Tower of the Sun: Stories From the Middle East and North Africa (8 page)

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said and laughed. “It’s not going to explode again. Who planted it, anyway? Al-Qaeda?”

“Some guy in an extremist organization. Don’t worry, everyone hates them.”

He complained about how some parts of Cairo that used to be beautiful became squalid, in particular one area where derelict European-style architectural wonders were blanked out by an octopus of freeway on- and off-ramps.

“May God damn Nasser in hell all over again!” Big Pharaoh said.

“Plenty of countries built ugly crap like that after World War II,” I said. “It wasn’t just Nasser. I know what you mean, though. Even most Westerners have no idea how badly he ruined this place.”

“Some of them love charismatic dictators,” he said. “Like Castro and Qaddafi.”

“Qaddafi is only charismatic if you’re outside Libya,” I said. “Inside he has all the charisma and charm of a serial killer.”

Nasser wasn’t as bad as the mad scientist ruling Tripoli. No doubt about it: Egypt was in far better shape than Libya. Egypt had people who could say what they wanted without being yanked from their beds in the night, as long as they didn’t act on their opinions in public. Egypt had intellectuals. Egypt had art. Egypt had opera. Egypt had restaurants with menus. Most Egyptians didn’t partake of Cairo’s high culture, but at least it
existed
. In Libya it did not. Not under Qaddafi. He wouldn’t allow it.

We walked past an old mosque set 15 feet below street level, built by Sharf el-Din and his brother in 1317–37 A.D. Just in front of the entrance was a courtyard of sorts created by the walls of the two buildings next to it on either side. The entrance was shut, and the lights set up to illuminate it were turned off. This mosque, unlike most, had no minarets.

I walked down the stairs and tried to open the slender wooden doors in case they were open. They weren’t. Just to the right of the entrance was a plaque identifying the mosque as Monument Number 176.

You can spend a lot of time gawking at extraordinarily well-preserved monuments if that’s what you’re looking for in Egypt on holiday. Cairo suddenly seemed a better tourist attraction that I had so far given it credit for. The city as a whole is pretty shabby, but Beirut—which is in much better shape—is effectively only 150 years old. It lacks the sense of history and wonder that Cairo, dumpy as it is, can rightfully boast.

Big Pharaoh and I continued walking toward the old market on a busted-up sidewalk walled off from four lanes of traffic by a metal fence that looked like a 5-foot-tall, mile-long bicycle rack. Shuttered and boarded-up storefronts eventually fell away and were replaced by brilliantly illuminated shops selling all manner of oriental art, jewelry, housewares and textiles.

On our left was an 800-year-old Shia mosque built by al-Saleh Talai in 1160 A.D. (This one was Monument Number 116.) Marble Roman-style columns flanked the entrance below a classical Islamic arch. The doors of this mosque were made of tarnished hammered metal and looked original. It appeared to be in pristine condition, at least on the outside, for such an old building. I thought of an old saying about Europe and the United States, where Egypt can stand in for Europe. In Europe (and Egypt), 100 miles is a long way. In America, 100 years is a long time.

“You see those men in white robes and white hats?” Big Pharaoh said and pointed with his eyes toward two traditionally dressed men crossing the street. “They are Shias from India who moved here with Sadat’s permission to live next to the Fatimid mosques and take care of them.”

The Fatimids founded Cairo and built the oldest remnants in the historic center. Some parts of the ancient city walls still remain, along with an enormous metal door—impenetrable by medieval armies—at one of the gates.

“Khan el-Khalili is just up ahead,” Big Pharaoh said. “You will love it. It is very exotic.”

“Is it exotic to you?” I said.

“No,” he said. “But it will be exotic to you.”

I’d spent enough time in Arab countries by then that the exoticism had worn off, but I could still appreciate it. Khan el-Khalili is exactly, precisely, what I always imagined the Middle East would look like before I went there. Shopping—or buying things, I should say—never interested me much, but getting lost in the twisting narrow streets while gawking at gold, silver, hookahs, spices, jewelry, antiques and dramatically colored bolts of cloth reminded me that I was far from home and that I should savor my time while I could.

