Emails from the Edge (18 page)
Read Emails from the Edge Online
Authors: Ken Haley
As the weeks wore on, changes came. An overhead TV was fitted into place, but the moronic pap of daytime television gains nothing in interest simply because there is nothing else to look at. That wasn't quite the case, anyway, as there was always the ceiling to stare at. Counting the number of âpinholes' in it (3025) could be quite entertaining ⦠up to a point.
Slowly but insistently, my sense of humour sloped back. In grim mood one morning as I craned to see the windowsill above and just to the right of my bed, I thought,
If I wanted to kill myself now by dropping off a window ledge, I'd need help to get up there
.
But, even as I lay there chuckling at this unlikely vision, I realised that a week had gone by, and my blood had apparently decided not to clot and endanger my stubborn life. So, later in the day, I furtively shovelled the heparin tablets from under the pillow into the wastepaper basket.
Self-understanding dawns slowly, and I wasn't there yet. It was April, and I had been almost a month in Ward 13 â almost a month, when the depths of my uncommunicative, teary struggle with this new existence were plumbed.
Had anyone then confronted me with the fact that I was submerged in self-pity, my reaction would have been one of anger and resentment. But that was the predominant wellspring of my depressive emotions.
The loss of a limb is no light thing. A part of one's body since birth is something to which one is attachedâyes, there is humour in thatâ but vitally, in every way, not just physically. The loss is palpable, and the grief that flows from that constant sense of bereavement is initially overpowering.
It recedes over timeâjust as grief at the loss of a loved one doesâbut to absorb that loss and convert it into a sense that this is what you have come to while your self remains essentially unimpaired is the work not of a day, week or month, but of years. Because of this, self-pityâthe ability to grieve with your whole heart at your reduced condition, your baby-like helplessnessâis in my view a necessary phase in the grieving process. Advice is beside the point here but, if anyone were to ask how to treat this much maligned compassion for oneself in those days of self-mourning, I would offer this simple counsel: wallow in it. If recuperation is to come, however, you will eventually need to turf out self-pity, a guest always inclined to overstay its welcome.
It was one of the night-time liftersâthe strongest of the crew, whom I'd come to trust from our brief but regular conversationsâwho, a few months into my incarceration, opened the first window onto my future. It came in the form of a casual remark, merely letting me know that he would be away in England for the next month, with an old Ward 13 patient of his who needed a carer with him on his touring holiday.
Two weeks into my stay, just when I was beginning to stabilise, Dr Ungar had calmly but gravely confirmed I would never walk again, triggering a new stage in my grief. Obviously he realised that the first time I had been told the cue had come too early. This time round the news appeared horrific. In the next few days I would ponder the loss inwardly, deeply, with renewed bouts of weeping, and about five times an hour I would miss walking. But now, months down the track, when this revelation came that a paraplegic could do something as normal, and to me desirable, as travel, I didn't think about walking, didn't miss it, more than once a day. Still, it seemed one of those things every normal person did.
My frame was racked by a single spasm. This information lit a candle of hope in my darkened brain. For the first time it occurred to me that I might travel again, though my rational blinkers immediately dimmed the light. I'd lost the ability to imagine a future beyond the helplessness and powerlessness I could see all around and within me.
Then my friend the lifter and turner, seeming to sense my mental struggle with this new perspective, added, âDo you know what percentage of patients here go on to lead useful lives?'
âI dunno. Ten per cent?' I replied, not really interested in playing this game. âNinety-five,' he returned, to my obvious disbelief. âNinety-five. The rest vegetate.'
Slowly but insistently, my sense of humour sloped back. In grim mood one morning as I craned to see the windowsill above and just to the right of my bed, I thought,
If I wanted to kill myself now by dropping off a window ledge, I'd need help to get up there
.
But, even as I lay there chuckling at this unlikely vision, I realised that a week had gone by, and my blood had apparently decided not to clot and endanger my stubborn life. So, later in the day, I furtively shovelled the heparin tablets from under the pillow into the wastepaper basket.
