A Quiz for the Aware Muslim/Internationalist

Let's see how much of an internationalist you really are. Please honestly attempt to answer the question before scrolling down for the answer. No cheating!

Q: Which country fits this description?

In the past two years, the President of the country, and his entire cabinet was removed by force by outsiders. Many of the cabinet members were imprisoned. A puppet government was installed in the country, and remains in place with U.S. backing. House-to-house searches are carried out, to uproot "militants." Particular cities and towns are identified as resistance strongholds, and subjected to massive assault by the occupying force, resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties. The reporting of such massive assaults and the concomitant suffering of civilians was almost completely censored by corporate media. Prior to these events, the country refused to succumb to the designs of the imperialists and their allies, and was placed under embargo, aimed at starving the country into submission.

Um....

Ah....

Let's see....

Er....

Could it be....

Perhaps....

Hmmm....

Heck if I know...

Why does she ask such annoying questions anyway...

A: Iraq? No, the description is that of Haiti. The similarities to Iraq are astounding:

Forced removal of the President of an Independent, Sovereign Nation
• Iraqi President Saddam Hussain was removed by force after he refused to succumb to U.S. and Israeli designs.
• Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide was effectively kidnapped by the U.S. military, and taken from Haiti to the Central African Republic on a U.S. military plane accompanied by U.S. soldiers, after he refused to comply with U.S. demands.

Initial Imposition of Puppet Government
• In Iraq, Iyad Allawi—who’d lived for decades in the U.K, and was a British citizen--was named interim Prime Minister by the U.S. after the invasion.
• In Haiti, Gerard Latortue was appointed interim head of the new puppet government, while still living in the U.S.

House-to-House Searches by the Military
• In Iraq, U.S. troops search homes and terrorize inhabitants on a daily basis.
• In Haiti, Haitian puppet government, their death squads, and U.N. troops carry out house-to-house searches primarily in the slums, where the resistance is based.

Destruction of Major Centers of Resistance
• In Iraq, Fallujah and other cities, labeled as resistance strongholds, were brutally assaulted and destroyed.
• In Haiti, Cite Soleil and other impoverished townships, known for resistance to the imposed regime, were targeted for ferocious military assault. Cite Soleil is Haiti’s Fallujah.

Criminal Censorship by the Corporate Media
• In Iraq, the destruction of Fallujah was censored for days by corporate media.
• In Haiti, the assault on Cite Soleil went almost completely unreported. In fact, the media blackout of the Cite Soleil assault may be seen as more complete than that of Fallujah, because Haiti has no Al-Jazeera.

Embargo: the Policy of Starve, then Kill
• After President Saddam Hussain refused to bow to U.S./Israeli pressure, Iraq was placed under U.N./U.S. sanctions resulting in the deaths of millions of Iraqis.
• After the Haitians threw off the chains of slavery around 1804--in the first successful slave uprising in the Americas--the U.S. launched an embargo against Haiti, to starve the Haitians into submission and to punish them for daring to resist.

And countless other similarities.

Muslims must wake up and see that the modus operandi of the Oppressor is the same whether against Black people in Haiti, or against Arab people in Iraq. Qur’an kareem commands us to resist oppression, in all its forms. Just as Muslims must support the struggle of the Iraqi people to eject the occupying force, we must support the Haitian resistance, carried out by Fanmi Lavalas (party of President Jean Bertrand Aristide)!

Remembering the Babri Mosque

“If that is civilization, I prefer savagery.”
--Dessalines, Haitian Revolution leader

December 6 is the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque by Hindu mobs in North India. It is an event of enormous international significance; yet most Americans, seem wholly unaware that it ever happened.

The Babri Mosque (also known as the Masjid-i Janamasthan) was built some time between 1100 and 1600 c.e. Its construction or refurbishment--it’s uncertain which--is attributed to the first Moghul Emperor, Babur during his reign (1526-1530).

The largest mosque in Ayodha, (Uttar Pradesh Province, India), it exhibited classic Jaunpuri architectural style, characteristic of the period commencing with the Delhi Sultanate and subsequent to it. The sturdy exterior of the mosque relied on rectangular sandstone bricks. It had one large, and two small elegant domes, and a beautiful fountain for the performance of ablution. Long walls enclosed the main courtyard, lined with intricately decorated pillars and arches characteristic of the period.

The acoustics of the Babri’s main hall were the stuff of legend: a whisper from the mihrab could be heard clearly at the opposite end of the hall, 200 feet away. The Babri’s well of curative water, said to heal all manner of ailments, drew people of all faiths from far and wide.

The Babri was older than the Taj Mahal, the other famous structure built by a Moghul emperor. It pre-dated the Arc de Triomphe, and was approximately the same age as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica.

No matter.

On December 6, 1992, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, or World Hindu Council) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a rally outside the Babri, inciting Hindus to tear down the c. 900-year old mosque! Although, Muslims and Hindus had peacefully shared access to the site for decades, and the Muslims had not denied the Hindus claim to it, the VHP and BJP leaders claimed that the mosque must be removed, so that an ancient Hindu temple, which lay beneath the site, might be re-constructed there.

Mobs of Hindus amassed outside the mosque. Over the course of the day, their numbers gradually rose to around one million! As members of the ruling BJP openly incited members of the mob to violence, destruction of the mosque began in earnest.

While the Babri was being demolished, as well as for hours afterwards, Hindu mobs pillaged the town of Ayodha, killing, burning, looting, and destroying. Only two of Ayodha’s many mosques escaped damage or destruction in the rampage.

Following the destruction of the Babri, the BJP continued to maintain excellent relations with the U.S. government, as well as with other Western nations. Remarkably, the BJP’s popularity skyrocketed immediately after the demolition. The party remained closely allied to the Bush administration--and to Israel--for the duration of its term in office.

International Significance of the Destruction

On the anniversary of its destruction, a comparison of the Babri’s “death” with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan--at the hands of Afghanistan’s Taliban government—is useful. Several major differences between the two incidents of artifact destruction exist:

Publicly Declared Motivation
* The Taliban said: the destruction of the Buddhas protested the fact that UNESCO, NGOs, and the West were pouring money into restoring statues, when Afghanistan’s people had endured more than two decades of war, and vast segments of the population were literally starving.
** Acharya Dharmendra, VHP leader, said: “Although the local Hindu residents did ask me to hold the crowds from burning Muslim homes I would have never stopped them. This is the only way in which Ayodha could become like the Vatican." (Quoted in the Times of India).

Sanctity of Human Life
* The Taliban attacked no human in the process of their action.
** Hindu mobs attacked Muslim households, torching and plundering for nearly twelve hours (per BBC reports) that day. They also attacked journalists.

Time of Construction
* The Buddhas of Bamiyan were built in the fifth or sixth century.
** The Babri mosque was built c. eleventh century.

Right of Worship by Indigenous Populations
* Afghanistan has no known Buddhist population; the Taliban action did not violate the religious rights of any local population which may have used the statues for worship.
** Uttar Pradesh province has a Muslim population numbering roughly thirteen million; the Babri was in active use when it was demolished, violating the right of worship of the Muslim population.

Reconstruction Efforts
* UNESCO and various NGOs were pouring money into restoring the statues—prior to the destruction by the Taliban. Currently, the Japanese government, and many other contributors are funding the rebuilding of the Buddhas.
** Currently, no initiatives have been put forth by the Indian—or other governments or NGOs--for the reconstruction of the Babri Mosque. The only efforts to this end have been by the local population, who are very poor.

Aftermath
* After its destruction of art, the Taliban government was largely destroyed by the U.S., and many of its leaders tortured or killed.
** After its destruction of art, the BJP is regarded as a friend and ally of the U.S.

The Babri mosque destruction once again reveals the hypocrisy of the West in its putative concern over the protection of art and artifacts.

(Background information on the Babri taken from Wikipedia)

Shima Khala and the She-Monkey

The dog was not my Great Aunt Shima's only pet. She had her own bandar-nee, or monkey (bandar is urdu for monkey and nee at the end of a word denotes that it is a female). Amazingly, the monkey was kept, not at the village house, but in her upscale city house in Lahore (in the neighborhood known as Model Town, considered very exclusive by Lahori standards).

The monkey was given to her by some friends/clients who perhaps bred them (or somehow had an extra monkey on hand). Mahboob, her adopted-son, who told me about the monkey, never got to see it for himself, but heard about it when he accompanied Shima Khala to Model Town (she was then in the process of moving from the city to the village house, which she had just built).

One more way in which my Great Aunt Shima was a rather amazing woman!

Shima Khala and Mr. Dawg

I learned recently that my great aunt Shima had a dog at her village house (same site as the recently closed school). Oddly, she had the dog the entire time I was visiting there, but for some reason I didn't realize it (although I may have heard the dog barking); and since I was busy running around to various government offices for my husband Asif's immigration papers, or helping him with his English, when I was not teaching in Shima Khala's school, I didn't take the time to find out whose dog it was.

The dog was by all accounts, a very good dog, and very loyal. Mahboob and Shima Khala evidently used to bathe the dog regularly (give him ghusal as Mahboob jokingly says), and although he was kept outside, he was part of the family. Other family members, as well as visitors like Asif and I, also slept outside in the courtyard on charpoys customarily.

Shima Khala habitually went to bed early and rose early. But the night of my youngest uncle Laulak's wedding in Lahore, Shima Khala stayed up much of the night talking and enjoying the company of her guests--my grandmother Mahmudah, my other great aunt Nazrat, and my great uncle Razi and others who were in town for the wedding.

The next morning, Shima Khala did not get up bright and early as she usually did. The dog seemed to sense something was amiss. With his teeth, he pulled a sheet over the sleeping Shima Khala as if he thought she might be sick or dead. Then the dog took her hand gently in his mouth and shook it lightly. She awoke and asked sleepily "Which of you silly people woke me up, I'm tired!" (or words to that effect). Great aunt Nazrat told her, "It wasn't me; it was the dog!"

The dog eventually passed away, and Shima Khala was sad. She never got another dog.

Who is the Real Chand Khala?

On the anniversary of my great aunt's death, I have some very special memories of her I wished to share.

I spent parts of my eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth year in Marake, the tiny village on the outskirts of Lahore, where my great aunt Shima lived. She was extraordinarily generous in her hospitality to me, although she heartily disliked Asif (my husband at the time), who was accompanying me on the later visits. I was in Pakistan to research the effects of war on the Afghan women and children in the refugee camps, about which I was writing at the time.

