Ticks, Londoners, Stinging Nettles and Bugs

I love running, I run in cold and hot weather, I run in rain and snow. The only thing that forces me off of road running is ice, even though, I did manage to get slip-ons for my sneakers for ice running but I just use them for hiking.

Dorset is an amazing place for running, beautiful rural country roads, endless number of trails. My normal training run in Boston included the famous Heartbreak Hill of the Boston Marathon, but this is nothing compared to the Dorset experience. West Dorset is nothing but a series of non stop hills, so if you don't mind hill running, Dorset is heaven; beautiful scenery, frequent wild life encounters, empty roads and trails and virtually no snow or ice, but of course lots of mud if you are into cross country running, like I'm.

The Dorset summers are unbelievably beautiful, there is life everywhere, flowers bloom out of ancient stone walls, intense vegetation, amazing wild flowers and never ending beautiful trees, Oaks, Beeches, Sycamores and Ashes. The grazing fields are beautiful with their glover and daisy flowers.

Cross country becomes very difficult because of Stinging Nettles, they are not as bad as Poison Ivy but they are everywhere, the recipe of spitting on a dock leaf and rubbing the sting works but it does interrupt the run. The tall grasses harbor ticks and as I'm always paranoid about Lyme Disease, the sighting of a deer nearby as I run through tall grasses, freaks me out.

Horse flies are a menace, you can overcome them, with seemingly excessive amounts of insect repellants, they still get me, even through clothes, so I just apply more repellant on my running shirt and shorts. The one problem, I really struggle with is ... well, there is so much life, there are so many bugs in the air, it becomes hard not to swallow bugs as you breath in, I try hard to breath in through my nose, and whistle out the air from my mouth, but it is inevitable,  you run in Dorset, you will swallow some bugs and spend the rest of your run spitting.

Last but not least are the Londoners and other tourists, who should not be allowed off the main roads into the Dorset narrow lanes. The intense vegetation and the stingy nettles ( I call them stingy not stinging) drive me off the trails into the lanes. The normally totally deserted narrow lanes get full of the tourists, who have no clue how to drive them. They go too fast and are not used to the idea of the hedges brushing against the sides of their cars, so instead, they attempt to drive runners into the stingy nettles or brambles to avoid scratching their cars, not to mention that they really do believe they have the right of way, over all else, be it farm animals, harvesters or runners.

With my rant finished, I will now head out for another run, in the running heaven aka Dorset!

Keep on running and running even if you whine about it

AA
July 2, 2014

On Running ... Cairo Half Marathon and What it Means to be a Runner

If you are not a runner you may not appreciate this much, so proceed with caution into our strange world full of peculiarly intense joys and pains both for the body and the soul.

Runners are generally nicer than the population at large, we are calmer, we use the effort of running to gain peace with ourselves, we are less angry at the world .. I do know that cycling and swimming have similar effects but there is purity and simplicity to running unmatched in any other sport, we runners require nothing but our bodies, no equipment, no pools, no bicycles, no helmets, in some places we can even run bare foot, so not even shoes. It's not that we have lesser or fewer problems in our lives, in our jobs and with our relationships than anyone else, it's just that running allows us to process problems differently and with the intense effort, our sweat helps us set anger and emotions aside, somehow, it helps us see the issues clearer, get to the core of our problems as it cleanses and removes the distortions. 

This is mostly true for runners, be it in Boston or in Bombay, in Chicago or in Cairo. We sit on the ground waiting for road races with no fuss, we are modest, practical. Setting aside the elite runners, we mostly are only competitive with ourselves; I don't know a single runner in a race who doesn't want other runners to achieve their goals. We support each other and it's much more the case towards the middle and the back of the pack, the further away from elite runners we get, the more genuine solidarity there is..... Questions such as "How did you place?" or "Did you win?" are alien and borderline offensive to my ears and I suspect to most runners. We are highly competitive, watching minute differences in our form and pace, but only competive with ourselves, we log our runs proudly and note our new personal records, knowing that no one else can ever appreciate their meaning, or what it took to achieve them.

