ to reduce costs, putting pressure on suppliers to provide goods at ever lower prices. Company purchasing practices, such as changing order specifications or quantities at the last minute, also have a negative impact on labour conditions. Suppliers often find that the only remaining cost that can be squeezed is labour.

Because homebased workers have limited bargaining power, companies often view engaging them as a way of cutting costs. Homebased workers are only paid when there is work to be done and are not usually paid for work that is not deemed to be high enough quality. They pay their own overhead costs – heating, lighting and often equipment; they rarely receive any social security benefits such as sick pay, maternity leave or pensions. In Portugal, homebased workers have described how they reach retirement age and find that they have no way of providing for themselves.

During a mapping project carried out between 2000 and 2006, Homeworkers Worldwide identified homebased workers in countries across the world working on the production of leather shoes. The most common part of shoe manufacturing given out to homebased workers is the stitching of the top part of the shoe, the ‘uppers’. Sometimes they also stitch uppers to soles, or add decorations. The amount of work depends on the style of shoe: a moccasin-style will tend to mean more work for homebased workers.

It can be difficult for homebased workers to negotiate for better conditions. They are generally afraid of losing their incomes and may be unable to find alternative work due to family or other commitments. They are often isolated, may not be registered and are usually dependent on one supplier because limited access to transport means they are unable to ‘shop around’ for the best rates of pay.

The complexity of supply chains also affects homebased workers’ bargaining power. Work is generally given to workers by a local intermediary, who negotiates the rates of pay, quality and amount of work to be done. The intermediary is in contact with a supplier, to whom he delivers the work. This supplier may be part of a longer chain, involving a number of subsidiaries or subcontractors involved in the different aspects of shoe production, from design to manufacture and packaging. Homebased workers are often aware only of the part of the chain that immediately affects them, and will only know what company they are producing for if there are clues such as labels on the shoes. They are given no information about retail prices.

Homebased workers report degrading and exploitative treatment from intermediaries. Rozalina from Bulgaria said "One of the problems for homebased workers, and a constant humiliation, is that nowhere are they mentioned by their name. The subcontractors know them only by a number. Homebased workers are the most invisible". In Portugal, homebased workers felt under constant pressure to accept work; Maria said “we can’t refuse a box, he doesn’t like that. It’s better to accept everything he brings because otherwise he might give the work to someone else… He often brings extra work for the weekend… Sometimes it makes us want to cry: you have to sew shoes, iron, wash, make the meals. There comes a point when we can’t take any more…”.

This is a common picture throughout the world wherever the production of leather footwear is found. Homebased workers in these chains are demanding the right to be treated as other workers, with full employment and social security rights. In many countries they have started organising to press for change. Through setting up their own democratic, independent organisations they have a collective voice and can fight for their demands. Given the challenges they face in their work and organising, it has been important for them to build alliances with NGOs such as HomeWorkers Worldwide, trade unions and consumer campaigning organisations like the Clean Clothes Campaign and Labour Behind the Label.

Homebased workers in these supply chains are demanding their rights under the ILO convention on home work. Their key demands are:

• Regular work and a living wage;
• Recognition for homebased workers as workers and for their rights;
• Recognition of their right to organise and of their organisation;
• Basic social protection, particularly for health, maternity and old age;
• For rights for all kinds of informal workers, particularly homebased workers, in global production chains.

Can you support our campaign? For further information or to receive an action pack, contact Homeworkers Worldwide http://www.homeworkersww.org.uk/, 0113 217 4037.

Ruth Bergan

The new India?

The dominance of multi-national companies (MNCs) and retail giants in the UK and other western countries is now so well established that it is easy to forget what life was like before they had such a monopoly. Having spent five months working at Barli in Indore, I have been immersed in a society where small scale retail is still prevalent. However, India has reached a turning point and has become one of the most attractive opportunities for both domestic and foreign investment in the retail area. This is posing some important ethical questions to consumers in India and these choices look set to be critical in shaping the future of India’s economy.

Despite their best efforts, huge MNCs such as Wal-Mart have yet to establish themselves in India’s retail industry; presently it is home-grown organisations like Reliance and ITC that are pushing their weight around in the retail market. This has been particularly noticeable over the last year or so, as Reliance has opened a vast number of branches of their new Reliance Fresh supermarkets throughout various locations in India with six branches in Indore alone. Their stores deal in both packaged products and fruits, vegetables and dairy products. Their ethos is notable: by dealing directly with farmers and producers they can assure quality and low prices for consumers while maintaining a steady source of income for the farmers. In reality they are tying the hands of the farmers to make sure Reliance themselves have a steady source of produce at a predetermined price while at the same time eliminating any intermediaries such as wholesale dealers and vendors.

