Uncle Tariq worshipped his God every day at a Mosque in Kirkuk and worshipped the earth through his love for nature as he walked each morning in the mountains. At first I couldn’t believe that he would get up every day at 4 a.m., put on his hiking gear and drive 30 minutes to a national park that was the entrance to several hiking paths into the Zagros Mountains. One day, due to my inability to sleep and out of sheer curiosity, I decided to go with him.
“Are you sure you want to come with me?” he asked as he laced up his hiking boots. “The trails are pretty challenging.”
I nodded, still half asleep and answered, “I want to see what you see.”
“Do you really?” he answered. “Curiosity killed the cat. Isn’t that another of your sayings? You are too young to see what I see, nor would I want you to see everything that I see. Life needs to unfold for you in stages, through joy and suffering that is the only way we truly see. But this day you can come and we’ll see if we can’t add to your experiences.”
As the sun rose over the mountains, I could tell that he thoroughly enjoyed my company but seemed fearful that I would not have the same respect for the land that he found to be so special. He spoke in a reverent whisper and was careful to introduce me to the mountain and almost waited for me and his special friend to recognize and accept each other. When I stopped and looked and listened, I could feel the power of the earth and the wind and the smells and I was humbled by the vast beauty of the rugged terrain. By the look on his face, I could see that Uncle Tariq was not totally convinced, but was pleased, so I thought that I must be gaining acceptance by his invisible friend. I wanted more than anything to be fully welcomed into his world. As we walked, he never stopped talking, still with a soft tone. I listened, afraid to ruin the moment with the sound of my inexperienced and naive voice. He seemed to know every inch of the mountain, including every indigenous plant, rock, bird and reptile. He was interrupted several times by sounds from the mountains, once by shrill laughter from a distant valley. “Hyenas,” he explained. “They’re warning us to stay away, even though they wouldn’t hurt us, but they certainly would eat us if we were wounded or dead. They’re more afraid that we would hurt them, or perhaps steal whatever bit of snake or deer they might be munching. Beautiful, misunderstood animal, the hyena, the ultimate in survivors. ”
As we came to an intermediate summit, he looked over the panoramas with pride as a father would look back at his children and grandchildren, knowing that his seed was a part of it all.
“This is the beginning of all civilization,” he said as we looked from the mountains toward the river he pointed out to be the Tigris. “It all began here. You have probably read in your Bible about the Garden of Eden and the ancient empires of Babylon and Mesopotamia. Right now they’re all in your backyard. Everywhere you look you will see history. Go dig in that field or any field and you will find an artifact from an ancient civilization, the remnants of kings. The dust of Iraq is the dried bones and architectural columns of at least 8,000 years. We can trace our ancestors back over 7000 years.” He shuddered as he connected the past with the present. “Unfortunately, Saddam Hussein has now mixed into the soil the bones of innocent men and women, desecrating our sacred land. If the fields around Baghdad or Takrit could talk, they would be screaming of murder and crying for vengeance. I don’t know why we can’t live in peace.”
He collected himself and then asked, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I’ve told you about my country now I’m curious about yours. How much do you know about your ancestors in America, maybe one or two generations, three if you’ve done a little research?”
I shook my head to indicate I didn’t know.
“You don’t think it’s important? To know where you come from?”
“Of course it’s important, our country is just not as old as yours,” I answered.
“Was it created at a different time?” He asked.
“No, we just inhabited it later. Our generations came from all over the world. You know that. My mom is from here and my dad’s relatives came from Lithuania.”
“What about America, your mountains, the earth that makes up your country.”
I shook my head to tell him that I didn’t know.
“Why don’t you know? Does your government know?”
Once again I shook my head to tell him I didn’t know. Frustrated, I asked, “Why do you care so much about the history of the land? It’s the people that are important, not the land. That’s one of the reasons that I am here to learn where I have come from.”
“You are wrong! The land is important. Here in the Middle East it is everything. Allah gave us this land and we will die to protect it.”
“We love our land in America, but we don’t think of it as holy.”
“That is because of your guilt.”
I was stunned by his bluntness.
“Are you still happy you came here?” he asked.
I didn’t hesitate in answering, “Yes, I feel at home here.”
He smiled, “You have done the right thing to come here. I can tell you our lineage back 2,000 years, unfortunately no royalty, but a lot of farmers.”
“How was the heritage preserved?” I asked.
“My father told me and all of his children, including your mother, and his father told him and they wrote it down in journals so that we could know our roots. You see, there’s a very big difference between the Iraqi and American cultures and what we both understand to be important. The Iraqi people have always been less inclined toward economics and more focused on family and spiritualism. Many say that that has been our downfall. As we continued in the deep traditions of our religion and family, many nations think we have missed the boat and let the other nations out-develop us. This is half of what’s inside you. Is this what you were taught?”