To my face, Shima Khala (aunt; also used for great aunt, as in this case), ever the Pakistani nationalist, told me I was a fool, and that I ought learn my own history first. At the time, I was indignant, only later realizing the truth of her words. We Pakistani expats (and descendents of expats) drain intellectual and material wealth away from Pakistan, and return nothing but curses to the land of our heritage. We are, indeed, the mentally colonized, in our ignorance of the importance of the ideal of Pakistan, and Pakistan's rich history.

My presence in the refugee camps and in the tribal area did not go unnoticed by the ever-vigilant Pakistani authorities. I was eventually picked up by Pakistani police in Parachinar, who wondered why an eighteen year-old English speaking girl in delicate cotton shalwar kameez, army boots, and thick eyeglasses should be wandering around a dangerous Pakistani border town. I was detained for three weeks while they investigated my presence there.

Since I, not surprisingly, looked Pakistani, they could not charge me with being in the border area illegally, a stipulation that applied only to non-Pakistanis. They looked unsuccessfully for another charge to pin on me to elicit the requisite bribe.

After that I was transferred to the thana in Peshawar. I stayed there for another two weeks, held without charge and disallowed from making phone calls. The Pakistani lady police-wallas felt sorry for me, and treated me well, bringing me fantas to drink.

One day, without warning, the DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police) informed me that I had a visitor. As I entered his office, I was astonished to see Shima Khala standing there.

This was one of the few occasions on which Shima Khala missed a day at her school. She disliked road travel, but today she had made the long hot drive from Lahore to Peshawar, after handing over the reigns of the village school to a trusted teacher, so that she could bail me out. I felt a twinge of shame at all the trouble I'd caused, but was relieved that at
last I could leave the stifling, roach-infested Peshawar jail. She spared me the well-deserved "I told you so," paid the substantial jurmana and dragged me home by the ear.

I put my writing on hold, and spent the remainder of the summer with her, before returning to university in the States. Once, while I was staying with her, I mistakenly referred to her as Chand Khala, or "Moon-Like Aunt." (It implies an aunt who is very rare, special and priceless.) Chand Khala was a title reserved for my other great aunt, Nazrat. Shima Khala gently corrected me, "No, bay-tay, I am only plain Khala."

During my second visit to the village, I tutored Mahboob and Ali Usman, two of the village children at Shima Khala's request. Mahboob and Ali Usman were both eight years old, with the archetypical, bright eyes and gaunt build of village children. Mahboob was particularly sharp, and one had to continually struggle to come up with new lessons to teach him.

After a long and tiring visit which involved staying almost entirely in refugee camps when not in the village, with no AC in the summer months and no heating in the winter (nor modern facilities in the former case), I returned to the States.

A few years later, I heard that Shima Khala, perhaps seeing the same potential in young Mahboob that I'd seen, had unofficially adopted the young man. They were inseparable. She would not eat dinner without him, nor he without her. When he started going to college a distance away, he would return home late in the day after classes, and become upset to find that Shima Khala had not eaten because she was waiting for him. And when Shima Khala made up her mind, she could not be swayed. She refused to eat without Mahboob.

The first year I was there, Shima Khala's school, which was set up in the side wing of her house, was in its incipient stages, with a relatively small number of children. But the need for the school was so great, attendance grew spontaneously to nearly 400 pupils. Shima Khala, with Mahboob's input, named it Madina-tul 'Ilm (the City of Knowledge). The co-ed school was the sole source of literacy for the indigent village kids, and operated on a sliding scale: free for poor kids, and a nominal charge for the relatively well off. Shima Khala would get up at the crack of dawn each day, and prepare for the school day, no matter how exhausted and drained she might be from Lahore's extreme heat, or how bad she felt, with the high blood pressure and diabetes ravaging her.

During my stay in the village, I taught in the school off and on, and enjoyed the exuberance of the children, so poor in wealth yet rich in life--and blessed with a woman who believed in them. I am sure it was some of this exuberance that kept Shima Khala going on her particularly bad days.

The school was Shima Khala's pride and joy, and an expression of everything she believed in.

For his part, Mahboob clearly loved Shima Khala like a mother, and went to excruciating lengths to take care of her. He was a constant companion to her, eating most of his meals with her (except when he was away at school), listening to her when she was in pain from the diabetes, massaging her, and helping her with all her personal hygiene. He was the primary care giver, as Shima Khala's relatives rarely visited, especially in her final years. Even when they visited, some of them elected to stay in a hotel, although clearly Shima Khala craved visitors and was an impeccable hostess.

At one point, Mahboob even offered to marry me, although he knew I was much older than him, and divorced--something not well looked well upon by conservative Pakistani society--so that I might come there and assist in Shima Khala's care, since he was initially rather embarrassed at the level of personal care he had to provide for her, in the absence of a daughter. Shima Khala had no children of her own and her other female relatives were largely absent.

One night, Shima Khala took a bad fall. She called for help, but there was nobody around to assist. The spacious layout of the house would have made it difficult for the village women, who helped Shima Khala with home chores, to hear her entreaty, even if they had been around. Mahboob became so worried that it might happen again that he started sleeping on the floor at the foot of Shima Khala's bed.

Almost as soon as Shima Khala died, our relatives, who were living in Europe and elsewhere descended upon the estate. They determined to extricate Mahboob from the house he had lived in with Shima Khala for nearly 13 years, and close Madina-tul 'Ilm. This would facilitate the sale of Shima Khala's school, and transfer of the proceeds to (literally) Swiss bank accounts. Eventually Mahboob was thrown out, and the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind ones were successful in whittling down the school.

As I watched all this, I realized that Shima Khala was actually the real Chand Khala, for she had a heart of gold, so rare amongst any in a world filled with greed and materialism. The attitudes of our relatives sickened me to no end. Are any of us, living in the West, really so needy as to necessitate our auctioning off a school like Madina-tul 'Ilm--with all that it symbolizes--to the highest bidder? To me, the actions of my expat Paki relatives resounded of the depravity and ignorance of the looters of the Baghad museum, who could not see the real value of something which was priceless.

I dare to believe the status quo can be challenged. The poor--like Mahboob--will not remain dispossessed indefinitely. And the rich--like my avaricious relatives--will not always remain rich. Inshallah.

The People Speak: Millions More Movement

The scene is almost surreal: Pan-African flag fluttering against the backdrop of the Capitol Rotunda, as if it is the Flag; reggae great Wyclef Jean singing “Bismillah ar-rahman ir-raheem” in his softly accented voice; the Capitol lawn full of Black people with fists raised saying “Black Power!” Is this a beautiful dream shortly to be interrupted by the sahoor alarm clock?

The National Capitol Police fumbling through my backpack remind me that it is not a dream. I am at the Millions More Event, in Washington, DC. The organizers of the Millions More Movement have, perhaps for dramatic effect, set up their stage immediately at the foot of the U.S. Capitol Building, and anyone wishing to enter the area is searched.

I am here to extend solidarity from the Pakistani people to Black people in their fight for justice. One of the ten points in the Millions More agenda was enough to draw me here: the reparations issue. Millions of black people died on board slave ships en route to the Americas; many more suffered and continue to suffer as a result of slavery and its aftereffects. As a Muslim, I know that there cannot be peace without justice. And justice demands that reparations be paid to the descendants of Black slaves.

When I finally get through security, I thrill to see Damu Smith, a longtime DC –based community activist at the mic. Damu personifies internationalism, and years ago lent a helping hand to Jamaat al-Muslimeen, when we organized a forum in Washington, DC, drawing parallels between the Native American, Kurdish, and Palestinian struggles. He is the founder of Black Voices for Peace, which was very vocal against the Iraq war from its inception. His voice emanates strength, as he names Bush a war criminal, and I almost forget that he is recovering from cancer.

The agenda of the Millions More Movement includes the issue of political prisoners as one of its ten points.

I am pleased to see Jamil El-Amin’s supporters everywhere, with pants drawn up to their ankles “wahabi-style,” and shirts which say “mujahideen” and “Free H. Rap.” Just feet away from the Capitol, they are energetically hawking the imam’s Revolution by the Book and Die Nigger Die. The books are going fast.

Representatives of Malachi York, Mumia Abu Jamal, and other political prisoners are present. A young woman from the Jericho Movement--which calls attention to the hundreds of Black political prisoners who remain in U.S. prisons after decades of imprisonment—hands me a flier with Assata’s picture, condemning the bounty placed on the sister’s head.

NOI women in hijab are everywhere. A young man in a turban sells roses. A man in a dazzling golden West African outfit strides by. Indeed, many of the event participants proudly sport colorful Afrocentric or African garb. The attire seems to signify pride in Africa and a deliberate departure from the mass culture of racist fashion designers.

In a tone reminiscent of the sixties, nearly all the speakers call for Black power. Red/Black/Green Flags—more than I’ve seen in one place--flutter in the breeze.

Numerous international representatives extend solidarity to the Millions More Movement: a representative of the Cuban government; Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson; and Native American leader-turned-Hollywood actor, Russell Means, who says, “I want to be a part of Farrakhan’s community.”

Women are among the most powerful speakers of the day:

Viola Plummer, of the African Support Organization, entreats the audience to compel “the lying, blood-sucking government of this country to remove the sanctions against Zimbabwe.” The sanctions, she says, are in place because Robert Mugabe took the land back. She ends with the stirring Pan-Africanist cry: “Free the land!”

Marlene Bastille, of the Haiti Action Network, beseeches the audience: “Haiti needs you. The people of Haiti are suffering. I am asking you to ask Haiti to free all prisoners of conscience. Haitians are the only ones [who are non-political prisoners--ed] held in this land indefinitely without trial.”

Eryka Badu comes to the mic. At first, she refuses to sing, speaking in such a sombre manner that the crowd falls silent—for the first time in several hours--taking in her stirring words.

“I am not my hair. I am not my skin. I am not my clothes. We forget we have the power of thoughts and words. “

“I’m not going to stand here and ask for reparations. I’ll be standing here another four hundred years.”

“I want you and me to stand in direct opposition to oppression, negativity. It’s time to realize you are the one with the power to change this world.”

“We have no more time. There will be no more leaders...The earth is tired. It’s ignorance to continue to hate each other. The revolution begins with you,” she tells the people.

A Black elder, who noticed me with pad and pen in hand, tells me he drove up for the day from Richmond, VA. Playing devil’s advocate, I ask him whether Farrakhan’s association with the event discouraged him from participating. “I’m not a Muslim,” he says. “But Farrakhan is the theological leader for all religions.”

