The Dismantling Of War</font></i></b>

The Dismantling of War
By Catherine Browning, Kuwait, Arabian Gulf May, 2003

     They took down the wooden boards today--the ones that barricaded our apartment complex from enemy assault. There is still a small room off to the corner of the lobby which is boarded up and closed tight with locks. That sequestered space was where we women and children were going to be ushered into during an invasion, assuring our safety from violating males. I will be relieved when they dismantle that intimidating space too.

     Elsewhere in Kuwait, they have removed the heavy armored tanks and machine gun posts from the entrances to the downtown area. Even the road blocks are few these days and one can roam about the country with little fear of being questioned. A few days ago I waved at one of the last visible Kuwaiti soldiers keeping watch. As our car drove past the serious gentleman in uniform, I flashed a big American smile and waved a friendly hello. My friend, protecting me from possible disappointment, said "He won't be able to respond back." Seconds later, though, the soldier gave me a timid little wave. It made my day. Things are finally getting back to normal.

     I can actually sleep at night now without the terrifying sound of military jets screaming past my apartment building. I never knew for sure if these flying machines were friend or foe and the eerie mechanical screech made me think of September 11 over and over again. It would be so easy for an aircraft to crash into my building. There are 5 blocks (apartment buildings) all clustered together on the security-guarded, Kuwait University campus. All of us who live here are lecturers, instructors, or professors at the university. Our buildings are out in the middle of nowhere and are a tall, visible target for anyone flying by.

     On the outside our blocks are beige, like everything else in Kuwait, but inside the homes are bursting with the colorful life of families from around the world--Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Philippines, Great Britain, Canada, and America. There are only a few of us Americans left. There were never too many of us to begin with, but now we are down to about 4 or 5. I live in Block # 3. My neighbors are all Arabs with delightful children who wave excitedly to me every time I venture out of my home. They find my blue eyes and white skin to be a constant source of amusement. Lately, I too have been finding my Caucasian features to be amusing. They stand out so blatantly here--such a contrast to the dark-skinned, dark-eyed beauties of the East.

     Some people here have a strong superstition about blue eyes. They think these orbs are associated with "the evil eye." When glancing at me, they whisper "masha'allah," meaning "Allah protect me from the evil eye." I have one student in the classroom who refuses to look into my eyes for too long and who has forbidden me to wear blue when around her because this accentuates my "cat eyes." Last week, while having a conference with her, I had to keep looking at the floor because she became increasingly anxious during our conversation. I asked her "Are my eyes bothering you?" "Yes, miss," she replied shyly. "Do not worry, sweetheart," I told her. "Allah made my eyes just like Allah made your eyes." Still, I tried to look at her as little as possible so that I would not upset her unnecessarily. As she left my office I heard her whisper "masha'allah, masha'allah …."

     My office is walking distance from my apartment so on days when I don't feel safe to venture any further, I cocoon myself on campus. During the last Gulf War, Saddam Hussein's soldiers took over all of the apartments here and made this place their Kuwaiti headquarters, of course after thoroughly looting everything in site. You can still see bullet holes in many of the buildings, haunting reminders of the once-powerful Iraqi regime. One particular building next to mine, was the torture center where Saddam’s troops brought doomed suspects. Also down the street from me is a ship graveyard. Lying stuck, sideways, in the middle of smelly mud flats, are tattered ships abandoned during Gulf War I. They are unintentional reminders of the wreckage of war.

     I went back to America the day before the commencement of Gulf War II, known to Arabs as the American invasion of Iraq. I was safely sequestered in the United States for the next 2 weeks while those still in Kuwait endured terrifying multiple air raid sirens each day, near-miss missile threats, and chemical weapon scares. The most visible sign here of the wreckage from Operation Iraqi Freedom is the Souq Sharq which was blasted by a missile launched from a boat in the Kuwait Bay. This is the market place where I normally go shopping every week. The first thing I did when I returned here from the U.S. was to visit the damage. Seeing the wreckage on CNN news was one thing, but actually going to that familiar site and realizing I could have been standing in that very spot during the attack, was another. I was shocked by the damage--not because it was so extensive, but because I felt personally violated. That missile tore into MY shopping center. That missile penetrated MY favorite place. That missile blew-up the comfortable seats in MY movie theatre. I guess war shatters us of our illusions of possessiveness. Nothing in this life is permanent. Everything is always subject to change, whether that change is well charted or impulsively exploded.

