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.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Saturday, June 18, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
“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.
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.
Friday, January 21, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Fahrenheit 911 – Film Review
Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 911, exhibits all the strengths and weaknesses of the liberal left. Moore, an outspoken opponent of the U.S. war on Iraq, brilliantly titles the film after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. In the original sci-fi novel, it is the job of the firemen, who work for the authoritarian police state, to burn books. The temperature at which the book burning is achieved is 451 F. Moore's analogy here seems to be that the conditions under which unprovoked and–under international law–illegal war by a superpower on an independent, sovereign nation is achieved is when an incident such as 9-11 has occurred, or been permitted to occur.
Moore appropriately begins the film by reminding viewers of the conditions under which the "President" of the U.S. assumed office, focusing on the disenfranchisement of Black voters in several Florida counties. For readers of the NT Forum who have been following the reactionary role of Fox News in the railroading and blackballing of Muslim leaders and causes, Fahrenheit reveals an interesting point about Fox: With the polls still open on Election Day 2000, and all the major television stations broadcasting that Gore was well ahead in the Florida race, suddenly and gratuitously, the Fox News Channel announced that Bush had won that state. The other stations, embarrassed at their perceived mistake, quickly followed suit, retracting their original broadcasts and announced the putative Bush win–a win so dubious that the case eventually resulted in dozens of Congressional Hearings and ultimately wound up in the Supreme Court. But on Election Day, the announcement by Fox News of Bush's win might well have influenced results at the polls; more importantly it raised questions of whether Fox reported or fabricated the news. (For more on Fox News, see the critical documentary Outfoxed now playing in selected area theaters and available on video soon.)
In Fahrenheit 911, Moore uses humor to cover an otherwise heart-wrenching story: the story of a president who covers his own ineptitude in neglecting the national security interests of the country prior to 911 by going to war to destroy an innocent and defenseless Iraqi nation. Off over 500 members of the U.S. Congress, only one has a son or daughter in the armed forces in Iraq, says Moore, who in the movie is shown somewhat comically accosting these fast-retreating legislators before the cameras, audaciously requesting them to volunteer a son or a daughter to fight for freedom and democracy in Iraq. He rents an ice cream truck and drives around Capital Hill reading the Patriot Act over the loud speakers of the truck as a service to Congress members, who have signed away the First Amendment Rights of the people, with scarcely a glance at the text of the draconian bill they have signed.
Fahrenheit has the integrity to show extensive footage from un-embedded journalists: Iraqi children screaming with pain from napalm wounds, trucks laden down with civilian corpses, and the terror experienced by Iraqi women during house-to-house searches by U.S. soldiers. Moore's interviews with U.S. soldiers revealed the diversity of attitudes among these young men and women. One young black marine, a Muslim, said he preferred jail to being returned to Iraq to fight other people of color, who had done nothing to him. Another, a bespectacled Caucasian youth, reported that once the adrenaline was pumping, and the right music was playing in the tank or humvee, he would shoot up the enemy without qualm, preferably to the tune of "The roof is on fire..."
In a profoundly personal touch, Moore juxtaposes the bombed out areas in Iraq with scenes from his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Footage of Flint's slums with their rampant unemployment and ramshackle housing shows a striking resemblance to parts of Iraq. Ironically, this desperately poor U.S. town, and many others like it, is prime recruiting area for the U.S. military. Here, says Moore, the children of poor Blacks and Whites, who have few employment options, and often view the military as a means of paying for college, are picked up for military service–to go and kill the children of poor Iraqis.
In contrast with his clarity on the inhumanity of the war, Moore seems confused about the driving force to go to war. Through various interviews, Moore brings up the point that plans to attack Iraq were clearly laid out well before September 11. Perhaps the first quarter of the film amply emphasizes Bush's ineptitude, inaction, and his vacation panacea–when the going gets rough, the Prez goes on vacation. And Moore cuts poor Bush no breaks for going on one vacation after another early in his administration. In one scene, Bush appears in a Florida kindergarten classroom (actual footage) reading a children's book with the class as part of a photo-op. As he sits in the classroom, an aid enters to inform him that the first plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. The Commander-In-Chief remains exactly where he is in the kindergarten, calmly reading the kiddy book, with a slightly moronic look on his face. Moore's voice over explains that perhaps Bush's inaction stems from the fact that no secret service members are around to suggest an appropriate response to the President. It is clear from this and numerous other scenes that Moore might not put money on Bush's intellectual ability.
Someone more focused, agenda-driven, and amoral even than Bush had to come up with a plan to attack Iraq--in defiance of the Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly, the EU, and NATO; in contempt of traditional U.S. allies France and Germany; and in utter disregard for worldwide protests. And that someone had to be determined enough to persevere with the plan, even if no WMDs were found; even if the U.S. image and alliances throughout the world were tarnished; even if it meant years of U.S. occupation of Iraq, at costs threatening to bring down the U.S. economy; and even if it meant heightened hatred for U.S. imperial policies and increased risk of terrorist attacks on the U.S. itself. Yet the illustrious film-maker offers no suggestions as to the masterminds of such a well thought out scheme. Perhaps in consideration of his career as a Hollywood film-maker, Moore carefully sidesteps scrutiny of the political allegiances of the men formulating policy for the Bush Administration: Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Perle, or any of the other AIPAC affiliated-Neocons to whom Bush routinely reports. Interestingly, Wolfowitz and Perle, despite their vociferous and unabashed push to attack Iraq, barely appear in the film. Instead, Administration mouth pieces--Rice, Powell, and George Dubya himself–are shown repeatedly throughout the film. They are like puppets with unseen puppeteers.