Many of the orators blast the government’s criminal neglect in New Orleans. Ron Daniels, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, says, “We must make sure the Afrikan city of New Orleans is returned to the Afrikan people.”

Renowned rappers Chuck D (Public Enemy), Professor Griff, and Dead Prez are in attendance. Unlike the commercialized rappers, they have sacrificed big contracts and remain steadfast to the original message of rap, opposing racism and oppression.

Perhaps the most masterful delivery of the day is that of Attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz. He begins with the slogan: “Free all political prisoners!”

“Free Mumia! Is Mumia the real criminal, or is George Bush?”

“Free Jamil El-Amin! Is Jamil El-Amin guilty, or is it the criminals who allowed our people to drown in New Orleans?”

“How can you have a war on terror when George Bush hasn’t been arrested?” he continues, to thunderous applause and laughter.

Then the fiery young attorney brilliantly launches the delivery of a mock verdict: “How do you find George Bush on the issue of racism?”

“Guilty!” roars the crowd.

“How do you find George Bush on the issue of human rights?”

“Guilty!” is the unanimous cry.

“How do you find George Bush on handling New Orleans?“

“Guilty!” roars the crowd.

You can almost hear the gavel slamming down, as Malik thunders “Impeach George Bush!”

By this time, the fast is catching up with me, and I decide to take a rest, carefully collecting the folds of my sari, and join the brothers and sisters sitting on the grass to finish watching the event on a giant video screen a few blocks away from the stage.

Minister Donna Farrakhan takes the stage. Although I’d heard Farrakhan himself speak on many prior occasions, I’d never heard any of his family members. Her style of delivery resembles that of her father. A fiery speaker in her own right, her eyes sparkle as she rouses the crowd to welcome her father.

Farrakhan appears on the video screen, majestically making his way across a landing with his entourage of FOI. That he has preempted others to speak at this juncture in the program, and that he looks rather frail, walking with some difficulty, concerns me. But when he reaches the stage area and takes the mic, all sign of weakness are gone.

“I believe that we can charge the federal government with criminal neglect of the people of MS, LA, and TX,” he declares. “We can’t sue the federal government, but we can sue the Department of Homeland Security. I strongly believe that if the people on those rooftops had blond hair and blue eyes, they would not have waited five days.”

“We charge the government with criminal neglect,” he repeats.

“Now they are saying they won’t re-build the ninth ward,” he says, referring to the impoverished New Orleans district. “The government will never do for the poor and oppressed of this nation, unless and until we organize to make them to do it.”

“Are you sure you want a movement?” he asks. “Are you sure? If you are sure, then be ready for opposition. We are going to be tested by opposition.”

In a style that is uniquely his, he throws out ideas to the people, soliciting feedback—and gets it. He suggests the need for peoples’ ministries: a Ministry of Health and Human Service, a Ministry of Agriculture, a Ministry of Education, a Ministry of Defense, a Ministry of the Economy, a Ministry of Justice, and a Ministry of Information. The brothers and sisters around me are enraptured--clapping, cheering, and shouting encouragement. Farrakhan is clearly speaking to their needs. It is an engaged audience reminiscent of Malcolm’s.

The Ministry of Agriculture is needed, Farrakhan says, in order to provide for the people, as “the merchants of death, the pharmaceuticals and fast food industry, are not going to do it.”

The Ministry of Defense is needed, he says, because “Our people are natural born warriors, but they are fighting the wrong war.”

The Ministry of Justice is needed to counter the prison-industrial complex, and the Ministry of Information is needed to counter the propaganda of the likes of UPI and Reuters, he continues.

The people are thirsting for change. The suggestions for Ministries of Justice and Education draw the loudest cheers. The people do not view the government as theirs. No editorializing here.

Then, Farrakhan refers to the Democrats as the House Negroes. He seems to be proposing action independent of the two-party system.

Farrakhan ends his speech with comments about the international scene. He notes the hypocrisy of Blair, in offering to forgive some of Africa’s debt, when Britain has robbed Africa for decades. He calls on Caribbean nations to unite against foreign exploitation. He draws a powerful analogy between the Iraq war, and a contest between a quadriplegic who has been thrown in the ring to compete with the heavyweight champion. It is no big achievement if the heavyweight champion wins against the quadriplegic, he proclaims.

My final impressions: 1) The Millions More Movement went to great lengths to be as inclusive as possible, specifically inviting all races and genders to the event; Farrakhan spoke as an internationalist, invoking unity among black, brown, yellow, and poor people throughout the world, and emphasizing the issue of workers rights; 2) the event drew numbers far in excess of a million people, signifying a need among the people to take action, after New Orleans; 3) “Sunni” Muslims, Indo-Pakistani and Arab communities (my people) were still largely absent, demonstrating their lack of grasp of both U.S. history, natural allies, and the need to build bridges with the oppressed communities of the U.S.

Behind the Scenes on September 24

Having spent years as an activist in the Washington, DC area, I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in dozens of protests in my time. I decided it was time to experience the protest from a new angle. And so, I volunteered to help out for 12 hours at the anti-war demonstration in Washington, DC, on September 24.

I was one of the lazy ones. Other volunteers had been up for 72 hours straight, setting up for the protest. Some volunteers had traveled from as far away as Alaska; others came from little known towns with bizarre-sounding names I’d never encountered.

I arrived for my volunteer duties at what seemed to me, a hideously early hour. At Freedom Plaza, buses were unloading protestors from many cities. The Plaza was already teaming with people. From here, the White House and the Washington Monument grounds—the focal points of the protest--were only a stone’s throw away.

As I walked from Freedom Plaza to the Ellipse, I was pleased to see the creative side of the anti-war movement in full swing: four activists were dressed in orange prison jumpsuits with Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld masks donned; two more activists posed as “Billionaires for Bush” (a man wearing a tuxedo and a woman wearing an evening gown and carrying a Saks-Jandel shopping bag); several people wearing Halliburton uniforms, and carrying a sign saying “Enough war, little man,” (no theatrics here, I think they actually worked for Halliburton, but were fed up with the lies); and a wise guy carrying a graphic placard juxtaposing “Good Bush/Bad Bush” (use your imagination).

Finally, I was at the volunteer booth for the ANSWER Coalition (one of two major coalitions organizing the march). There I was outfitted with a yellow security jacket, a badge identifying me as an official march volunteer, and a bright red bucket to carry through the crowd, collecting funds to defray the costs of the march.

I traversed the crowd, red bucket in tow, making mental notes to myself. The place was packed; the march was clearly a success. A young black sister, wearing head wrap, her fist in the air, responding to a speaker. A tall black brother, moving closer to the stage to hear Lynne Stewart when she spoke. A contingent of brothers dressed in striking African garb, walking proudly as a contingent toward the stage. A small group of young men in kaffiyas, having themselves photographed near the stage, while chanting “Allah hu-Akhbar” just quietly enough not to disturb the speaker on the stage. Americans wearing tee-shirts that said “We are all Palestinian;” one of ANSWER’s young black woman leaders on stage sporting another unique tee (my favorite): “Palestine will be free” (in English and Spanish).

All this in a sea of middle class white Americans.

As a person of color, I could not help but be struck by how few Black people and how few Muslims were at the march.

Cindy Sheehan was one of the first speakers to address the rally. She spoke in a voice permanently marked with longing for a son who would never return home to her. But, she seemed very relaxed, perhaps sensing the support of the people. She even made a few jokes.

Cindy’s immense sacrifice and courage had made their mark, and at least some of the turnout at the protest might be attributed to her. Cindy had single-handedly made it okay for the average, middle class white American to be anti-war. The tide had turned against Bush. But was this another anti-war movement disturbed only when it was American boys coming home in body bags, I thought to myself. Where were they when the Lancet reported that 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the war? Or when the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo surfaced? Or when an entire Iraqi town, Falluja, was destroyed?

Eldridge Cleaver did not lie when he said “Racism is as American as apple pie.” An anti-war movement which doesn’t work hard to disassociate itself from racism, will inevitably be afflicted with it. (The same may be said of many Muslim communities and organizations in the U.S./U.K.) That racism is present in the anti-war movement was evident in the negotiations between ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice--the two major coalitions organizing the September 24 protest.

http://internationalanswer.org/
http://unitedforpeace.org/

ANSWER—which stands for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism”--views the issues of war and racism as inextricably linked. In the days leading up to the protest, ANSWER had to fight to keep the issue of racism as one of the major demands of the demonstration.

ANSWER’S Brian Becker speaks softly but firmly. He does not back down from an issue he views as just. The war, he said, is a racist war in the following ways: 1) It is racist against the Arabs; 2) It is racist in terms of how Iraqis are presented; and 3) It is racist in terms of who is fighting. ANSWER was very consistent in its stance against racism, whether in New Orleans or in Iraq.

United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) wanted to focus strictly on the war itself, and wanted to eliminate “racism” from the march agenda altogether. Becker and ANSWER, to their credit, stood firm in their demand that racism be included in the agenda, and eventually UFPJ capitulated.

I walked by rows of crosses, symbolizing graves of fallen servicemen, and realized that I had stumbled upon Camp Casey. It had been transplanted from Texas to the Washington Monument grounds. A group of women were busily preparing a long line of picket signs they would carry, each bearing the black-and-white photograph of a young fallen soldier.

There was an element of race, even in the success of Camp Casey. What if a black woman had been camped out in close proximity to Bush’s ranch? How long would she have been allowed to stay there before being tasered into submission? Or shot outright, like Sr. Assata? Because that is the treatment reserved for Afrikans in this country.

My thoughts were interrupted by the thunderous voice of British MP George Galloway. With his delightful accent, he blasted Bush’s illegal war. Exhibiting none of the preoccupations of American politicians, Galloway openly expressed support for the Palestinians.

Galloway was followed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. In his characteristic incisive and yet non-rhetorical manner, Ramsey Clark reminded the audience about the Iraqi dead, and the war crimes of the Bush administration. He repeated his call for impeachment.

Then Attorney Lynne Stewart took the dais to talk about attacks on civil liberties. She cited her own case as evidence of the clamp down on the rights of the accused, as well as on lawyers who chose to defend unpopular clients. I walked over to the stage area and met Lynne after her speech. I hugged her, marveling that she had not changed in appearance or manner, despite years of government prosecution and harassment. Always concerned about others, she mentioned not a word of her own personal suffering, instead asking me about Sami Al-Aryan’s case.