     As the Black hawk helicopters fade into the background and the convoy of army trucks become less visible, the camouflage portrait of war begins to dissolve. Soldiers return home on leave, the throng of news reporters flee to other battling lands, and peace slowly returns to the scene in Kuwait. The panorama becomes serene, almost as if those blaring sounds and daring threats had never riled this part of the world. Yes, in Kuwait, at least, things are finally getting back to normal.

     But the wreckage, good God, the wreckage of war, more must be said about that. The Iraqi people are still without food, water, electricity, and medicine. Havoc rules their land. Ancient treasures have been pillaged, perhaps permanently erased from the historical landscape of earliest civilization. Animals in the zoo have starved to death. And little Ali, the much-publicized Iraqi boy whose flesh burned away on his chest, whose arms are now nothing more than 3 inch stubs, what will ever help his life get back to normal?

     Through some kind of strange fate which seems to rule my life while I live in this region of the world, I stood by Ali's side last week and looked into his dazed, haunted eyes. As the doctors in the intensive care room yanked the dead tissue from his torso as caringly as they could, I wanted to scream. Even with anesthesia, Ali moaned and yelled with each surgical prod. My students and I locked eyes, inquiring of each other "Is this moment really happening?" Even the girl so afraid to gaze into my cat eyes, looked imploringly into my baby blues "Why does this little boy have to suffer so?" Being a new mother, she felt the agony of this child's pain as if it were her own.

     Under normal circumstances I couldn't tell you about my experience with this patient. Ethics of confidentiality would prohibit such confessions. But Ali is a public figure now; he belongs to the world. Besides, war does not exactly qualify as "under normal circumstances." Sometimes the ethics of the universe transcend the ethics of human beings. I want you to know what I saw when I looked into that child's eyes. I want you to feel what I felt when I spoke with this child's uncle, the only relative left alive to take Ali into his care.

     I saw all the pain of humankind in Ali's bleary eyes. I saw the degrading manner in which real, flesh and blood human solutions rob us of joy. I saw that I had absolutely no response to his probing, to his searching for answers. He wasn't afraid of the way in which the evil eye might have infiltrated my blue eyes. He stared me down until I felt completely stripped of my own flesh. Superstitions are child's play to someone who has seen all of their loved ones blown to smitherings. And pat answers are repulsive to someone who is writhing in broiled pain.

     Ali forced me to be humble. His tortured eyes became a mirror for me to see how little I truly understand about life. Just when I think I have it all figured out I discover that I don't know anything at all. So much of life is a mystery and so much of life is slipping away in useless decay, despite my best intentions. The only thing I had to give Ali during his moment of need was this profound recognition that I can, of myself, do nothing. It is only through the Creator that healing is possible, that sense can be made out of complete chaos, that beauty can be restored to that which is permanently scarred for life. That's what I communicated to Ali with my cat-like eyes, that's what hope I held onto as he bravely confronted every inch of my American being.

     As I held letters, gifts, emails, cards, and prayers sent to him from around the world, I realized that the Divine One would go to all extremes to assure this fragile, frightened, abandoned child that he is not alone. As I exchanged words with his uncle, through an Arab translator, I took my one, and probably only chance, to make amends. As he described the way in which the American missile blew up 16 homes and left so many children orphaned and deformed, I stayed with him in his pain. As he angrily, cooly said "Ali is only one child; there are others," I nodded with compassion.

     As health care personnel around me, due to their own discomfort, adamantly urged me to leave the poor man alone I said "No! Words must be said." I lingered on and told the uncle that on behalf of all my family and friends, on behalf of my country, I was so sorry for the loss that had come to him, his family, his country. I told him that every American I know would feel the same compassion I was feeling for he and his nephew. After he vented his quiet rage, after we struggled through a very difficult conversation, our eyes locked and through both of our tears, a divine presence suddenly was felt. It was Allah in our midst. You could feel it. It was the incredible, indelible sign of the presence of the Divine.

     And with this caressing moment of the Creator cradling this grown man, hope suddenly blossomed. We both realized, on some deep level, that Allah was there, speaking through me to him. And then he set the rage aside, and warmly told me he understood America was trying to rescue the Iraqi people from all the oppression caused by the Saddam regime. He said he forgave America for the wayward missile that destroyed his innocent family and friends. He expressed gratitude for the hundreds upon hundreds of gifts and communications he has received from people in America regarding the suffering of his young Ali. He expressed his gratitude to American soldiers who airlifted Ali to Kuwait and to Kuwait for paying all of Ali's medical care. He said he knew, in time, all would be well, "insha'allah" (according to God's will). And through that expression of forgiveness and profound faith I knew that Allah was also speaking to me through him.

