ihath

“My name is Ba’ath” said my class mate at Kuwait University. I wanted to laugh. Ha ha ha ha. That woman must have a great sense of humor. She is Iraqi and when I asked her what her name is, she replied by saying Ba’ath. Ha ha ha ha, Iraqi people are so funny. Luckily one second before I was about to burst out laughing I looked at her face. She looked dead serious. Oh my god! her name is Ba’ath. I better not laugh. If I am seen as making fun of the word Ba’ath I might get into serious trouble. I hid my face in my hands and pretended I was reading from a book laid out in front of me, on the desk. I was trying to hide the bizarre contortion forming on my face as one part of me wanted to laugh and the other was painfully trying to wipe any hint of a smile off my face. Her name was Ba’ath, no joke. No need to ask about the politics of her parents. That must be the ugliest name given to a woman I had ever heard of. Even uglier than the name the woman that frequents my gym in Vancouver gave to her daughter. My gym mate called her daughter “Equity”, I wanted to laugh too, instead I nodded my head. Even though I won’t get beheaded for making fun of somebody’s name in Vancouver; I thought it would be rude to laugh anyway. But Ba’ath is by far the ugliest name given to a woman. Ba’ath is the name of the ruling party in Iraq before the fall of Saddam. It also means resurrection. Why would somebody call his daughter resurrection? The birth of a new baby makes me think of life, hope, future, it does not inspire the thought of ghosts or zombies resurrected from the dead. If I am dead, why would I want to be resurrected any way? Considering the fact that we live in a world were an unarmed and tied young man gets his head severed in the name of religion, why would anybody want to come back once they left? I certainly don’t. No resurrection for me, thank you.

The images of the slaying of Nick Burg made me remember the year I realized that I was living in a rotten world. I was 14 and studying in a Kuwaiti high school. That year was marked by three events that made me realize that I was living in a horrible and scary world. First of, I read
Roots

translated to Arabic. It was the first grown up book I had read. Everything I had read before that had happy endings and the good guys won. All the grown ups were talking about Roots the T.V. series but my parents would not allow me to watch it. They felt it was too harsh for my age. But when I decided to buy the book because I was curios to find out what the buzz was all about, my dad didn’t say anything. My dad is an avid reader and he always encouraged me to read. The tale of Kunta Kinte captured into slavery and transported from his native Africa to America is haunting. I almost felt I was in the slave ship watching the wretched conditions the slaves were enduring at the first taste of their enslavement. I would read and cry, I was depressed for a whole week but I couldn’t put the book down. The story was so compelling. My mom kept saying, stop reading that book, it is upsetting you. Although the story is a work of fiction, it based on a reality that did exist. How could any human being subject another human being to such injustice? I kept asking myself. How could anybody be so cruel? The knowledge that everything in the story actually happened made me sad. Ay night, before going to sleep I would fantasize that I was able to travel back in time and rescue Kunta Kinte and transport him back to his native town in Africa.

The second event happened while I was at the library. I was reading a book on the second world war. Half way through there was a picture of some of the atrocities committed by the Natzis during that time. There was a picture of a pile of dead bodies, piled up in a pyramid. That picture shocked me. The dead people looked like average people no different from me. I had to close down the book and leave the library right away. I felt nauseated, I felt I was about to faint. To me war conjured up images of heroic actions by heroic men and women. That image made me realize the flip side of the war. The death of thousands and millions of average people at the hands of other average people. The picture from that book kept haunting me. I kept wondering what sort of a world I was living in. But all this had happened in a different time in different lands. Surely I was safe in Kuwait. Everybody around me looked like they were not inclined to inflict pain on others.

