Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  “Come and join us over here,” Emily called out to them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dimitri Schulkin introduced his wife Vika to Emily, who in turn repeated the formality to her friends. She immediately noticed hesitancy on behalf of the Africans and thought this was very unusual. Ibo people pride themselves on friendship and hospitality. It’s a similarity they share with Arabic people. It is literally an “any friend of yours is a friend of mine” culture and she was, to say the least taken aback by their overt coldness.

  Vika was polite and not too talkative. Before long the conversation at the table returned to politics, the Viet Nam conflict and racism in the United States. Clearly this was an issue that the Russians should not have gotten into and before too long the Africans were saying that Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University, named for the president killed in a coup staged by the Americans, which had opened its doors only nine years ago was now the premier training ground for terrorists. This held potential for world-wide consequences, far greater than any civil rights issues within the United States. Emily was amazed at how pro-American her friends were. She had always believed that their race would undoubtedly make them cognizant of the problems of all people of color in America. The American civil rights movement was, she believed, a model for the oppressed all over the world. She was horrified at their dissent.

  Feeling an obligation towards the Russians due to the coldness shown them by the Africans, she invited them, as they were leaving the club, to her home for a cheese and wine party the following week.

  “You know, Emily,” said Mike Otu, “those people are not who you think they are.”

  “Meaning?” she asked, as she ordered more drinks.

  “Mike,” said Rose to her husband, “Emily does not understand how things really work here.”

  “Rose, it is time Emily knew what is really going on in this city, and on all university campuses for that matter. Emily, you are very trusting, but this fellow Schulkin is obviously a recruiter for the Russians. Just as Ulrike Meinhof, who may have an understanding of the ‘new left’ is on the payroll of the Soviets and has been for years. This isn’t western propaganda, it’s the truth. At this point in time we, the radical thinkers, the new professionals, the ex-students who are not quite establishment are a hot commodity. We are young, don’t you see that? We are the future. These old geezers fighting the Reds who are fighting the Capitalists, who are fighting God knows who else are just playing the greatest game of all. They are using us, and we can stop them if we want to by not joining in. The Reds are paying the Meinhofs of this world to recruit. The Americans are doing the same thing, so are the British, and God knows, so are the Israelis. But with them, they lease you for life. These fellows even pay for your education if you give them the right line. Look around you. Look in here. The guy over there, the American, that short guy with the beard who looks African, his name is Randolph Pritchett. He’s CIA. He’s attached to the Embassy in Frankfurt. He’s always around asking questions pretending to be ‘radical black brother.’ Look over there at the girl Billie Davidson, she’s bi-racial Black and Jewish. The girl is supposed to be a student. Again, CIA with definite Israeli leanings. She’s gathering information on students with Palestinian sympathies while passing off as a leftist. The other guy with the long braid, of course, they know him as Cochise, naturally! Bloody hypocrite. His name is Bobby Fox. He is supposed to be a member of AIM, the American Indian Movement, by way of the United States Army. Fox is Military Intelligence. Why is he here? He is watching us. The few Native Americans that we know call him Uncle Tomahawk.”

  “You know, Emily,” he continued, ordering another round of drinks, “We are arranging a tour of speakers at the Union. We have Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver, Russell Means and Dennis Banks all coming here within the next few months to speak at various student locations, starting with Berlin. They don’t realize we just want the information to process for ourselves. We do not have to join them. We just want to learn. But you see, we are people of influence and the establishment is afraid of that. We are not stupid. I am telling you Emily, these Russians are probably intelligence officers. Stay out of their way. Be careful. You do not want any involvement with them. You are here on a student visa with the right to work part-time as a delightful add-on. If they are being watched by the German authorities and you along with Ghulam are too active, you will be expelled. I will not be able to help you. I am a rich man, Emily and I love you like a sister. But I cannot help you if you become tainted by them.”

  “Mike, I haven’t done anything but ask them to my home for a cheese and wine party. You’ll be there too, right?”