The main concern is that price undercutting will drive away consumers from the smaller retailers and vendors that have become such a significant part of the Indian economy and eventually remove any need for the good majority of them altogether. Once the bigger retailers have a firm enough hold on the market they may then be able to raise prices by as much as they wish. The problem in India is that retail is very fragmented, which means that if highly organised, efficient retailers enter the market significantly, they will displace a disproportionately large number of jobs from the unorganised sector. This is particularly the case if they are not limited on the number of branches they can open in any one place or on the floor space of individual branches.

The initial impact of the new stores was, in many places, significant. Chennai was one of the first places to accommodate new branches of Reliance Fresh and the huge wholesale market in Koyambedu initially reported a 40% drop in sales along with a reduction in the number of small traders visiting the market to procure produce. Not only will there be social problems, but the increase in the use of plastic food packaging and plastic carrier bags will add enormously to the problem of waste disposal in a country whose infrastructure for dealing with it is barely sufficient.

It could be said that India has had the advantage of witnessing the social and environmental degradation caused by large companies expanding their monopoly on retail in the west, and is therefore in a position to act while they still have the chance. There have already been numerous incidences of resistance in various states in India, including organised boycotts, violent and non-violent direct action and the introduction of government legislation, all aimed at limiting or preventing the entry and expansion of large-scale retail. During the first month of my placement in Indore, supporters of the BJP protested against the opening of Reliance Fresh by ransacking one of the city’s branches.

It seems inevitable that these companies will increase their presence over time. The government will have to be strict about enforcing limiting policies if they are to have any control over it. In my local community in Indore I got the impression that people are very much aware of the issues, and generally make educated decisions about how and where they shop. However, it is the burgeoning middle class that is fuelling the growth of large retailers in India, attracted by the slick air-conditioned showrooms and the convenient and hygienically-packed produce on offer. It could be argued that there is nothing wrong with this, but from my experiences, the quality, value for money and level of service I received from small retailers and street vendors was, on the whole, far superior. Supermarkets are able to sell fresh produce at such low prices because of their efficient supply chain and their ability to buy in bulk, but it is their imported and highly processed goods that are regarded as expensive and only affordable to the richer classes. This is a reason for consumers to assess the true cost of discount prices and convenience.

Outside of the cities, in the smaller towns and villages, farming is still a very significant source of income which provides for the local communities. But even Reliance has attempted to enter that market by delivering packaged goods to villages. Once again however, they were met with opposition.

A big part of the work of Barli institute is to teach the trainees the importance of environmental conservation and the sustainable use of their environment and natural resources. It aims to empower them with the skills necessary to provide for their own health and well-being and that of their families and communities. They help maintain knowledge of traditional methods and practices within the communities of the people who need it most. During my placement I spent some time working with the staff and trainees to help propagate and maintain crops within the grounds of the institute; it was incredibly satisfying to see the results of hard work flourish over time. Most importantly, all of this work is done out of necessity because the institute aims to be almost completely self-sufficient. Only produce that is uneconomical or unfeasible to produce is sourced from outside (e.g. cooking oils and rice). Solar cooking technology has become so well established and understood at Barli, there is now very little reliance on firewood or gas at all.

Other practical training at Barli includes cutting and tailoring of clothes. This is very empowering because it gives the trainees the opportunity to provide and maintain their own tailored items, generating a sustainable source of income for their community.

Being at the institute has helped me to further appreciate how much convenience is taken for granted by consumers in the UK. If people want to change their consumer habits for the better then there is a lot we can learn from the simple but honest lifestyles still prevalent in rural India. It has also encouraged me to learn the skills that have disappeared in the majority of people in the UK, and increased my confidence to become more practical.

I’m now thinking about how I can reduce my dependence on products and services from other people and companies. Although this is not the antidote to mindless consumerism, becoming more independent, skilled and practical, and less of a consumer, is ultimately the most ethical choice one can make.

Iain Hughes

Empowering women through micro-finance in Madhya Pradesh

In 2005, the International year of Micro-Credit, Kofi Annan (Secretary General of the U.N.) highlighted the importance of micro-finance in helping to “alleviate poverty by generating income, creating jobs, allowing children to go to school, enabling families to obtain health care, and empowering people to make the choices that best serve their needs”. While I was working with Action for Social Advancement (ASA) in Bhopal this year, I was able to get involved with some social research that assessed the feasibility of establishing micro-finance programmes in several villages. Micro-finance has become an important tool to fight poverty that has been widely used in India. This article will look at some of the problems faced by villagers in rural Madhya Pradesh and how micro finance can help to solve them.