The film spends considerable time exploring links between the "Saudi" royal family and the Bush family, and the fact that numerous Saudis were permitted unencumbered exit from the U.S. immediately after 9-11, when all other flights were grounded. Moore hints that perhaps these Saudis ought to have been detained and interrogated before they were sent on their merry way. He mentions joint investments by the Bush family and members of the Bin Laden family, intimating that the Bin Laden family might not be as estranged from Osama as previously believed, and that this, too, is cause for inquiry. Shockingly, the otherwise politically shrewd Moore seems almost completely unaware of the servile role of Saudi Arabia, and the subservience of its military, intelligence and judiciary to U.S. interests. Without the use of Saudi airspace and intelligence sharing, the "success" of both Gulf Wars, might have been in question. But no Saudi sits on the President's cabinet or in his closed circle of advisors which formulate U.S. foreign policy. Several self-described Israeli citizens, however, do sit on these boards, determining the allocation of U.S. taxpayers money. In his preoccupation with the Saudi royals' imaged role in 9-11 and his complete inattention to the very real Zionist role in the Iraq War, Moore misses the boat on who is the policymaker and who is the obsequious executor.
Sadly, the release of Fahrenheit 911 in the heat of the election summer and well after the decimation of the Iraqi population, leads one to wonder if Moore may be a dupe to the Other War Party–the Democrats.
Moore appropriately begins the film by reminding viewers of the conditions under which the "President" of the U.S. assumed office, focusing on the disenfranchisement of Black voters in several Florida counties. For readers of the NT Forum who have been following the reactionary role of Fox News in the railroading and blackballing of Muslim leaders and causes, Fahrenheit reveals an interesting point about Fox: With the polls still open on Election Day 2000, and all the major television stations broadcasting that Gore was well ahead in the Florida race, suddenly and gratuitously, the Fox News Channel announced that Bush had won that state. The other stations, embarrassed at their perceived mistake, quickly followed suit, retracting their original broadcasts and announced the putative Bush win–a win so dubious that the case eventually resulted in dozens of Congressional Hearings and ultimately wound up in the Supreme Court. But on Election Day, the announcement by Fox News of Bush's win might well have influenced results at the polls; more importantly it raised questions of whether Fox reported or fabricated the news. (For more on Fox News, see the critical documentary Outfoxed now playing in selected area theaters and available on video soon.)
In Fahrenheit 911, Moore uses humor to cover an otherwise heart-wrenching story: the story of a president who covers his own ineptitude in neglecting the national security interests of the country prior to 911 by going to war to destroy an innocent and defenseless Iraqi nation. Off over 500 members of the U.S. Congress, only one has a son or daughter in the armed forces in Iraq, says Moore, who in the movie is shown somewhat comically accosting these fast-retreating legislators before the cameras, audaciously requesting them to volunteer a son or a daughter to fight for freedom and democracy in Iraq. He rents an ice cream truck and drives around Capital Hill reading the Patriot Act over the loud speakers of the truck as a service to Congress members, who have signed away the First Amendment Rights of the people, with scarcely a glance at the text of the draconian bill they have signed.
Fahrenheit has the integrity to show extensive footage from un-embedded journalists: Iraqi children screaming with pain from napalm wounds, trucks laden down with civilian corpses, and the terror experienced by Iraqi women during house-to-house searches by U.S. soldiers. Moore's interviews with U.S. soldiers revealed the diversity of attitudes among these young men and women. One young black marine, a Muslim, said he preferred jail to being returned to Iraq to fight other people of color, who had done nothing to him. Another, a bespectacled Caucasian youth, reported that once the adrenaline was pumping, and the right music was playing in the tank or humvee, he would shoot up the enemy without qualm, preferably to the tune of "The roof is on fire..."
In a profoundly personal touch, Moore juxtaposes the bombed out areas in Iraq with scenes from his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Footage of Flint's slums with their rampant unemployment and ramshackle housing shows a striking resemblance to parts of Iraq. Ironically, this desperately poor U.S. town, and many others like it, is prime recruiting area for the U.S. military. Here, says Moore, the children of poor Blacks and Whites, who have few employment options, and often view the military as a means of paying for college, are picked up for military service–to go and kill the children of poor Iraqis.
In contrast with his clarity on the inhumanity of the war, Moore seems confused about the driving force to go to war. Through various interviews, Moore brings up the point that plans to attack Iraq were clearly laid out well before September 11. Perhaps the first quarter of the film amply emphasizes Bush's ineptitude, inaction, and his vacation panacea–when the going gets rough, the Prez goes on vacation. And Moore cuts poor Bush no breaks for going on one vacation after another early in his administration. In one scene, Bush appears in a Florida kindergarten classroom (actual footage) reading a children's book with the class as part of a photo-op. As he sits in the classroom, an aid enters to inform him that the first plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. The Commander-In-Chief remains exactly where he is in the kindergarten, calmly reading the kiddy book, with a slightly moronic look on his face. Moore's voice over explains that perhaps Bush's inaction stems from the fact that no secret service members are around to suggest an appropriate response to the President. It is clear from this and numerous other scenes that Moore might not put money on Bush's intellectual ability.