Self-understanding dawns slowly, and I wasn't there yet. It was April, and I had been almost a month in Ward 13 â almost a month, when the depths of my uncommunicative, teary struggle with this new existence were plumbed.
Had anyone then confronted me with the fact that I was submerged in self-pity, my reaction would have been one of anger and resentment. But that was the predominant wellspring of my depressive emotions.
The loss of a limb is no light thing. A part of one's body since birth is something to which one is attachedâyes, there is humour in thatâ but vitally, in every way, not just physically. The loss is palpable, and the grief that flows from that constant sense of bereavement is initially overpowering.
It recedes over timeâjust as grief at the loss of a loved one doesâbut to absorb that loss and convert it into a sense that this is what you have come to while your self remains essentially unimpaired is the work not of a day, week or month, but of years. Because of this, self-pityâthe ability to grieve with your whole heart at your reduced condition, your baby-like helplessnessâis in my view a necessary phase in the grieving process. Advice is beside the point here but, if anyone were to ask how to treat this much maligned compassion for oneself in those days of self-mourning, I would offer this simple counsel: wallow in it. If recuperation is to come, however, you will eventually need to turf out self-pity, a guest always inclined to overstay its welcome.
It was one of the night-time liftersâthe strongest of the crew, whom I'd come to trust from our brief but regular conversationsâwho, a few months into my incarceration, opened the first window onto my future. It came in the form of a casual remark, merely letting me know that he would be away in England for the next month, with an old Ward 13 patient of his who needed a carer with him on his touring holiday.
Two weeks into my stay, just when I was beginning to stabilise, Dr Ungar had calmly but gravely confirmed I would never walk again, triggering a new stage in my grief. Obviously he realised that the first time I had been told the cue had come too early. This time round the news appeared horrific. In the next few days I would ponder the loss inwardly, deeply, with renewed bouts of weeping, and about five times an hour I would miss walking. But now, months down the track, when this revelation came that a paraplegic could do something as normal, and to me desirable, as travel, I didn't think about walking, didn't miss it, more than once a day. Still, it seemed one of those things every normal person did.
My frame was racked by a single spasm. This information lit a candle of hope in my darkened brain. For the first time it occurred to me that I might travel again, though my rational blinkers immediately dimmed the light. I'd lost the ability to imagine a future beyond the helplessness and powerlessness I could see all around and within me.
Then my friend the lifter and turner, seeming to sense my mental struggle with this new perspective, added, âDo you know what percentage of patients here go on to lead useful lives?'
âI dunno. Ten per cent?' I replied, not really interested in playing this game. âNinety-five,' he returned, to my obvious disbelief. âNinety-five. The rest vegetate.'
Chapter 15
THE GROWING GULF
T
RAVELS WITH A
T
ANGERINE
DECEMBER 2001-FEBRUARY 2002
Back in Bahrain, on Christmas Day 2001âwhich, of course, is just another day for the vast majority of the population thereâI received the latest cache of mail from home. On opening a greetings card from the seven-year-old son of a family friend, I had to laugh. Above a hand-drawn Christmas tree, he had written,
âDear Ken, Watch out for the bombs, And have a great Christmas were ever
[sic]
you are!'
second time round, Bahrain holds no fears for me. The reply to his greeting flows easily from my pen.
While I promise to watch out for the bombs, young Joash, the fact is that I haven't seen one yet. Maybe I'm blind to the danger but I prefer to think it is because so few people are carrying them
.
BAHRAIN: 17â26 DECEMBER
Despite the trauma that began on this island eleven years earlier, returning here was not like going back into the lion's den, getting back on the horse or whatever other analogy you might choose. Times had changed: whatever regional threats existed at the end of 2001, invasion wasn't one of them.