MAS Freedom Foundation’s Mahdi Bray spoke. Oddly, Bray started his speech by informing the audience that he had no interest in being invited to the White House. “How dare they speak of bringing democracy to places like Iraq while clamping down on our democratic rights here at home,” he thundered. He did not mention that his MAS Freedom Foundation had volunteered in a press conference (See NT dated July 27, 2005) to help DHS clamp down on those rights by turning in Muslim “extremists.”

Other speakers of note were Brian Becker, ANSWER’s National Coordinator; Etan Thomas, Washington Wizards Basketball player; and Jessica Lange, actress.

Then it was time to march.

ANSWER had prepared signs for march participants who hadn’t brought their own. One of the volunteers handing out the signs told me that people were vying for the “Impeach Bush.org” sign over the others on offer.

For the first time in my life, I was at a major, national protest—and not marching. My fundraising duties complete, I was instead busy taking down banners, boxing up materials, and picking up components of the security fence and covers from the outdoor audio system. In my spare moments, I distributed New Trend’s “Boycott Major Supporters of Zionism” fliers, which were well received.

http://newtrendmag.org/boycott.html

I found I had done well to stay at the ANSWER volunteer booth (instead of marching), as the streets were flooded with so many people that the march was immobilized for two and a half hours. Some people became impatient and jumped in front of other protestors who were already lined up to march. Brian Becker, said that the front of the march, where he and other ANSWER leaders were located, was left behind. The “front of the march” soon became “the middle of the march”--a first for him, he said with a smile.

The march under way, the Raging Grannies started singing, “Georgy Porgy, You’re all wrong...”
http://raginggrannies.com/

Meanwhile, I attained proficiency at hand truck operation, loading boxes, and crates of fliers and brochures onto the truck.

The march was—miraculously--permitted to pass right by the White House—something which had not been allowed since 9-11. The wrath of the protestors at the Bush regime was particularly evident as they passed this point.

The volunteers were under orders from Park Police to finish removing all the equipment by 10:00 pm. Around 8:00 pm, we were down to removing the last of the equipment from around the stage area, but everyone was starting to feel the long hours. We finished just before 9:00 pm. For me, it was an extraordinary and inspiring day, working alongside activists—many of them very young--dedicated to the cause of justice. It made me realize the enormous amount of organizing involved in bringing together 300,000 people for a mass march. But September 24 showed that it could be done.

Code Pink Protest at Walter Reed Military Hospital

On September 23, I attended the Code Pink vigil outside Walter Reed Military Hospital in Northwest Washington, DC. Code Pink’s demands are: 1) an end to the Iraq occupation and withdrawal of U.S. troops; 2) proper medical care for injured troops (predominantly poor people) when they return home.

The vigil participants numbered perhaps 40-50, many of them wearing pink. Too late, I remembered I should have worn my pink shalwar kameez. Attendance was higher than usual, for the weekly vigil, with many activists in town early for the national anti-war protest the next day.

Directly across the street from the vigil was a group of counter-demonstrators, whose numbers very nearly matched those of Code Pink. These numbers were an odd contradiction of the polls, which show that an overwhelming majority of Americans now oppose the war.

Code Pink’s members are primarily Caucasian women. Many of them dress in very feminine fashion, decked out in beautiful, old-fashioned pink hats, frilly pink dresses and pink shawls. But they are very tough, for it was some of their members who lay down in the streets and refused to move, protesting the inhumanity of the war very early on.

“We wear pink,” one of them told me during a previous vigil, “because it is a peaceful and soothing color, and also to draw attention to the farce of the Code Red, Code Orange, and other alerts issued by the Bush administration post 9-11.”

I’d just walked up to the vigil when a petite, fashionably dressed brunette, with shoulder length hair, came up to me and introduced herself, “Hi, I’m Medea.”

So, this was Code Pink’s gutsy co-founder, Medea Benjamin. Earlier this year, Medea had disrupted Condoleezza Rice’s San Francisco speech. Dressed in a black hood and cloak similar to that worn by Iraqi prisoners, she’d stood up screaming, "Stop the torture. Stop the killing. U.S. out of Iraq," until she was removed from the hall by authorities. She had all my respect.

I shook her hand and thanked her for her efforts against the war. At the time, I was not aware that Medea planned to be arrested in the mass civil disobedience two days later. She exuded a tranquility that comes, perhaps, from working for justice.

The Code Pink women are very organized. Someone offered me a candle with a nice holder; someone else handed me a flier. The flier instructed me not to interact with the counter-demonstrators. Don’t talk to press members, unless they present ID, the flier said.

Don’t talk to press? That’s a little extreme, I thought.

Later, after some searching on the web, I found articles from Cybercast News Service (CNS) and other right-wing sources attacking Medea Benjamin, quoting the right wing demonstrators at length, and offering only brief quotes of questionable authenticity from Code Pink protestors. Yes, this is the same CNS which attacked Dr. Siddique at the behest of the Zionists. Now you know why not to talk to the (Zionist) media, stupid!

A few weeks ago, a young soldier had joined the Code Pink vigil. He’d returned from Iraq thoroughly disillusioned by the war. Still angry and emotional at what he’d experienced, he was provoked into a physical confrontation by the taunts of the counter-demonstrators. Police quickly broke up the incident, but the Code Pink women were determined there should be no repeat of this.

I found that young soldier and talked with him for a few minutes.

He said “Those guys across the street, look at their hair. It’s too long. They can’t have been over there. That is why they support the war. They have no idea what the U.S. is doing over there.”

A Vietnam veteran who stood with us agreed. The current administration, he said, are all cowards and draft dodgers, hiding behind their power and wealth. Most of them don’t have any military service under their belt. That is why they take war so lightly.”

I squinted to read the counter demonstrators’ signs, in an effort to understand their argument. There was none. They carried bizarre signs, such as “Code Pink Funds Terrorists,” and “America’s Armed Forces: Bringing democracy to the world, toppling one dictator at a time.” Some of them wore tee-shirts saying “Club G’itmo.”
Their main point seemed to be that Code Pink--not an illegal war--is the problem.

It was the classic propaganda tactic: when you can’t answer your opponent’s argument with facts, create as much confusion as you possibly can, with wild accusations.

A young Italian-American woman wearing camouflage pants handed me one end of a Code Pink banner. “I made this banner,” she announced proudly. It read “Money for the Wounded, Not for the War.”

A $3 billion shortfall is expected for Veterans Administration (VA) funding; many veterans hospitals (including Walter Reed) are under threat of closure. The Code Pink banner was on point, elucidating the hypocrisy of the Bush regime, in its dealings with its own fighting men and women.

While I held the banner, a conservatively dressed Code Pink woman, who appeared to be in her sixties or seventies, with entirely grey hair, darted out into traffic. As I watched in amazement, she energetically handed out fliers announcing the anti-war march the next day to passing cars as they pulled up to the Georgia Avenue traffic signal.
I chatted with two elderly woman in bright pink Stetsons. They had come from Texas for the national march the next day. One of them told me she had been in Camp Casey for several weeks, and then joined a contingent to deliver a protest letter to Laura Bush, in response to her racist comments following Hurricane Katrina.

Just as I was about to ask her if they’d been successful in delivering the letter, the entire group of Code Pink women broke out in song to the accompaniment of a banjo: “I ain’t going to study war no more,” a very creative anti-war version of “When the Saints Come Marching In”, and other well known peace songs.

(The vigil continues every Friday night at 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm outside the main entrance of Walter Reed Medical Center, in Northwest DC).

Protest Calls Attention to Bush Regime's Racism in New Orleans

On September 7, a Jamaat al-Muslimeen supporter and I joined protestors at the White House decrying the racism of the authorities in dealing with the New Orleans situation. The protest was called by A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). The small but spirited group was led in chants by Eugene Puryear, a student activist from Howard University. “From Iraq to New Orleans, Fund Peoples’ Needs, Not the War Machine,” we chanted in the direction of the Rose Garden.

The protest reminded me of the many Jamaat al-Muslimeen protests I’d attended as a teenager. But where were all the other Muslims?

Caneisha Mills, ANSWER’S youth and student coordinator, spoke at a forum following the protest. She had just returned from a fact-finding trip to New Orleans. Tall and slender with beautiful, dark skin and a proud walk, she brought to mind some of the Panther women. With no makeup, her hair simply done, she might have been a Muslim. Most striking was her seriousness.

Caneisha is in her senior year at Howard University, yet she took time off from her classes to go to New Orleans, along with filmmaker Gloria La Riva, and photographer Bill Hackwell. They took as many relief supplies as they could for the people of New Orleans.

Caneisha’s anger at the injustice in New Orleans was evident, yet she was able to speak articulately and confidently. Her main points were: 1) the military is in place in New Orleans, but only to protect property, not to help the people evacuate, nor to provide for their needs; 2) supplies and volunteers are available, but they are not being allowed to reach where they are needed; 3) supplies brought in by the government are strictly for government personnel, not for the people who are in need.

She traveled through seven police/military checkpoints before arriving in the district of Algiers, where she, La Riva, and Hackwell were to be hosted at the home of community leader, Malik Rahim.

Malik Rahim is a former member of the Black Panther Party. Some activists suggest that if the BPP with its original platform been around today, the suffering in New Orleans might have largely been averted.

Malik is an example of grassroots leadership at its best. Algiers, where he lives, sits on higher ground than the rest of New Orleans. It was not as badly damaged as other areas, and much of it would still be habitable, were it not for the lack of electricity, food and water. Malik suggested using parks, schools, and other parts of Algiers to set up camps for people displaced from other parts of New Orleans, but so far, his efforts in this arena have fallen on deaf ears.

Malik told Caneisha: “Imagine being in a city, poor, without any money and all of a sudden you are told to leave and you don’t even have a bicycle. Ninety percent of the people don’t even have cars.”

Malik, along with three of his friends, go door-to-door three times a day, taking food, water, and ice to the people. When he returns from his “rounds” he is on the phone with community organizations, religious groups, and reporters, amassing more food and supplies to deliver the next day. His street is the only one with telephones still working, and black and white neighbors alike come in periodically to use his phone.

Malik spoke of white vigilantes riding through Algiers in pickup trucks, gunning down any blacks they thought didn’t belong there. His friends and neighbors feared for his safety, and many parked their cars in front of his house to fortify its entrance.

Caneisha remarked on the extraordinary hospitality of the Rahim family, despite the long-term difficulties facing them.