Madhya Pradesh is one of India’s largest states and the majority of its population live in rural areas, relying on agriculture for their livelihoods. To fund agricultural inputs required for this living (such as seeds and fertilisers) as well as other credit requirements such as festivals, marriage dowries and illnesses, villagers often find themselves in a position in which they need to obtain a loan.

Sources of credit are often divided into two categories: formal and informal. The main formal credit sources include commercial banks, co-operative banks, regional rural banks and non-banking financial corporations. Formal credit sources are usually characterised by certain procedures and rules that the borrower should follow. Due to this formalisation, they are often found to be extremely bureaucratic in nature. The lack of access to this credit source is a major problem that villagers face; the physical inaccessibility of the village, the deficiency of economic capital to provide collateral and lack of social capital of the villagers all mean that this is often not a viable option. Instead, villagers often have to rely on informal sources of credit.

Money-lenders (either from the village or local town) dominate this sector and are thus villagers’ most important source of credit. Though credit is often provided without the need of collateral, interest rates are often exorbitant (sometimes up to 25% per month) and tend to exploit poor villagers. Due to the nature of this credit source, the poor are often vulnerable and can find themselves trapped in a ‘vicious circle of debt’ with the villager sometimes forced to sell their agricultural produce to the money-lender at below market-rates.

With these problems in mind, how can micro-finance help? At ASA, micro-finance is promoted in the form of Self Help Groups (SHGs). SHGs usually consist of 10-20 people (predominantly female) and work on the principle which substitutes peer-pressure as the new collateral around which the bankers are willing to lend. After these groups are facilitated, women are able to save collectively and are then far more likely to be able to acquire loans from formal sources of credit at much lower rates of interest than the moneylenders.

As SHGs are often predominantly female, they also help to empower women. This broadly works in three ways:

1 - By providing external sources of capital, micro-finance helps to reduce the economic dependency of women on husbands, enhancing their autonomy;

2 - The same independent source of income, together with the exposure to new sets of values, ideas and social support makes the women more assertive of their rights; and

3 - Through micro-finance, the control over material resources raises the women’s prestige and status, often resulting in greater decision-making democracy in the household.

This article has aimed to briefly describe some of the problems relating to access to credit that are faced by the rural poor in India. Micro-finance is one of the tools that can be used to address these problems as well as providing another way to empower women. I was very privileged to witness this first hand and firmly believe that ASA’s work is making a large difference in the lives in many villages across Madhya Pradesh.

Tom Salisbury

Can design be a sustainable solution to ‘Make Poverty History’?

Organic cotton. Fairtrade. Ethical consumerism. Reducing my carbon footprint. Sustainable Design?! To shop or not to shop at Primark?! I’m an eco-conscious designer and even I am confused by all of this! So how do we balance the environment, ethics and our love for shopping?

Last year I travelled to the rural areas of North Thailand armed with my camera and sketchbook to find a viable solution to my eco-designer dilemmas. I spent my 6 month quest working alongside different NGOs and Sustainable Development projects investigating how I can help save the world through my sustainable design ideas. I was amazed how each project was tackling major social issues such as poverty, prostitution, child labour, drug trafficking and empowerment simply through the use of craft-based employment.

Although it’s hard to be 100% perfect all the time, I was unable to overlook the high levels of waste and at one village leftover dye was thrown onto the ground which their chickens ate off! I worked alongside the local artisans and tribal villagers to develop production methods, natural dyes, ways of using local materials and reducing waste and environmental damage. As I began my challenge I soon realised the immense complexity and reality of combining sustainable development with design. As soon as one sustainable question is answered, a whole minefield of others appear. I found that by answering one, another was compromised. Can all be juggled at the same time or do you focus on one and hope that the others are answered as a result? But, which is more significant? Money? The environment? People? Surely they are equally important?

The local villagers I lived with helped me to find a sense of balance. Over generations they have learnt how to be in tune with their environment and are therefore knowledgeable in ways of sustaining it. They understand their link to it for survival and their role in maintaining the natural equilibrium. I was taught how to use raw materials with minimal impact on the environment. In exchange I improved their production methods and provided training and education on business, product quality, global trends and ways of accessing commercial markets. In doing so sustainable craft-based employment was achieved and money was generated through the sale of beautiful handicraft products.

Having now returned to the UK have I saved the planet?! Of course not! But I’d like to think that I did do some good. As a designer I used to think that I could never have as much impact as a doctor or politician in a world of suffering. Having lived and worked in Thailand I no longer think that this is true and believe, with conviction, in the important role that design innovation plays in supporting the developing world to overcome poverty and harm.

