Restoration

by J. F. Krause

  Right at that moment, Hamdi was called to the door and given a note. He read it and smiled. I hoped it was good news about finding the bombers and the captives so I asked him if he’d like to share any news with the group. Everyone there knew about the newly minted terrorists so we didn’t have to diverge from the discussion too much, and I felt we needed a little respite. This would work perfectly, if it were what I hoped for. This was the first time the Kurds actually had a tracking team that included a trained dog and handler team.

  “Certainly. We have been successful. We have successfully recued four women and captured three terrorists. They are all being processed now. The women were treated very badly.”

  We all had questions and would have gladly digressed completely to this new topic, so I tapped the water glass in front of me and got them back under control. “So, you all know the list of Rights and Responsibilities. Do you agree that these 36 women as well as their infants have the right to live in our communities and to be protected?” I had subtly modified the question since I had mentally tabulated the reaction to Hiltrud’s outburst had been an agreement that the women should be allowed to stay.

  This time the group wasn’t giving silent agreement. They were very vocal in their agreement, responding in several languages. There had been some quiet translating going on throughout the meeting since some of the representatives had less command of English than was necessary for a full understanding of the discussions. It appeared to me that even the translators were voicing their approval of defending these women’s rights to remain in their adopted communities. Some of the women were weeping with smiling faces. Hiltrud and Lt. Paxton were hugging

  “Okay. I think we need to move on to the next steps. How do we respond to the SH and the SF when we meet with them later tomorrow. Hamdi, for my sake, would you please fill us all in on what we should expect from these two groups? So we can all recognize where you’re coming from, would you give us a bit of your background?”

  “Yes, of course. First of all, I am Kurdish and grew up just outside Erbil. I am also what Mr. Caldwell has referred to as a secularist, of Shiite background. I went to school at the University of Texas in Austin where I mainly studied mechanical engineering. My wife, now deceased, was Texan, a Baptist. I never converted, however. We, uh, I have one surviving son, 15 years old, who was raised as a Christian. Now, I am engaged to a woman of Yazidi background.

  None of us are politicians, at least I don’t think any of us are. Certainly, no one from the Kurdish communities have political backgrounds. We were ordinary people before The Sickness and have no skills in diplomacy or government. We didn’t invent anything after The Sickness; we just sort of did what everyone else in the Coalition was doing. I believe the men we will be meeting from the SF and the SH will be similar in their lack of experience. Both groups are sort of democratic and accord women some rights, unlike the Caliphate. Unfortunately, our guests today for these talks were caught somewhere between modernity and traditionalism when The Sickness struck. They give a lot of deference to their religious leaders, although not to the extent they did before The Sickness.

  It is likely that they don’t recognize that they even have an attitude toward women. To them it may seem that what they believe is not a belief, but a fact. It is the same with many religions, I believe. I do not believe that we will be able to convince them of anything. I believe the meeting will result in us saying ‘no’ and them going away angry and perhaps belligerent. I am not as familiar with the Sunni Homeland since our dealings have mainly been with the Shiite Framework, but I believe the result will be much the same for both the Shiites and the Sunnis.”

  We spent the next couple of hours talking. I asked a few questions for clarification, and, afterward, we agreed on the group who would be talking to the Shiite and Sunni representatives. Before we left, I asked the group how they felt about my being their spokesperson and not someone local. That seemed to surprise them a bit. We are still very steeped in the old authoritarian way of doing things. They saw me as an authority figure and, by extension, their spokesperson.

  By and large, they were happy with my leadership, or maybe it was my lack of aggressive leadership. I remember something from high school or college to the effect that leaders lead where the people are willing to go. What that means now is that all of us have been pushed to the grief limit. We can’t take much more bad news. At least we don’t think we can, but that clearly isn’t true. These 36 women have been impregnated, forced into marriage, beaten, and chased all the way to our doorstep, but they didn’t give up. So, I think the often stated “I can’t take any more” is really something more like “I won’t take any more”. I believe people have had enough of being victims, and while we couldn’t fight The Sickness, we can fight tyranny and all the would-be tyrants, hence our militias and our extreme dislike for bullies of any stripe.

  I don’t usually have a preconceived idea what to do when the next unique emergency or even just a simple problem erupts, but I’m a very pragmatic guy and so far, solutions reveal themselves. One of my college professors was fond of saying there’s nothing new under the sun, and I have come to believe it. I also believe that, over the long run, small groups make better decisions than individuals. However, groups can prepare individuals for many of the snap decisions that have to be made. In other words, snap decisions can often be anticipated and prepared for. I was a good student in school, and I like to think I’m a good student still. I prepare; I ask questions; and I never forget that I can’t make anyone do anything. I also believe that groups of people usually make good decisions, at least over the long run. Unfortunately, that isn’t completely true. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have something like the Caliphate waiting out there to cause trouble.

  I sometimes think back to the early days in SLO and wish for the simplicity we had not so long ago, but then I realize it wasn’t simplicity; it was lack of options. Decisions get so much more difficult when you have choices. On the other hand, I’d much rather have choices than not, and there’s probably no such thing as too many options. Options are good, but options complicate things. It’s not simple, but it’s better. At least, according to me.