Someone more focused, agenda-driven, and amoral even than Bush had to come up with a plan to attack Iraq--in defiance of the Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly, the EU, and NATO; in contempt of traditional U.S. allies France and Germany; and in utter disregard for worldwide protests. And that someone had to be determined enough to persevere with the plan, even if no WMDs were found; even if the U.S. image and alliances throughout the world were tarnished; even if it meant years of U.S. occupation of Iraq, at costs threatening to bring down the U.S. economy; and even if it meant heightened hatred for U.S. imperial policies and increased risk of terrorist attacks on the U.S. itself. Yet the illustrious film-maker offers no suggestions as to the masterminds of such a well thought out scheme. Perhaps in consideration of his career as a Hollywood film-maker, Moore carefully sidesteps scrutiny of the political allegiances of the men formulating policy for the Bush Administration: Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Perle, or any of the other AIPAC affiliated-Neocons to whom Bush routinely reports. Interestingly, Wolfowitz and Perle, despite their vociferous and unabashed push to attack Iraq, barely appear in the film. Instead, Administration mouth pieces--Rice, Powell, and George Dubya himself–are shown repeatedly throughout the film. They are like puppets with unseen puppeteers.
The film spends considerable time exploring links between the "Saudi" royal family and the Bush family, and the fact that numerous Saudis were permitted unencumbered exit from the U.S. immediately after 9-11, when all other flights were grounded. Moore hints that perhaps these Saudis ought to have been detained and interrogated before they were sent on their merry way. He mentions joint investments by the Bush family and members of the Bin Laden family, intimating that the Bin Laden family might not be as estranged from Osama as previously believed, and that this, too, is cause for inquiry. Shockingly, the otherwise politically shrewd Moore seems almost completely unaware of the servile role of Saudi Arabia, and the subservience of its military, intelligence and judiciary to U.S. interests. Without the use of Saudi airspace and intelligence sharing, the "success" of both Gulf Wars, might have been in question. But no Saudi sits on the President's cabinet or in his closed circle of advisors which formulate U.S. foreign policy. Several self-described Israeli citizens, however, do sit on these boards, determining the allocation of U.S. taxpayers money. In his preoccupation with the Saudi royals' imaged role in 9-11 and his complete inattention to the very real Zionist role in the Iraq War, Moore misses the boat on who is the policymaker and who is the obsequious executor.
Sadly, the release of Fahrenheit 911 in the heat of the election summer and well after the decimation of the Iraqi population, leads one to wonder if Moore may be a dupe to the Other War Party–the Democrats.
Saturday, December 20, 2003
Each One, Teach One
During the spring 2003 semester (my first at UMBC), I tutored my stepmother, named Jameelah, and other students studying pre-calculus at Morgan State University (an HBC). Jameelah, a returning student, had not studied math in decades, and had a severe math phobia. Unfortunately for her, pre-calc was a requirement of the education degree she was pursuing. The professor's apathetic attitude did nothing to uplift Jameelah's spirits.
The prof was a character. A black woman with blond hair, she periodically arrived late, and lectured for a fraction of the class time. Once, she traipsed into class twenty minutes after it had started, sporting spandex tights with leopard spots. She flung down her belongings with an air of annoyance, and began the lecture. A few minutes later, a student dared raise a hand to ask a question.
The prof almost exploded. "Have any of you even read the material!" she asked shrilly, in response to what she viewed as an uninformed question. Throwing up her hands in exasperation, she retreated to one corner of the room, where she sat and munched on potato chips for the remainder of the period. Another time, she taught for the first half of the class, then disappeared down the hall, in pursuit of her daughter, who was busily exploring the math building while mom taught class. And so it went. Not only my stepmother, but many of the other students were floundering, and terrified of failing the class.
When Jameelah told me of this situation, I thought immediately of the words of Dr. Abdulalim Shabazz, distinguished professor of math at Lincoln University, and an old family friend. Formerly with the Nation of Islam, he is an Afrocentric and a champion for his people. I consider him the standard bearer of math pedagogy, particularly when it comes to black and brown students.
We were attending an Islamic conference together. During one of the breaks, I asked him about his teaching method. He said simply. “If my students aren’t grasping what I’m teaching, then I have failed. If students don’t understand something one way, it is up to the teacher to find other ways to explain it until they understand.” He impressed on his students that their ancestors, black people of Ancient KMT—not Newton or Euclid—were the first to elucidate geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and physics, and that they were to strive for the same high standard. He taught them to think, and not to memorize. Not surprisingly, Shabazz produced one of the highest numbers of black mathematics doctoral students in the nation. (Bizarrely, he was demoted from the position of Math Department Chair at Lincoln University, to an ordinary teaching position. Even more bizarrely, he was replaced by a white, Jewish, woman who did not hold even a math degree.)
