There was an uproar last month about a new movie starring Dakota Fanning, mostly set in Ethiopia before the death of the Emperor. Many people started to tweet about cultural appropriation, comparing Dakota Fanning to Scarlet Johansen, and other racist accusations. I was curious, as I googled the movie, I ran across the novel the movie is based on. The synopsis of the book was simple, an Orphan girl is raised by an Ethiopian man and ends up spending years in Ethiopia, before leaving as a refugee. I didn’t see anything problematic as the character is a white woman who is raised Muslim by her adoptive father and teacher. I realized the people screaming at Dakota Fanning really didn’t understand the fact that it isn’t cultural appropriation to play a white woman as a white woman. She isn’t taking any role from any particular person, perhaps maybe a white Muslim woman…..cough….cough…me?

So, before I get into the problematics of the internet suddenly screaming WRONG WRONG CULTURAL APPROPRIATION. I will discuss what the actual book discusses and how the author didn’t have her white character be better than others. If anything, Lily was more used as an apparatus to observe a culture than anything, which we will be getting into ironically in the novel. So, who was this Lily? Lily was born from two parents, one from Ireland and another from England who traveled the world never setting roots. In fact, Lily was born and raised on the travels with her parents. When stopping in Morocco her parents visited a Sufi Saint from Ethiopia, who in turn agreed to babysit Lily as her parents wander off. A few days later a white convert named Muhamad Bruce came and told Lily her parents died, and he is now her legal guardian since her parents had no living kin. Bruce left Lily in the care of the Saint, who taught her the Quran, Islam, and how to pray.

Lily and her companion Hussein left Morocco at the Saint’s request because a regime change happened with the King of Morocco (don’t worry the kingdom is cool), and the King was murdering Sufis. Hussein and Lily leave towards Ethiopia on foot, only knowing Arabic and English. Eventually, they reach the Saint’s cousin who throws Lily out because she is a foreigner. The cousin has some good reasons not to trust foreigners, as many have come to him for spiritual advice but end up not being able to follow is strict rules. We get a sense the cousin purposely is harsh towards foreigners, including Whites, South Asians, and Black Africans. Lily is sent to live with the cousin of the wife of the Saint. Lily is only sixteen years old at this time.

Unlike most characters, Lily doesn’t complain about her life. The author doesn’t exoticize life in Harar or paints a picture of extreme poverty among the people. In fact, Gibb has Lily slowly integrate into the household she is thrust into, by becoming a Quran teacher for the local kids. The woman Lily stays with is Oromo and the people in charge of the city are Harrari. The Harrari control lands and treat none Harraris like feudal lords. Lily notes that the Harrari and Oromo and others are particularly harsh towards those with dark skin and those who they considered Black African. It might surprise readers of the Western world, those both white and black, that not all Africans regardless of skin color consider themselves Black Africans. The love interest of Lily is a doctor who is both Harrari and Somali with dark skin. Ironically the photo the internet was freaking about showed Lily with Aziz (the Doctor) walking the streets together.

The two Characters are both outsiders, Lily more so, because of their skin color. Lily eventually learns the language and assimilates into the culture after years of being taught by the women around her. Aziz and Lily have a cute relationship. Aziz hangs with her by taking her to mixed group gatherings with his doctor friends. Eventually taking her to the city where they stay at a friend’s grandfather’s house. This house is the last time they see each other, after making love for the first and last time. Aziz sends Lily away because she might associate the friends and family with the Emperor due to being a foreigner.

While in England Lily has become a nurse living in subsidized housing, where she befriends a fellow Ethiopian woman and her kids. The two become very close and live like co-wives, with keys to each other’s apartments. Together they make a small nonprofit group to help Ethiopians find loved ones. All the while Lilly is looking for Aziz. A doctor at the hospital she works, Robin starts to court her. Robin is a Hindu Bengali, who tries to befriend Lily. Thanks to Lily’s friends Robin is invited to many programs. Lily just can’t let him in because she is waiting for Aziz after fifteen years. Finally, SPOILER ALERT, Lily gets the terrible news that she already knew in her heart, Aziz was dead.

Gibbs included the psychological problems that many refugees from war-torn countries face. Painting the racism, the Ethiopians faced settling in England and explaining the problems we all face by integrating into society. The book didn’t read as White savior novel, nor did the main character scream “I’m White poor me”. Lily was simply a nonproblematic character, she didn’t feel the need to explain skin colors. Except with Aziz, because it was one the defining characteristic of not being considered Harrari. There are explanations of harsh medical conditions such as female genital mutilation and bugs in the scalp. Including poor sanitary conditions, the people faced in the 1960s-70s. Gibbs does include a sly message into the book, that comments on how Lily might be a reference of an orientalist trope. Muhammad Bruce went to Ethiopia to that cousins’ shrine and was caught with a bag in a trunk that held a book written about Harar and Ethiopia. The book talked about the people living as savages and other orientalist racist tropes.