I had one of my best races ever at the Cairo 2014 Half Marathon, it was my first race in many years, my last race was the first running of the BAA Boston Half Marathon, my hometown including circling the field of my beloved Fenway Park. it was funny that I would be there also at the first running of my native Cairo Half Marathon. It took me nearly four years since I broke my foot, a corrective surgery and two stints in casts be able to get back to running over 10 miles, so in a way this race felt like my very first Boston Marathon. I was nervous and anxious, uncertain if I will be able to finish without leg or foot problems. I started very slow, cautiously, my first mile was my slowest, my second, the second slowest and only after I started the first long climb and started overtaking so many runners less than half my age, did I get the confidence to start to go harder. The uphill peaks with a magnificent view towards the desert of Wadi Degla Protectorate, and then the long down hill at about mile ten, I deliberately slowed down to avoid cramping. 

Cairo runners were just like other runners, pleasent, supportive, talkative, contemplative, funny as ever; but this was no ordinary event! We were actually running and the traffic was stopping for us on the roads of one of the least pedestrian friendly cities in the world. So Cairo runners were actually in euphoric mood. After months of street protests, curfews, street blockades, we were laying a claim to the streets, like never before, thousands of us, this was unprecedented! The grace of these young runners as they passed me or I passed them was endearing, they seemed genuinely happy that someone much older, knee braces and all, was out there with them, so words and signs of encouragements and smiles through the strain. For races in the US, 54 years old isn't a senior citizen, but in sedentary chain smoking Egypt, I was an unusual sight. 

Shouts of a'ash or عاش the standard cheer for athletes in Egypt, meaning live or long live were common, from the few spectators who were out on the streets, the volunteers were amazing in their cheers too. At the very last uphill after the long brutal downhill, I gave it my all, I went as fast as I could, pounding my legs, pumping my arms to will me faster, I heard a cheer "wahsh .. wahsh ...wahsh" " وحش ..وحش... وحش"؟  a word best translated as beast, can be used as an insult but also as a word implying brute strength ... I felt it, I could never imagine myself actually liking to be called a beast, but I did, it boosted me, it made me run harder!

Runners often track their progress by keeping pace with other runners and those runners we run with typically change in a long race. So shortly after the start, I was keeping pace with the guy in a large blue hoodie then not sure when it was, that it changed to the two women in red T shirts with " me vs. me" written on the back and so forth. We never actually make an active mental decision to change pace buddies, it just happens. The last four miles or so, the fellow runner or pace buddy who motivated me was a beautiful veiled young woman, who saluted me with a beautiful smile as she overtook me on the steep downhill, at the end of the race we had our pictures taken together as we crossed the finish line, I will always remember her beauty, grace, modesty and wonderful smile. 

Three days before the Cairo Half, I was at a business function, I was chatting with a very elegant and charming beautiful elderly Italian French lady. She asked me out of nowhere about prayers and communication with God. I told her that often times the deepest spiritual times I have are during running, as I run outdoors, the green hills of Dorset, England or as I run around the canyons of a Wadi Degla near Cairo. I look at the beautiful nature around me and feel the strength in my body as it operates in rhythm with my surroundings and I pray to God, thank him for his glory and for the glory he bestowed on me, in me. I recite short verses of the Quran and feel a sense of unity with my world. She looked at me very attentively and said, I do the same as I walk briskly around Verona, I celebrate God's creation including my very own body.

AA March 9, 2014

My Boston Marathon

Boston is my hometown, I have spent more of my life there than anywhere else and even though I moved to Europe in 2009, Boston remains the place I feel most at ease at, home. I am not a Boston native, I was born in Cairo where I spent my childhood, when I first moved to the US, I lived in California, which, I loved, but contrary to my own expectations I have become a Bostonian. It is the Boston Red Sox that I follow, WBUR that I listen to on the web and Boston trends I look at on Twitter; home! 

I was on a business trip in Australia, on that saddest of days, the day of the cowardly, cruel attacks on the Boston Marathon. It felt like disaster has struck my immediate family, I was in deep shock and disbelief. The distance from Boston, from my family, along with the massive jet lag and associated sleep deprivation added to my deep sadness, a sense of void in my heart, hollowness in my entire being. I hardly watch TV and rely on Twitter as my primary source of news. The very nature of following such horrible news on social media, naturally, added to my anxiety and tension.

The vast majority of the tweets were from the Boston Globe, other Boston media, CNN, few tweets of eyewitnesses and hundreds of tweets from people in shock and sadness expressing their grief or anger. Some tweets I saw emphasized bigger tragedies in other parts of the world and objected to Boston Marathon bombing dominating their timelines. An Egyptian tweep, mockingly stated that the Egyptians know one kind of running, away from an aggressive dog, or trying to catch a bus. Even though @el_Shazli tweet was of the self-deprecating type, it added to my sadness and actually angered me; how could someone crack a joke at a time like this?