I developed a tremendous admiration and respect for Shabazz, in his dedication to math teaching and his love for the people. Looking at the dearth of black and brown people in my field, life sciences, I felt strongly that math was the major stumbling block for black students, which precluded them from entry into the life sciences. They attended the worst schools, with high student-teacher ratios, and little academic support (vital for success in math); had parents in jail or on drugs; endured school closures due to teacher strikes, trashcan fires, and shooting incidents; or some combination of these, causing just enough disruption for students to fall behind in math. And since math builds upon itself, even one tenuous semester could endanger their later learning. Worse, because a strong understanding of math is vital to a science/engineering major in college, weakness in math precluded many black students from these fields. All this, coupled with racist bio-science department faculty and chairs (often vestiges from the era of scientific racism) at university level ensured that the numbers of black students earning bioscience degrees remained at a slow trickle.
I personally struggled with high school math, earning an “F” in ninth grade Algebra (initially) and a “D” in eleventh grade Trig. But I did not give up. And math, unlike men, rewarded me according to the effort I expended. Today, I have a great love of math, and employ it on a daily basis. As a result of my struggles with the subject, I have some understanding of the problems math students face. And although it is not my field, it is my passion to help black and brown students with their math struggles. The community must ensure that academic support, particularly in math, is available to our youth. In the near future, I plan to contribute to this goal by offering math/chemistry/physics tutoring (enlisting the help of other community members) through local inner city masajid. Given such academic support, if students choose non-science majors, it will be of their volition.
When Jameelah mentioned her troubles, I was thrilled that I might be able to share the knowledge I’d acquired through blood, sweat, and tears. Not wanting to be too pushy, I initially just gave her a pre-calculus book and solution manual, which I thought explained the subject with clarity. When I called her the following week, she said the new book was much easier to grasp than the horrid class text, but that she was still confounded by certain types of problems. She would be stuck for hours, unable to move ahead, and become very frustrated and depressed. My semester at UMBC was heating up, and I knew that tutoring at this juncture could easily detract from my own academic advancement. But, I also knew I would not be true to myself if I did not step forward now. I arranged to meet with her once a week, alternating between her home and MSU. Our first tutoring session was held in Morgan's math building. To my surprise, several other students, whom Jameelah had told of the tutoring, showed up. They were experiencing many of same difficulties as Jameelah.
I hadn’t tutored since my brief stint at Antioch College years prior, where I informally helped friends with calculus in the common room of our dorm. So, I was nervous, standing before Jameelah and her classmates at the chalkboard, afraid I would forget some elementary concept, like the limit, as x approached zero, of sine x divided by x.
The class members also seemed uncertain of me, perhaps expecting a similar lack of caring as they’d experienced from Ms. Leopard Tights. Initially, they did not ask me any questions, and talked among themselves, trying desperately to solve seemingly elusive homework problems. Finally, I asked a young dark-skinned sista, named Chantal, to select a problem she did not understand, and to write it on the blackboard, so that we could work it together. I asked the others to try to work the problem at their seat, and Chantal to work the problem as far as she could on the board. When she got stuck, I guided her (mainly by asking her directed questions), until she was able to solve the problem. After that, she and I explained the problem step by step to the other students. Then, I asked Jameelah to pick a problem which gave her difficulty, and did the same thing with her. Gradually, I was able to get the participation of nearly every student, giving each individualized guidance, followed by a sharing of the lessons learned with each problem with the rest of the class. Since many of the students had similar difficulties with the problems, working with one helped me realize what stumbling blocks might arise for others.
Except for an inverse function problem, whose terminology I was unsure about, I was able to answer all the students’ questions, and did not embarrass myself as I had feared. They shared with me their fears, phobias, and gripes about math exams, the math portion of the Praxis (which several of them were preparing to take), the despised class text, and their infamous prof. I tutored them through the semester, becoming their friend, coach, and in some cases chauffer.
Once, the Prof came by our study room, and the normal banter of the group stopped. A couple of the students cozied up to her, trying to make her feel important. Then Jameelah introduced us. With an icy cold glare, she returned my greeting, but just barely. After a few minutes, she left, with a flippant “Looks like y’all got it under control.”
At the end of the semester, Jameelah received an "A" in the class; at least two others in our small study group got "A's" and "B's;" and nearly everyone brought up their grades significantly. I was very proud of them. They thanked me in many different ways. Pat, another returning student, sent me a gift basket and a card as a token of appreciation. Chantal asked for my help with a summer stat class (which, alas, I declined, because of an intense summer class I was taking), and put me in touch with her nephews and nieces, who also needed tutoring. John, a sharp, young, engineering major invited me to his birthday barbeque. All the students tried to pay me as a token of appreciation. I refused, since it was they who had done all the hard work, and they who had helped me, giving me the opportunity to share my knowledge. As Malcolm said, "Each one, teach one."
The prof was a character. A black woman with blond hair, she periodically arrived late, and lectured for a fraction of the class time. Once, she traipsed into class twenty minutes after it had started, sporting spandex tights with leopard spots. She flung down her belongings with an air of annoyance, and began the lecture. A few minutes later, a student dared raise a hand to ask a question.
The prof almost exploded. "Have any of you even read the material!" she asked shrilly, in response to what she viewed as an uninformed question. Throwing up her hands in exasperation, she retreated to one corner of the room, where she sat and munched on potato chips for the remainder of the period. Another time, she taught for the first half of the class, then disappeared down the hall, in pursuit of her daughter, who was busily exploring the math building while mom taught class. And so it went. Not only my stepmother, but many of the other students were floundering, and terrified of failing the class.
