I had a flight to Panama in the morning, and was finishing my work in Managua. But there was an opportunity to meet with Ben Lugo in Granada. So I  finished my interview with broadcasting icon Carlos Chamorro and boarded a ‘chicken bus’ for my dinner with Benjamin. After a rollicking bus ride, I sat in the vernanda of a grand old hotel overlooking the Parque Central, the same spot where Tenneseean mercenary William Walker once roamed, burning the city to the ground after his dreams of being emperor of Central America was dashed. Ben was late but I didn’t mind as I sipped a beer on beautiful, sultry evening. A scantily-clad prostitute periodically approached, each time lowering her price ($20!). Finally, Ben arrived and we went to a deserted outdoor restaurant for an unhealthy dinner of nachos, beer and vodka. Below are parts one and two of our three hour chat. The transcription is the work of new Afterparty intern Anaka Allen. 

PART 1

Contrarrevolución

Benjamin Lugo is a democracy activist, a former Sandinista who has seen Nicaragua struggle through a quarter century of political growing pains.  The United States has been involved  in Nicaraguan politics for more than a century.  With support from Cuba and the Soviet Union, Sandinista revolutionaries launched a guerrilla war against US-backed president Anastasio Somoza Debayle, overthrowing him in 1979. President Jimmy Carter cut off long-standing economic and military aid to Somoza in 1977 because of his widely-condemned human rights record. 

Ben begins his analysis of American intervention and its effects in Nicaragua by introducing how the relationship of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas with the FMLN of El Salvador. 

Lugo: In 1979 there was a historical opportunity to have a different relationship with the United States. And then I think that because of all that was happening here in the Sandinista regime against private enterprise, against all these people that were not part of the Somoza dictatorship, I think that worked against El Salvador (so) people would not help or support the FMLN.

The FMLN, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, was a left-wing political party in El Salvador, comprised of multiple leftist guerrilla groups.

Lugo: Because the private sector in El Salvador and the United States said, “This is happening in Nicaragua.” So that actually was a catalyst against the FMLN in El Salvador; what was happening here back in 1980. And then what happened was terrible because all of this started to decrease efficiency and production, and then more and more resources were committed to war efforts against the contras, which was a small group in Honduras but then—

BG: So are you suggesting that the Sandinistas used the contras as a way to create a paranoid justification for more radicalization?

Lugo: To be more radical. They like to be warriors, you know. I think there is even this syndrome of greatness.

BG: Going from a bitter, brutal, bloody guerrilla life in the mountains, with that kind of camaraderie and success, [to] then suddenly [having] to govern; that’s pretty boring. You have to compromise and fix potholes, you have to do all the boring administrative stuff. These twenty-year old kids who have been the commanders of some large area, they’re neither trained nor interested in doing that. So to say, now we’re back, we have this common enemy…

Lugo: It was more exciting to say that, but it was terrible for the country. Because then you started getting into the Cold War with two big players, with the United States. Then this Nicaragua, instead of learning from the Cuban failures — there are good things in Cuba, education and health care for the kids, that we should take.

BG: Even take some of their doctors.

Lugo: See if they can help us. But to go and ally yourself with that terrible, state-owned, state-directed economy, is terrible. So the country started failing economically and then the war effort made it worse. It’s not only the war that created all this chaos. It was the attitude of confiscating everything, everything becomes state-owned. We don’t need a new war to ruin the country, that made it worse, of course. But [there were] already a lot of problems back in ’83-’84, before the war.

In 1981, President Reagan withdrew aid to Nicaragua when the Sandinistas would not end their support of the rebel forces in El Salvador. The Reagan administration viewed the Sandinistas as a dangerous political enemy because of their interaction with communist Cuba under Fidel Castro and the Soviet bloc. The Reagan administration, led by the CIA, began covertly assisting anti-Sandinista fighters, the contras, claiming that their intention was to disrupt the flow of arms to revolutionaries in El Salvador. By late 1982, the United States was funding and managing operations of the contras. President Reagan claimed that America’s goal was to ensure that Nicaragua did not spread violence and rebellion to its Latin American neighbors, specifically El Salvador.

BG: So you’re talking about ’83-’84. It’s my general understanding, that in the beginning, the contras were created out of whole cloth by the United States CIA. They supported the soldiers in Honduras, gave them money, gave them ideological talking points, gave them direction, told them what to do, brought them together in Miami to create a committee.

L: I have to be honest with you, no matter what Reagan or the United States did, if there were no people willing to fight, there was nothing they could do. There were a lot of people willing to fight against the Sandinistas.

B: The Guardia Nacional.

L: No! That was only a small nucleus of maybe two to three thousand people at the most. It’s just an educated guess. I didn’t count them, [laughs] I didn’t like them either. But then from there to eighteen thousand? Something happened there. There were no more National Guardsmen. That was it.

B: So would you say that if the United States did not make that effort—and I wasn’t meaning to demean the broad base of support based on all the issues you talked about that caused people to want to join the contras or one of the contra factions—but would you say that if the United States did nothing, the contras, the counter-revolution would have still happened?

L: Oh yeah, maybe not the way it happened, but a lot of disaffected people, people that were kicked out of their own small plots of land—

B: And then you have the Miskito Indians. Reagan went on television and said, “I am a Miskito Indian.”

L: Yeah. “Yo soy un freedom fighter,” but that was later. Those Miskito Indians did not even know who the CIA was.

B: And my understanding is that the Miskitos had a lot of autonomy under Somoza, so they really didn’t have a lot of problems with him.

L: No, they did. They were taking down the forest, were cutting up trees, this and that.

The Miskito Indians are a tribe that inhabits the northeastern coast of Nicaragua near Puerto Cabezas.  During the Sandinista revolution, many of the tribe sided with the contras.

PART 2

Betrayed Revolution

Lugo claims that the Nicaraguan people suffered great disappointment during the Sandinista regime because they betrayed their original intentions of dismantling the practices of the Somoza dictatorship, ushering in a new government focused on unifying Nicaragua through Marxist-Leninist ideology. 