It is a sad fact that many young Egyptians are smokers; a small tiny minority is active in sports of any kind. This generalization applied fully to me up to my early thirties, when I finally quit smoking and attempted to start running. Shortly after that, I moved with my family to Boston, where gradually I started running once or twice a week. I still remember an event that had a profound effect on my life, it was a Monday, Patriots Day, an official holiday in Massachusetts, commemorating early events of the American Revolution. Patriots Day is hardly known or observed outside of Massachusetts; it is celebrated on the third Monday in April and exactly at midday, the Boston Marathon starting gun fires.

I lived in Newton, MA, very close to the route of the Boston Marathon, but it was only after several years of living in the Boston area that I happened to be at home on Patriots Day, what a day it was! The 100^th running of the Boston Marathon, a record number of runners, well over 40,000 were allowed to run that year. My kids excitedly took me up the street to the Marathon Route, the road was closed, hundreds of people on both sides, virtually all of our neighbors were there with beach chairs, or just sitting on the curb, lots of people of all ages, a total carnival atmosphere. I looked to the right and left up and down the route, the festival clearly stretches on for miles, all waiting for the runners to arrive.

Suddenly, police sirens, lots of commotion, very loud applause, a couple of police cars pass by and an older man in an open car, standing and waiving cheerfully left and right. I am told this is Johnny Kelley, the Grand Marshall of the Boston Marathon. Just a mile up the road there is a statue I run by of two runners, they are John Kelley, a younger and an older John Kelley. Kelley took part in the Boston Marathon 61 times, completed it 58 times, amazing! I have been running by that statue and now I have seen the man himself in the flesh. Few minutes later, the wheel chairs racers arrive, first the men, then the women … the focus and determination on the faces of these elite athletes close-up is hard to describe. Nearly half an hour later, the main event …the fastest men, fifteen minutes later the fastest women … .and then non stop runners, hundreds and hundreds of runners keep on passing by. The carnival on the street never stops, people offering water, energy drinks and oranges to the runners, cheering, yelling, clapping, lots of high fives. I walked back home for some lunch and some work phone calls, this after all was an ordinary working day for the rest of the country.

Two hours later, I walked up my little street to the Marathon route, still the carnival atmosphere, but with fewer spectators, the runners, were slower obviously, some were older, some were heavier, but plenty of young and athletic looking types too. As time went by there were more tired looking runners, some were clearly suffering from muscle cramps, some were bloodied from falls or the painful bleeding nipples, a common affliction of distance running, that I had not heard of before that day, I also saw plenty with dried salt on their faces, a result of lots of sweating, dehydration and wind. Some of these runners had their names on their shirts, so people would yell out come ‘on Pat or Rick …. others had other messages like running in memory of a father, mother or friend, or for cancer or autism. I stood watching these amazing people, cheering them on; their faces spoke of determination.

I was there for over an hour clapping and encouraging. The sheer determination of these ordinary, these slow runners amazed me, here I was close to Mile 18 of this 26.2 mile route, those runners if they finish, may only get to the finish line after dark, and they were still going and going defying pain and fatigue. I had only been running few miles, but right there and then, on that day, with these slow but determined people passing before me, I decided that I would one day run this Boston Marathon, maybe it would take me two years to do it, but I would run the Boston Marathon!

It took me a while to investigate signing up for the Marathon and after sometime I registered as part of the Kids At Heart team, raising money for the Boston Children’s Hospital. I started training harder, building up the miles. I was running five to six days every week, taking just one day off, I would get up early to run for an hour or so before work and have at least one long run on the weekend. My job required extensive global travel, so I was running everywhere in hotels on treadmills, on the hilly streets of Hong Kong, the crowded waterfront in Bombay, in Hyde Park and along Thames in London and of course along the Boston Marathon route itself when I was home.