DAY 224 (22 DECEMBER): SAKHIR RACECOURSE
Among our unsung debts to the Arabs is a love of horseflesh, but race-day crowds at this course in the centre of Bahrain island play a numbers game that would be hardly recognisable on the Australian turf. Gambling is too un-Islamic to be permitted here, but punters must have their incentive so the Bahrain Racing and Equestrian Club runs what is essentially a raffle in its place.
At the grandstand window, a woman hands me a slip of paper headed âForecasts' and for one dinar (about A$5) I get to nominate the first-and second-place runners in any of the seven events on today's card.
I tip No. 5 in the fourth, and 5 again in the sixth. The winning dividend is not called a payout but a jackpot, the distinction between gambling and picking a winner appearing to me as slight as my chances of ending up ahead at this game. But No. 5 in the fourth flies home first, and my guide to the mysteries of Bahraini racing, Khalil Bakal, tells me that if my race-six fancy, Kuwait Bay, does the same I could wheel away with 100 dinars (A$500). My pulse quickens. Just last week I was on a ferry crossing Kuwait Bay, so what could beat that?
Persian Adventure (another name that should have struck a chord with me), that's what. Kuwait Bay crosses the finishing line second. There is no prize for second, no jackpot for yours truly.
A Bahraini-born Iranian, Khalil grew up in an equine world. His uncle kept stables and Khalil was just six when he rode his first horseâand that was not a pony, but a full-height Arab steed. âI was scared but after I know the horse it was easy for me,' he says.
Children are naturally curious about wheelchairs. We are beside the parade ring now, and the young son of one of his friends tries to turn the tyres on my chair before switching his attention to Khalil's. You see few enough wheelchair users in the cities of Central and South-west Asia, and those you do see are more likely to be out earning a subsistence living than enjoying their leisure. Khalil, whose old life ended in a 1984 motorbike accident, admits he is lucky to come from a well-to-do family.
Attitudes to people in wheelchairs differ from culture to culture. In Australia, as experience has taught me, most people will seem casual and indifferent, as though they haven't noticed. (That's nice.) In England, usually when I'm minding my own business, total strangers will occasionally come up and ask, âCan I help you?' (âNo. Can I help you?' I sometimes answer, even though I know this is rude.) In southern Africa, concern can be indicated by bluff directness, when someone you've never seen steps up and asks, âWhat happened?'
In Arab society, being different from the group is social death, and Khalil sometimes finds this hard to handle. âOne day I go shopping, these ladies say, “Look at that guy, he's in a wheelchair.” My brother says to me, “Let them go. If you take care for that, you cannot enjoy this life.” '
DAY 227 (25 DECEMBER): MANAMA
Do they know it's Christmas? Well, the Hotel Aradous has a huge fir tree with plastic needles reaching to the ceiling, and the Filipino jazz band have an extra spring in their step, but basically the answer is no. I spend the day writing. One of the advantages of not celebrating Christmas is that the post office remains open until 7 pm for the dispatch of ⦠belated Christmas cards.
QATAR: 26â30 DECEMBER
Mostly trackless desert, Qatar is a thumb jutting up from the Arabian mainland. Its main attraction is that it has no âmain attractions', although at this point in its history Sleepy Hollow is receiving a wake-up call, with the United States discreetly deciding to set up a military headquarters here. But the reason Qatar is now sticking its head above the sand, so to speak, is that it is home to al-Jazeera, the controversial Arab satellite-TV network that brought Osama bin Laden into the West's living rooms.
DAY 229 (27 DECEMBER): DOHA
Qatar's capital is a bright, modern but decidedly quiet city clinging to a horseshoe-shaped harbour. For once I have pre-booked accommodation, taking advantage of my youth hostel membership card, and Doha Youth Hostel is by any standards a spacious and welcoming home away from home. The âwar on terror' makes this an instructive New Year to be in the Gulf, and this evening the lesson comes into
our
living room, in the form of al-Jazeera's latest scoop: a video message from bin Laden allegedly made since the US campaign that ousted his Taliban hosts.