She spent considerable time walking around the Superdome and interviewing people. Most stories pointed to the abject disregard of the authorities for the predicament of the people. One black woman she interviewed tearfully recalled the trauma of waiting on her roof for days with her entire family, thinking they would all die there, as they were repeatedly bypassed by helicopters. The woman and her family remained on their roof until they were finally rescued by relatives. Only later did they learn that the helicopters had orders not to take larger families.

Caneisha interviewed a group of five young black men, who had taken it upon themselves to rescue people stranded in the flooded areas. Their leader, a handsome young man with shining eyes, told her “By the grace of Allah, we were able to commandeer a boat.”

He and his friends filled the boat with twenty-five people each trip. They would ask for volunteers who had the strength, to cling to the outside of the boat, and leave the seats for the weaker ones. Thus they were able to evacuate as many people as possible each trip. Many of the people had already been stuck their attics or on their rooftops for days with very little food or water, so they tried to get to them as quickly as possible. After the young men had been at this a couple days, they finally saw some official rescue boats bringing in people, but never more than five or six people at a time. “We did not bring our own families in till last,” he said.

Such stories of the peoples’ heroism abounded; one report that particularly inspired this writer was that of prisoners who broke into stores and got food out for the elderly and weak.

Caneisha and the ANSWER delegation returned from New Orleans and immediately set to work on the September 24 anti-war protest in Washington, DC. Few thinking people can miss the connection between the racism evident in the Bush Regime’s reaction to Katrina and the racism of the illegal war on Iraq. Appropriately, the original anti-war theme of the march was modified to: “From Iraq to New Orleans, Fund peoples needs, not the war machine.”

A Christian Funeral

Attending funerals, or simply visiting the graveyard is highly recommended in Islam, to remind one of one's own mortality, and how all life is a gift from the Creator, and may be taken away at any moment. Yet, it’s been a few too many funerals for me lately. And I was not even affected directly, since I wasn't particularly close to any of the deceased. My recent flurry of funeral attendance reminded me of the imams’ admonition to: "Live each day as if it is your last"—not including drinking up the Henessey as if it's going outta style, aiight.:-). In all seriousness, a funeral is a call to that profound aphorism "Practice random acts of kindness, and senseless acts of generosity."

That said, I was a bad girl, and cut class this morning to go to the funeral of a close friend of my mother, named Lou. The funeral was at 11:00 am in Perry Hall, an hour drive from me. The summer course I am taking meets at 9:00 am, so cutting class was the only way I could attend. Arnold Schwarzennager (my physics prof) better understand.

I was glad I went. Ellen, the widow, seemed strengthened by having so many caring friends and relatives around. Nonetheless, it hurt to look in her eyes, and see the loneliness which accompanies the realization that one will never again see one's best friend and beloved companion on this earth. And Lou had, without a doubt, been just that to her.

To me, Lou and Ellen symbolize the best of the Christian faith, walking in the Path of Hazrat Isa (Jesus--AS). They were high school sweethearts who, in defiance of the statistics, married at a young age and stayed married. They played tennis competitively, cooked, danced, socialized, and participated in church and many other activities, always together.

Then Lou developed diabetes at a relatively young age—a surprise for his family, since he was not overweight, led an active lifestyle, and followed a healthy diet, consuming no red meat nor alcohol, and few sweets. The disease progressed unusually rapidly, indicating a significant genetic component.

Following mainstream medical protocols (“if it don’t work, chop it off”), he was soon amputated just below one knee, and became wheelchair bound. Months later, the other leg was taken. Because of this, he was unable to perform many of the household tasks he’d considered his responsibility as “man of the house,” a circumstance which depressed him greatly. He worried how his delicately built, very feminine wife would handle the gamut of household chores, while continuing to work outside the home.

Ellen reassured Lou that everything would be okay. She embarked on a weight training program, which enabled her to perform the tasks he’d done. She was pleasantly surprised to find she could now lift his wheelchair into the car trunk, which she'd previously struggled to do, allowing his inclusion on many outings. As Lou’s health deteriorated, Ellen’s rose to new heights, as she gained strength from lifting weights and won more tennis matches than ever. Her real estate sales soared, she bought a Lexus, and she and Lou moved into a new home. She looked beautiful, vibrant, and full of life. And she stayed with Lou—loving and caring for him till the end.

The pews of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church were two-thirds occupied, a significant turnout in this large church, and testament to the many lives Lou had touched. The service was heavy on Catholic ritual, to which I don't subscribe, but very interesting nonetheless.

My brother and I were there primarily to accompany my mother, who had been close friends with Lou and Ellen since we moved to Baltimore around 1986. My mother then worked as a real estate agent in an all-white brokerage. As a hijabi Muslim woman, she met snide remarks from co-workers, who speculated that she would never make it in real estate “with that thing on her head.” By then, Lou had risen to the position of office manager. He assured her that the nay sayers knew nothing, and that she would excel. He supported and encouraged her every step of the way. Under his tutelage, she rose to become the top selling agent in the office.

As the service continued, communion was offered, and my mother, who seemed a bit dazed and confused was about to take it, when I told her the significance of it. For a Muslim to take communion is about as appropriate as a Baptist to perform the Muslim sujood (putting one's head to the ground in prayer).

My roving eyes noticed a tall, handsome, built bald man in suit and tie sitting in the front pews. He cried openly, albeit in manly fashion, during the service. I appreciate a man who is not ashamed to cry. Later, he served as one of the pall bearers, and I learned that he was Lou's cousin.

Then, it was time to walk to the graveyard, which adjoined the church. In contrast to the emotion-filled church service, the burial was conducted in what seemed to me, a rather cold, business-like fashion. Before I knew it, it was over, and we were marched back to the church. Muslim burials--which entail ghusul, or washing of the corpse by (same sex) family members of the deceased; ritualistic throwing of handfuls of earth into the grave by male family members; and namaz-e-jinaza, or funeral prayer, conducted at the gravesite--are more elaborate and afford more physical contact/proximity with the corpse and with nature, an unmuted reminder to funeral-goers of the inevitability of death, and of the Hereafter.

The burial was followed by a banquet. My brother and I itched to leave, but stayed on a while longer to keep our mother company. As a consequence, we were introduced to Lou and Ellen's relatives and friends.

Lou and Ellen's son, Jeff, who attended the same high school (Perry Hall) as I, looked sharp in a crisp oxford shirt and tie. I'd met him on a previous occasion, and he seemed to be a well-adjusted young man. The joys of his high school graduation were dimmed by his father’s amputation a few years later. At first, the youth was rebellious at the added responsibility resulting from his father's condition, but soon came to cooperate with Ellen in the running of the household. Since the funeral was attended largely by older people, I was pleased to see Jeff surrounded by a group of young friends, offering him support. He greeted us, and said he planned to continue living at home for some while to make sure his mother was okay.

In between sampling hors d'oeuvres, I met Lou's sister, named Eleanor.

(Aside)
Lou's wife = Ellen
Ellen's best friend = another Ellen
Lou's sister = Eleanor

Ellen + Ellen + Eleanor = Mass confusion!

So, I met/greeted the Ellens/Eleanors, all of whom treated my mother as if she were family. Then it was over to the rainbow table.

Eleanor's daughter (ie, Lou's niece), named Christine, is lesbian. She was there with her partner. Both of them are very open about their sexual orientation. Since both Lou and Ellen's families are quite conservative, I wondered how Christine's announcement of her orientation was received and (later) asked my mother about this. My mother said the family did not take the news well initially, but eventually came to accept it.

My mother seemed to know everyone, from friends and relatives of Lou's, to associates of hers from real estate days. She introduced me to Bill Parisi, a multimillionaire banker friend, who used to process her loans for her. Perhaps my prejudice, but he had the character and charisma of, well, a rock.

I was re-introduced to Anne Kemp, a real estate agent friend of my mother’s and Ellen’s, whom I'd met briefly, years prior. Anne was beautiful, with blazing red hair and bright blue eyes. Her husband had passed away a few years earlier. Eleanor’s husband died a little more than a year ago. And now Ellen’s Lou had returned to the Creator. All three men had been relatively young. Undoubtedly, life and death are the dominion of the Creator. And yet, as I left the funeral, I could not help but think that at least some of this suffering and premature aging/death were linked to the Great American diet.

Wild Beasts

I had an energizing speed walk at Down's Park today, just short of an hour. I went there with my mother, but we walked separately, at our own pace. Down's, off course, is on the Chesapeake Bay, and the number and variety of sea birds found there is always impressive, but today was extraordinary. An astounding thousand or more scaup and other wild diving ducks (which I couldn't definitively ID without binoculars, as they were at a distance from the shore) dotted the vast blue expanse. I finished the walk, my eyes relishing the majesty of the sparkling blue water with every step. It was a perfect walk--almost.
I was doing my cool down (three to five minutes, per 55 minute walk) when I heard someone screaming as if being murdered. Off to one side of the walking path, and adjacent to the Bay lies a small, sheltered pond with an observation deck. It seems a perfect refuge for waterfowl from the ravages of the ocean, particularly on days when the Chesapeake is rough. A pair of beautiful wild swans have taken up residence there; on my last visit, I observed what I believed to be a nest on the far side of the pond (fortuitously unapproachable from the observation deck).

The swans were there today. To my horror, they were being assailed by three little white girls who stood on the deck screaming at the top of their lungs, as one might at a charging grizzly bear. Their father (or whoever the in-duh-vidual was) was sitting placidly on a bench a couple feet away, watching.

"Where in hell is the park ranger, when you need one?" I thought.

I walked onto the deck and stood a few feet away from the girls, who briefly rested their lungs. They screamed again, though not as vociferously, perhaps due to my presence. Again, not a peep from the father-adult.

Since I'm not a parent, I try very hard to keep out of other peoples' child discipline issues, but this desecration of nature (noise pollution) put me on the warpath. I looked the girls in the eye and then over at their father and said sternly, "I'm a biologist, and I really wouldn't recommend screaming in such a manner around here. It's up to you, but it stresses the animals, and is not very good for them." They looked rather stunned, as though the idea was totally alien to them. I walked away slowly, and sat on some nearby rocks watching the diving ducks. Miraculously, the screaming had stopped. I wondered if these children thought it okay to carry on in similar fashion in a kindergarden class, or in their family home, let alone in the perfect tranquility of a park---clearly a sanctuary for wildlife.