L: [There was a] change in the direction of the revolution [that] was catastrophic to the country. It led us to a war because, without us knowing, they were trying to confiscate areas, in the rural areas to make [room for] enormous foreign projects, for sugar cane, etc. They were displacing all these small peasants from the land, so these people started fleeing to Honduras and that’s where the contras got bigger and bigger. It’s not like they were imported from Afghanistan. They were Nicaraguans that were displaced from the Sandinista repression.

And then the Miskito Indians, los Miskitos in Puerto Cabeza, they started organizing themselves because they said things were going to be very different with the new revolution, but they started being persecuted too, all of a sudden in like 1981/1982. By that time, the economy was coming down. No political parties were allowed.

Some things were done in a short period of time, including the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, that was not denounced by the Sandinista regime. I said, “This is not what we fought for, this is not what we wanted, this is not what all my friends died for.”

Another terrible [betrayal] was that the former Somoza regime, the leaders, lived in these big houses, and then the Sandinistas came to live in those same houses, with the same swimming pools and sometimes they even kept maids and drivers. So that was terrible because if you are preaching to be humble and to be for the people, and that you are going to save money so that people can live better, and then all of a sudden you go out and live in the same houses…It was a continuous degradation from the original 1978 proposition.

B: And in your personal evolution, what official, unofficial or active role did you have with the Sandinistas in ’79, and how did you gradually change and decide to actively oppose the regime?

L: This revolution was so much my revolution that I never fought against it afterwards. So I was never part of the contras. For one thing, I resented the fact that some of the leaders were part of the Somoza National Guard. We have nothing to do with them, you know. And then the United States being so openly supporting it with Reagan, you know.

B: More of the same.

L: During these years in 1980/81, Doña Violeta [spoke against] the regime; Alfonso Robelo too. Another experience that I lived, was in Nandaime. Robelo called for a citizens movement in Nandaime against what we were seeing: the overtaking of the revolution by these radical people. So he said we are going to march in Nandaime. It was on a Sunday. That was the first time I saw the Sandinista army with guns opposing the people. That was marked in my mind. I saw this and thought, “It’s almost the National Guard, again.” It was terrible what happened to me that Sunday morning.

B: So talk about the 80s, you said you didn’t join the contras, tell me more about your personal evolution from 1979 to 1989. I mean, you’ve already talked about how you were seeing certain things that were troubling to you.

L: In 1982, a little brother of mine had this terrible accident in Atlanta. He suffered a stroke at 16 years old. So I had to go urgently to the hospital in Atlanta. When I left the country, they said that I had fled the country, and they knew it was because of this reason, because of my brother. So they decided to confiscate our properties: my family’s, mine, whatever we had. It was kind of ironic, having been part of this revolution, you know.

B: Were they targeting you for any reason?

L: [It was to counter] the bourgeoisie. Because of this decision, they wanted everything to be state-owned. So, they said I had fled so they took over the company, houses—bite by bite, ruining the country, the economy. It was a no-win situation because you are degrading your productive system, inside the country, and then you have a war that was financed by the United States, by Reagan. But there were no mercenaries, in the sense that, they were all Nicaraguan people that were disaffected by this regime. So you could have all the money in the world, but if you have no people willing to fight, the money sits there. Period. So it was this combination of factors. Then by becoming pro-Cuba, you were actually confronting the United States.

After the Sandinistas took control of the Nicaraguan government, they became more radical in the eyes of both the opposition and supporters. New economic policies included confiscating, occupying and redistributing properties, businesses and finances.  At one point, they began to restrict the press. Parts three and four of the conversation will be posted shortly.

We have two brilliant new interns who are furiously working through our backlog of interviews, transcribing, fact checking, looking up historical context. As we get up to date, we will provide deeper backgrounders, and, of course, you’ll get to meet them though their bylines and bios. This interview was transcribed by Kayley Ingalls.

Kayley received her BA in International Studies in 2012 from the University of Chicago. Though her coursework includes African Politics, the Modern Middle East, and the Politics of Islam, she wrote her thesis on fairy tales and their use as a vehicle for discussing the Holocaust. A good-natured stickler for grammar, she enjoys taking the odd class on mechanics and usage. Since graduating, she’s tried her hand at working as a Library Assistant and teaching summer school at an exclusive private school in Oakland, California. She dreams of exploring the world and hopes to find her place in it eventually, whether it be in writing, editing, law, or something she has yet to dream up.

—————-

When I arrived in the first country for the project, Guatemala, I stayed in the home of a former student activist, congressman and architect, now retired. Cesar’s grandson Marco Antonio picked me up at the airport, and, over Johnnie Walked Red, the three of us spent the night talking about the historic 1954 CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. Marco took me out to the countryside, where he is a teacher and we hung out with one of his friends. This is my conversation with his educator friend, Fabio an extroverted young man in his twenties.

BG: Okay. What do you know about 1954? Jacobo Árbenz. 

(Guatemalan president overthrown by the United States in 1954.)

What do I know? He was overthrown by the American CIA. He was labeled a communist. Because he wanted to make some reforms.

BG: Was there truth to that? Was he a communist?

No, he wasn’t. The Americans were very nervous about the Soviet Union and the ideas of Marx. They were trying to use communism as an excuse to keep control of many countries in Latin America. That’s what I think.

BG: You can say both were real, there was genuine hysteria, paranoia, fear of the Soviet Union, communist China, Stalin, Mao, Eastern Europe.

I think American society was entitled to be paranoid to a certain degree, but in Latin America that was used as an excuse, again, to be in control of the region. I don’t know if you remember McCarthy?

BG: Sure.

He was talking about the domino effect, if one country fell down, then the next one, and so on.

BG: The domino theory.

Yes. But I don’t think Árbenz was a communist, or Allende in Chile.

(Salvador Allende, the first Marxist to be elected president in free elections in Latin America. Elected 1970, overthrown in a 1973 CIA-supported coup.)

BG: What do you think is the line between being a communist and having some communists in your political coalition or legislature, or pushing for long overdue reforms? The Spanish oligarchy controlling the economy for decades or centuries…

Historically, what we have in Guatemala is a situation in which a minority controls the majority. The wealthy class controls the working class. That is the situation in this country, but every time the working class wants to see changes in society, they always label us. Drug gangs, terrorists.