Seated in a semicircle around the hostel's TV are an Egyptian man, who never gives away his attitude to bin Laden; two middle-aged Sudanese men who take to backchatting the al-Qa'eda chief; and an intense European-looking man in his mid-twenties, but clearly a Muslim in his white
jellaba
, who strokes his goatee beard throughout the telecast. As bin Laden fades from the screen, the young, previously silent oneâwho it turns out is from the Balkansâstands up, points at the television, declaims âHe is the best man in the whole world' (in English, significantly, not Arabic, leaving no room for doubt that his words are meant primarily for my ears), and quits the room.
I follow him out to the porch, where he seems to be expecting me. We exchange names, and as the
Sydney Morning Herald
has already asked me to garner local reaction to the latest bin Laden tape I mention that his views would be of interest to Australians. The Slovene agrees to talk but will allow himself to be identified only as Abu Amr (Yasser Arafat's alias, no less). The obvious question comes first. âSo why do you admire bin Laden?'
âLike Tolstoy, he is a great man of faith.' Abu Amr astonishes me with this comparison. âBut he is also a man of action, like your Mad Max.'
Am I hearing right? Bin Laden, road warrior?
âWhen I was growing up, I always liked to look at those movies. Mel Gibson was a real superstar. But people forget why Mad Max became mad: because he had seen his woman raped and his child killed ⦠now you can understand Osama. He's the only one today who stood up and acted on his beliefs without any fear and talked tough to the biggest hypocrite in the world. He's the only one of the Muslims who spoke the truth about injustice in Palestine, the killing of those poor kids in Iraq, and destroying the only pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.'
The scholarly 29-year-old is a computer technician, a refugee from the imploded Yugoslavia, who claims to have lived in Kosovo and Bosnia, and even to have taught at a summer camp in Missouri.
America's way of life and love of informality seem to have turned him into an old-fashioned Methodist. âStuff that is forbiddenâ drinking, prostitution, cursing, making jokes about the Prophets, even the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon himâthey do it all. For the normal person who believes in God and the Prophets, there are limits. I heard them, “Tonight we speak to our Lord ⦔ and they dance. A normal person cannot take it as worshipping; it's making jokes; for us it's blasphemy.'
The wounds of September 11 are still raw. Does Abu Amr accept that those who died in New York were innocent? âThe majority of them,' he says cautiously. âSome of them, maybe, if they were still alive, would have embraced Islam. Some of those who died were Muslims. There was a small mosque in the World Trade Center, did you know?' (I didn't.) â⦠So this I condemn but, regarding the Pentagon, this is another case.'
His selective notion of innocence is extremely disturbing but Abu Amr immediately makes it clear he has given the matter deep thought. Unprompted, the young Islamist quotes
al-Maleda
(or âFeast Table'), the fifth
sura
of the Koran. âKilling one innocent person is like killing the whole of mankind.'
Unless we in the West think we're perfect, we must listen to what the Abu Amrs have to say, or ignore it at our peril. After all, the so-called clash of civilisations is really a clash between those who think all of us have some of the truth, and those who think some of us have it all.
DAY 230 (28 DECEMBER): DOHA
The 1991 Gulf War put CNN on the map. Ten years later the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan did the same for al-Jazeera, although that same campaign took its Kabul studio off the map.
Yesterday, when I rang up Osama bin Laden's channel of choice and said that as an Australian journalist I would like to come along and see just what al-Jazeera was all about, the last answer I expected was yes. In many American eyes the station is merely a mouthpiece for terrorists, while in many Arab ones it represents a free market of dissenting voices speaking without a foreign, specifically American, accent. Then there is the adrenaline rush of visiting a place that not only reports the news but has become newsworthy itself. Since September 11 the words âal-Jazeera exclusive', flanked by the outlet's flame-like logo, have become familiar to TV viewers the world over.
Ibrahim Hilal, the station's editor-in-chief, greets me with a smile. He knows the way to a journalist's heart, launching forth on press freedom by recounting a phone conversation he had with the
New York Times
editor after that paper had accused al-Jazeera of reporting baseless rumours.