  I also take solace in knowing that to almost everyone back home, life is still very simple. It’s just not simple for me.

  The next day, we met again, bright and early in the morning, to discuss last minute thoughts. I sometimes have last minute thoughts, but not this time. I just had to remember to listen and stay focused on the bottom line: these women were going only where they chose to go. They were also the decision makers for their babies, as well. In the end, all I had to do was make that clear so the lines were drawn. I certainly didn’t want to create any confusion on this.

  After the early morning meeting with the Coalition leadership team, I proceeded to the room set aside for our meetings with the Shiite Framework and the Sunni Homeland. I arrived at our meeting hall just a minute early having only had to walk about fifty feet to get there. The recording devices were ever present and obvious. I’m used to them by now and usually don’t notice them, but I wanted to make sure the other teams could easily see them as well. The morning would be devoted to talks with the Shiites and the afternoon would be given over to the Sunnis.

  Introductions were smooth and easy as was the reminder that everything would be recorded while being simultaneously broadcast to all the leaders from all three sides gathered in Erbil. They were also being broadcast to anyone interested from around the world. Actually, pretty much everyone in the Coalition would be tuning in at sometime within the next few hours. This type of stuff is high drama in this new environment. Our guests were already informed about the recording, broadcasting, and rebroadcasting of the talks between our different groups. We don’t keep secrets now and pretty much everything is at least recorded, especially involving me. (Although, my meetings yesterday and this morning were recorded but not broadcast. At least they weren’t broadcast yet, and might not be broadcast at all g
iven the sensitive nature of our discussions. We’re still feeling our way on some of this.) Our guests, while not comfortable with the arrangement had no choice if they wanted to talk to anyone representing the Coalition. In the beginning, it was just so everyone would be on top of what was going on, but it was so popular that the Coalition Council made all my ‘official’ conversations mandatorily recorded sessions with either simultaneous broadcasting or quick rebroadcasting. (Sometimes, when I’m just gathering information as I was with the local leaders the previous day, I have been able to declare it not an ‘official’ meeting and it has been recorded but not broadcast. No one’s called me on it so far, although the Representatives have reserved the right to review the recordings.) The Shiite Leaders were well aware that their people would be hearing everything we said and there was simply no stopping it. There is no such thing as too much information, at least when it comes to government transparency. One small consolation for them, at least, was that it wasn’t being filmed. By now I am very familiar with being filmed so I didn’t care one way or another. I no longer measure the width of my nose when I’m bored so I’m good to go in front of a camera or not. Our guests were adamant that no filming would take place so we compromised on just a recording being made and simultaneously broadcast.

  Since we had to have a Farsi and an Arabic interpreter, and they needed an English and an Arabic interpreter, we had a total of ten people in the room. Their leader was Danush Namazi, a former businessman. I was joined by Hamdi Shikak from the Kurdish region and Dr. Aya Hakim, a medical doctor, originally from Palestine, but since she was living and working in Qatar at the time of The Sickness, she became a founding member of the Qatar survivor community. I had come to regard her as a seriously committed women’s rights advocate, just not as aggressive, at least not as vocally aggressive, as Hiltrud.

  As soon as we met, I could tell that my age put Danush at ease. He seemed to visibly relax as we spoke simply because my age made me appear too young and innocent to be much of an adversary. In fact, I wasn’t much of a ‘force to be reckoned with’. I was twenty-four and looked like I should be serving cold drinks and snacks around the table instead of sitting at it. In all honesty, none of us should have been around a diplomatic table holding discussions about anything. We just have no one better to send.

  After the brief introductions to each other and to the recorders, I got right to the point. “How can we help each other? What would you like to see happen during our discussions today?”

  Clearly Danush was taken aback. I prefer to be what my friends describe as direct and others describe as blunt as my preferred approach in dealing with problems, at least I like to be direct if it isn’t likely to hurt someone’s feelings or derail the conversation. Danush smiled and spoke to me in English. “I see that you get right to the point. I like that. But first, may I ask how you came to be in this position? I, uh, we knew you were a young man, and I mean no offense, but you seem rather younger than we were expecting for such an important role.”

  “It’s a long story, but, in the interest of brevity, I am 24, almost 25. I suspect I was chosen for this position because I’m a facilitator and not a dictator. I probably don’t scare as many people along the way as someone a little more leader-like might, and I ask a lot of questions. I hope that adds some clarity as to why I’m here and not someone with better credentials. I also suspect that there aren’t many people left who have any credentials at all, better or not. Competition hasn’t been fierce.”

  Danush’s posture and demeanor had visibly softened since we were first introduced. I, on the other hand, hadn’t changed my focus at all. Everyone is older than me in this line of work. Everyone assumes I’m just another innocent young man forced into the deep end of the pool much too soon. All that may be true, but while I hope I’m still innocent, I’m not naïve. Well, not as naïve as I used to be, anyway.