     God was speaking to all of us through him. Allah forgives us for whatever we did or failed to do regarding this Iraqi war. We all did the best we could. Every American soldier, every Bush cabinet member, every news correspondent, every human shield, every Baath renegade, every Iraqi looter--we all did the best we could given the extremely challenging and perverse conditions under which we suddenly found ourselves.

     War is a very perverse situation indeed. It is an ugly depiction of human creativity at its worst. It is this portrait, this distorted artwork, which should be plundered and stolen from the annals of civilization. It is this phenomena which should be dismantled permanently so that no child shall ever again beg with his desperate eyes "Please let me die." I want to believe that it is in our power to halt war. I want to believe that we can silence the raging jets and helicopters forever. But the part of me that has been humbled to ashes since gazing upon Ali, recognizes that war, ultimately, is not the real problem. War is merely an inadequate response, a poorly designed mechanism for solving the larger problems of human greed and oppression which darken this world.

     As I once again sit in Starbucks at Souq Sharq, comfortably sipping hot chocolate with my Kuwaiti friends and rejoicing that things are finally back to normal, I watch the strolling American soldiers with new eyes. They are so young these men and women in the prime of their lives, still with acne on their faces, still believing in the American dream they were taught in high school just a year or two ago. Before they were sent to the Iraqi desert they looked frightened, timid while walking among the Arabs in the mall. Now they are relaxed, friendly. Having gazed into the eyes of Arab civilian innocence, they know the Arabs aren't so bad after all. They know there are more good Arabs than bad Arabs. They know, in fact, that the Arabs are wonderful people. For this reason, they sweltered out in the desert heat, almost suffocated in desert storms, and risked the potential attack of lethal biochemical weapons. For this reason, they can believe in the killing they may have had to do, all in hopes of making this region a better place for the Arab population.

     The majority of American service men and women are completely unaware of the American military industrial complex. They are unaware of America's selfish reasons for going to war. They are removed from the battles that occurred on the streets of the world as protesters tried to jar George Bush's conscience. Most of them do not know the way in which the United States insulted the United Nations and how heatedly these UN countries of conscience blasted us for our willful arrogance. They are young people who are trying to find their own way, trying to find their own mission in making this world a better place. And in many ways, they are our hope, because they have now seen for themselves the goodness of Arabia, the purity of true Islam, the uncanny way in which human beings of all races, religions, and regions are so alike. These American soldiers deserve our respect and our caring.

     Still, the part of me that has been humbled to ashes since gazing upon Ali, recognizes that none of us, soldiers or peace activists, can find what we are searching for by ourselves. We are powerless over all of our biases, our political blindness, our addictions, over all of our habitual patterns. We may think we have the answer on how to eradicate the axis of evil from this earth, but ultimately we are only fooling ourselves. Humans can, by themselves, do nothing. We are absolutely powerless. We are absolutely powerless. We are absolutely powerless. In my humble opinion, it is that simple. It is ultimately only the Creator and the magnificent restorative powers of the Universe which can bring beauty and life back into our world, transforming that which decays into that which dazzles. It is only God who can dismantle the barricades and the road blocks which imprison us. Think about 9/11. Think about Gulf War II. We kid ourselves if we think things will ever really get back to normal. Pandora's box has been unleashed, human competition for power over the other is paramount. Detonating buildings here and there is becoming a routine matter of business.

     Our only hope for ending war, and all the hidden greed and corruption lying beneath that portrayal, is divine intervention. Whether we bow to Allah five times a day, attend a traditional worship service, or contemplate the beauty of Earth, invoking divinity is our only hope for confronting our limitations and recovering that which is blessing sublime. God with us, in us, through us, and around us, protecting us from the evil eye, masha'allah, and helping us to embrace the divine will, insha'allah. If the whole world got down on its knees one day and begged the Creator, begged the Universe itself, for new life, new solutions to our problems, we just might take a quantum leap in our consciousness and find a creative alternative to battlefields and brigades. And then, maybe, we could celebrate the permanent dismantling of war.

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