Politics over Shisha. Cliche much?
The politics of the Middle East are so much more complex than I think we can appreciate back home. Here, for instance, I have learned that homosexuality is absolutely rejected socially, that Israel is viscerally unpopular, and the overall response to the subject of honor killings is abhorrent, but also resigned.
One of my new friends, with very little prompting, made a point to tell me that Arabs hate Osama bin Laden and explained that Arabs hate Osama like Germans hate Hitler. That Osama can't have been Muslim because the proscriptions of Islam do not leave room for violence. My host went on to vent that his life as a globetrotting Arab man has been irrevocably altered and that he gets stopped in airports more often than he doesn't. It was a laid back conversation, but there was an air of apology, or at the very least I felt as though he were trying to convince me that we were on the same side.
I tried my best to assuage his suspicions of my own suspicions. I told him that from my perspective, 9/11 scared us all in a way that was really hard for even the most self-possessed and reflective to understand. I get why fear motivates hatred of race, religious practices and faith systems, of entire nationalities. They are ugly parts of humanity, and many of the nuances are beyond me, and the actions these hatreds are motivated by break my heart into a million pieces, but I do understand. On my best days I think I can find nearly as much compassion for the actors as I do their victims. Terror begets terror and all that. And there I was, learning to inhale shisha properly (from the chest, people) and trying to dance delicately through a conversation where both parties felt guilt that was completely undeserved. Him feeling guilty for the vicious act of a man he had never met, and I for the trespasses of people, the responsibility of which would never be mine.
I know it's the worst kind of cliche to say that 9/11 changed everything, but if I'm having this conversation, 10+ years later, with a man that has lived his life two whole continents away from me, I think the hard truth is that it did.
And not just for Americans. As viscerally patriotic as that day made us, it did not solely belong to us. An event of that magnitude is inherited by the world. The onus is felt around the world, it seems, to protect against that manifestation of evil.
I know this for the following reason: I was watching TV in my hotel room (Arab Idol is just as hilarious as American Idol by the way, and it turns out there is no language barrier when you're watching crap TV) and a commercial came on. The scene is dirty, dark and smacked of film noir. A man stands at street level to a subway stair case and falls. Silently, and in slow motion he hits the stairs, breaks limbs, slices open his face and falls into a disjointed heap at the bottom. It feels a little like an anti-drug ad a health teacher showed me in high school, but then a turbaned, Sikh emerges in all black at the top of the stairwell, looks at the heap at the bottom, then throws the end of his turban over his face before turning away. I was confused until I saw the only english in the add - a website address: www.stopterrornow.com -
It would behouve us to recognize that constitution or no, right and wrong is universal. And the Team America model is antiquated. That everything is inherited, and we are responsible for one another.
There, have I completely shifted your outlook? No? You just think I'm full of shit and pixie dust? Oh, ok.
One of my new friends, with very little prompting, made a point to tell me that Arabs hate Osama bin Laden and explained that Arabs hate Osama like Germans hate Hitler. That Osama can't have been Muslim because the proscriptions of Islam do not leave room for violence. My host went on to vent that his life as a globetrotting Arab man has been irrevocably altered and that he gets stopped in airports more often than he doesn't. It was a laid back conversation, but there was an air of apology, or at the very least I felt as though he were trying to convince me that we were on the same side.
I tried my best to assuage his suspicions of my own suspicions. I told him that from my perspective, 9/11 scared us all in a way that was really hard for even the most self-possessed and reflective to understand. I get why fear motivates hatred of race, religious practices and faith systems, of entire nationalities. They are ugly parts of humanity, and many of the nuances are beyond me, and the actions these hatreds are motivated by break my heart into a million pieces, but I do understand. On my best days I think I can find nearly as much compassion for the actors as I do their victims. Terror begets terror and all that. And there I was, learning to inhale shisha properly (from the chest, people) and trying to dance delicately through a conversation where both parties felt guilt that was completely undeserved. Him feeling guilty for the vicious act of a man he had never met, and I for the trespasses of people, the responsibility of which would never be mine.
I know it's the worst kind of cliche to say that 9/11 changed everything, but if I'm having this conversation, 10+ years later, with a man that has lived his life two whole continents away from me, I think the hard truth is that it did.
And not just for Americans. As viscerally patriotic as that day made us, it did not solely belong to us. An event of that magnitude is inherited by the world. The onus is felt around the world, it seems, to protect against that manifestation of evil.
I know this for the following reason: I was watching TV in my hotel room (Arab Idol is just as hilarious as American Idol by the way, and it turns out there is no language barrier when you're watching crap TV) and a commercial came on. The scene is dirty, dark and smacked of film noir. A man stands at street level to a subway stair case and falls. Silently, and in slow motion he hits the stairs, breaks limbs, slices open his face and falls into a disjointed heap at the bottom. It feels a little like an anti-drug ad a health teacher showed me in high school, but then a turbaned, Sikh emerges in all black at the top of the stairwell, looks at the heap at the bottom, then throws the end of his turban over his face before turning away. I was confused until I saw the only english in the add - a website address: www.stopterrornow.com -
It would behouve us to recognize that constitution or no, right and wrong is universal. And the Team America model is antiquated. That everything is inherited, and we are responsible for one another.
There, have I completely shifted your outlook? No? You just think I'm full of shit and pixie dust? Oh, ok.
Comments
Post a Comment