This experience has provided me with knowledge and understanding which I will be able to use within my future work. In April of this year my next journey begins in South India, working with tribal villages who have skills in weaving and jewellery making. I believe that even the smallest things we do to help can and will benefit our world. Fair enough they won’t answer all the problems… but it’s a start.

© Sarah Lee

The ethical oxymoron

Imagine your typical day as a consumer. Because that’s what you are, isn’t it? Imagine also, if you will, that I’m an instantly annoying friend of a friend who, at the end of your day of consuming, has cornered you at a party or sat next to you in the pub. Yes, you are a consumer, admit it! You buy manufactured products of all descriptions, some of them outrageously ostentatious status symbols, some of them little luxuries you think you deserve, almost all of them utterly useless and unnecessary. You use energy in prodigious amounts to get you around, keep you warm and do all those daily tasks that you’re too busy and important to do yourself. You eat foods that you enjoy or that might make you feel guilty or virtuous or indulgent or just plain sick.

You drink drinks when you go out that give you a failsafe and socially acceptable excuse for saying things you’d otherwise be too hesitant to say or for doing things you might otherwise feel too grown up to do. Then to ‘offset’ the cirrhosed liver tissue and dead brain cells you’ll drink some health giving water from your local water company, or maybe some mineral water bottled up and shipped over from Fiji, where a lot of the population don’t have access to mains water. Or perhaps some fairly traded coffee (because you want to feel like you’re actually doing good by consuming something), or maybe even some overpriced herbal infusion stiff with antioxidants to stave off the inevitable cancer (which will be brought on by the endless torrent of toxins you pay to stuff through your digestive system or take into your lungs). Any of these options will almost inevitably have been packaged in plastic made from valuable oil resources and shipped around the monopolised supermarket distribution system in huge polluting lorries. Have I made you feel guilty? Probably not; maybe you refute many of the accusations I’ve thrown at you or think I have no business to accuse you of them in the first place.

The whole concept of ethical consumerism is rife with this sort of conflict and paradox. You could argue that the term itself is an oxymoron. To ‘consume’ is unethical; indeed the word itself has immoral implications. Perhaps this is just something we need to come to terms with. Maybe the ‘ethical consumerists’ should stop wringing their hands over their vain attempts to maintain the tokenistic sham of a lifestyle, and just accept that there are too many people in the world for us to be able to treat each other and our planet fairly. In a way, that’s quite an understandable, if irresponsible, stance to take if we accept our own short sighted human nature.

It often feels like we ignore the negative aspects of a consumer culture by trying to do it ‘ethically’. I was in a branch of a well known café chain recently, one that takes enormous pride in their ethical and sustainable products. We’re supposed to feel positively radiant when we walk out of the door, and not just because of the exquisite coffee and delectable squishy cakes - oh no - because we’ve really done some good for the world. After a few cups of coffee in here, vast tracts of lush, rain drenched tropical forests have been replanted, herds of gorillas are leaping joyfully from tree to tree in their rediscovered wilderness, contented polar bears lounge blissfully in their untouched Alaskan ice, and generations of hearty Venezuelan villagers sit contentedly around their communal fires laughing about the old times when nasty exploitative farmers used to pay them peanuts for their coffee beans.

So I’m being just slightly facetious here, but my point is that the increasing obsession with being able to do everything fantastically ethically is, at best, unnerving, and, at worst, sinister. It is extremely dangerous to attach so much value to our token efforts at ethical consumerism. It is a sobering thought that a return flight to the US will add more to your carbon footprint than heating your house for a year. These raw facts are easy to gloss over by ostensibly living ethically, but there are so many examples in which ‘consumers’ bust a gut to put on an ethical or ‘carbon neutral’ front in public, which fails to compensate for their actual total impact. To use the example of our carbon footprints, however much we try to justify our actions, people have to accept that “everything they do involves carbon emissions, and not just flights and heating their homes," (Euan Murray, strategy manager at the Carbon Trust).

But isn’t trade the way to development? Isn’t the fair trade movement a sustainable way for people in economically less developed countries to become more empowered? Possibly it is one way that we can work towards this seemingly impossible goal, but one of the arguments against ‘fair trade’ is that it is an artificially created system that is interventionist rather than a natural process. It is therefore much more important that we accept the huge negative impact we have on the global community and make changes that reduce this impact in a more sustainable way. The waste of energy, food and natural resources in the most economically developed nations of the world is currently nothing short of an embarrassment.