Lily was given the book and was disgusted to find a book that didn’t represent the people well. She, however, didn’t seem that surprised by the racism. Gibbs’s play on Bruce was that of the Orientalist man before the 1970/80s who converts to Islam but still treats other Muslims as the “other”. The book mentions how people like her parents and Bruce were an extinct breed of White because no longer could the White man travel colonies and live an “authentic” life. In fact, the only reason Lily ended up integrated into Harar was that she had nowhere else to go. Yet, mentioning in the book being a refugee in England she was more supposedly connected to the place than other Emigrants. She could have gone to the city and went to an embassy for help if she needed to. She didn’t have to leave Morocco, but Lily felt as a Muslim she should go on the hajj to the Shrine of her Sheik’s ancestor. Lily felt it was her duty to teach the Quran to the kids and just live. Her love interest in Aziz was a pure love story about two young people on a brink of war.

It could be argued that it was unnecessary to have a white woman in Ethiopia, Gibbs could have just used an Ethiopian woman. Not having Lily as an Ethiopian woman of any background allows for her to integrate society as a foreigner, perhaps not trusted but able to navigate around the social constructs Ethiopians have to face. A woman of whatever background in Ethiopia in the 1960s would have to deal with many constrictions that a foreigner might not have to encounter. Having Lily as an orphan gives her a dynamic as a loner, someone who has to form familiar bonds with others because she has nothing. That is why she clings onto her Ethiopian life so much. While in Morocco she grew up, Ethiopia taught her to be a woman. Lily was only 15 years old when she reached Ethiopia. When she met Aziz she was around 16 years old, trying to hold her wait for her landlady.

I don’t think it’s right for the internet to falsely freak out about a story that doesn’t paint anyone in a negative light. The author herself has a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies and researched the culture by going to the culture center in Toronto. Gibbs explains the Ethiopian war, through the horrors various characters faced and the famine many had to endear. Not once does she exoticize the people or culture, nor does she really play the refugees as anything other than normal. In England, background characters are constantly yelling slur words to the Ethiopian people. To be mad because the main character is white is ridiculous not once does Lily claim to be Ethiopian or Moroccan. While she considers those lands her homes and is a refugee herself, she doesn’t claim special privilege. Perhaps the movie is different, I haven’t seen it…yet. To freak out when a story has a white woman as the main character in the non-white country is valid only if the story is problematic. We live in a world where it is okay to just jump the gun by assuming information about a topic.

The picture in question did show Lily as a bright beacon surrounded by dark bodies with grey clothes. The book, however, does not paint Lily as a woman who is richly dressed. Of course, she eventually gains proper clothes after she earns the household enough money through the classes. She also is gifted fancy clothes for events so she can start being apart of the society, and eventually get a husband. Lily is not gifted the clothes because she is white, she is gifted the clothes because the older woman already owned their own special occasion clothes. These outfits will help Lily integrate into society and perhaps marry. The picture that was shown to advertise the movie was problematic. It painted another white savior trope and destroyed the integrity of the movie. The truth is a white woman is going to stand out in a sea of non-white bodies, just as a black man stands out in a sea of white bodies. I’m not saying that Ethiopians do not have a right to be mad about how they are portrayed but to complain that a white woman is taking the place of a black woman in a movie when she isn’t is ridiculous. What we should worry however is how Islam is portrayed in the movie, in the book the characters constantly talk about Islam. As a practicing Muslim, it is apart of her. If that isn’t portrayed in the movie properly then we have a problem, as religion is the main reason, she’s in Ethiopia in the first place. Yet people are worried about a White woman playing a white woman. Apparently, a white woman playing a white woman is whitewashing.

It is perfectly reasonable for audiences to be mad that there are not movies portraying Ethiopia through Ethiopian eyes. I understand people being frustrated because this is a movie about an important period in Ethiopia’s history that’s played by a white woman. Do we really need another movie in Africa played by a white person? No. Now that’s over, the movie is an independent film not produced by Hollywood and designed for British audiences with the producer being Ethiopian. The book is not an orientalist trope nor is it really about a White woman finding herself in a black country. It is a book about loss and what it means to have a family. This woman refuses to move on until she has closure about the one man her life that she really cared for. The book does tastefully broach upon issues such as mental health, sanitation, history, politics, and what it means to belong. I would recommend this novel for someone wanting a nice sob story or good book to read during a rainy day.