Hilal says he told the editor, âWe are on the same front [in this cause]. If the window of freedom in the Middle East is closed, everyone will be a loser. It's a big window, it's clear and it's open. Let's keep it open.'
Sadly, Hilal's simple and eloquent message will be tarnished later by what appears to be a lack of candour (to say the least) by his ex-Kabul-bureau chief, Tayseer Allouni.
Allouni, a hale and hearty man, is summoned to Hilal's office and, in the course of a long interview, tells me he has âno contacts within al-Qa'eda'. What he doesn't tell meâbut it comes out laterâis that he met bin Laden, and that his interview with him was run as a âscoop'.
Of course, if Allouni was doing his job of reporting Afghanistan over the past few years he
should
have had contacts within al-Qa'eda. What worries me is not the existence of such contacts, but his literally incredible denial of them. When he says more videos can be expected from bin Laden âbecause it is very easy for the al-Qa'eda organisation to put them into DHL or another courier service', I wonder who he thinks he's kidding. DHL under the Taliban? Give me a break.
Of course the video trail leads to bin Laden and I'm itching to know where he is. But, journalist to journalist, I cannot demand that Allouni reveal his sources. Instead I ask Hilal his opinion on bin Laden's whereabouts. âYou can say he's close to God,' he answers. âHe may try to send some signals, but they will not be of the coded type [as the Americans have warned]. He is playing with Washington. He wants to die a martyr.'
What happened to the Kabul bureau on the night of 13 November was no mistake, Hilal says angrily. âThey avoided hitting it for 38 days. Then four bombs hit it.'
Allouni tells a dramatic tale of escape, to Pakistan after a long detour via Kandahar, including an assault by Northern Alliance soldiers who regarded him as a Taliban sympathiser. Humanly, one can see the man has gone through hell, but the last paragraph of my report says, â⦠perhaps he knows something we don't, and may tell it to the public after the holiday he has planned in Spain'.
Time will prove my prophecy half right.
Tonight I glean an insight into the conflict between Western-propelled mass communications and an older system, the faith of the world's billion Muslims. On the TV that yesterday brought us bin Laden, I see a particularly powerful commercial, which I'm told is being screened throughout the Arab world. It shows a youth of eighteen years seated at his computer, typing compulsively. He ignores his father's soft-spoken plea to go and pray. Presently a vision appears on the computer screen: it's his own funeral, with his parents grieving and him looking helplessly out of the grave as spadefuls of earth are tossed into it. The ad closes with a single line of white Arabic script on a black background. Youssef Bada, one of the Sudanese men who are staying here at the hostel, explains, âThe message is, “Do your prayer before you are finished (a looser translation would be “while there's still time”)”.' He adds, âThey need to say this to young people now at the Internet and spending hours and hours at the screen, neglecting their religious duties.'
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: 31 DECEMBER-8 JANUARY
DAY 233 (31 DECEMBER): INTO THE UAE
A busload of travellers, rudely awakened by the glare of an unsleeping border post in the dead of night (3.10 am UAE time), rolls across the sand, skirting the southern shore of the Gulf: first destination Abu Dhabi, second Dubai.
THE GROWING GULF
C'est quasi le m
ê
me de converser avec ceux des autres si
è
cles que de voyager. (Conversing with those from other centuries is almost the same as travelling.)
DESCARTES, QUOTED BY TIM MACKINTOSH-SMITH INê
me de converser avec ceux des autres si
è
cles que de voyager. (Conversing with those from other centuries is almost the same as travelling.)
T
RAVELS WITH A
T
ANGERINE
DECEMBER 2001-FEBRUARY 2002
Back in Bahrain, on Christmas Day 2001âwhich, of course, is just another day for the vast majority of the population thereâI received the latest cache of mail from home. On opening a greetings card from the seven-year-old son of a family friend, I had to laugh. Above a hand-drawn Christmas tree, he had written,
âDear Ken, Watch out for the bombs, And have a great Christmas were ever
[sic]
you are!'
second time round, Bahrain holds no fears for me. The reply to his greeting flows easily from my pen.
