It's almost 9 years later, and tonight I am remembering the two most powerful experiences I had in September 2001. The first was watching the terrorist attacks on television on 9/11 and the weeks after. The second occurred about a week later, when I discovered someone had put an apple and honey packets in my mailbox where I worked. I didn't understand why someone would do this or what it meant, until a Jewish friend explained it to me. The Jewish students on campus were gifting us with apples and honey as a part of Rosh Hashanah. I'd never eaten apples with honey before, but the sweetness of it and the act of the students was in stark contrast to the bitter taste left in my mouth of the terrorist acts of 9/11.
Where I did not understand the gift given, I most certainly understood why the act of terrorism occurred and what it meant. I'd spent 10 months working with political asylum seekers and torture survivors prior to 9/11, and I understood the mechanism and motives behind torture and terrorism.
I remember the mourning by myself and those around me and the sweet sight of candlelight vigils and flag waving unity that followed. People seemed to find comfort in this, but I did not. I knew that it would only be a matter of time before we'd go to war. In order to have unity around something, we've got this habit of going aggressively against something. It was only a matter of deciding what thing we were going to drop bombs on.
I knew it wouldn't be Saudi Arabia (despite the fact that many of the terrorists were from there) because they're an ally and we need our military bases there. Additionally, Saudi Arabia contains two holy cities of great spiritual significance to Muslims everywhere. It would start the Holy War to end all Holy Wars to bomb there. We'd show our unity by attacking something else that people didn't seem to care as much about, and so we selected Afghanistan.
I'm thinking about all of this tonight because two years ago, I became on online English practice teacher of a female refugee from Afghanistan who is living in Pakistan. She wants to learn English because her father believed in women receiving an education and she is doing this to honor his memory. I think she's been a refugee for these eight or nine years, shortly after 9/11 and when I discovered apples and honey. Tonight we were discussing what has been termed the "Ground Zero Mosque," future educational prospects for her and what it might be like to come to America being a conservative Pashtun female.
Apples and honey are eaten during Rosh Hashanah, I've learned, to symbolize our hopes for a "sweet" new year. I think that my student has never eaten apples and honey, and still waits for that sweet new year to happen, all these years after being displaced from her home. She's told me about the bombs at the bazaars in her town in Pakistan, of the girls getting kidnapped while riding a cab, of the threats of violence against women who try to attend school. Now they're faced with a wave of new displaced people owing to the floods in Pakistan.
As we were discussing the available options for obtaining an education elsewhere, I could slowly hear her losing hope. I kept saying and typing "No giving up hope!" It absolutely cannot be an option, for either of us to give up hope. I was saying it for my own benefit as much as for hers. When we give up hope, we've lost it all.
I have the great luxury of being able to write this without a fear of bombs going off, losing power, losing the Internet connection, or having retaliation for what I write. I have the liberty and luxury of being able to leave my house at any time, day or night. However, there is no great luxury for me in seeing the hatred emerging in its various forms across America.
The same people unified over candles and under flags, saying we are all Americans are fighting each other in nasty ways across political divides. The same people unified over candles and under flags are labelling a mosque in NYC the "Ground Zero Mosque" and saying that Americans can't have a mosque that close to ground zero. I'm reading reports of women harassed (by US government and law officials) here in the US for wearing the scarf.
I'm trying to explain to my student why there can be no option of her coming here as a visitor and then applying for a student visa, out of fear that if her status becomes illegal, wearing covering from head to toe in this current climate of animosity, she might become a target by people who do not understand her religion, cultural ways or values. I have no idea of how well the INS understands the importance of her wearing this, if she was found to be illegal here. It was difficult to explain this to her, painful, actually.
So we're done attacking other people and have turned on ourselves and those who need our help the most. In my mind, there's absolutely no justification for it. I would like to know someday that we are in a better place than we are right now - for my student in terms of physical location, and for our country in our mindset.
I am going to keep reminding myself, "No giving up hope!"