“Kind of, you know it was more like the Western nations are progressive and many of the Eastern nations are “third world” or backwards. You know, a lot of pictures contrasting our big cities with your tents and camels.”
“Come sit over here,” he said as he pointed to a large flat stone that gave a nice view of the fertile lands around the Tigris. “Let me give you a little different perspective and this may sound harsh, but Capitalism is a worm that eats everything away, but the desire to make money. The United States may have wealth, but that’s all it has and when that is gone, they will have nothing.” He waited for me to react. “A little too rough?” he asked.
“A little rough,” I replied. “But don’t you think you should wait until I have my first job and take advantage of some third world Philippinos or Indonesians before you start lecturing me on how greedy I am.”
He laughed out loud and said, “we’d better get moving or I’ll be late for work.”
“And who are you making all that money for at your refinery?” I asked. “Would it be better to make it for yourself or Mr. Hussein?”
He didn’t like my question, so he didn’t answer. I began to feel bad because I had been disrespectful. We continued back toward the car and he didn’t speak for several minutes. Finally, a new series of thoughts entered his mind. “Do you believe in evolution?”
“I guess,” I answered not knowing where he was going with the question.
“If you believe in evolution, which the devout Muslim shouldn’t even speak of, you might ascertain that our oil deposits are from the decay of thousands of dinosaurs, another civilization that predated our ancestors. Do you believe that our oil is all the remnants of dinosaurs?”
“That’s what we’re taught, but I’ve never really given it a second thought. I’m interested though, do you believe in evolution?”
He scratched his head trying to think of a discrete answer, but before he could speak, I continued.
“If you don’t believe in evolution, then how do you explain your oil and modern medicine?”
“I didn’t say that I didn’t believe,
you mustn’t jump to conclusions, what I believe is my own business. I said that most Muslims won’t talk of it, I’ll talk about anything, that is, as long as I’m in the right company.” He patted me on the shoulder, then continued, “You have to understand that most Muslims do not think the same as Westerners and will not even talk about some subjects. I was educated in the West, so I know how your little mind works.”
“Hey,” I objected. “You’re forgetting who has the nuclear bomb.”
“Does that make you smarter than us or just more aggressive?”
I didn’t answer.
“Don’t you think that we could have a nuclear bomb if we thought it more important than our moral and spiritual obligation to Allah?”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Let me teach you the way we think. Most Muslims don’t need an explanation for evolution or nuclear bombs or whatever, because we are living for the next life, which we know will be a life of paradise. But in my opinion, the failure to demand explanations gives us both strength and great weakness, because when you don’t ask, you remain ignorant. The strength of ignorance gives Iraqis peace and allows a deep restful sleep, but never questioning allows this people to be manipulated by evil men and led like sheep to the slaughter. But between you and me and the stones under our feet, your Uncle Tariq is not this way. I think that we should question everything. Part of Iraq’s problem is that we are sometimes blinded by this faith of ours and gain a false security from our knowledge of eternal salvation.”
“That sounds like our fundamental Christians.”
“It’s really not that different. Our people aren’t that different but the cultures and traditions we are steeped in are.”
As we continued toward the car, Uncle Tariq caught me with a goofy look on my face.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked.
“I’m chuckling at your philosophy.”
He smiled back. “We are all philosophers. You’ll get an education here, if you stay long enough. And it will be something that you could never learn from a book, or from your fancy private schools. Our people here in Iraq are highly educated, but we live very simple lives. We are not behind the times; we are in sync with time and what we believe. We don’t force time by trying to accelerate it for our own gain. The Western world seems to be in a race to see who can accumulate the most at the expense of everything that we hold dear. What you will find is that our focus is first on Allah, and then on family. Wealth has a much lower priority for us than the average American. But I’m speaking about our people; I can make no excuses for our government which is worse than anything you have experienced in America. Not only does our dictator Saddam Hussein ruin the earth, he ruins the people, he kills his own people and uses them for his own purpose. A dictator like Saddam Hussein is like a cancer that first destroys within and then brings death to the body, but you can never repeat these words in Iraq, because the stones have ears and you will disappear like the thousands of others.”
As we drove back from the mountain, we were both quiet. Finally, he turned and looked at me. “Did you learn anything today?”
I smiled and nodded and asked, “4 a.m. tomorrow?”
“4 a.m. tomorrow,” he repeated.