BG: It’s a convenient way for…

…to get rid of certain people.

BG: Even Obama is called a socialist. Compared to who?

No way! I don’t think he’s even close.

BG: But these words are used to paralyze public discourse. Instead of debating how we affect healthcare reform, well, he’s socialist.

Two things, if the working class is in charge of making changes, the first thing that they probably will change is healthcare for everybody and education free for everybody. And that’s Marxism.

BG: Well, it’s what some Marxist countries have as a priority. I don’t think that’s Marxism though.

The working class being in control of the–

BG: Being in control, that part. But free education and healthcare? Is that socialism?

That’s a little bit. More Marxism than… But Sweden has both things. Free healthcare and free education. And they are capitalist.

BG: That’s right. A lot of Americans think that ensuring good health care for people and good education is a priority. A lot of Americans think that no, that’s socialism. You’re taking my money, my taxes. I want to lower my taxes, not raise them. Take my money so that some other kid can get good education or healthcare? That’s socialism. This is a significant political view in the United States.

I think that this is like a, how do you say, Obama… I used to have friends from Austria talking about Obama, good things about him. One of his attributes is basically that he is a well articulated person. He can explain things carefully and clearly. But he fails many times because he cannot explain the important things to the American community.

BG: I think that’s true.

People don’t want to be labeled as whatever, communist for instance. So they have to clarify. This is what I am offering, it has nothing to do with being a socialist. He has failed to distance himself from labels, philosophies, or ideologies, I don’t know.

BG: If I can ask, how old are you?

I don’t answer that.

BG: (Laughter.) Okay, you don’t have to answer that. As you were growing up, learning about what happened in 1954, and then seeing the civil war or reading about it, how did you feel about the United States as you heard those things?

I think that it’s a process because it takes time to… As you have more details and more details, you start putting everything together. All the pieces. It fits in time. But I think the American goal was really bad, you know? If you were in school here, you probably would understand what I’m talking about. Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the elections and he was actually dealing with the Iranians. They were using Iranians to pass weapons to the Contras.

BG: Illegally.

And also they paid the Iranians to keep the American hostages a little bit longer. Yeah, check that.

BG: I’ve been reading about that lately.

Bill Moyers discusses that in one of his documentaries.

BG: They paid or made certain promises.

No, they were payments.

BG: I have heard that. I love Bill Moyers.

So the Americans came. I think that the agreement… He asked for a favor, if they could maintain the hostages a little bit longer, until after –

BG: The Iranians hated Carter because of the Shah.

(The Carter administration seemed to be complicit with the Shah, who came to the United States for medical treatment after being overthrown in 1979. Carter toasted him on television.)

They wanted to portray Ronald Reagan as a powerful guy, that he is not negotiating with terrorists.

BG: He did negotiate with terrorists, more than once.

Yeah, he did! But they were saying, no, he’s not negotiating with terrorists.

BG: So during the civil war, were you aware that the United States government, particularly during the Reagan administration, was supporting Guatemala’s military dictatorship? What was your attitude about that?

We didn’t know that until we were much older Because that’s part of our history and at that time we weren’t sure. Instead of saying, “You guys have a threat of communism in the area. We are going to help you to eradicate that problem.”

BG: That was the justification.

Yeah, but the money was used to maintain the status quo, to maintain the rich families in power, and keep the military strong.

BG: Did you know any people who were kidnapped, or tortured, or killed?

Just one. He was an old guy. He was kidnapped and killed. Apparently he was associated with a Catholic group.

BG: Catholic?

They say that sometimes the Catholics were indoctrinating.

BG: (It’s estimated that) US-backed military dictators in your country, over time, killed 200,000 people.

Now, they (former political leaders) are using that as justification. Yes, people were brutalized and really badly tortured in Latin America, But you know what? We didn’t do it. It was our military, when it was in Guatemala, Chile, or Argentina. It was the military. We were not involved in that. We weren’t physically there.

BG: The political leaders are saying that it was the military?

Yes. The Americans weren’t involved. You were not doing it. It was the Guatemalans in control of the wrong paramilitary groups, of which there were many. Or, in Latin America as well, we weren’t there. It’s like saying that Hitler is innocent because he wasn’t in Treblinka or Auschwitz. He wasn’t there physically, yeah, but he was the mastermind. The point that I am trying to make is that Ronald Reagan, he was the mastermind behind that machinery.

BG: What do you think was going through Reagan’s mind when he was supporting these brutal dictators?

I think he was really scared during the missile crisis in Cuba. Americans were very scared. We have nuclear weapons, they are no longer in Russia, they are in Cuba. And this is how many miles out of the United States?

BG: 90 miles from Miami.

Suddenly, they can nuke us. And that’s the thing that really scares me. And after Vietnam? Wow.

BG: Yeah, we can lose.

There was a certain degree of paranoia among the military. Among the politicians in the United States. It probably was related to the right wing. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.

BG: What’s happening now in Guatemalan politics?

I am totally disconnected from Guatemalan politics. I read the New York Times, La Stampa Italiana. I only read news from other countries.

(Laughter.)

I was trying to be in tune with the Guatemalan congressmen who were opposed (to legislation supporting privatization of seeds for) Monsanto.

BG: I heard that today, yeah.

And they decided to go in favor of Monsanto. Something that was really disappointing. In part because they don’t even know what the hell is going on. Because they don’t have the education. They don’t understand our genetics in a way. It’s frustrating. But I am totally disconnected from American politics, too. I don’t understand anymore what’s going on and I have no interest.

Enjoying some recovery and recuperation in Hanoi. Two more days here visiting museums and then, points south.

A visit to the Gulf of Tonkin town of Vinh. When President Johnson declared the USS Maddox was attacked by two North Vietnamese patrol boats on August 4th, 1964 (it never happened), US planes ravaged Vinh and surrounding targets.