Some of the hustling shopkeepers could be endearing and entertaining when they weren’t annoying.

“Welcome to my country!”

“How can I take your money from you?”

“I don’t cheat as much as the others!”

Neither of us wanted to buy anything, though, so we set off for food.

I saw small birds the size of my fist being roasted by an ancient man at a food cart.

“Do you know what those are?” Big Pharaoh said. They looked like tiny chickens.

“Nope,” I said.

“They’re pigeons,” he said. ‘They are stuffed. The cooks stuff rice—” he broke off laughing. “They stuff rice up its ass.”

“Do you want a kebab?” the cart owner asked. “A pigeon kebab?”

“No, thank you,” I said and walked on.

“We don’t waste food in Egypt,” Big Pharaoh said. “We eat every part of the cow here.” That seems to be the case almost everywhere in the world except in the U.S. and Canada. “We eat the brains, the testicles and even the eyeballs. But I have
never
eaten an eyeball.” Every man has his limits. “And I never will.” He didn’t mention testicles one way or the other.

“The brains are delicious,” he said. “You would love it!”

Perhaps. But neither of us particularly wanted bovine noodle for dinner that night. So he took me instead to a restaurant called Egyptian Pancake near the entrance to Khan el-Khalili.

“This is the best pancake place in all of Egypt,” he said.

Egyptian pancakes are more like slabs of thick pita bread than the breakfast fare of the United States. I ordered mine stuffed with white cheese and tomatoes. Big Pharaoh ordered his stuffed with beef. We ate at an outdoor table and talked about travel.

“I went to the Greek side of Cyprus when I was 5,” he said.

“I didn’t like the Greek side of Cyprus,” I said. “The Turkish side is more interesting. The Greek side has no identity. It’s like a gigantic outdoor frat house for British louts on a budget. It could be anywhere. If I flew all the way across the world just to go there, I would be pissed.”

“I got lost on the beach,” he said. “I was 5 years old. I remember screaming for my mother, and of course I was screaming in Arabic. I went up to all these Greeks asking if they had seen my mother, tears streaming down my face, and none of them understood me. I remember thinking I was going to spend the rest of my life here in Cyprus.”

“Obviously your parents found you,” I said.

“My father found me, and I ran up to him and hugged him like crazy.”

“Where else have you been?” I said.

“Bulgaria,” he said.

“I would love to visit Bulgaria,” I said.

“I went there when it was communist,” he said and laughed. “Communist Bulgaria! It was bad. My father didn’t make as much money then as he does now. So when we wanted to go on vacation, all we could afford was a communist country.”

We both thought that was funny. But, hey, I was willing to visit a communist country. I went to Libya, for God’s sake, when I could have gone to Prague.

“Bulgaria is beautiful, though,” he said. “The mountains, the forests, amazing. We went to a place called Butterfly Island. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. In the spring, the entire island is covered in butterflies.” He made sweeping gestures with both his arms. “I had not even heard of it until my family went there.”

I had not heard of it until he told me about it.

“What’s the best trip abroad you ever took?” I said.

“My best trip ever was to Los Angeles. I was in heaven! When my family came home and the plane touched down in Egypt, my sister wept.” He drew lines down his cheeks with his fingers. “She wept.”

Chapter Three

The Next Iranian Revolution

Iran/Iraq Border, 2007

In a green valley nestled between snowcapped peaks in the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, an armed camp of revolutionaries prepared to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran. Men with automatic weapons stood watch on the roofs of the houses. Party flags snapped in the wind. Radio and satellite-TV stations beamed illegal news, commentary and music into homes and government offices across the border.

The compound resembled a small town more than a base, with corner stores, a bakery and a makeshift hospital stocked with counterfeit medicine. From there the rebels could see for miles around and get a straight-shot view toward Iran, the land they call home. They call themselves Komala, which simply means “Association.”

Abdullah Mohtadi, the Komala Party’s secretary general, and Abu Baker Modarresi, a member of the party’s political bureau, hosted me in their meetinghouse. Sofas and chairs lined the walls, as is typical in Middle Eastern salons. Fresh fruit was provided in large bowls. A houseboy served thick Turkish coffee in shot glasses.