While I promise to watch out for the bombs, young Joash, the fact is that I haven't seen one yet. Maybe I'm blind to the danger but I prefer to think it is because so few people are carrying them
.
BAHRAIN: 17â26 DECEMBER
Despite the trauma that began on this island eleven years earlier, returning here was not like going back into the lion's den, getting back on the horse or whatever other analogy you might choose. Times had changed: whatever regional threats existed at the end of 2001, invasion wasn't one of them.
DAY 224 (22 DECEMBER): SAKHIR RACECOURSE
Among our unsung debts to the Arabs is a love of horseflesh, but race-day crowds at this course in the centre of Bahrain island play a numbers game that would be hardly recognisable on the Australian turf. Gambling is too un-Islamic to be permitted here, but punters must have their incentive so the Bahrain Racing and Equestrian Club runs what is essentially a raffle in its place.
At the grandstand window, a woman hands me a slip of paper headed âForecasts' and for one dinar (about A$5) I get to nominate the first-and second-place runners in any of the seven events on today's card.
I tip No. 5 in the fourth, and 5 again in the sixth. The winning dividend is not called a payout but a jackpot, the distinction between gambling and picking a winner appearing to me as slight as my chances of ending up ahead at this game. But No. 5 in the fourth flies home first, and my guide to the mysteries of Bahraini racing, Khalil Bakal, tells me that if my race-six fancy, Kuwait Bay, does the same I could wheel away with 100 dinars (A$500). My pulse quickens. Just last week I was on a ferry crossing Kuwait Bay, so what could beat that?
Persian Adventure (another name that should have struck a chord with me), that's what. Kuwait Bay crosses the finishing line second. There is no prize for second, no jackpot for yours truly.
A Bahraini-born Iranian, Khalil grew up in an equine world. His uncle kept stables and Khalil was just six when he rode his first horseâand that was not a pony, but a full-height Arab steed. âI was scared but after I know the horse it was easy for me,' he says.
Children are naturally curious about wheelchairs. We are beside the parade ring now, and the young son of one of his friends tries to turn the tyres on my chair before switching his attention to Khalil's. You see few enough wheelchair users in the cities of Central and South-west Asia, and those you do see are more likely to be out earning a subsistence living than enjoying their leisure. Khalil, whose old life ended in a 1984 motorbike accident, admits he is lucky to come from a well-to-do family.
Attitudes to people in wheelchairs differ from culture to culture. In Australia, as experience has taught me, most people will seem casual and indifferent, as though they haven't noticed. (That's nice.) In England, usually when I'm minding my own business, total strangers will occasionally come up and ask, âCan I help you?' (âNo. Can I help you?' I sometimes answer, even though I know this is rude.) In southern Africa, concern can be indicated by bluff directness, when someone you've never seen steps up and asks, âWhat happened?'
In Arab society, being different from the group is social death, and Khalil sometimes finds this hard to handle. âOne day I go shopping, these ladies say, “Look at that guy, he's in a wheelchair.” My brother says to me, “Let them go. If you take care for that, you cannot enjoy this life.” '
DAY 227 (25 DECEMBER): MANAMA
Do they know it's Christmas? Well, the Hotel Aradous has a huge fir tree with plastic needles reaching to the ceiling, and the Filipino jazz band have an extra spring in their step, but basically the answer is no. I spend the day writing. One of the advantages of not celebrating Christmas is that the post office remains open until 7 pm for the dispatch of ⦠belated Christmas cards.
QATAR: 26â30 DECEMBER
Mostly trackless desert, Qatar is a thumb jutting up from the Arabian mainland. Its main attraction is that it has no âmain attractions', although at this point in its history Sleepy Hollow is receiving a wake-up call, with the United States discreetly deciding to set up a military headquarters here. But the reason Qatar is now sticking its head above the sand, so to speak, is that it is home to al-Jazeera, the controversial Arab satellite-TV network that brought Osama bin Laden into the West's living rooms.