On to Dong Ha, the former demilitarized zone. The DMZ was created in 1954 at the Geneva peace talks after the Viet Minh destroyed the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. They agreed to divide the country between the communist North and the French-controlled South until elections could be held, within two years. As Ho Chi Minh would have been the overwhelming winner of the elections, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles decided, oh, about that whole democracy and election thing…. not going to happen. Thus began the transfer of the war of independence from the colonial French to the USofA.

Then, Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An with a visit to My Lai, with a possible stop for a swim at Nha Trang Beach.

Final stop, before moving on to Cambodia and Laos, Ho Chi Minh City.

Akbar hawked cheap jewelry and trinkets in front of the City Center. Each time I passed, we stopped and talked. Our running joke was, get me a girlfriend, I’ll buy the jewels. I bought some prayer beads. He weaved a fantastic and implausible story of how they were Afghan stones, polished in India and packaged in China. I paid him full price ($10) for the quality of his storytelling.

Among the worrywarts who warned me not to spend my month in Afghanistan, two bits of advice prevailed:

Don’t say you are an American and don’t say you are Jewish.

God knows I tried. But except for one moment, surrounded one night by a group of unfriendly males, I always said I was American. And, as Muslims went to great lengths to demand respect for their acceptance of all religions, a spirit of inquiry required that I test that on occasion by adding, an American Jew.

Muslim tolerance of all paths, I found conditional. When pressing the UK-born female tour guides in Dubai and Sharjah mosques, it was suggested that all religions were honored. “What about Hinduism and Buddhism?” In both cases, the previously pollyanaish guides bristled and said those were not real religions, with all their deities and whatnot. Ah, so someone gets to decide.

Opinion is fine. Opinion doesn’t matter. What matters is tolerance. You can think that failing to give that mendicant an extra shekel will encourage the wrath of Kali or Shiva, or that you have a good angel on one shoulder and a bad one on the other, or that God brought down the walls of Jericho so that the Israelites could murder every man, woman, child, ox, sheep and goat. But don’t impose it on me.

The skinny fellow standing next to me in the shower at the Kabul swimming pool went on about the caliphate and how all will one day live under Sharia law but it’s all cool because all religions will be respected, even though mine has EXPIRED since the revelation of the Holy Quran. I reminded him that we Jews INVENTED all that shit about the Chosen People and the Prophets, and exclusive ownership of the Word of God, and that American evangelicals want their brand of religion spread worldwide, the difference being that Americans have much bigger guns and a lot more of them, so be careful what you wish for.

——–

My very generous hosts during my Kabul stay. Javid on the left, Farshid on the right. Opening night in their office, a karaoke competition. Briefly, I gained an appreciation for why the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan.

Leaving Kabul is the most security-intensity experience you will ever have. I lost count, but I think there were ten separate frisks, security scans, interrogations. Farshid kindly insisted I stay for lunch and allow his driver to take me to the airport, which left ninety minutes to flight time. By the time of the final pass through of my backpack, it was getting too close enough for comfort.

I had no contraband so had no reason to be delayed, but a suited security officer grabbed my bag and walked me over to a table. “Where are the stones?” he demanded. “What stones?” I had no idea what he was talking about. My mujeheddin friend from Herat tried to convince me to market gems back in the States but I declined to take any samples.

“The stones?” he said, angrily demanding that I open my backpack. And there they were. Three sets of prayer beads. One, bought from Mohammed, the carpet man. One, from my friend in front of City Center who kept trying to sell me jewelry “for your girlfriend.” And the third, a beautiful gift from the staff of the Wazir Akbar Khan mosque.

Some airports have kids’ drawings of rainbows and unicorns. The centerpiece of Kabul Airport is a downed Soviet jet.

“What religion are you?” he demanded. I already queered my India visa application by refusing to answer that same question. In Other, I penciled in, Pastafarian. With minutes to go before my flight to Delhi, this was no time to explain the theology of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But after a month of no menorahs, no Christmas trees, no Santa Claus, and a few “We’re Number One!” parochial Islam rants, I answered,

“That’s none of your business.”

He bristled. “I’m a Muslim. It is my business.” He waited for my answer.

I could have told him that I received the beads as a gift from the most honored mullah in Afghanistan, who spent two hours with me discussing life, devotion and peace. I could have given him a variation on Gandhi-ji’s answer. “I am a Jew. I also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Hindu.” But he just walked away.

One night, in Kabul, an Indian friend of Farshid’s needed a place to stay, so we set up a mattress, blanket and pillows on the floor of my room. He shared his little Indian treats with me, and described his faith. He was from Gujurati, in a town called Rajkot. Gandhi was a Gujurat, and Jainul Musani was a Muslim but lived largely as a Hindu (vegetarian meals were sent up to our room), belonged to a sect called Dawoodi Bohra and invited me to his town to visit the Vipassana meditation center, a tradition practiced by my San Francisco Bay Area (Marin County) Buddhist center Spirit Rock. You following me?

Mohammed, I am told is the Very Last Prophet, because, you know, in the last millennium of mass slaughter, cultural upheaval, scientific enlightenment, globalization, why would the Divine care to leak out any new material? But if I were an apostate, easier now that I am out of Afghanistan, and could add a prophet to the approved constellation (the Koran claims 120,000), then I would add Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. While British troops were murdering and repressing Indians, Gandhi goes right to the belly of the beast, to London’s Kingsley Hall in 1931, and lays this on the world:

“There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent. Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules or why and how He rules and yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules.

“In my tour last year in Mysore I met many poor villagers and I found upon inquiry that they did not know who ruled Mysore. They simply said some God ruled it. If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about their ruler I who am infinitely lesser in respect to God than they to their ruler need not be surprised if I do not realize the presence of God – the King of Kings.

“Nevertheless, I do feel, as the poor villagers felt about Mysore, that there is orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is not a blind law, for no blind law can govern the conduct of living being and thanks to the marvelous researches of Sir J. C. Bose it can now be proved that even matter is life. That law then which governs all life is God. Law and the law-giver are one. I may not deny the law or the law-giver because I know so little about it or Him.