  “We all know we are here to talk about the women who have arrived from other communities, and of course, the offspring of some of these women. We would also like to discuss with you the opening of an office in Tehran, an embassy if you will.” The embassy was really all that was of concern to us, at least that we didn’t know what the answer would be. We already knew we weren’t sending the women or their children back against their wills. And on that matter, since they were in our territory, we had all the cards.

  “We will be happy to discuss them both with you, but we cannot respond to the embassy request until we have an answer to the question regarding the women. We are here to insist that they be returned to us. They are part of our communities, many of them have families and responsibilities there, and they all have ties there.”

  We weren’t going to send them back and I told them so. They took a break, and came back and essentially made the same demand again. I can tell you it’s easy to follow the plan when you’re being recorded. Somehow, knowing that everyone I know will hear me wavering and waffling has given me a backbone like I never dreamed possible. This went on several times with them rewording their demand various ways. It didn’t matter. I reiterated that all citizens were treated equally, and that adult women, as well as men, were allowed to decide where they wanted to live and how they wanted to live and with whom. They took another break and decided to peal off the unmarried Shiite women without children and concentrate on the married ones and the ones with infants or babies on the way. As soon as they did it, I relaxed. In my one semester of graduate classes in California, I took a class called ‘Collective Bargaining in California’s Public Schools’. This was one of the most boring classes known to man, but there were tidbits that resonated, like the time a teacher’s union representative visited the class and talked about negotiating a contract. She mentioned that novices invariably ‘bargained with themselves’. That’s when one side presents a demand and the other side says no or nothing at all, but instead of dealing with the ‘no’, the demanding side offers a compromise which is rejected, and then, they compromise again. They bargain with themselves.

  That little talk meant that I actually identified the moment when they began to ‘bargain with themselves’. I suspect I was the only one in the room who knew what was happening. So they pealed off the unmarried women with no children. Given that this was well over half the women concerned, it was huge give on their part, at least in their opinion. Then, after we insisted that women who were married against their wills weren’t married in the women’s eyes, or our eyes for that matter, they pealed them off, too, leaving us with about a couple dozen or so pregnant Shiite women or women with babies. And keeping in mind that not only was this conversation being broadcast live all over the Coalition, it was also being heard in both the Shiite Framework, and also the Sunni Homeland, and probably many other places as well, I clearly expressed our distaste for the way these women and young girls had been treated. I also pointed out that any adult could easily come to a Coalition Community and be accepted as a resident with equal rights. No one needed to put up with being unhappy with the rules where they lived, and no one could enforce unpopular laws or traditions. While I was at it, I discussed the entire subject of rules that couldn’t be enforced anymore. As I spoke, I realized I was saying things they hadn’t considered. Danush was a decent man and was clearly uncomfortable with having to insist that women who had been treated so badly should be forced to return to the same communities that had been the site of their ill treatment. I began to realize that the men sent to represent the Shiite Framework were all good men who were expected to advocate for something they didn’t feel comfortable about. After about an hour of us not budging, they took another break and came back to announce that they were protesting the ‘holding’ of their women against the desires of their families and communities back home. They then advised us that if any of these women or children were to return to their home communities, they would be forgiven and would be allowed to remain. I guessed we had gotten their agreement.

  Almost as if nothing had happened, we moved into
the discussions for setting up an embassy, and by noon, we were finished. They actually joined us for lunch, so I guessed they weren’t too unhappy with the morning’s discussions.

  Over lunch, which was not recorded, we learned that very few of their communities held more than a couple hundred people. The Shiites had always been the smaller of the two major branches of Islam, and that was still true. They were mostly settled in the region around Iraq, Kurdistan, the Persian Gulf, and Iran, in what had historically been Persia. There are a few clusters of Shiites in some of the Coalition communities, and from the information we gathered from the Shiite’s in our Coalition, we understood that they knew a fair amount about us. They knew, for instance, that we were very strict about women being treated equally with men so they couldn’t have been surprised by our position on returning the women. They understood, also, that their oil was of no interest to us. A few Shiites from Coalition communities had returned to the Framework and we had actually assisted them so they had experienced first hand our near total freedom. (We do not tolerate waste and sloth, hurting others, or neglect of minors, for instance, so we don’t qualify as totally free.) They also knew we had reestablished medical schools and higher education. They were struggling with both simply because of their numbers. At first, when they began losing a few of their women, they reacted by tightening their grip on them. They thought that by giving them new families and responsibilities, the women would feel wanted and accepted. Of course, that didn’t work.

  Before starting talks with us, they studied how the Coalition worked. They knew about the Coalition, but they lacked understanding. Over lunch, they explained why the talks had been so easy and fast this morning. The Shiite leadership had begun to understand their situation. They needed help training future doctors, engineers, and technicians. They had nothing to trade and wide-open borders. Since we’d already agreed to exchanging representatives between Tehran and SLO, we just did a bit of brain-storming. During lunch we set up some parameters for ongoing talks between our two groups. I felt pretty good about what we accomplished. In fact, it looked a lot like the ‘link’ we have with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In one stroke, our link with those two communities finally started making sense and we tentatively extended it to the Framework.