One day in my high school, the vice principle summoned me to her office. This was a big deal, to be summoned to the vice principle’s office. In her office she handed me a notebook and asked me to write down the name, address and phone number of each student in my class room. We need that information in cases of emergency, she said. I took the notebook and did as I was instructed. Few days later I handed back the notebook proclaiming “mission accomplished”. I had asked every single student in my class to write down their name, number and address in the note book. She opened it and glanced at it casually. Very good! then she handed it back to me. Now, on top of each page I want you write down the name of one these girls. Allow several pages per girl. I want you to write down everything you know about that girl and then I want you write down what that girl talks about, things she tells her friends, her interests, her thoughts, what are her parents doing and so on. I was being asked to spy on my class mates. I took the notebook and stuffed it my school bag. This was a dilemma. On one hand, I didn’t want to spy on my class mates. On the other hand, In Kuwait you never said no to a teacher, this wasn’t just the teacher, this was the vice principle. The whole culture at the school was that of obedience, you simply weren’t allowed to disobey. At home, my father noticed that I looked disturbed at the dinner table. When I told him the story, he brilliantly gave me the solution to my dilemma. He told me to tell the vice principle that my dad forbade me from spying on my classmates. While disobeying a teacher was considered an aberration, disobeying your parents is an even worse offense in Arabic culture. “If she gives you any trouble about it, tell her that your dad will come and speak to her”, my dad instructed me. The next day, I walked into the vice principles office, I apologized very meekly and handed the notebook back. I told her that my father told me that I am not allowed to do this. She simply nodded with her head, said that is fine and gestured that I should leave the office. I left her office with huge sense of relief. I felt like a rock has been lifted of my chest. I was so grateful for my dad, having rescued me from this terrible situation. But then new thoughts entered my head, why was the school spying on the students in it? Are there other spies? Will this notebook be handed to somebody else who might agree? Is there something sinister or dangerous going on in the school? Why did she pick me? Is it because I was popular and I had many friends and had good relationships through out the school? or was it because there is something in my character that would indicate a willingness to be a spy? Is it because I was the class clown? I felt a sense of guilt for having collected the names, phone numbers and addresses in the first place. I never talked about it with anybody. I felt a sense of shame for having marginally participated in something sinister which I didn’t understand. I was worried that if I told anybody that I would then be accused of being a spy or that suspicions would circle around me among my class mates. That year the high walls surrounding the school seemed more like prison walls. I kept waiting for the school to build watch towers around the school perimeter and place watch guards and snipers in them. I felt my school was a prison. There was a sense of danger in the air, only it was mysterious and you never knew where it might come from. Everything seemed strange and new. Everything was same but different.

Ba’ath was a whinny young woman. She whined all the time. The course material was too hard, the professor was not explaining things properly. She had a constant frown on her face. She would tell me all the time how things were better in Iraq. She was unhappy living in Kuwait and wanted to go back to Iraq. Ba’ath was never excited by anything, she was always mildly unsatisfied with something or another. She told me she didn’t like to eat in restaurants because she didn’t know how to use a fork and a knife properly and always felt embarrassed when she ate in restaurants because of it. Seems like a silly thing to worry about, but Ba’ath worried about it each time we went to cafeteria. Ba’ath wasn’t very intelligent, but she got by in her class work, barely getting a passing mark. She didn’t look like a dead zombie as her name would indicate, she looked about average. On the day I met her, I went home and told my dad about it. I told him that I met an Iraqi girl in class, I told him her name and then I started to laugh. My dad looked very alarmed, “You didn’t laugh in her face? did you?”. “No dad, I wanted to but then I managed to stop in time.” My dad shakes his head, “You must be careful, are you sure you did not laugh, at her name not even a little bit”. “No dad I did not laugh, I swear, I did not laugh”. “You must be careful, promise me you will be careful”. “I promise dad, I will be careful”.

My condolences to the family of Nick Burg, we live in a horrible world. There must be a fresh batch of zombies resurrected from the dead, roaming the earth. It is hard to believe that a living and breathing person would commit such an act.

There is a way between voice and presence where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens. With wandering talk it closes. .... Rumi