When Jameelah told me of this situation, I thought immediately of the words of Dr. Abdulalim Shabazz, distinguished professor of math at Lincoln University, and an old family friend. Formerly with the Nation of Islam, he is an Afrocentric and a champion for his people. I consider him the standard bearer of math pedagogy, particularly when it comes to black and brown students.
We were attending an Islamic conference together. During one of the breaks, I asked him about his teaching method. He said simply. “If my students aren’t grasping what I’m teaching, then I have failed. If students don’t understand something one way, it is up to the teacher to find other ways to explain it until they understand.” He impressed on his students that their ancestors, black people of Ancient KMT—not Newton or Euclid—were the first to elucidate geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and physics, and that they were to strive for the same high standard. He taught them to think, and not to memorize. Not surprisingly, Shabazz produced one of the highest numbers of black mathematics doctoral students in the nation. (Bizarrely, he was demoted from the position of Math Department Chair at Lincoln University, to an ordinary teaching position. Even more bizarrely, he was replaced by a white, Jewish, woman who did not hold even a math degree.)
I developed a tremendous admiration and respect for Shabazz, in his dedication to math teaching and his love for the people. Looking at the dearth of black and brown people in my field, life sciences, I felt strongly that math was the major stumbling block for black students, which precluded them from entry into the life sciences. They attended the worst schools, with high student-teacher ratios, and little academic support (vital for success in math); had parents in jail or on drugs; endured school closures due to teacher strikes, trashcan fires, and shooting incidents; or some combination of these, causing just enough disruption for students to fall behind in math. And since math builds upon itself, even one tenuous semester could endanger their later learning. Worse, because a strong understanding of math is vital to a science/engineering major in college, weakness in math precluded many black students from these fields. All this, coupled with racist bio-science department faculty and chairs (often vestiges from the era of scientific racism) at university level ensured that the numbers of black students earning bioscience degrees remained at a slow trickle.
I personally struggled with high school math, earning an “F” in ninth grade Algebra (initially) and a “D” in eleventh grade Trig. But I did not give up. And math, unlike men, rewarded me according to the effort I expended. Today, I have a great love of math, and employ it on a daily basis. As a result of my struggles with the subject, I have some understanding of the problems math students face. And although it is not my field, it is my passion to help black and brown students with their math struggles. The community must ensure that academic support, particularly in math, is available to our youth. In the near future, I plan to contribute to this goal by offering math/chemistry/physics tutoring (enlisting the help of other community members) through local inner city masajid. Given such academic support, if students choose non-science majors, it will be of their volition.
When Jameelah mentioned her troubles, I was thrilled that I might be able to share the knowledge I’d acquired through blood, sweat, and tears. Not wanting to be too pushy, I initially just gave her a pre-calculus book and solution manual, which I thought explained the subject with clarity. When I called her the following week, she said the new book was much easier to grasp than the horrid class text, but that she was still confounded by certain types of problems. She would be stuck for hours, unable to move ahead, and become very frustrated and depressed. My semester at UMBC was heating up, and I knew that tutoring at this juncture could easily detract from my own academic advancement. But, I also knew I would not be true to myself if I did not step forward now. I arranged to meet with her once a week, alternating between her home and MSU. Our first tutoring session was held in Morgan's math building. To my surprise, several other students, whom Jameelah had told of the tutoring, showed up. They were experiencing many of same difficulties as Jameelah.
I hadn’t tutored since my brief stint at Antioch College years prior, where I informally helped friends with calculus in the common room of our dorm. So, I was nervous, standing before Jameelah and her classmates at the chalkboard, afraid I would forget some elementary concept, like the limit, as x approached zero, of sine x divided by x.
The class members also seemed uncertain of me, perhaps expecting a similar lack of caring as they’d experienced from Ms. Leopard Tights. Initially, they did not ask me any questions, and talked among themselves, trying desperately to solve seemingly elusive homework problems. Finally, I asked a young dark-skinned sista, named Chantal, to select a problem she did not understand, and to write it on the blackboard, so that we could work it together. I asked the others to try to work the problem at their seat, and Chantal to work the problem as far as she could on the board. When she got stuck, I guided her (mainly by asking her directed questions), until she was able to solve the problem. After that, she and I explained the problem step by step to the other students. Then, I asked Jameelah to pick a problem which gave her difficulty, and did the same thing with her. Gradually, I was able to get the participation of nearly every student, giving each individualized guidance, followed by a sharing of the lessons learned with each problem with the rest of the class. Since many of the students had similar difficulties with the problems, working with one helped me realize what stumbling blocks might arise for others.
Except for an inverse function problem, whose terminology I was unsure about, I was able to answer all the students’ questions, and did not embarrass myself as I had feared. They shared with me their fears, phobias, and gripes about math exams, the math portion of the Praxis (which several of them were preparing to take), the despised class text, and their infamous prof. I tutored them through the semester, becoming their friend, coach, and in some cases chauffer.
Once, the Prof came by our study room, and the normal banter of the group stopped. A couple of the students cozied up to her, trying to make her feel important. Then Jameelah introduced us. With an icy cold glare, she returned my greeting, but just barely. After a few minutes, she left, with a flippant “Looks like y’all got it under control.”