Building up to the Marathon the Children Hospital team had organized training runs that were getting longer and longer and I run the New Bedford Half Marathon in March and a 20 Mile race from Maine to Massachusetts in brutally cold conditions. It felt, like I was running all the time, regardless of the cold and snow or even the heat if I was traveling. Three weeks before the date, I eased off on the training and gradually reduced my weekly mileage. I still remember a motivational event organized by Children Hospital where one of the patients spoke. Katie Lynch was in her twenties, but still had the body and voice of a child and hence still a patient of Children’s Hospital dealing with various complicated health issues from her rare genetic disorder. Few years later, this beautiful young woman did something, she never did before … she managed, unassisted, 26 steps, she nearly fell at the end, this was her marathon, years in the making.

Finally, Patriots Day! I woke up early and my, ever supporting, wife drove me the eighteen miles to the west, to Hopkinton, the small town where the Marathon starts. The streets were overflowing with thousands of runners, a short while after I arrived, the roads were closed to traffic, it must feel like some sort of an alien invasion to the residents of this sleepy town. It was a cold day, there was no place to sit, so people kept pacing up and down to keep warm, the lines for the porta-potties were getting ridiculously long, hard to accommodate all these runners hydrating and requiring toilets to the very last moment.

I finally handed my small carry-on bag with my official number stapled to it, the organizers would see to it, that we all receive our bags after the finish line. I went to line up towards the back, I expected that I would finish the marathon in over four and half hours; I wasn’t racing to beat others. We heard the cheers for the start of wheel chairs race and after what felt like forever, at exactly midday the starting gun. Lots of yelling and shouting, screams of excitement and joy, but we didn’t move an inch, after more than ten minutes we started moving slowly and it took me close to fifteen minutes to cross the Starting Line. We were still inching forward and it took another five minutes or so, before enough space opened up and I actually started running ..Finally!

It is hard to describe exactly how I felt then, I was excited for sure, but more I was apprehensive, I had many fears. I was worrying that I would trip up in the crowd, others did; I worried that I would have muscle cramps, that I wouldn’t finish the Marathon after training so hard for it. I had to focus on not starting out too fast, I have to pace myself; the route is mostly downhill for the first fourteen miles and this pounding can be brutal on leg muscles later. I had to keep hydrated even if I didn’t feel thirsty. The crowds on both sides of the road were so thick, cheering us wildly as we went through Hopkinton, then Ashland and Natick … and then we hit scream alley .. what an amazing experience running by Wellesley College whose students for decades have established this amazing tradition of making every single runner feel simply extra special, with their loud cheers and high fives, the young women of Wellesley College organize waves of cheerers so they never get tired.

Nearly five miles later, I made it to Newton and soon, the Newton hills! I run up the first hill, past the fire station and get closer to the spot where I was, not so long ago, standing cheering the runners. I heard my daughter shouting my name, then my son, my wife was there too, so were the neighbors, all cheering me on, my wife shouted that they would meet me near the finish line. I felt stomach cramps, I felt cold, but I went on and headed up heartbreak hill and down past Boston College, with loud music cheering us on.  This is where people normally hit the wall, right around the 20-mile mark, many people just can’t keep going beyond this point. Apart from the cold and my stomach cramps, which were getting worse, I knew that I would be able to finish, so I run on.

I run past Cleveland Circle for a long three miles, strong cold headwind made me feel very chilled, but I kept going, crowds had thinned out, but they were still rooting for us, cheering us on. Finally I passed Fenway and it was not as windy and much more crowded again, then a turn to the right followed by turn to left on to Boylston Street, I run stronger, the Boston Library on my right, I saw my wife standing on the left side of the street, my son is cheering wildly and my daughter shouting Papa! … I run past the finish line four hours and forty some minutes after I started.

Someone puts a medal around my neck and another young volunteer wraped a blanket around my shoulders and undid my shoelaces to retrieve the official chip that recorded my progress along the entire route. I staggered into a large tent where I retrieved my bag to enjoy the relative warmth and eat bagels and drink more fluids. I could hardly walk… around me hundreds of people, many with tears in their eyes from joy of finishing, from pain, or from both; hundred of marathon winners, each with own stories and reasons for running. The fact that the fastest runners crossed the line some two and half hours before us didn’t mean anything at all to me or to those around me, we were each in our own totally private race surrounded by thousands others with their own private races and we all won!