Tomorrow, I think I'll get a dog.:-)

Seattle to Join Boycott?

I arrived in Seattle late Thursday. It is a picturesque town, very hilly (somewhat as I'd envisioned San Franciso), and rife with of economic disparity. I'd heard that it also had a reputation for being anti-corporate and anti-war (recall the city was the site of major demonstrations against the WTO a few years back). Indeed, soon after arriving, I saw signs calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

In the first area I visited (off International Boulevard) there were several halal meat/grocery shops on one block, a kebab house, and an Abysinnian resturant. I bought some figs, bananas, and apples for breakfast from the halal meat store. A Somali sister worked the cash register, and several other East African looking women in hijab visited the store while I was there. I asked the Somali for directions to the mosque. It was only a few blocks away. Enroute, I saw a hijab-clad Muslim woman walking along the hilly road, carrying an umbrella to shelter herself from the sun, at home as she might be in Cairo or Karachi.

This part of town seemed quite poor, with very small houses made of siding, many of them old and ramshackle.

Just blocks away was the gargantuan Boeing Plant, responsible for the manufacture of machines used to kill Muslims in other countries, perhaps the friends or relatives of some of those living here.

The East African Muslims in this neighborhood were friendly and welcoming. I saw the mosque, but did not visit there yet. I will probably go there tomorrow and give them some NT boycott fliers.

I wound up going to juma'a prayers at the Eastside mosque. The road it's located on is discontinuous, and I spent half an hour looking for this mosque, after arriving in this upscale neighborhood. A chamelion-mosque? I had almost given up and was about to leave when I found it. The parking lot was full of benzes and BMWs.

I handed out about 100 boycott fliers, which were received without resistance. One Arab brother, after looking over the boycott flier, asked for a stack of them, and then set his son to distributing them.

It's funny that Starbucks, on which I personally squandered a goodly fraction of my income prior to the boycott, is named on the flier as one of the companies subject to boycott for their investment in Israel. And Seattle is one of the cities known for its independent coffee houses (including Seattle's Best, which even those of us stuck on the East Coast are familiar with), a dire challenge to the Starbucks monopoly. Together, Seattle and I will put Starbucks out of business:-)

Tomorrow, inshallah, I will take more boycott fliers to some of the progressive bookstores and coffeehouses in downtown Seattle.

May Allah reward the NT team which put together the materials educating people about Israeli apartheid. They have been a great help during my trip.

Baltimore’s Abu Ghraib

This Tuesday, I found out what it feels like to look into the eyes of a mother whose son has been beaten to death while in custody. Joey Gilbon's mother walked proud, carrying a picture of her son. She had beautiful dark brown skin, a crown of white hair, and deep contemplative eyes, which would make you cry if you looked into them long enough. I hugged her, hardly knowing what to say. "Your son will not be forgotten," I managed to mumble.

I stood with her and the mothers at the entrance of Baltimore's Central Booking Facility on Falls Way and Madison Street. They were there to protest the deaths of their loved ones in custody. So they were in jail in Iraq, you say? Nope, right here, in AmeriKKKa.

Twenty-seven people, mostly black, have died in custody at Central Booking and City Jail in recent months, while waiting to go to trial. Many of them were locked up for very minor, non-violent offenses, like non-payment of child support, or loitering.

Baltimore's zero tolerance law prohibits assembly in certain areas. Although the law ostensibly is aimed at drug dealers, it means that a city resident who steps outside his house, if it happens to be in an area targeted by "law enforcement," may be arrested after one or two warnings. (The zero tolerance laws are also an attack on the First Amendment freedom of assembly of some sectors of society--but that is a separate issue.) So, in effect, some of the detainees held at Central Booking were locked up for standing outside their own homes. And while there, they could be the target of murderous prison guards.

One of the recent murders was of 52-year old Raymond Smoots, who was beaten so badly by guards that his family could barely recognize his body. But, his mother was determined to fight for justice in her son's case. In the days leading up to the protest, she stood on a West Baltimore street corner with activists handing out leaflets with the heading "Is Baltimore's Central Booking our Abu Ghraib?" It was from her that I learned of the protest.

The protest was called by the Emergency Coalition for Justice, an umbrella organization which included many of the families of the victims, the All-Peoples Congress, the Million Worker March Movement, the Nation of Islam, the Troops Out Now Coalition, and others. I found out about the protest too late, otherwise, I'd have recommended that Jamaat al-Muslimeen add its endorsement.

At the start of the rally, the organizers symbolically wrapped yellow police tape around the front steps of the Central Booking facility, calling it a crime scene, and demanding the prosecution of the prison guards and police responsible for the deaths in custody. They charged that prisoners were forced to lie in their own vomit and that essential medicines were withheld from other prisoners. One, who had AIDS, was denied anti-retroviral medication, and another, a diabetic, was refused his insulin. A female detainee, Debby Epifanio, died after being denied her medicine.

Despite the heat advisory, nearly 300 people showed up for the rally. Most were people of color. I was pleased to see there was a significant youth continent--mostly anarchists and predominantly white.

Some of the mothers spoke. Other speakers included an NAACP representative in stunning African garb, a Nation of Islam representative, a Christian minister, and others. Notably absent were the "Sunni" Muslims.

Strange, I thought, the NOI Muslims don't pray (formally). But they work for justice. The Sunni Muslims pray. But they (with notable exceptions) don't work for justice. Shouldn't one lead to the other?

A particularly interesting speaker was a prison guard, who decried the abuses of his co-workers, and apologized to the families for what they had endured. He wore shades and a hat to disguise himself so that he would not be fired from his job.

While the speakers blasted prisoner abuse and police brutality, I ran up and down the road handing out fliers explaining why we were there to passing motorists. An hour handing out fliers was like a Racism 101 class. Many of the motorists were leaning out of their car windows, clearly intrigued by the protest. Nearly all the black motorists to whom I offered the flier took it; the only black people who refused the flier were prison guards who were getting off work. But the majority of white motorists refused to take the flier. A white ex-convict, who said he'd spent twenty-five years in the facility we were protesting, helped me pass out the fliers. He said, "Sh--, the white people, they won't take it. They all close-minded." It seemed a willful ignorance of injustice.

The rally over, it was time to march.

"Stop the killing, stop the lies, Raymond Smoots didn't have to die!" we chanted as we marched around Central Booking. The facility is a veritable modern day dungeon, encompassing several city blocks, with thick concrete walls protected by cameras and electronic gates.

On the next block, we found ourselves strolling along side the City Jail. It is a dilapidated old brick structure with grates and barbed wire covering the windows on every floor. We turned the corner, chanting, "Tear down the walls," and "No justice, no peace!" The prisoners could hear us, and some of them yelled back words of appreciation and encouragement. I could almost hear some of my reactionary relatives and colleagues saying, "Would you prefer if these common criminals were running the streets?"

But, the real criminals fill the corporate boardrooms, the halls of Congress, and the Oval Office; they are never the ones to be warehoused when they can't afford bail or a good lawyer.

For Peace in Pasadena

Pasadena still seems very much of a Republican stronghold. In the run-up to the election, nearly every yard on one street I observed was littered with pro-Bush signs. Confederate flags are common place here. The local high school athletic center is named Cecil Rhodes Stadium (after the white supremacist leader of the former Rhodesia). A few months ago, a 15-year old black high school student was killed--allegedly by four older white males--at a party, where he dared appear with his white girlfriend. Some of the accused killers were charged only with manslaughter, and it appeared that charges against the others would be dropped, until the boy's mother raised hell, and the NAACP intervened on her behalf. Hardly the ideal town in which to hold an anti-war protest. Or so I thought.

On March 19, wonder of wonders, I attended a small but spirited protest held by local Pasadena peace activists. Yes, there is such a group! The protest marked the anniversary of the illegal war (held in conjunction with worldwide anti-war protests that day). It was held on a small, well-located bridge on one of the busiest streets in Pasadena (heavily travelled that morning, perhaps due to the football game at the nearby high school). We stood on the bridge, our placards instructing drivers to "Honk for Peace." All six of us. Not exactly the massive DC-area protest that I'm used to, but the sincerity and commitment of the participants compensated for the numbers. The slogans on the placards were rather subdued (my dissident self might have preferred a bit stronger language). But the restrained language perhaps reflected the sagacity of the organizers, who said they'd been protesting in the same spot regularly, since the beginning of the war.

Everyone in the group seemed very genuinely nice. Linda, the organizer, is a retired GWU history professor. I asked in what area of history she specialized. The answer: "Women in military history." I was intrigued and resolved to explore the subject further with her. She seemed very well informed on Middle East issues, and we chatted a bit about the courage of the Israeli "refuseniks" (conscientious objectors in the IDF). She corrected my notion that display of the Confederate Flag (displayed on many of the pickup trucks which drove by us) necessarily made one a racist and pro-war. The Confederate Flag means different things to different people, she explained. Her students were fortunate to have had a professor who made them think outside the box.

Another woman, who is also an environmentalist, had just returned from a trip to Chile. Quite an outgoing group. I felt rather humbled to be amongst these leaders, who had stood protesting on the bridge before it became fashionable to be against the war, flinching neither at eggs nor curses thrown by ignorant passersby, while I hid amongst the 100,000+ protestors in Washington, DC area actions held during the same time period.

A Moment of Silence

Is there a new wave of propaganda against the Sudanese government to detract attention from the numerous and sundry anti-war actions around the anniversary of the illegal Iraq war this weekend? It seemed like something was underfoot, judging from my ordinarily apolitical Philosophy class today.

The kids in many of my college classes look really young. I mean, junior high (or in some cases, elementary school) young. One of the elementary school-looking kids, a tiny white boy with a perfect bowl-over-the-head haircut walked into the Philosophy class ("Intro to Moral Theory") with an agenda. He mumbled something to the prof about "Sudan" and "moment of silence." The Prof, named Jim, a young-ish redneck type from Arkansas, complete with accent and jackshirt (but not necessarily attitude) to match, is perpetually late. Today he arrived ten minutes late and was in a hurry to start the class, and so rapidly brushed off Elementary School Boy after agreeing to the latter's mumbled request. Jim lectured for a half hour on Kant and Hume and their views on the origin of morality. When it was almost 3:00, he stopped his lecture and handed over the floor to the Elementary School Boy.