  “Look Emily we have concerns about Mustafa as well. Not to mention Ghulam. There is something truly insidious about him. I mean, he looks good but there is a fanaticism, a certain coldness about him. He’s not like you, Emily. There’s no laughter there. We have known you for years. We suggested you come to Heidelberg. Our families know each other. Our parents have traded with your family since before we were born. We are all people of Africa. North, South, West, Egypt, Nigeria, it doesn’t matter. We are family. Be careful with them though. They are not like us. There is no happiness in Ghulam. The boy is like a dead fish and Mustafa, his running buddy is malicious.”

  “Alright.” Emily felt very uncomfortable as she left twenty marks for the bar tab and taking her keys from the table, she readied herself for the drive over the Neckar bridge and home.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ghulam and Emily had taken a large and expensive apartment together in nearby Ziegelhausen on Peterstalerstrasse. The apartment, which was on the top floor of a three family house offered them a spectacular view of the Neckar River from a large balcony which was festooned with flowers and plants. Its rent of 750 Deutsche Marks was exorbitant for students or German families at that time, but as both of them were reasonably affluent and were employed it proved no real hardship.

  What was disconcerting for Emily was the omnipresent Mustafa, who came to their home every evening. He would eat with them, often bringing traditional foods, Aushak, Mantu, or Challaw Sabzi all cooked to perfection by the wives of his friends. Each seductive mouthful luring Ghulam into conversation of the old country and the town where they were born. And off they’d go into the Afghan twilight zone, Herat, with its mountains, vineyards, cornfields, sparkling streams and lush green valleys. The pair would eat pomegranates, drinking the juice like it was a fine wine. They would then take turns telling stories of the villages near the town where weavers created fine garments with the dyes found in the many fruits and herbs native to the region.

  After their meal Ghulam and Mustafa would continue to spend hours talking of the bazaars at Herat. The carpets, jewelry, rare tiles, even daggers, and vast stores of armor. All the wonders of the Orient complete with a desert where goat herders searched for their straying animals. A place from which people who either wandered or were led into it never returned. By the end of each evening, Emily would always feel she was an outsider. No matter how she tried to participate, whether by speaking in Arabic, English, German or the Pashto she was rapidly becoming fluent in, her voice was simply not heard. More often than not, Ghulam would look offended at her interruption and Mustafa always seemed mildly amused, with a clear message of one-upmanship in his eyes.

  But Emily was too lost in sentiment and a need to belong to notice the signals, and so she simply nodded her head in compliance and hung on to every word in the hope that she would one day be included.

  When Mustafa was not with them, Ghulam was a different person. He was bright, charming and effervescent, with a love of Europe, its art and its culture. He and Emily, whom he called by her Arabic name, Amina, would walk along the Heidelberg Haupstrasse window shopping. Planning the way their home would look, to eventually buy the “Alte Deutsche” furniture made of rich mahogany with plush couches and chairs upholstered in shades of rust, purple and gold velvet, all of which would accentuate the vividness of the Asian c
arpets they owned. Their apartment was both luxurious and comfortable; their view of the river added to the exotic ambience and as their friends lived very differently, Emily and Ghulam were seldom alone. Gatherings there brought musicians, philosophers and poets, as well as some of the leading political activists of the day, many of whom were typical of the so called “beautiful people” their generation would in decades to come be remembered for.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  On December 10th, 1969 at the party in their apartment, over cheese fondue, kabobs and wine, a heated discussion concerning the deaths of two Black Panther Leaders developed. Fred Hampton and Mark Clark had been gunned down as they slept during a pre-dawn police raid on their West Side apartment. The police had argued their actions were provoked. The Chicago Tribune printed police photographs showing holes allegedly made from bullets fired at law enforcement. Working on a tip, a rival newspaper, The Sun-Times sent a reporter to examine the crime scene and found that the bullet holes were unplastered nail heads. Their headline the following day read, “Those ‘bullet holes’ aren’t.” And so a headline in a newspaper published thousands of miles away caught the attention of the students gathered in an apartment in Ziegelhausen. It was described as one more case of governmental oppression and it fueled the activist fire.

