Masculinity in Kandahar

I found some striking similarities between Men in the Sun and Kandahar. Both novella and movie are very straightforward in neutering the male figure. In Men in the Sun Abul khaizuran, Assad, Marwan and Abu Qais, are emasculated in different ways. Abul Khaizuran who suffers the most, becomes castrated and has to suffer everyday. He is unable to marry, he carries a constant weight between his thighs and he has to suffer ridicule when a couple of policemen at a check post presume that he's slept with a prostitute, Kawkab. Kanafani makes the point that exile leads to a feminization of the male figure and strips away his 'honor'. 

Similar comparisons can be drawn in Kandahar. For example, when Nafas is traveling with a family and they cross into Afghanistan, their guide robs them of their possessions and takes off in his rickshaw. All the while the male figure extends his arms towards the heaven and prays that God is gracious, merciful, while the man robbing them is only brandishing a knife. In that moment the exilic male figure appears completely helpless. His inability to even continue the journey into Afghanistan reflects the same neutering of the male figure as seen in Men in the Sun. Another example are all those men who have lost their limb(s) to mines. Their left to walk on crutches, even that is extremely painful for these people. Previously each of these men were workers or laborers but now they're resigned to running after prostrate legs falling from the sky. These figures are exilic because they're not being helped by the state but they're alive through the efforts of the Red Cross. They're marginalized because they can never find work and they're not located within a town or city but left in the middle of nowhere besides a camp. Their exile is borne out of their secular existence, in the Saidian sense. These men are no longer representative of a dominant male figure.