“Just as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail me nothing even so my denial of God and His law will not liberate me from its operation, whereas humble and mute acceptance of divine authority makes life’s journey easier even as the acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier. I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is. And is this power benevolent or malevolent ? I see it as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God is life, truth, light. He is love. He is the supreme Good. But He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect, if He ever does. God to be God must rule the heart and transform it. He must express himself in every smallest act of His votary. This can only be done through a definite realization, more real than the five senses can ever produce.

“Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within. Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken line of prophets and sages in all countries and climes. To reject this evidence is to deny oneself. This realization is preceded by an immovable faith. He who would in his own person test the fact of God’s presence can do so by a living faith and since faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law, the law of truth and love. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to truth and love. I confess that I have no argument to convince through reason. Faith transcends reason. All that I can advise is not to attempt the impossible.”

——–

The security guy at Kabul Airport glared at me and walked away. I looked after him. I had to catch my flight. As he returned to his security station, he turned to me in disgust and yelled, “Go! Go!”  You take your small victories where you can.

Karen threw me a concerned look.

I was talking to her uncle Murray, at ninety, a very successful businessman, smart, educated, a man of the world. Like me, a New York Jew. Names changed here to protect the complicit.

He encouraged me to read the Wall Street Journal more often. I told him I admired its history of long form quality reporting, found its ownership by Murdoch’s News Corp a stain on its independence, and…

“I never read The New York Times,” he proclaimed. “It’s a rag.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. I imagined every well-read Jewish New Yorker spent every Sunday morning surrounded by sections of the Times, ink-stained fingers grasping a fourth or fifth cup of coffee. I could understand someone differing with Times editorials, disliking a certain columnist, preferring someone else’s sports coverage, but…”Surely, there’s something in the paper worth reading?”

“Nothing. It’s all biased. I haven’t picked it up in years.”

“I’m quite impressed. None of the international coverage? The business reporting? The Sunday Times magazine? The coverage of fashion, theater, film?”

Murray was adamant. And Karen was not amused. Really, Brian, her demure stare seemed to suggest. Are you getting into a political argument with my sick, old uncle? Well, yes, I was.

“Five percent of Muslims are terrorists,” Murray proposed, with the air of a finance officer just completing a carefully managed audit.

“You’re joking. Really? Five percent, is it?”

“That’s right. They’re not all terrorists,” he offered in a magnanimous gesture of tolerance. “But five percent are.”

I stared at his face. He was aged, but well preserved for a ninety year old. He was lucid, thoughtful, a man whose mental sharpness drove a hugely successful business through years of struggle, depression and war. He was a man worthy of intellectual and moral deference.

I work out the math with him. “So, if there are say, one and a half billion Muslims in the world, I have no idea, just a guess, representing roughly a quarter of the world’s population, you’re saying that five percent or seventy-five million people are terrorists. Seventy-five MILLION people, none of whom you’ve met are accurately defined as violent, murderous activists out to destroy all you hold dear?”

Murray, a learned man, considered my question. We both looked away at the idyllic surroundings on this balmy New York evening.

He changed his mind. “No. No, I think the number is one percent. One percent of Muslim are terrorists.”

“Ah,” I said, “Thank you for that clarification.” I looked around for my censor, the beautiful and elegantly dressed Karen. “So, really, you’ve decided that the five percent number was something you just pulled out of your —, but ONE PERCENT, now that number has some empirical rigor to it. One percent, or (the cocktails were affecting my ability to execute third grade arithmetic), uhhhh….fifteen million people are on a mission to terrorize the world, wreaking havoc and slaughtering innocents?”

“Yes, that’s right.” Murray seemed relieved that his original calculation was revised. The honor of a business professional. Must get the numbers right. He seemed happy with the new number. Yes. One percent. That must be it.

“You do realize,” I suggested, “that people have used that precise logic to victimize and persecute Jews for centuries. Adolf Hitler calling Jews war profiteers. Americans saying we were unpatriotic for putting our religion first, that we were not real Americans, but swarthy, money-grubbing, second-class citizens. That we were the Other, non-Christians, grouped together into foul, simplistic stereotypes? Didn’t you live through those days, through the slurs, the anti-semitic jokes, barred from country clubs, through the Holocaust?”

And, then, Karen intervened. Blond hair, professionally coiffed that very morning, in a stunning blue dress, a glass in her hand, her moist lips curled in a smile, her eyes glowing. I calculated the value of continuing my debate with Murray and its potential effect on this romantic, starry night. I asked Karen, “May I get you a refill?”

——–

In every conversation with the hundreds of Muslims I’ve met in the Arabian emirates and Afghanistan, I’ve asked variations of a few basic questions, the most frequent being: Is Islam a religion of peace? Does the Koran justify violence against non-believers? Is the growth of radical Islam simply a fundamentalism strain of the religion?

And, in one hundred percent of my encounters, I get the same answers. I even probed, pushed a bit harder, looked for cracks in the thinking, but, no, always, the same answer. Commonly, with a fierce sense of insistence or pride. They often took it personally. The London taxi driver from Somalia. The Sharjah mosque staffer. The Kabul businessman. The Afghan Army colonel. The esteemed Islamic scholar. The restauranteur, the teacher the mother, the teenager, the carpet salesman.

Javid, the week that he won the award as the nation’s premiere IT innovator, quoted me verse 5:32 ‘Al-Maidah’ from the holy Quran. There are different interpretations, and some even use it as a justification for killing, but it is the quote most often shared with me. It is usually shared quite emotionally, from a people who love their faith and their heritage. After all, the greeting you hear all day long in the Muslim world is, “As-Salaam Alaikum.” Peace be upon you.  The gist of the quote is this: If you kill one human being, you kill all humanity.

There are exceptions for self-defense. Afghans I talked to despise the Taliban, al Qaeda, Boko Harama, ISIS and the various other vicious scumbags wandering Muslim lands raping and enslaving women and torturing anyone less-holy-than-they. “They are not Muslims. This is not Islam.”

I had a few tense moments when I might remind someone that the reason he was Muslim had less to do with successive generations struggling with theological questions and selecting Islam as the final prescription for mankind, and more to do with hordes of better-equipped, better-manned armies rampaging through the steppes of Asia, forcing people to convert or die.