Chapter 3
Uncle Tariq lived with my Aunt Sonda, a beautiful dark haired woman who, when she removed her black veil, looked about 35 years old. She had magnificent garnet colored eyes that peered through the opening in her veil and sparkled like priceless jewels. She had a softness of spirit that immediately embraced me as one of her very own children and our kindred hearts soon brought me warmth that I had never felt with my own mother. Aunt Sonda was a small woman, only about 5 feet 2 inches tall and I would guess, barely 100 pounds. She wore no make-up, perfume or even deodorant and did not shave either her legs or arm-pits. I first saw traces of her body hair, when she dressed more casually in the evenings within the confines of her home. At first I thought this to be fairly disgusting, but soon my Western prejudice was subdued by her natural beauty and her natural smell that was anything but offensive. She had a quiet demeanor that was curious, without asking, and seemed almost fearful to know about my life and my freedoms in America. I later learned that it was considered rude for an Iraqi woman to be assertive with guests and to ask questions about their heritage, although I could tell that when I was talking to Uncle Tariq, she was always within earshot. She had three children who all spoke fluent English as well as Farsi and Arabic. Their names from youngest to eldest were Islee, Mujeeb and Ravindra. The two boys were married and lived away from home, Ravindra in Baghdad and Mujeeb in Takrit. The only girl, Islee, a 13 year old, lived at home. Both of their sons were engineers. Ravindra worked in a government owned chemical facility and Mujeeb taught at the University of Baghdad. Islee was completely taken with me and looked at me as if I had dropped in from another planet and had all the answers to set her free from everything she hated about the primitive ways of her culture. The day after I arrived, she abandoned her friends and followed me around like a lost puppy. She apparently didn’t regard Aunt Sonda’s beliefs of non-inquiry and asked me questions about everything, similar to a 3 year old asking why? why? why? At first I thought her pesky and obnoxious, but I never had a kid sister and she soon began to grow on me. By the time I left Iraq, she was becoming more than a cousin, she was becoming a very close friend. Islee was taller than her mother, about 5 feet 5 inches tall with long jet black hair and a beautiful figure, which was mostly filled out in the bust and hips and, to my surprise, cleanly shaven legs. I was amazed by how quickly she picked up many of my mannerisms and remembered the things I told her, almost as if she went over them again and again in her mind, like she was practicing for some kind of recital. Her parents made her wear the black Abaya (which she hated), but she was quick to show me that underneath she had on a pair of Calvin Klein designer jeans and a Liz Claiborne designer top and underneath that fashionable panties and bra. She was most interested in all the freedoms and liberties in America. Most of her questions were about American schools, shopping and American boys. The concept of variety and abundance seemed to boggle her mind.
“So, you can just go into town and there are stores that are filled with whatever you want?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” I answered.
“Let’s say I wanted a pair of Levis, a Ralph Lauren top, a pink thong, some Birkenstock shoes and some White Linen perfume, could I find them all in one store?”
I hit her on the shoulder, “What would you want with a pink thong?”
“You never know,” she giggled.
“Okay, I’m going to forget that I heard that. If we went to a nice sized mall, we could find all that and more. You could choose from a hundred different pairs of jeans, a zillion tops, more perfumes than I know and any color thong your little butt could handle.”
“Hey, it’s not that little.”
“Islee, you worry me.”
“Could I buy it all at one store?”
“Yup, well there might be a few stores, but they would all be at the same mall.”
Aunt Sonda was eavesdropping and smiling at our conversation, apparently not knowing the details of American lingerie. Islee caught her glance and with a whiny voice she said, “I want to live in America.”
Aunt Sonda rolled her eyes and answered, “Perhaps one day you can visit your cousin.”
Islee waited until her mother was out of earshot before asking about boys. She loved that in America there were no curfews and that boys and girls could openly date and make-out and even have pre-marital sex. Her attitude worried me because I sensed that she knew more than a 13 year old should know about the subject.
I tried to explain to her that everything was not perfect in America and that we had our share of crime and sexually transmitted diseases, but as I talked about growing up in New Haven and some of the parties and dances, she looked at me starry eyed as if I had been to heaven and was describing the pearly gates and the
streets paved with gold. She tried to grasp the phrase I shared with her, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” but I guess if I lived in a desert, without grass or fences I might have a hard time understanding it, too.
I came to love my cousin and spent endless hours exchanging information on our two very different cultures, even though she was much less enthusiastic about sharing with me her life, which she thought quite dull. I was most curious why my cousin owned the same name as my mother, but Islee didn’t know, so I asked my Aunt Sonda who seemed bothered by the question, but reluctantly explained.
“Your uncle and your mother were once inseparable when they were growing up and they promised each other that they would name a child after each other. He was true to his word and when we had a little girl, he insisted that we name her Islee so he could remember his big sister.”
It took me awhile to absorb what she was saying, so there was a very pregnant pause. “You make it sound like their relationship ended.”
“This is not for me to discuss.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist Page 12