We need to question our lifestyles more deeply. If we are really to live ethically, it must be a state of mind that is a part of every aspect of our lives, not just how we choose to spend our money. As societies across the world change ever more rapidly, we must think carefully where our values come from and how we decide to live our lives. Religion gives us guidance, supposedly on how to lead a ‘good’ life; should we live ethically to please God? Science is showing us how we can understand the impact of the human race on the planet; would a pragmatic approach to sustainability save us from ourselves? Human nature has inherent values that have evolved to generate sustainable communities; how do we make these work in a global community?

But, come on, let’s be practical. It’s going to come down to a series of decisions. Now a decision might be: ‘should I buy (or perhaps I ought to say consume?) product or service x, or should I not?’ But more realistically, now that we have become accustomed (or should I say addicted?) to consuming a lot, it is probably: ‘where should I buy x?’

So the challenge is then to see through the fog of tokenism, hearsay, marketing and politics, to discern the actual realities - the hard facts - of our personal impact. It will be difficult to measure, it will be debatable and there will be pros and cons for each option. What we need is a better understanding of how the artificial fog and the hard realities actually work.

Consider a popular cut price clothing store. What do you think of these statements?

• “They use cheap foreign labour to keep prices that low”
• “Other high street chains use just as much cheap labour”
• “They don’t waste money on advertising”
• “They minimise staff costs and store overheads (cheap and cheerful!)”
• “Their clothes are rubbish and fall apart”
• “They make low cost clothing available to people on low incomes”
• “They encourage people to forget brand image”
• “They encourage a ‘throwaway culture’”

These statements are different in terms of reliability and in terms of their relative importance to different people. I’m beginning to feel that the most concerning, and the most personal, is the last one, because it links to our underlying consciousness as human beings, and the way we consider our power to have what we want. Indeed, I would even go as far as to say that this is a fundamental part of a growing consumer culture in which people start to feel like either clients or their providers, in just about every aspect of their lives. For example, political apathy is because politicians are increasingly seen as being there to serve rather than to represent; increasing litigation is a result of consumers always needing someone to blame.

“So cheap clothes lead to political apathy do they?!”, I hear you say. Well, not directly, but one of the crucial things about trying to consume ethically is to remember how everything joins up at the back in mysterious ways. Part of being a responsible global citizen is not only to appreciate that our actions affect more vulnerable people everywhere, but to understand how.

Unfortunately, the inconvenient truth is that there are simply too many of us on the planet to consume ethically as a species, and we should not believe that we can solve the problem by spending money differently. While a guilt mentality is no way to live, it is vital that we realise how much of an impact we do all have on the environment and on other people around the world, just through what we have come to expect as a normal standard of living.

Tom Wilmot

The Kite Runner

I firstly wish to express my ignorance which this book shed light on. I come from a generation whose only association with the country of Afghanistan has solely been based on the media’s negative portrayal; our soldiers patrolling the streets of destroyed cities aiding Mr Bush. I knew the name of the capital city, but only owing to the many reports of gun fire or the death of one of our soldiers. I knew that Afghanistan’s landscape included a mountainous area which provided caves in which to hide from America’s promise of democracy. Yet, I am ashamed to admit that beyond this spoon-fed information about the war on terror I knew little else of Afghanistan and its history.

The book was first published in 2003 and recently a film was produced, which I have yet to see. Although a work of fiction, I was delighted to discover and explore the country through the author, Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan American. Underlying a deeply traumatic personal journey of the main character, Amir, there is the history of Afghanistan spanning three generations involving great political shifts; one experiences the downfall of the monarch, a soviet invasion, and the rise of the Taliban regime.

Kabul used to be a city brought together for the tradition held dear to every Afghan child’s heart; the day in which kites flew and battled. This day changed Amir’s life dramatically and, despite attempts to forget his past after emigrating, to the reader it is obvious that this one event has defined his whole character. We are invited to witness Amir growing up, being spared few details regardless of how personal. The imagery of kites is beautifully used throughout, simulating a sense of the childhood that Amir had lost so abruptly.

At the heart of this story is the tale of Amir’s redemption which involves a return to the much changed city of Kabul in 2001. This book deals brutally with extremely difficult issues and does so successfully. Amir struggles to deal with each issue, producing a character full of flaws which one can empathise with. It is painfully honest about the flaws of human character, which may depress some, but the journey Amir has to take for redemption is deeply moving. I would recommend this book to anyone; especially for those in my generation. One particularly poignant scene, although a minor detail in one sentence, has stuck in my memory; the young Amir watches an elderly American couple on holiday sitting by a lake surrounded by green fields on the outskirts of Kabul. This is far removed from today’s media images.

Sarah Cunningham