When the United States was about to invade Iraq, illegally, for its oil, lying to its citizens, convincing eighty-five percent of a largely undereducated, video-game addled teenage Army that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, I went to the Auburn Parkside Church of the Nazarene with my (now ex-) wife Paula and daughter Andrea. If Andrea’s interest in evangelical Christianity was partly a subconscious act of rebellion to her liberal, rarely-practicing Jewish father, she soon lost interest as I dutifully accompanied her to church.

The music was bad. The religion was, well, fundamental. The people were polite. And the sermon was martial. We were told we had to be prayer warriors. To pray for our troops. Suggestions were made that we were sending our young soldiers off on a providential mission. And to bolster the biblical support for the entreaties to God to allow for maximally efficient destruction of the Muslim evil-doers, there was a reading from the book of Joshua.

Bored, and a little appalled at the war-mongering in a house of worship, I paged ahead. And here is what I found in Joshua, chapter six.

¹⁶ And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city.

¹⁹ But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.

Lesson Number One: The Lord needs cash, and lots of it. Don’t forget the cash.

²⁰ So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

²¹ And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

Lesson number two: When you take over a town for the Lord, kill every man, woman and children. Oh, and kill the ox and the sheep and the ass. With the edge of the sword. The SHEEP? What the fuck did the sheep do wrong??

²⁴ And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.

 ——–

Yes, pilgrims, it’s the MUSLIMS that are violent. The American overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian president Mossadegh in 1953, our support of the overthrow of Gadaffi resulting in violent militias throwing Libya into chaos, our invasion of Iraq, support of brutal dictators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, our drone attacks on Afghan weddings and villages, all that, pilgrims, is God’s providence.

You want to know what a vengeful desert God-king does when his Prophet is insulted? Consider this story of the Jewish prophet Elisha, from the book of Judges.

²³ And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

²⁴ And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

²⁵ And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.

Let’s recount. A bald dude gets mocked by a bunch of little kids. God, royally pissed, sends two she-bears out of the woods, who rip them to pieces. Forty-two murdered children. Then, Elisha goes on his merry way.

Want to look for Koran verses justifying stereotyping of Muslims? You can find them. But scratch the surface of violent Islamic warriors and you’ll find a lot less acolyte and a lot more undereducated, underemployed sociopath. And if you want to see how early we train our freshly scrubbed Christian soldiers, the celebration of violence is just a church bell away.

Me and Fawad on the historic Chicken Street in the Shar-e-Naw area of Kabul, my home for my month in country. Fawad is a devout Muslim who never missed an opportunity to promote Islam’s virtues to me.

I met the imam though the usual string of serendipitous connections. Afterparty backer, college friend and Amsterdam host Forrest Wright introduced me to his sister Leslie who introduced me to her friend and Afghanistan workshop facilitator Shaira, who introduced me to Fawad, who just happens to go to school with the imam’s son.

I visited mosques in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah on the Arabian peninsula, and sought out English-speaking mullahs in Afghanistan. I was in the Netlinks office with CEO Farshid and chief of operations Javid when I mentioned that Fawad got me an appointment at a local mosque. Farshid insisted I was wasting my time, that whoever I talked to would be uneducated and talk outdated nonsense and that who I should really see was Imam X (unnamed by mutual agreement until he sees the copy). Javid agreed, singing the praises of this esteemed fellow. When I called Fawad, I sheepishly suggested that, gee, after we see his imam, could we try to get an appointment with this other fellow? Fawad answered, that’s exactly the guy we’re going to see.

Part One of our discussion, ranging from the precepts of Islam to American support of Zionism can be seen here:

http://thevisionproject.com/2014/12/29/an-afternoon-with-afghanistans-leading-islamic-scholar-and-imam/

——–

After leading late afternoon prayers, the imam comes back in the meeting room. I cut to the chase, “Two final questions.”

He interrupts. He has more to say about American politics and says:

In President Obama’s first presidential speech in Cairo, he pointed out some important things and he said that US policy was wrong toward Islamic countries and promised changes. I still remember that speech. i had so much hope when I heard that Preisdent Obama won the election and he got to the White House, but unfortunately, he failed. He didn’t fulfill his promises.

I wish and I hope that the US will stop solving problems from a military basis. This is not the solution. I wish that America comes to discuss with us in a diplomatic way, that it invites these radical groups to the stun is not about solution and fighting  way, it is to discuss to sit together to solve it in a political way, not by assassinating or creating bloodshed.

Islamic countries are not only countries, they are a union of all Muslims and the world and America must change its policy toward Islamic countries because what they are doing is totally wrong.

He asks me, Why did Obama not fulfill his promises?

First, I am not an apologist for Obama or for the American government. Obama withdrew troops from Iraq, as promised. He has now withdrawn almost all troops from Afghanistan. He chose not to invade Syria. He helped rebels in Libya but did not occupy or invade the country. He resisted political pressure to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. So there has been some reconsideration of attitudes toward Muslim countries.

We must have a new look and resolution to today’s problems. That was President Bush’s fault, that he made a grave mistake in Iraq. We and Obama must have a new look and we have to have a new approach for these problems. It is not all about fighting battles.

A few final questions. Should the US, once al Qaeda was pushed out and the Taliban removed from power, should the US have left Afghanistan? Were there positive affects from 13 years of the US presence here? And should the US now leave Afghanistan completely?

As far as al Qaeda, America will never be able to defeat al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is an international reaction to policies, and the only way to defeat or destroy al Qaeda is not the way of bullets.  It depends on the Afghan people. Now, I ask you, America came here with the aim of destroying terrorism and the Taliban, and in one day they bombed and pushed out the Taliban. They came for security. Can you say that America was successful in its aim?

No.

Then what is the benefit of America to stay here when the US cannot defeat terrorism? (He laughs, warmly). So why stay? That will not solve problems. That will create more problems.

One final question, as you are Afghanistan’s most revered Islamic scholar, what message do you want to give to the American people?

My message is it’s not about Americans or Spanish or Afghans, we are a universal family, we are one, so as a brother, my message to the American people is to do not be the victim of wrong policies of the US government, and the people of America should not be the victim of the wrong policies of Israel.  For Israeli and Zionists, wrong ideas and policies, American youth mustn’t be killed in war in Afghanistan. All these things go back to Israeli and Israeli policies. Not Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria.”