The Marathon in Boston has a special place, it is the world oldest marathon, it is held on this special holiday, that only we celebrate, it is the beginning, the real beginning of spring after our long harsh winter, it is school holiday week. But perhaps, most importantly, it is the personal stories that lead thousands of people to run, it is the amazing carnival atmosphere all the way from Hopkinton down to the finish line at Copley Square. It is a day of celebration and festivities, celebrating our ability, us ….we ordinary human beings who will our bodies to do the extraordinary …it is a celebration of our determination to defeat addictions or old bad habits, our inner journeys to achieve our hopes and aspirations, positive aspirations for no one runs a marathon for a mean or a negative reason. It is all about us, the runners, our families, neighbors, our friends and the entire community come to celebrate profoundly positive emotions and ideals.

A lot has been written about the brutality and cruelty of the bombings and condemnations of the abhorrent act have appeared everywhere. For many people outside of Boston it is still hard to appreciate what this event means to us. I wanted to write my own account as an Egyptian American, a Bostonian of my first Boston Marathon. I run the Boston Marathon twice more, each time, for my own very personal stories and reasons. The thousands that run on April 15, 2013 each had their own story, their own reasons for embarking on their personal journeys to train for and to run the marathon, so did their loved ones and the more than one million people that lined the streets along the entire route.

Weeks after the tragedy, I think of the amazing young woman, Katie Lynch, whose 26 step marathon required her to train, she did it to motivate us to run. Her little fragile body never stopped her from finishing high school and graduating from college and completing her very own little baby marathon. She did all she could do with her God given body until she finally passed away few years after I first saw her. This is what Boston Marathon about, ordinary people willing their God given bodies to do something very extraordinary and having their entire city will them on and celebrate with them. The bombing of the Boston Marathon is ultimately an assault on our humanity … the best of humanity…..it is a direct attack on the All Mighty God, the creator of these bodies, and it can never, never be of Him or in his Name.

AA
April 27, 2013

Sand Storms

Often time as I run in Boston my mind takes me back to Cairo, the city of my childhood, and I look at the Charles River but I really see the mighty Nile before me. The long Mass Ave Bridge transforms itself to Qaser el Niel Bridge; Longfellow becomes Abu el Ala’a Bridge and Cambridge become Zamalek. Not last night, that wasn’t the Charles River I was running by, it was the Tigris. The cars going by me were not cars they were Cruise missiles. I heard the air raid sirens too, three times in fact and I never heard the all- clear! Last night I run in Baghdad, under bombing! As I ran last night, I thought of myself a traitor, doubly so. As I went running last night, I pictured myself on the streets of Baghdad and I felt fear, I felt helpless and I felt sorrow.

I was not anti war, but I have now become anti war. All I wish for now is sand storms …sand storms and more sand storms that will slow down the tanks, make it difficult for the laser to see, difficult for the planes to fly difficult for the killing to go on. Sandstorms that will prevent Iraqis from killing anyone, its own sons or America’s finest. Just sand storms, bad enough to stop the killing but not to increase the misery and the suffering.

Saddam Hussein represents the absolute worst calamity that has hit the so-called Arab World. His propaganda machine, his internal security apparatus, his torture chambers, his killing squads, his ethnic cleansing, his belated false commitment to Islam and his pretend care for the Palestinian struggle have lasted for way too long, far too many years. He has killed too many people, tortured and tormented too many people and his thugs have raped too many people and destroyed too many families and villages. I, for one, want him gone.

I supported the US policy in tightening the noose around Saddam’s neck. I supported the military build up that forced him to accept UN inspections and lowered his standing in the eyes of the whole world including those who supported him in his brutal invasion of Kuwait. I would have even supported and offered my help in a war to remove him, but such war had to be sanctioned by international law and had to be very clear and public about its objectives.

I can’t support the current war. Call me inconsistent! I am not a politician I don’t have to be consistent, I only write to get my feelings and thoughts out…to communicate what I now, right this minute, think is right, not to prove that what I thought was right three weeks or two years ago turned out just that.

This war started out almost like vendetta by the Bush Administration. In my eyes the US failed to prove any real danger from Iraq to us here in US. It looked to me more like electioneering and a focus group driven war, a war to show Bush as resolute leader and in the process to get rid of one nasty thug. I was willing to go along with that but the Bush Administration in its bullying of the UN and later in its defiance of the UN changed the equation, for me, completely. It is no longer just about Saddam losing; it is also about Bush winning.