At the end of the semester, Jameelah received an "A" in the class; at least two others in our small study group got "A's" and "B's;" and nearly everyone brought up their grades significantly. I was very proud of them. They thanked me in many different ways. Pat, another returning student, sent me a gift basket and a card as a token of appreciation. Chantal asked for my help with a summer stat class (which, alas, I declined, because of an intense summer class I was taking), and put me in touch with her nephews and nieces, who also needed tutoring. John, a sharp, young, engineering major invited me to his birthday barbeque. All the students tried to pay me as a token of appreciation. I refused, since it was they who had done all the hard work, and they who had helped me, giving me the opportunity to share my knowledge. As Malcolm said, "Each one, teach one."
Wednesday, June 5, 2002
And the Mullah's Voice Droned On:
The Story of an Afghan Holocaust
In 1987-1989, I visited the Afghan refugee camps of Munda Pul, Jalozai, Akora Khattak, and Pabi, near Peshawar, as well as others near Chitral. Conditions were bad in the camps, and almost every refugee to whom I spoke expressed the common sentiment of wanting to return home to their beloved Afghanistan, where everything was better. At that time, most of these refugees were at least somewhat confident that they would indeed one day return home. Today, there remain 2 – 3 million Afghans in refugee camps. What remains of the beautiful homeland to which they dreamt of returning, is unrecognizable after three months of U.S. bombing, far beyond the war-ravaged product of ten years of Russian imperialist war, which yet exhibited some signs of infrastructure. Today’s Afghanistan is reminescent of Cambodia in the horrors which have been visited upon it by both the U.S. and U.S.S.R., completely devoid of infrastructure and incapable of supporting its population. Indeed its landscape has been so disfigured by war that returning to it is a dangerous if not unlikely proposition. Both the U.S. and Russia are guilty of war crimes against Afghanistan. The country is in dire need of rebuilding. One obvious way to rebuild the country, without reducing it to the status of perpetual slavery to the World Bank and other cut throats, is for the parties responsible for its destruction to pay reparations. In an epoch purportedly governed by International Laws, Geneva Conventions, War Crimes Tribunals, and United Nations mediation, why then are reparations not in the offing?
One of my most vivid recollections of the camp is of one Friday (in the summer of 1988), when I tried to attend juma’a prayers at the little mud mosque in the camp. I was peeved because I was excluded from attending. Women didn’t go to the mosque for prayer, my hosts apologetically told me. To dispute this was to invite accusations that one was communist (recall that this was during a period of forced Soviet-style “emancipation”). Only communists advocated such outlandish things as women in the mosque. Finally the Friday prayer was over, and the men should have been on their way home. But, for some reason, the mullah’s voice droned on. I was getting impatient. And he was reciting names. Children’s names. The list was long. I counted fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen....twenty-three children were named. How nice, I thought, he must be reciting the names of all the children who finished the Qur’an, or who had won some Islamic contest, as they did at the posh mosque I attended in White Oak, Maryland.
Suddenly there came a sound of sobbing from the neighboring compound. Then further away, in the distance, a wailing became apparent. Sensing my confusion, the elder of the household, who had stayed home from the Friday prayer due to illness, came to my rescue: “The imam is reading the names of the children who have died in our camp this week,” he told me solemnly. “Zamana karab ast,”—it is a bad time—he said, echoing the words of dozens of refugees whom I met. It was a particularly difficult time for the children, he continued, growing up in the refugee camp. Beautiful Afghan children, dead from malaria, T.B., hepatitis, diarrhea, rickets, or generalized malnutrition. The refugee camp was no longer a refuge, but a mass grave for the children of the mujahideen and the mohajireen.
The children were trying to memorize their lessons for the day, as I sat trying to learn my Dari lesson. It was very hot and humid as we sat in the courtyard outside the “bedroom,” a single room mud structure which functioned variously as sleeping quarters, living room, and storage area. We sat underneath the shade created by some overhanging branches thrown over the mud house as a makeshift roof, the sweat dripping from our backs and from our brows, our backs tingling with heat rash. Large, buzzing, biting flies kept settling on the children, as they tried diligently to recite their lessons. I kept swatting at them, only to have them return a few moments later. But the children kept at their lessons with admirable persistence. A few yards away, a baby slept on a small mat on the ground in the courtyard where we were studying. Her mother worked hard kneeding dough for the afternoon meal a few feet away in the makeshift kitchen. When I looked again, the baby’s body was covered with flies. Horrified, I jumped up and shooed them away. The baby, Malalai, became to me a metaphor for Afghanistan. Sweet, naive, innocent, with no animosity for anyone, she is preyed upon by the American and Russian parasites who wish to drink her life blood, in the form of oil, natural gas, and mineral resources.
Afghans love their children. In a country full of widows and orphans, it was next to impossible (at the time of my visit, although this may have changed due to the desperate conditions arising after the U.S. bombing) to locate an Afghan child for adoption, as even those who had lost parents were immediately taken in by their extended family. Truly it is a society in which the aphorism “It takes a village to raise child,” comes to life. In 2001, when the Taliban were approached by the United Nations representatives who wanted to refurbish the Buddhist statues in Bamiyan province, they asked the U.N. reps if they might take a fraction of the money to feed hungry Afghan children. The U.N. response was a point blank "NO." No money to feed the children who cannot sleep at night because they are so hungry; whose viscera risk permanent damage from malnutrition; whose entrails are running out of them in fatal diarrhea; but plenty of money to repair statues. Just as in the U.S., the dogs and cats of the rich have more access to everything from toothpaste to surgery than do the children of the poor in most Third World countries.