DAY 229 (27 DECEMBER): DOHA
Qatar's capital is a bright, modern but decidedly quiet city clinging to a horseshoe-shaped harbour. For once I have pre-booked accommodation, taking advantage of my youth hostel membership card, and Doha Youth Hostel is by any standards a spacious and welcoming home away from home. The âwar on terror' makes this an instructive New Year to be in the Gulf, and this evening the lesson comes into
our
living room, in the form of al-Jazeera's latest scoop: a video message from bin Laden allegedly made since the US campaign that ousted his Taliban hosts.
Seated in a semicircle around the hostel's TV are an Egyptian man, who never gives away his attitude to bin Laden; two middle-aged Sudanese men who take to backchatting the al-Qa'eda chief; and an intense European-looking man in his mid-twenties, but clearly a Muslim in his white
jellaba
, who strokes his goatee beard throughout the telecast. As bin Laden fades from the screen, the young, previously silent oneâwho it turns out is from the Balkansâstands up, points at the television, declaims âHe is the best man in the whole world' (in English, significantly, not Arabic, leaving no room for doubt that his words are meant primarily for my ears), and quits the room.
I follow him out to the porch, where he seems to be expecting me. We exchange names, and as the
Sydney Morning Herald
has already asked me to garner local reaction to the latest bin Laden tape I mention that his views would be of interest to Australians. The Slovene agrees to talk but will allow himself to be identified only as Abu Amr (Yasser Arafat's alias, no less). The obvious question comes first. âSo why do you admire bin Laden?'
âLike Tolstoy, he is a great man of faith.' Abu Amr astonishes me with this comparison. âBut he is also a man of action, like your Mad Max.'
Am I hearing right? Bin Laden, road warrior?
âWhen I was growing up, I always liked to look at those movies. Mel Gibson was a real superstar. But people forget why Mad Max became mad: because he had seen his woman raped and his child killed ⦠now you can understand Osama. He's the only one today who stood up and acted on his beliefs without any fear and talked tough to the biggest hypocrite in the world. He's the only one of the Muslims who spoke the truth about injustice in Palestine, the killing of those poor kids in Iraq, and destroying the only pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.'
The scholarly 29-year-old is a computer technician, a refugee from the imploded Yugoslavia, who claims to have lived in Kosovo and Bosnia, and even to have taught at a summer camp in Missouri.
America's way of life and love of informality seem to have turned him into an old-fashioned Methodist. âStuff that is forbiddenâ drinking, prostitution, cursing, making jokes about the Prophets, even the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon himâthey do it all. For the normal person who believes in God and the Prophets, there are limits. I heard them, “Tonight we speak to our Lord ⦔ and they dance. A normal person cannot take it as worshipping; it's making jokes; for us it's blasphemy.'
The wounds of September 11 are still raw. Does Abu Amr accept that those who died in New York were innocent? âThe majority of them,' he says cautiously. âSome of them, maybe, if they were still alive, would have embraced Islam. Some of those who died were Muslims. There was a small mosque in the World Trade Center, did you know?' (I didn't.) â⦠So this I condemn but, regarding the Pentagon, this is another case.'
His selective notion of innocence is extremely disturbing but Abu Amr immediately makes it clear he has given the matter deep thought. Unprompted, the young Islamist quotes
al-Maleda
(or âFeast Table'), the fifth
sura
of the Koran. âKilling one innocent person is like killing the whole of mankind.'
Unless we in the West think we're perfect, we must listen to what the Abu Amrs have to say, or ignore it at our peril. After all, the so-called clash of civilisations is really a clash between those who think all of us have some of the truth, and those who think some of us have it all.
DAY 230 (28 DECEMBER): DOHA
The 1991 Gulf War put CNN on the map. Ten years later the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan did the same for al-Jazeera, although that same campaign took its Kabul studio off the map.