Elementary School Boy introduced his subject, "Sudan is a country in Africa, where terrible killings are taking place. The Sudanese goverment has attempted to force 'Shari'a' or Islamic Law on the country..." He went on a la O'Reilly that the Sudanese government had turned a blind eye to the Jan, Janja-weed, killing of non-Muslims in Darfur," stumbling over the word "Janjaweed." "No one knows for sure how many had been killed there, but it could easily be 300,000."

No one moved. In an honors class, with very bright, young students who actually read, everyone was sitting there, swallowing the propaganda.

Prof was adding his two cents: "And as you say, nothing is being done about this. So, just like the Nazi Holocaust, or the Rwanda genocide, just knowing about a horrible tragedy is not enough to get people to act. Like Hume would say, reason is not enough to elicit action. Sentiment, or how you feel about something is what finally gets you to act."

Sudan...what in hell did this have to do with Philosophy, I thought. "Excuse me, but I don't agree with you, " I abruptly told Elementary School Boy. "Actually the Sudanese government HAS done everything it could to stop the killings including applying corporal punishment to Janjaweed militia members. The stats that you mention are very questionable. No one who quotes them seems to be able to identify their source, and the number is probably highly exaggerated. We tend to demonize governments and individuals against whom we have an agenda, as we did in Iraq, but things are not black and white."

The Elementary Boy had a slightly agaust look on his face, which said "You can't be saying this." He had no answers. Jim stepped in suavely and said, "Okay, I don't want to turn this into a debate. It's almost three o'clock. Do we want to have the moment of silence, or not?"

They held the moment of silence. When it was over, I said, "Considering that it is the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq on Saturday, perhaps it would be more appropriate to hold a moment of silence for the 100,000 Iraqis who have died as a result of our aggressive war." "Yeah sure," quipped Jim, trying to turn it into a joke. "Anyone else want a moment of silence?" So it was that the class, complete with its collection of rednecks, drawn from the local KKK-supporting population for which Catonsville (location of my University of Maryland campus) is famous, held a moment of silence for the Iraqi dead.

Stranger things have come to pass.

Some Afterthoughts

Suppose even one tenth the number of alleged Sudanese deaths occurred. That would mean 30,000 dead African brothers and sisters--a tragedy which should concern any person of conscience. That said, I am deeply suspicious of the motives behind the current "Free Darfur" campaign, since it carries a veiled threat of U.S. intervention in yet another independent sovereign nation. Only after my interlude with Elementary School Boy did I learn of the sponsor of the Moments of Silence--Hillel. Evidently the Moments of Silence were part of a coordinated Hillel campaign at campuses around the country. The questions I would ask: Since when did Zionist Jews become so concerned about human rights in Africa? Considering Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, what high moral ground have they? And why the call for moments of silence for Sudan at this particular time?

Hillel has not, to my knowledge called for moments of silence for victims of the Iraq war. It seems to me that would be much more appropriate for three reasons: 1) the U.S. was directly responsible for the murders of innocent Iraqis; 2) unlike the numbers of Sudanese dead, the numbers of Iraqi war victims have been thoroughly documented (in the British Medical Journal, the Lancet); 3) this past week--when Hillel was conducting its moments of silence for Sudan--was the anniversary of the illegal U.S. invasion.

In Darfur, the U.S. is, for once, innocent of direct involvement in the killings. Unlike in Iraq, Darfurian civilian deaths are not the consequence of U.S. taxdollars at work. This is not to say we should not be concerned about Sudan, but we should question the motives of propaganda which demonizes an independent Third World nation. If, as in the Iraqi case, a successful Zionist-instigated Free Darfur propaganda campaign transitions into a Free Darfur military campaign, the consequence may be the lives of hundreds of thousands more Sudanese.

Imperialist propaganda directed at Third World nations--particularly those revealing any semblance of independence from Western powers--assumes a predictable pattern:

PANAMA INVASION: "Noriega is a drug dealer. He's not governing his country responsibly. Panamanians are oppressed under him. He needs to be removed." U.S. overthrows and imprisons Noreiga.

AFGHANISTAN INVASION: "Taliban are bad. They abuse their women. Everybody hates Taliban. So let's help the Afghans." U.S. bombs Afghanistan to smithereens, installs puppet in Kabul, and takes control of Afghan natural gas and other natural resources.

IRAQ INVASION: "Iraq's leaders are bad. They killed Kurds in Halabcha (during the Iran-Iraq war, with U.S. support). Iraqis hate Saddam. So, let's go liberate them." U.S. destroys Iraq, installs yes-man, and pilfers Iraq's oil and other natural resources.

HAITI: "Haitians are starving under Aristide (nevermind the U.S. veto of all World Bank and other aid to Haiti during Aristide's last term). He's had years to improve conditions for his people and he couldn't do it. Maybe it's time for a change." U.S. kidnaps Aristide. Pro-U.S. government is installed.

Documentation for 300,000 Sudanese dead is nonexistent to my knowledge. I am still looking for it, and will look at the U.N. website today (recall that the U.N. refused to call it a genocide). Reports from independent observers which I find credible say killings have taken place, but that the numbers are much lower than is spewed by the U.S. media. Recall that the U.S. was funding the SPLA (Christian militia) in Southern Sudan. So while the Khartoum government was trying to contain the SPLA (U.S.- instigated) rebellion, the situation in Darfur was deteriorating. By the time the Sudanese government turned its attention to Darfur, many killings had already occurred. The government imposed harsh measures against the Janjaweed militia carrying out the atrocities, including literally cutting off the hands of a number of them, in accordance with Sharia (Islamic Law).

My opinion is that Americans are finally realizing that they were completely and utterly duped into attacking Iraq, and that public sentiment is finally turning against the war. The DOD cannot simply keep issuing denials of reports on torture and other violations of the Geneva Conventions, which are now carried even by the NY Times and BBC among mainstream media. So Darfur is the red herring, which will keep the outrage of the U.S. masses distracted from the consequences of their own government's genocide, and from demanding resignation, impeachment, and other actions in a system where elected officials are ostensibly answerable to their constituents.

“Taliban Country”—Film Review

In this age of CNN and O'Reilly, "Taliban Country" is a documentary that restores dignity to the word "journalist." Carmela Baranowska, an Australian filmmaker, was originally embedded with U.S. marines in Afghanistan's remote Uruzgan Province. The mission of the marines is to "hunt for Taliban and Al-Qaida." They are under the command of Asad Khan--the only "Muslim" to have attained the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. military. Together with Jan Muhammad, a Pushtun warlord, who cooperates with U.S. troops, they regularly patrol Uruzgan villages.

Baranowska's camera effectively captures the tranquility of the Afghan village. Birds are singing, children are playing, and one can almost feel the breeze circulating through the sunny courtyards of the traditional Afghan clay houses. The viewer gets a sense of what (state) terrorism means, when the marines descend upon this quietly serene village, with submachine guns and RPGs drawn, breaking down doors, and violating the sanctity of households. I was struck by the similarity in the behavior of the U.S. military with that of the Red Army--with their infamous house-to-house searches during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, also aimed at striking terror in the hearts of the Afghan population.

Still, in this scene, perhaps due to Baranowska's presence, the troops are relatively restrained. They find no Taliban, instead arresting a young local, named Janan, and confiscating only nine guns. Janan is turned over to Warlord Jan Muhammad for questioning. His interrogation of the young man is little more than a steady stream of explicit Pashto epithets, capable of making the most seasoned hoodlum in the American inner city blush. Jan Muhammad, master of homosexual innuendo, is the quintessential U.S. approved/appointed Afghan "leader," in the Karzai/Dostum tradition: ego ridden, power hungry, and willing to sell out his people for a small price. The contrast between the arrogant and scurrilous speech of this Tom, and the humility of the soft-spoken Taliban leadership so demonized in the U.S. controlled media is inescapable.

The marines and Jan Muhammad, accompanied by Baranowska, visit a second village, called Passau. They sit down with the townspeople to discuss their concerns. Despite the threat posed by armed U.S. troops and by the ruthless warlord, a villager bravely tries to raise questions about abuses enacted by the U.S. military. He is quickly silenced, by the marines' translator, who condescendingly tells him his concerns are more appropriate as a post-evening prayer topic.

Baranowska, a seasoned journalist with years of experience investigating atrocities in E. Timor and elsewhere, is immediately suspicions. She decides to return..unembedded--to the area, to find out what is really underfoot. She returns first to Janan's village of Masazai. Janan tells her that U.S. troops can't capture any Taliban fighters, so they make a show of nabbing innocent and helpless villagers like him.

She learns that militias like Jan Muhammad's exploit the U.S. presence in the region to gain the upper hand over their traditional tribal allies. Tribe I turns Tom, and falsely accuses their rival, Tribe II, of harboring Taliban. U.S. marines attack Tribe II based on false information provided by Tribe I. Atrocities are committed against Tribe II, which then vows revenge against Tribe I. Thus the exogenous U.S. presence fuels civil war, exacerbating conflicts which otherwise would be minimal and fought on equal footing. Imperialist instigated civil war is an old theme, common to many countries suffering from U.S. "democratization."

Baranowska returns to Passau, where the villagers had raised questions about U.S. troops' atrocities. The reason why this issue was censored during her previous visit immediately becomes apparent. In a raid conducted June 23, 2004, U.S. helicopters landed in the village fields and destroyed the crops, setting the stage for what was to come. According to the villagers, the troops broke china, pottery, and anything else they could find. They hacked through the mosque door, threw Qur'ans on the ground, and defecated in residents' living rooms. Thirty-five villagers were arrested, and taken away by helicopter to be interrogated by U.S. troops. Some were threatened that they would be taken to Guantanomo. The prisoners were tagged like animals before they were finally released.

The filmmaker finds that the villagers have been physically and sexually abused by the troops. Noor Muhammad Lala, a village elder wearing turban and traditional Afghan baggy pants and shirt sorrowfully tells his story. "They tied my hands and put me in a container," he says. He was then forced to take off all his clothes, and spread-eagled against the wall. Marines pulled at his testicles and jabbed at his anus. The elder had a bladder problem and became incontinent in front of his captors who stood laughing at his predicament. I could not help thinking of the resemblance to my own dear, elderly Afghan (ex-)father-in-law, his long white beard, gaunt face with hollow cheeks, and gentle manner. How would I feel if this were done to him?

Wali Muhammad, Noor Muhammad's son, was also held for questioning. The marines beat him, fingered his anus, and took pictures of him naked. There were twenty marines according to Wali Muhammad, and they stood around laughing and taking pictures of the nude captives. He and the others were held for three days, he says; they become hungry and repeatedly asked for food, but were denied it. An elderly woman, whose veil was removed and who was subjected to a body search, tells of the village women being pushed around by the troops. " We'd prefer death to this humiliation," the villagers tell Baranowska.