Both men started their revolutionary careers decades earlier, when the tyrannical Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi still ruled Iran. “We were a leftist organization,” Mohtadi said, speaking softly with an almost flawless British accent. “It was the ’60s and ’70s. It was a struggle against the Shah, against oppression, dictatorship, for social justice and against—the United States.” He seemed slightly embarrassed by this. “Sorry,” he said.

I told him not to worry, that I hadn’t expected anything else. The U.S. government had backed the dictatorship he fought to destroy. Pro-American politics had not been an option.

The Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, arrested Mohtadi and his closest comrades. He suffered three years of confinement and torture in the dictator’s dungeons. Modarresi quietly sipped his coffee while Mohtadi explained this to me, interrupting only to say that he too was arrested, tortured and jailed for four years. Both were later released. And both took part in the 1979 revolution that brought down the state.

The even more tyrannical Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini replaced Reza Pahlavi, and the Iranian revolution, like so many others before it, devoured its children. It had been broad-based and popular at the beginning: liberals were allied with leftists, and leftists with Islamists. It didn’t seem like a recipe for fascism, but that’s what they got. The Islamists came out on top and smashed the liberals and leftists.

Mohtadi was still a critic of the United States, though much milder about it. “There has been lots of oppression,” he said, “and killings and torture and expelling people from their land and sending them to internal exile in Iran and shelling the cities and all kinds of oppression. The problem with the policy of the United States is that for a long time, they neglected the violations of human rights in Iran. Also the European governments, the European countries, they didn’t say anything about the atrocities going on in Iran. They called it a critical dialogue, but it was not a critical dialogue. It was lucrative trade with Iran.”

*  *  *

Don’t confuse the Komala Party with the Komala Party. Iraqi Kurdistan hosts two exiled leftist parties from Iranian Kurdistan, both with the same name, the same (red) flag and the same founder. Both parties have armed camps and military wings. Both built their compounds on the same road outside the city of Sulaymaniyah. They’re right next to each other, in fact. Stand in the right place, and you can see one from the other. The difference is that one is liberal and the other is communist.

I didn’t know there were two until I set up an appointment to meet Mohtadi, of the liberal Komala Party, and accidentally wound up unannounced inside the communist camp. The communists were good sports about my mistake. They granted me interviews, introduced me to Secretary General Hassan Rahman Panah and fed me lunch. They gave me the grand tour. They didn’t tell me I was at the wrong compound. That news came from Modarresi, when he called to ask why I hadn’t shown up.

On the surface the two parties are more confusingly interchangeable than the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea in
Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Mohtadi says
Life of Brian
is one of his favorite movies.

Today’s liberal Komala Party members belonged to the communist Komala Party and the larger Iranian Communist Party until they bitterly divorced in the 1980s.

“They were hard left to the point of Maoist at one point,” says Andrew Apostolou, a Brookings Institution historian who specializes in the region and knows Komala well.

“We took part in the Communist Party of Iran,” Mohtadi said, “but after some years we realized it was a mistake. We criticized that and split from them. It took some years, of course. It was not just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“You split with them over what, precisely?” I said.

“Over so many things,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment. “They have lost contact with the realities of the society. They have no sympathy for the democratic movement in Iran. We think the time for that kind of left is over.” Mohtadi disagrees with Iran’s communists on every point that matters: human rights, democracy, economics, the appropriate use of violence, the proper stance toward the West. Komala’s economic views are still leftist, like those of small-
s
“socialists” in Europe, but Mohtadi flatly rejects systems like Cuba’s. “I know they have social achievements in health care and education and all that,” he said. “But in terms of political oppression and cult of personality, that’s outdated. It’s not acceptable for a modern civil society.”

For his part, Panah, of the communist Komala, said dismissively of his wayward comrades, “We do
not
speak to each other.”

Even in Iraq and Iran, left-wing parties fracture and withdraw into mutually loathing camps. The radicals always denounce the moderates as heretics, sellouts, “capitalist roaders” and neoconservatives.