Last night as I ran on the bend of the Tigris in the heart of Baghdad, I felt so much for the Americans POW’s, the kid from New Jersey and Shawna from Texas, the young mother, the Asian American kid, I wanted to reach out across the TV screen and hug them, I want to bring them back to their kids, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, I wanted them home. I felt the same way about the little olive skin Iraqi boy screaming with the white bandages around his head, I so wanted to comfort him. And the young Iraqi man whose brains were literally blown out and pieces of his skull and hair were barely attached to the rest of him made me just want to die to get out of this whole horrible mess. These images can’t escape from my mind, the dread in Shawna’s eyes and the pain in the eyes of the Iraqi boy and the skull fragments with hair on them. I wanted this war over now, I wanted the bombing over me to stop, I wanted the all-clear siren, wanted it in the worst way.

The Bush Administration may well be wining the public relations war in US; not me! though, they had me but no more. I am appalled by the double standards and their lies. I can’t believe the propaganda war coming out of the Bush Administration directed at me! at us; Americans! What is this stuff about a coalition, am I supposed to believe that having starving countries like Eritrea in the coalition as a substitute for France. Is distant El Salvador the equivalent of Europe’s largest economy Germany and is Bulgaria with its heritage of compliance under Warsaw Pact a substitute for including Russia? Why lie to me about a coalition, why not tell me, we are doing this alone? I resent the insult to my intelligence. Tony Blair does not dare talk about a Coalition of the willing, I respect his honesty.

Come the issue of POWs and treatment of POWs. Again I am disturbed by the double standards. The US took it in its own hands to define who is a POW and who is an “unlawful enemy combatant” during and after the very legitimate invasion of Afghanistan. Those captured were shown on TV in shackles. Instead of showing the world that supported our liberation of Afghanistan our respect for the rule of law, we aimed to redefine the law. On to Iraq, AOL and most US TV showed Iraqis in civilian cloths surrendering and being told to kneel down before their captors, in another shot Iraqi captives were shown marching with their hands over their heads. We can’t win hearts and minds through double standards, but do we care? I don’t think so! the Bush Administration seem to have bought into the Fouad Ajjami & Paul Wolofwitz doctrine, that the Arabs and Muslims will not like America no matter what, so we should not care one iota about their views and get on with doing the right thing.  It is the American hearts and minds that the Administration is really after not those in the Middle East, Europe or even Eritrea.

I am sick of the soft questions of vast majority of American media, I am sick of an American correspondent’s incitement to the military to “take out” Iraqi media, I am sick of American press not asking the really tough questions about Geneva Convention and about the human cost of the war. I am sick of media acting as if covering military product exhibit. I am sick of idiotic use of words such as terrorism that only ultimately serves to equate the Anglo-American “liberation” forces with the Israeli occupation forces. More importantly, why not comment on the fact that the Iraqi Army is a conscript army? As liberators we don’t want to shoot Mohammad or Ali to free their parents and we should indeed expect that Ali’s mom and Mohammad’ dad may not really object to being used as human shield to protect their kids. Mohammad & Ali never enlisted, they were forced into the service. As an American patriot and an American by choice, I fear we got it so badly wrong. We are surrendering American values. Our news briefings are sounding somewhere between the Sharon Spokesman and Tariq Aziz; we are creating whole new definitions for the law .. for morality ..for accuracy in reporting …and for truthfulness.

I find myself also so sick with the reversal of roles that seem to be happening now. Twelve years ago, after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he offered to get out of Kuwait if Israel got out of the West Bank. Much of the world denounced this “linkage” and while many Palestinians and sadly some distinguished Arab Americans fell for it, his whole offer was not taken seriously by anyone. Nowadays guess who is offering linkage? It is the Bush Administration that is over and over again promising to tackle the Palestinian suffering as soon as its gets its way with Saddam. Surely if tackling the Palestinian problems is the right thing to do, it has nothing to do with the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Will the Palestinians have to wait for the rest of the axis of evil, or is Iraq enough?

Al Jazeera and the new all news Arab media seem to have actively sided with Saddam and his army. A naive, but perhaps understandable reaction, to the Bush Administration failure to offer consistent and coherent reasons for the war and simple knee jerk reaction to the involvement of foreigners in our own messy affairs; and not any foreigner ..after all the US is the staunchest ally of the oppressive enemy Israel. So Al Jazeera and the so-called Arab street want to see more Iraqis and others fight America and die fighting America. No one talks of a simple non-cooperation with an uninvited occupation. Why not promote or even discuss refusing to fight for Saddam but also refusing to be liberated. A bus load of Iraqis charging an American tank is not an act of nationalist courage or Islamic commitment; it is neither ..it is the product of ignorance and misinformation ..it is the product of people being lied to by their own Government and by the free independent media, above all it is waste …a terrible waste of life. Jazeera and other Arab media are absolutely right to call it an Anglo American invasion but to claim that suddenly the brutal butcher Saddam is now DEFENDING Iraq or fighting on behalf of Islam and the all important Arab pride is a lie. Jazeera never quite makes the claim explicitly; it is however made over and over again in many ways that it never need to be verbalized.