——–

We take a picture together, which he asks me not to publish, and we walk together to the door. He embraces me and says, “You must become a Muslim, and move to Afghanistan.” I answer, “If I do that, then you have to find me a nice Afghan girl to marry.” He laughs and takes his leave. His son, who translated our discussion, invites me to stay and hang out at the mosque for the evening, but I have another interview at the City Center. He tells me that I am welcome back to the mosque any time, and I quite believe him.

My 15 year old friend Fawad Mohammedi goes to the same school as the imam’s son. So, after several attempts, he arranged the meeting. I spent six hours at the mosque, talking to staff, sharing lunch, receiving a gift of black prayer beads.

First, I agree to a few ground rules. I will not use the imam’s name until he has a chance to read the interview. I will give him a chance to remove anything that is too risky to put in print. The picture we took together, which I greatly value, will not be published, nor the audio of our talk.

I have met my share of charismatic/ annoying gurus and religious leaders in my day but rarely have I met someone throwing off this much warmth. He greets me at the entrance to the prayer hall with a small entourage, thanking me for my visit. In the course of six hours, I meet a steady stream of mosque clergy and staff. One, in a particularly stylin’ outfit and headdress tells me that there is greatness in my face, and that I must come to Islam. Flattery will get him everywhere.

After the imam leads Friday prayers and counsels families, a weekly tradition, he joins me along with his son, my friend Fawad, his media producer and several staff. Maybe it’s a sort of learning moment for them as well. An American Jew in Kabul, wanting to know about Islam.

The imam admired my hat. “This is a Chitrali cap. You went to Chitral?”

After an exchange of pleasantries, we begin our hour together.

It is a great privilege for me to speak with you, imam. For you, what is the most important teaching of Islam?

We welcome you as an honest and honorable guest. Islam consists of 4 main parts, or columns (pillars). First, faith and belief. Worship and prayers. Moral attitude. And social life, how to build relations with other people. So, it’s not just belief.

The way you live your life, the way you walk in the world.

Yes, Islam has a message for each of these four parts. How we build a connection with Allah, with God. But our sense of worshiping means keeping Him always in mind, having a deep relation with Him.

Personally, how does Islam bring beauty and happiness to your life?

I didn’t follow Islam like a blind man without any research. I have researched other religions, I have compared mine with others and then I came to the conclusion that Islam is the best religion that we can apply in every part of our life. Economic, political, family, social life, psychological life. When I accepted Islam, I felt like I don’t have to worry about anything in life, no stress, no worries. Islam brought calm and happiness to my life. Being kind to any creature in the universe, animal or human.

So a theological question, as a follow up. If your faith is the one true faith, how do you respect other spiritual paths if you believe that in effect they are inferior, not the true path? (He asks his media producer to start recording video and asks if that’s OK with me.)

Humankind from the creation of the universe has passed through many phases. At the beginning, life was simple. Human life was all about feeding ourselves and staying alive. It’s like when someone gets a simple sickness, we need simple medicine. Allah’s books, scriptures and messengers are like doctors and medicines for humanity. In a specific period in history, there was a specific illness, so that prophet was sent to help the people to solve that problem. It’s like when you go to a doctor, he gives you a prescription with a…

…an expiration date.

And when you go back to the doctor, you get the new prescription, and the old ones are no longer usable to you. Allah sent messengers for different periods in history for different problems. Humankind’s problems are like diseases that need deep resolutions and solutions. When someone gets a really serious disease and he goes to a doctor, the doctor doesn’t write all the prescriptions at one time. He instructs the patient to use this medicine for ten days and then come back. After that, he writes another prescription and he says you can’t use the first medicine anymore. After this short period, he writes the permanent prescription that you should use forever. And the last prescription must be complete. And other religions and Islam are like this, the prescriptions that Allah gave to us. And then when the last religion came, the other religions are expired. And this is the new complete prescription.

I met Mohammed while waiting for the imam. He is the media producer for the mosque and produces telecasts of imam’s talks. He downloaded and programmed the Quran Explorer iPhone app for me and then proceeded to clean up some settings. Yes, I came from Silicon Valley to a Kabul mosque to get my technology sorted out. I was the first American he ever met.

Humankind’s problems are getting more serious day by day. If we look at the Christian’s bible, you cannot find resolution on the use of drugs. Or Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism. Islam has a resolution for preventing use of drugs and solving this problem in human society. In Koran, in the speech of prophet Mohammed, in Sharia. So we need a religion, a complete religion for our daily life. In the Koran, there are verses about science and technology. The Church, when Galileo spoke about his theory of the motion of the earth…

Yes, they killed him….

But in the Koran, there are verses that indirectly address the motion of Earth. In Europe, in the French Revolution, people were forced to separate law from religion. They left religion just in the framework of a church, nowhere else.

The Enlightenment. Imam, may I say, at that time there were hundreds of years of religious wars, Catholics and Protestants killing each other, and one of the reasons for the Enlightenment was to stop those wars and allow freedom of religion. Do you see any benefit in that or is that an apostacy?

In the noble Koran, Allah said there is no pressure to force someone into Islam. (The imam starts to speak in English and his son interrupts him. I congratulate him on his English and say he’s doing fine). It is totally wrong that people in the West believe that Muslims only want Islam on Earth. That is a totally wrong idea. Islam has two kinds of citizenship. One is for Muslims who live in an Islamic state and the other is non-Muslims who live in Islamic states and those who live outside Islamic countries. The policy of Islam and its citizens is equal about their rights and laws, for Muslims and non-Muslims. An example of this equality is if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, he will be punished according to the laws of Islam and he must be killed. Muslims and non-Muslims must be treated with respect.

There are radical Islamist groups in the world now, the Taliban, the Islamic State, Boko Haram, al Qaeda that seem to justify violence against non-believers or Muslims who don’t measure up to their standards. Why does this kind of radical, more violent understanding of Islam seem to be spreading?