  Mustafa brought three guests with him. A redheaded woman, whose conversation Emily found erratic despite the obvious commitment to radical socialism, spoke of the peoples’ right of self-determination. She was introduced only by her first name and Emily realized this must be the notorious Ulrike Meinhof. She arrived with a couple named Axel and Ingeborg Stadler. Ingeborg worked as a translator for a major American farm machinery company in neighboring Mannheim. Axel on the other hand hated all things American, other than his wife’s pay check and was quite verbal about his anti-American sentiment. Unlike her husband or Mustafa, Ingeborg seemed to be somewhat embarrassed by the fiery rhetoric and the constant critique of Britain and America.

  Rose and Mike Otu, sitting with their friend Osita Udokamma remained calm and tried hard not to comment at all.

  “Sheisse Amerikaners. You see what they do to their own. I will never understand the American Negroes. Why has it taken them so long to retaliate and why do they take to the streets in their own neighborhoods instead of attacking the establishment on its own turf?” Ulrike rationalized, as she poured herself a glass of wine.

  The comment proved too much for Rose, who sipping her wine with one hand and smoothing her black and white traditional robes with the other, smiled and responded. “The reason for what seems to you as a lack of courage is not that simple. They are a people without roots. They do not know who they are. They have no identity. Africans sold them into slavery, perhaps because they were substandard or perhaps they were prisoners of war. It does not matter two hundred years later. What matters is that they are still in pain. A displaced people much like the Jews. But unlike the Jews they have not settled in their new home because it was not their choice to be there. Maybe their hearts call out to Africa. Maybe we hear them. But you see, Africans adapt to change. We bend. We flow. Black Americans don’t know how to do that. They are people in pain. People in pain are not courageous. People in pain are just that.”

  Axel Stadler ignored Rose and like a groupie, he turned to Meinhof, “Ja, Ulli, but look at what the Amerikaners have done in Israel. Every day more of their money goes to the coffers of the verdammte Juden and they continue to bulldoze Arab townships, driving more and more Arabs and Christians away from their homes. Look at what is happening in Palestine, and why? Can you tell me why?”

  Mustafa picked up the conversation. “Why? Because of misplaced colonialism, of course. The British, wishing to avoid a Jewish takeover after World War I gave them Palestine when it wasn’t theirs to give. Who cared about the people that were already there? Nobody did! And while the so called free world felt guilty about the Holocaust in 1945, they decided to let the Zionists, almost all concentration camp survivors crazed by their own captivity, take over the place. The colonials all looked in the other direction. They didn’t want them in their country so they gave them someone else’s. Ancestral homeland! I ask you, what was ancestral about the massacre at Dier Yassin?

  Ingeborg Stadler, listening intently to the conversation, asked the obvious question for the other students, who had at this point had all stopped eating and turned toward Mustafa, who responded willingly now that he had their total attention.

  “On April 9th, 1948 over two hundred and fifty woman and children were butchered by Zionist terrorists in the village of Deir Yassin,” he began, before Emily interrupted.