Islamic authorities, the worlds over seem to be producing new fatwa’s by the hour. How can such a complex issue be resolved so simplistically by declaring that fighting against the invasion is an Islamic duty and those who die fighting against the occupation to be martyrs? Surely for this issue to be subject to Islamic legal interpretation the fatwa givers would have had to take account of all the facts and then issue a legal Islamic opinion. What facts have they taken into consideration and how sure are they of these facts? In accordance with Islamic jurisprudence, just like any legal codes, many issues have to be weighed and dissected. Do the fatwa’s address the crimes of Saddam? What do they make of the possibility that the Anglo-American invasion would indeed result in freedom for the Iraqis? Or do they simply adopt a view that anything America touches in the Muslim World is evil? Where are the dissenting Islamic views? How can the Sheikh of Al Azhar encourage martyrdom through suicide attacks against Anglo American forces; how can he square that with the Quranic commandment not to destroy ourselves? How many mosques must Saddam Hussein bomb and how many hundreds of thousands of Muslims must Saddam kill and how many rape squads must he employ before Sheikh Al Azhar can see that standing by Saddam is not really a commitment to Islam?

As I ran last night in Baghdad my brain was working so hard, in over drive trying to make sense of it all. I wanted sand storms, just sand storms.. I certainly don’t want Saddam Hussein to win ..As a Muslim, does that make me a traitor? Not in the least, Saddam is not fighting for Islam, Saddam’s party is nothing if not anti Islamic to its very core. During the Gulf War of 1991 the bombing of Iraq, a so-called Islamic state never bothered me, I so desperately wanted his defeat and the end of his atrocities. The US courageously jumped into the aid of the Bosnian Muslims when the whole world stood idly by watching the massacres. I don’t want Saddam to come out victorious. But, I am a traitor; I don’t want Bush to be proven right in his defiance of international law, and in his deceit about coalitions and in his contrived causes for the timing of the war. So as I run I can only wish for sandstorms and more sandstorms to stop these horrible sirens of air raids in my head. I want sand storms to silence the fatwa’s that trade in my religion that appeal to popular sentiment as cheap politicians do and in the process push more innocent Iraqis to their death. I want sand storms to help me put my own skull back together to re-find my non-conflicted identity, my whole being.

I worry about my own American identity in all of this. Is my opposition to this war and my desire for the killing to stop now an expression of conflict of identity or maturity of identity? I just don’t know, but my struggle with identity and disturbing images is nothing, those who are suffering are the troops and the civilians in Iraq, all of them.. I am just passing through their city of sorrows, city of rivers of blood.

As a Muslim, I am angry at the use and abuse of Islam. I am angry to see Islam evoked by Saddam Hussein’s propaganda  and at millions of Muslims the world over not getting clarity from their leaders but rather political driven hallucinations and racist hate of the west under the name of fatwa. I think of the difficulty we have every year agreeing on a day to start our fast in Ramadan…of the many different Muslim debates on such a silly, divisive and marginal issue ..they then speak out …not now ..it is all silence. As if standing by Saddam is so very clearly Islamic, just like looking above your head and seeing the full moon in Ramadan …no argument then about the holy month..where is the dissent? Where is it, when it really matters?

I want our young soldiers to come back safe and sound; I don’t want them to be victims of propaganda, to be objects of hate the world over. I want Shawna to come back to her young child and I want the killing to stop. I don’t want a victor in this, because I can’t see truth prevailing and I see a clear victor as a recipe for more war in Iran, Libya or Korea. I just want blinding engine-stopping sand storms. And I run harder and harder to get my skull back together and to get home and as I cross Commonwealth Avenue I hear the massive explosions and my whole being is shaken ..shaken, desperate for sandstorm, desperate for sound Arab, Muslim, American and world leadership.

AA
April 6, 2003