Back in Masazai, she learns that Major Cook, of the Civil Affairs Unit, has just visited. One of the village leaders tell her that Cook tried to give him medicines, corn seed, and a radio. Cook asked him if he needed anything. He told Cook, in a message that might have been the cry of the Afghan nation:

"We don't need anything. Don't humiliate us. Don't rob our country. Don't commit crimes. We don't need anything."

Before leaving Uruzgan, Baranowska returns to Passau a final time. The villagers tell her that "due to abuse and maltreatment by the marines," almost all of the families are gone. Of a village of two hundred, only fifteen or twenty people remain. How history repeats itself, I think to myself: During the Soviet occupation, too, millions of Afghans left their homes and possessions to escape life under occupation. Afghans are a dignified people for whom honor and respect are everything. Time and time again, they have chosen exile or death to life under occupation.

The film ends with a footnote that with the initial release of "Taliban Country," the army launched an inquiry into the abuses. They confirmed the detention of thirty-five villagers on June 23, 2004. Answering questions after the screening of her work at the University of Maryland Baltimore Country (UMBC), Baranowska told students that the inquiry had found the charges against the marines to be unsubstantiated; Lt. Colonel Asad Khan had been removed from his position; no others had been prosecuted. Baranowska has called for an independent inquiry.

An audience member at the UMBC screening, who said she and her husband worked for an aid organization in Kandahar, tried to convince the predominantly student audience that the film was an unfair treatment of the U.S. military, and that a tiny minority of U.S. troops engaged in this sort of behavior. I wondered, "Do you think your aid would be needed over there, if the U.S. hadn't gone in and destroyed that country in the first instance?" I politely remarked to her that wartime atrocities by occupying troops are statistically underreported, not over reported, and that the numbers were probably much higher. The bar on war crimes was set early on in the Afghan War, with the U.S. refusal to prosecute members of the Dostum militia who massacred prisoners in Mazar-e-Sharif; and the U.S. troops who murdered Taliban by suffocation in metal boxes. I commended Baranowska for her courage and integrity in reporting the reality of the situation in Afghanistan. U.S. presence in Afghanistan violates the sovereignty of that country, and U.S. troops there, as in Iraq, are occupiers. Hence their behavior is not surprising.

Baranowska's findings cry out for a war crimes investigation.

Eid Mubarak

January 21 is the death anniversary of my son, Hanzela. He was born in Lahore, Pakistan, on November 13, 1989, and returned with me to the States by the end of that year. Three months later, he died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) in our suburban family home.

When he was born, I named him Hanzela in honor of the great Afghan freedom fighter of the same name, who was martryed fighting against the British in the earlier part of the century, and whose name is folklore amongst the Afghans. My great aunt, Shima, who was also my son's godmother, called my son "Khairat Muhammad." I never quite understood the name, and was rather irked by her insistence at referring to him as such. "Khairat," off course meant charity, and Muhammad (SAW) was the last in the line of great Prophets, and to whom the Qu'ran was revealed. But why "Charity of Muhammad (SAW)"?

Today as I watch the state of affairs in the world, I wonder what would have become of Hanzela had he lived. Would he have died of suffocation in a tin box, at the hands of U.S.-sponsored warlords somewhere in the Hindu Kush? Would be be one of those held indefinitely on a small island concentration camp, charged with no crime, and tortured from time to time depending on the mood of the torturers? Or would he be in a tiny U.S. cell, awaiting deportation for being the wrong race, religion, creed?

My son's death is a blessing. It is Allah's constant reminder to me that death and life are His dominion, and His dominion alone; even those who exhibit perfect health and youth, like my son, may meet death any instant, if He wishes. I believe it is meant to remind me to live each day as if it were my last, and that I will indeed be held accountable for all my actions in the Hereafter.

Today is also Eid ul-Adha. How appropriate the coinciding of the dates. I think of my cherubic, bubbling son and how I awoke one morning to suddenly find him dead. I look over at the green Book sitting on my bed side table. "Authority belongs to Allah alone," it says to me. Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) (AS), when he chose to sacrifice his son, at Allah's command, recognized just this command:Innal Hukumo Illah Lillah. Perhaps it is this special reminder from Allah that is the "Charity of Muhammad" to me.

This Eid day, let us remember that Authority belongs to Allah alone, and not to any human being, no matter how large an armada they may amass, and let us pray for the Muslims fighting injustice and imperialism worldwide.

A Test of Faith

One of my core values is standing up for the rights of the oppressed. But it is not always easy, especially if doing so involves living in a hot dusty village in the Third World, at the mercy of bureaucratic red tape....

For several decades now, Pakistan has hosted a very large Afghan refugee population. This has helped the Afghans to survive the perpetual destruction of their county by the various superpowers. Unfortunately, it has also placed a tremendous drain on the Pakistan economy, creating deep-rooted resentment among many Pakistanis for the Afghan refugees. The treatment of Afghan refugees by Pakistani society may be likened to that of migrant workers by the U.S.

Asif, my ex-husband, was among those Afghans who fled to Pakistan when the war came to their country. He and his family lived in a hot, dusty sprawling refugee camp called Camp Munda Pul, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. In writing my book on the effects of war on Afghan refugee women, I stayed in this and other refugee camps. Every so often, Asif and I left the camp to travel into town (Peshawar), to buy groceries, toiletries and other supplies for his family, or to meet with various officials whom I wanted to interview. Frequently, we were stopped and harassed by Pakistani police, who resented seeing a Pakistani woman (which I appeared to be, in my native dress) with a lowly Afghan. They feigned concern for my safety: Perhaps I was being held against my will? Most of the time, the underpaid Paki cops just wanted a bribe. Since we generally refused to succumb to the bribe demand, Asif would periodically be marched off to the local police station and held for a few hours, until the cops realized he wasn’t going to pay up, and the Chief of Police showed up and demanded to know what his underlings were doing holding an innocent man.

But that was not the worst of it. Paki police frequently harassed refugee families, tearing down their tents, in clear violation of Qur'anic injunctions to support those who have performed hijarat. Asif’s family was relatively fortunate to have a mud hut in Camp Munda Pul, remote enough that it seemed to escape most of that negative attention. Asif’s female relatives rarely left the camp, and he was their liason with the outside world. Every time he went into town, I worried that he would be harassed. His brothers, tall, lanky, and bearded—clearly Afghan in their style of dress—were also frequently harassed by the authorities. For Asif and his brothers, getting a job in Pakistan, without the recommendation of a U.S. or European national, was nearly out of the question.

By this time, Asif and I were married, and I had filed for an immigrant visa for him. Originally, I’d planned to return to the States, and wait for him to follow me after his papers became available. Although I was teaching him to read and write English in our spare moments, I worried that his inability to understand follow-up paperwork through the lengthy immigration process would lay my efforts to waste, and that he would continue to suffer harassment at the hands of the Pakistani authorities while awaiting processing. A few weeks into the application process, I decided I would wait for my beloved husband to get immigration, and that we would return to the States together—or not at all.

I was worried that Asif’s immigration papers might not be delivered easily to a refugee camp address, and so taking a gamble, I took him to the house of my Aunt Shima (really my great aunt), just outside Lahore, Pakistan’s largest and oldest city. The U.S. Consulate was also in Lahore. Aunt Shima had never met Asif, and had not seen me in years. She disliked him instantly, and, it seemed, me--for my selection of a lowly Afghan, and that too, without first consulting her. But fortunately for Asif and I, Muslim customs dictate that one take in visitors even if one can’t stand them, and Aunt Shima extended us her hospitality.

My great aunt was a towering figure in her village. Her father had been a big land owner in the area, so much of the village property was now hers, although she occasionally gifted small plots of land to a villager getting married, starting a new business or some such. Her house was one of the few permanent structures in the village, the walls of its compound rising high over the smaller clay houses like a castle. It was probably the only house around for miles with marble floors, AC (albeit old fashioned), modern plumbing, and (cheesy, Pakistani) TV. The villagers were like her serfs, bringing her offerings of food, and requesting audiences of her, to seek resolution of their problems. And she, being a school teacher at heart (she had an MA in education from the University of WI), reciprocated by running a school—the only one around for miles—for their children in one wing of her compound.

So, our new abode was considerably more comfortable than Camp Munda Pul. But the puny efforts of the feeble, old-fashioned AC unit against the 110°F heat, and the periodic “load-shedding” (scheduled rolling power outages, common in India and Pakistan) made me long for home. The months rolled by, and the U.S. Consulate was taking its time in sending Asif’s paperwork. I called and badgered them periodically, to no avail. A Pakistani friend, who worked for the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, told me they were probably checking us out, to make sure ours was not one of the many “paper marriages” between Pakistani/Afghans and U.S. citizens. Or that Asif wasn’t the sterotypical Afghan heroin smuggler. Ah well.

It hadn’t rained in weeks, dust was everywhere, and some parts of my aunt’s village were afflicted with TB. I was running out of money, patience, and time--as I was pregnant, with our first child. Common sense told me I should go home before my due date, so that I could be around my family and modern health facilities when the time came. But, my promise to my husband came first.

To preserve my sanity, I determined to maintain a regimen. For several hours each morning, I gave Asif his English lesson. Then, we would play badminton in the sweltering heat for an hour. After that, we had lunch, sometimes with my great aunt, if she had finished her teaching for the afternoon. After lunch, I tutored selected pupils from her school, and then washed clothes (by hand), since clothing tended to get sweaty very quickly in the heat.

Asif left for a visit to the refugee camp, to make sure his family was doing okay. I was even more miserable alone, tortured by thoughts of returning home. Shakespeare had it all wrong: To stay or not to stay—that was the question. Asif returned from the village and shortly thereafter, I delivered our first child in a clinic in Lahore. I stayed there for about a week, recuperating. My aunt and other relatives were incredibly kind and supportive, and even seemed to have developed a semblance of liking for Asif by this point. Yet, the whole experience was surreal, for I had never imagined I would birth a child in a “foreign” country.

After I felt strong enough, I paid the U.S. Consulate another visit, this time with my infant son, for whom I was requesting a U.S. passport. Incredibly, the U.S. authorities were very cooperative, delivering my son’s passport to me in a matter of days, and Asif’s papers shortly thereafter. The three of us returned to the U.S. to live happily ever after.