  “It went a little further back than April, Mustafa. The troubles really exploded the year before,” Emily said with newly found calm and directness. “In the spring of 1947, Palestine was still a British Mandate, that is to say it was still under their control. The Arab people of Palestine believed that they were under British protection. As the conflict between Zionist freedom fighters and the British escalated, Palestinian villagers, who were farmers not fighters, began packing and leaving with their belongings on their backs. Each village they moved to for shelter and hospitality had been pillaged by the Jewish Zionists. Homes were ransacked or razed completely, over and over again. The survivors were frequently held at gunpoint while women were raped before their eyes, and their children slaughtered. At night the new Israelis, this Eastern European trash, would herd any survivors with no possessions of their own to the armistice line between Israel and the West Bank. Then they would shoot over their heads so that the Palestinians would run toward the line. Many of them disappeared forever. Their property, if they were not nomadic, would be sold to more Zionist immigrants to homestead. There was no compensation paid to the Arabs. They were left homeless with nothing. I understand that over ten thousand holocaust victims who had not emigrated to Britain, Argentina, or America went to Palestine. The superpowers at that time had decided that the age old Jewish homelessness, their ‘Diaspora’ could not be resolved by placing newly displaced Jewish persons in better living conditions in host countries. Instead,” she continued, “they needed a nationality. A home of their own. Of course, it had to be Palestine; there was no Talmudic bond with anywhere else. So they, the super powers, the victors of World War II agreed to resettle the Arabs and give the Jews control. The Arabs, who by now mistrusted everyone, began to fight back. When Arab freedom fighters attacked Jewish workers at an oil refinery near Haifa, a Jewish faction retaliated with an explosion in a village killing many women and children. The Jewish terrorists then blew up part of a hotel in the Arab section of Jerusalem which was used by the Arab military. The Arabs cut communication lines, even blockaded roads in their ill equipped battle for survival. Jewish immigrants now found it difficult to travel to their new settlements. They needed protection. They became organized with terrible consequences. All the time the Zionists were receiving money from American Jews to buy arms to take the offensive. Dier Yassin was on the southwest of Jerusalem. The people of the village did not want to take sides. Their mukhtar, their leader or wise man had made that point many times. There was even a non-aggression pact. In the afternoon of April 9th, male and female terrorists of the Irgun and Stern gang attacked the village. They lined up families of men and women, children and babies and shot them. Bodies were found with ears and fingers ripped off, making it easier to remove their gold jewelry. They shoved the survivors into trucks and rode through the Jewish area of Jerusalem, parading them like macabre trophies. Then they brought them back to the village and shot them. There were Red Cross reports of Jewish women stabbing elderly Arabs in the doorways of their homes and screaming their victory while they held their daggers in the air. Pregnant Arab women were found with their stomachs cut open. There were no weapons found on any of the victims. Young girls were raped and slaughtered, their grandmothers molested, one girl was literally torn in two. That is how we, the Arabs, lost Palestine. These are the stories I have heard from my fami
ly and their friends,” Emily continued, stronger now with the realization that Mustafa, instead of being angry at her for taking over, was looking at her with a new respect, while Ghulam stared at her in horror!

  Picking up her wine glass and refilling it for the third time, she stared at Ulrike Meinhof. “This was our holocaust. I have Arab blood and I will remember.” She raised her glass, “As a woman, I demand social justice, but as a woman of Arab heritage, I demand retribution.”

  Meinhof was quick to point out that she thought Emily was British.

  “Yes,” she responded, “I was born there, and my grandparents on my mother’s side are wholly English, but my father was of Moroccan ancestry who lived in Egypt. I also have relatives in Palestine. They have also seen many instances of colonial misrule and prejudice in both lands. I am then, in a far better position to discuss the situation than anyone else in my home. While Dier Yassin may be seen as a Jewish Islamic issue, it was in fact as much an act of genocide as anything your Third Reich inflicted on our perpetrators. Unfortunately, if you look at those responsible for engineering the attacks on Dier Yassin and other acts of terror against unarmed civilians you will see some political heavyweights. Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon, Menachim Begin. Terrorists every one of them! But they call themselves freedom fighters or Zionists. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs were expelled from their country just before the State of Israel was given formal recognition in 1948. It was called ‘de-Arabization’, and it was backed by the American and British Governments. But the point is surely, the Jews were terrorized and in turn became terrorists,” and Emily, surprising herself with the level of her conviction said slowly and distinctly, “In the words of Galileo...’You cannot teach a person anything. You can only help them find it within themselves’.” And drawing a deep sigh, she concluded, “and it is our turn to fight back.”