Yesterday, when I rang up Osama bin Laden's channel of choice and said that as an Australian journalist I would like to come along and see just what al-Jazeera was all about, the last answer I expected was yes. In many American eyes the station is merely a mouthpiece for terrorists, while in many Arab ones it represents a free market of dissenting voices speaking without a foreign, specifically American, accent. Then there is the adrenaline rush of visiting a place that not only reports the news but has become newsworthy itself. Since September 11 the words âal-Jazeera exclusive', flanked by the outlet's flame-like logo, have become familiar to TV viewers the world over.
Ibrahim Hilal, the station's editor-in-chief, greets me with a smile. He knows the way to a journalist's heart, launching forth on press freedom by recounting a phone conversation he had with the
New York Times
editor after that paper had accused al-Jazeera of reporting baseless rumours.
Hilal says he told the editor, âWe are on the same front [in this cause]. If the window of freedom in the Middle East is closed, everyone will be a loser. It's a big window, it's clear and it's open. Let's keep it open.'
Sadly, Hilal's simple and eloquent message will be tarnished later by what appears to be a lack of candour (to say the least) by his ex-Kabul-bureau chief, Tayseer Allouni.
Allouni, a hale and hearty man, is summoned to Hilal's office and, in the course of a long interview, tells me he has âno contacts within al-Qa'eda'. What he doesn't tell meâbut it comes out laterâis that he met bin Laden, and that his interview with him was run as a âscoop'.
Of course, if Allouni was doing his job of reporting Afghanistan over the past few years he
should
have had contacts within al-Qa'eda. What worries me is not the existence of such contacts, but his literally incredible denial of them. When he says more videos can be expected from bin Laden âbecause it is very easy for the al-Qa'eda organisation to put them into DHL or another courier service', I wonder who he thinks he's kidding. DHL under the Taliban? Give me a break.
Of course the video trail leads to bin Laden and I'm itching to know where he is. But, journalist to journalist, I cannot demand that Allouni reveal his sources. Instead I ask Hilal his opinion on bin Laden's whereabouts. âYou can say he's close to God,' he answers. âHe may try to send some signals, but they will not be of the coded type [as the Americans have warned]. He is playing with Washington. He wants to die a martyr.'
What happened to the Kabul bureau on the night of 13 November was no mistake, Hilal says angrily. âThey avoided hitting it for 38 days. Then four bombs hit it.'
Allouni tells a dramatic tale of escape, to Pakistan after a long detour via Kandahar, including an assault by Northern Alliance soldiers who regarded him as a Taliban sympathiser. Humanly, one can see the man has gone through hell, but the last paragraph of my report says, â⦠perhaps he knows something we don't, and may tell it to the public after the holiday he has planned in Spain'.
Time will prove my prophecy half right.
Tonight I glean an insight into the conflict between Western-propelled mass communications and an older system, the faith of the world's billion Muslims. On the TV that yesterday brought us bin Laden, I see a particularly powerful commercial, which I'm told is being screened throughout the Arab world. It shows a youth of eighteen years seated at his computer, typing compulsively. He ignores his father's soft-spoken plea to go and pray. Presently a vision appears on the computer screen: it's his own funeral, with his parents grieving and him looking helplessly out of the grave as spadefuls of earth are tossed into it. The ad closes with a single line of white Arabic script on a black background. Youssef Bada, one of the Sudanese men who are staying here at the hostel, explains, âThe message is, “Do your prayer before you are finished (a looser translation would be “while there's still time”)”.' He adds, âThey need to say this to young people now at the Internet and spending hours and hours at the screen, neglecting their religious duties.'
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: 31 DECEMBER-8 JANUARY
DAY 233 (31 DECEMBER): INTO THE UAE
A busload of travellers, rudely awakened by the glare of an unsleeping border post in the dead of night (3.10 am UAE time), rolls across the sand, skirting the southern shore of the Gulf: first destination Abu Dhabi, second Dubai.
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