In response to this categoric denial of their humanity, and anguished at the impending death of tens of thousands of Afghan children, the Taliban, angry and frustrated, decided to destroy the Buddhist statues. The mentality which cavalierly dismisses the impending death of Afghan and Iraqi children is the same mentality which cuts school lunches for impoverished children in America’s inner cities, and evicts welfare mothers for the misdemenors of their family members, while funding ventures like, in the words of Gil Scott-Heron, “Whitey on the moon.”
Recently, an expatriate Afghan sculptor was given much kudos in the U.S. press when he announced his intentions of returning to “liberated” Afghanistan to refurbish the largest of the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. He melodramatically told the tale of his escape from Afghanistan as the Taliban came to power, and how he had tearfully smashed his own sculptures himself before fleeing the country, so that the Taliban might not get their hands on them. He declared that he would not restore the smaller statues, so that the nation might never forget the barbaric nature of the Taliban. Immediately, numerous pro-zionist organizations jumped to his assistance with promises of funding.
Let’s think about this: the original statues have already been destroyed by the Taliban. Much of the country is starving, due to the combined effects of severe weather, war, and apathy on part of the world community. But hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to be spent on making a copy of a Buddha statue, whose very value was in its antiquity, never mind the five million Afghan people who face starvation. Clear as mud.
Recently, the U.S. press lauded the first celebration of Nowruz (New Year) in “Free” Afghanistan. For the first time since the Taliban’s rise to power, the people could finally dance, prance, and yes—drink in the streets with complete abandon. The media seemed to overlook the minor detail that Afghanistan is a predominantly Muslim country, and Nowruz, haram under Islamic law, is a Zorastrian holiday not celebrated by most Afghans. Ramadan, on the other hand, is recognized and celebrated by the vast majority of Afghans. Indeed the importance of this holy month, central to Afghan tradition, was recognized by the U.S. government—with some of the heaviest bomb tonnage dropped on a country in modern history. Sort of like bombing New York or Washington on Christmas Day. As for the liberating celebrations of Nowruz, I’d venture that most of the folks celebrating that holiday might be Karzai’s homies, part of the democratic government that George Dubya “put in.”
It has been ten years since the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, and not a word about reparations for the incredible war crimes committed by the Red Army in that country. What exempts the Russians from paying reparations to a people against whom they perpetuated every possible atrocity, from the near universal distribution of landmines, to killing, jailing, and torture of the civilian population, and widespread use of chemical and biological agents?
What off U.S. violations of international law in Afghanistan: bombing and decimation of whole villages and cities; destruction of hospitals, relief centers, and food supply lines; cold-blooded murder of 4,000 Afghan civilians by U.S. estimates (with independent local media estimates placing the civilian death toll as high as 60,000); and more landmines to add to the existing Soviet ones. For that matter, the U.S. has to date presented no evidence to the World Court at the Hague, against Osama (r.a.), the putative puppeteer behind 9-11. Who, in truth, is the war criminal?
Does none of this warrant reparations? Or perhaps reparations, like holocausts, Nobel Peace prizes, and suffering, are the domain of one and only one privileged group?
In the camps, and in Afghanistan herself, the mullah is reading a longer and longer list of children’s names each Friday—dead not just from malnutrition and diarrhea, but from daisycutters, cruise missiles, and American landmines to augment with the Soviet ones.
One of my most vivid recollections of the camp is of one Friday (in the summer of 1988), when I tried to attend juma’a prayers at the little mud mosque in the camp. I was peeved because I was excluded from attending. Women didn’t go to the mosque for prayer, my hosts apologetically told me. To dispute this was to invite accusations that one was communist (recall that this was during a period of forced Soviet-style “emancipation”). Only communists advocated such outlandish things as women in the mosque. Finally the Friday prayer was over, and the men should have been on their way home. But, for some reason, the mullah’s voice droned on. I was getting impatient. And he was reciting names. Children’s names. The list was long. I counted fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen....twenty-three children were named. How nice, I thought, he must be reciting the names of all the children who finished the Qur’an, or who had won some Islamic contest, as they did at the posh mosque I attended in White Oak, Maryland.
Suddenly there came a sound of sobbing from the neighboring compound. Then further away, in the distance, a wailing became apparent. Sensing my confusion, the elder of the household, who had stayed home from the Friday prayer due to illness, came to my rescue: “The imam is reading the names of the children who have died in our camp this week,” he told me solemnly. “Zamana karab ast,”—it is a bad time—he said, echoing the words of dozens of refugees whom I met. It was a particularly difficult time for the children, he continued, growing up in the refugee camp. Beautiful Afghan children, dead from malaria, T.B., hepatitis, diarrhea, rickets, or generalized malnutrition. The refugee camp was no longer a refuge, but a mass grave for the children of the mujahideen and the mohajireen.
The children were trying to memorize their lessons for the day, as I sat trying to learn my Dari lesson. It was very hot and humid as we sat in the courtyard outside the “bedroom,” a single room mud structure which functioned variously as sleeping quarters, living room, and storage area. We sat underneath the shade created by some overhanging branches thrown over the mud house as a makeshift roof, the sweat dripping from our backs and from our brows, our backs tingling with heat rash. Large, buzzing, biting flies kept settling on the children, as they tried diligently to recite their lessons. I kept swatting at them, only to have them return a few moments later. But the children kept at their lessons with admirable persistence. A few yards away, a baby slept on a small mat on the ground in the courtyard where we were studying. Her mother worked hard kneeding dough for the afternoon meal a few feet away in the makeshift kitchen. When I looked again, the baby’s body was covered with flies. Horrified, I jumped up and shooed them away. The baby, Malalai, became to me a metaphor for Afghanistan. Sweet, naive, innocent, with no animosity for anyone, she is preyed upon by the American and Russian parasites who wish to drink her life blood, in the form of oil, natural gas, and mineral resources.
Afghans love their children. In a country full of widows and orphans, it was next to impossible (at the time of my visit, although this may have changed due to the desperate conditions arising after the U.S. bombing) to locate an Afghan child for adoption, as even those who had lost parents were immediately taken in by their extended family. Truly it is a society in which the aphorism “It takes a village to raise child,” comes to life. In 2001, when the Taliban were approached by the United Nations representatives who wanted to refurbish the Buddhist statues in Bamiyan province, they asked the U.N. reps if they might take a fraction of the money to feed hungry Afghan children. The U.N. response was a point blank "NO." No money to feed the children who cannot sleep at night because they are so hungry; whose viscera risk permanent damage from malnutrition; whose entrails are running out of them in fatal diarrhea; but plenty of money to repair statues. Just as in the U.S., the dogs and cats of the rich have more access to everything from toothpaste to surgery than do the children of the poor in most Third World countries.
In response to this categoric denial of their humanity, and anguished at the impending death of tens of thousands of Afghan children, the Taliban, angry and frustrated, decided to destroy the Buddhist statues. The mentality which cavalierly dismisses the impending death of Afghan and Iraqi children is the same mentality which cuts school lunches for impoverished children in America’s inner cities, and evicts welfare mothers for the misdemenors of their family members, while funding ventures like, in the words of Gil Scott-Heron, “Whitey on the moon.”
Recently, an expatriate Afghan sculptor was given much kudos in the U.S. press when he announced his intentions of returning to “liberated” Afghanistan to refurbish the largest of the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. He melodramatically told the tale of his escape from Afghanistan as the Taliban came to power, and how he had tearfully smashed his own sculptures himself before fleeing the country, so that the Taliban might not get their hands on them. He declared that he would not restore the smaller statues, so that the nation might never forget the barbaric nature of the Taliban. Immediately, numerous pro-zionist organizations jumped to his assistance with promises of funding.
Let’s think about this: the original statues have already been destroyed by the Taliban. Much of the country is starving, due to the combined effects of severe weather, war, and apathy on part of the world community. But hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to be spent on making a copy of a Buddha statue, whose very value was in its antiquity, never mind the five million Afghan people who face starvation. Clear as mud.
Recently, the U.S. press lauded the first celebration of Nowruz (New Year) in “Free” Afghanistan. For the first time since the Taliban’s rise to power, the people could finally dance, prance, and yes—drink in the streets with complete abandon. The media seemed to overlook the minor detail that Afghanistan is a predominantly Muslim country, and Nowruz, haram under Islamic law, is a Zorastrian holiday not celebrated by most Afghans. Ramadan, on the other hand, is recognized and celebrated by the vast majority of Afghans. Indeed the importance of this holy month, central to Afghan tradition, was recognized by the U.S. government—with some of the heaviest bomb tonnage dropped on a country in modern history. Sort of like bombing New York or Washington on Christmas Day. As for the liberating celebrations of Nowruz, I’d venture that most of the folks celebrating that holiday might be Karzai’s homies, part of the democratic government that George Dubya “put in.”
It has been ten years since the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, and not a word about reparations for the incredible war crimes committed by the Red Army in that country. What exempts the Russians from paying reparations to a people against whom they perpetuated every possible atrocity, from the near universal distribution of landmines, to killing, jailing, and torture of the civilian population, and widespread use of chemical and biological agents?
What off U.S. violations of international law in Afghanistan: bombing and decimation of whole villages and cities; destruction of hospitals, relief centers, and food supply lines; cold-blooded murder of 4,000 Afghan civilians by U.S. estimates (with independent local media estimates placing the civilian death toll as high as 60,000); and more landmines to add to the existing Soviet ones. For that matter, the U.S. has to date presented no evidence to the World Court at the Hague, against Osama (r.a.), the putative puppeteer behind 9-11. Who, in truth, is the war criminal?
Does none of this warrant reparations? Or perhaps reparations, like holocausts, Nobel Peace prizes, and suffering, are the domain of one and only one privileged group?
In the camps, and in Afghanistan herself, the mullah is reading a longer and longer list of children’s names each Friday—dead not just from malnutrition and diarrhea, but from daisycutters, cruise missiles, and American landmines to augment with the Soviet ones.
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