You started our conversation by asking me about Islam. Islam totally differs from what these Muslims are doing today. Those Taliban, radical groups, they have their personal ideas, you should ask them why are they doing such things. Is what they are doing in the Koran, did Allah say so, to kill people, to murder non-Muslims? You should ask them. (I am not looking forward look forward to that opportunity…) It’s all a reaction against global policies. For example, I ask you, do Palestinians have the right to live in their territories?


Yes, and I think there is a similar issue with Jewish fundamentalism, Jews in Israel saying something very similar to Muslim fundamentalists. There is a song, Exodus, that goes, “This land is mine, God gave this land to me.” They believe that God gave this land to them. So they owe Palestinians nothing, This seems a big problem in the world, where people are saying I have the truth and you don’t, so I have a divine right to oppress you.

The world accepts that Palestinians should live with them, they should make a state, Germany agrees with them, France, England, Russia, but the United States doesn’t accept them. The US accepts and supports Zionist policy. Why are they doing so? If they are doing so, Muslims must react. When the US attacked Iraq, what was the reason that they destroyed the Iraqi government? And now, they are seeing the reaction (ISIS) to what they did. There is no problem in the world between people and religions. The problem is the wrong ideas and the wrong policies against Muslims, against humanity.

What change would you like to see in US foreign policy, in terms of the way the US approaches the world?

The Afghan nation is thankful for the help and support the United States gave in its struggle against the Soviet Union. During the Soviet-Afghan war, American had a goal of defeating the Soviet Union but after the battle was finished, the US policy toward Afghanistan changed. For example, Osama bin Laden was traveling to Pakistan and Islamic groups were active. America was supporting them. But after the US achieved its goals, why did US policy change and become against Muslims around the world?

Many Americans think the US made a mistake by failing to assist Afghanistan in the years after the Soviets were driven out. You said two things, One, you said the US should have continued to help Afghanistan. Two, I’m curious as to why you believe the US was against Muslims. Is that because of the Iraq war? I don’t think American policy changed toward Muslims. The Persian Gulf is a major source of oil, and when Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia, many Muslim countries opposed Iraq. The second Iraq war is widely viewed as an inexcusable mistake.

Protesters demand that Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi resign at Tahrir Square in Cairo July 1, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

That was all about the battlefield, the field of war. But in the political field, with American policy in Algeria, there was a democratically elected government. Islamists were elected to run the government. Why were America and European countries opposed? The same in Egypt, when Mubarak fell, there was a peaceful and democratic election, why did the the US support Sisi, Israel helped the government and the Muslims were ruined there. Why did America do that?

Well, you are talking about Algeria and Egypt. In Egypt, I agree that it is problematic to promote democracy and then bring down the democratically elected government. But while the US provides military aid, it did not invade Egypt. The Egyptian people felt there was chaos and Morsi was bringing the country to a bad position, they protested in the streets and wanted him out and there was an undemocratic solution, and yes, the US did not prevent it, but this was Egyptians coming to a political resolution in their country.

The muezzin begins the call to prayer. The imam apologizes that he must go and asks me if I need more time. I tell him I have a few more questions. The final part of our discussion will be posted shortly. And, for an excellent interactive look at the Egyptian revolution, check this out from Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2013/07/20137493141105596.html

Goodbye Kabul.

Goodbye Farshid Ghyasi for hosting me via couchsurfing.com. My needs always met, from security to shared meals to nightlife and introductions. You have four inspirational posters in your office. Martin Luther King Jr., who taught social change through non-violence. Ghandi-ji, who taught social change through non-violence. Albert Einstein, a very, very smart American Jew. And Steve Jobs, half-Syrian, who grew up in the epicenter of technology, in the safe and comfortably middle class Palo Alto. As CEO of Netlinks in Kabul, you are redefining the way Afghans use technology. As courageous entrepreneurs go, Steve Jobs got nothing on you.

Goodbye Javid Hamdard. Your office karaoke performance of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” was, um, an experience I will never forget. In your spare time, you won the national award for IT innovation. And proceeded to donate the funds to charity. Islam’s call to zakat, in the flesh.

Goodbye Salsal Guest House, my first home in Kabul. Two days before arriving in Afghanistan, I could not find lodging. Places were either too dangerous or expensive (Serena), no longer in business (sorry, Gandamack), or didn’t answer their phones or emails. The price was right ($12 per night) and the hospitality generous. Fresh naan bread, sweet cream cheese and a pot of chai delivered to my door every morning. When I could not find an ATM that worked, the gap-toothed manager told me not to worry about payment, handed me 1,000 Afghani for spending money and had schwarma and tea sent up to me.

Me and Afghanistan’s national football coach at the Herat-Mazar match at Ghazi, which proves I’m, you know, a sportsman. Herat, Assef’s team, loses 1-0. Boo.

Goodbye Ghazi Stadium. A fellow rooting for Helmand in the first match shared the political importance of people freely and openly playing sports, something barred by the Taliban. Who used this very stadium to publicly execute and shame sinners. There was so much blood spilled, he said, that the new groundskeepers had to install artificial turf as new grass wouldn’t take hold.

Goodbye to my Afterparty Analog Content Aggregation team. Two girls chased me down on the street each day selling old, tattered copies of Afghan Scene, lifted from local restaurants. Medina wouldn’t let me take her picture, but the other girl did. “One dollah, mistuh.” Well worth it, even when it was the third copy of the same issue.

Goodbye to the fathers of Afghanistan, soldiers and teachers and merchants who fiercely demand equal education for their daughters so that they can grow up to be anything they damn well please.

Goodbye to the brave men and women risking their lives every day for a free and prosperous Afghanistan. A Netlinks employee who followed my exploits online told me that I have a brave heart. But my courage is Junior Varsity courage. I’m outta here when my 30 day visa expires. The real heroes are men like Mr. W, a dozen years working to rebuild the country, women like Mina, who returned from her cozy Canadian home for a decade of service to her native country, the Afghan army colonel, the Aussie diplomat, the Fulbright-awarded hospital CEO who could easily have stayed in the States but came home to oppose the medieval Taliban (“cockroaches”), the merchants and lawmakers who condemn misogynist tyranny. Like Courtney Body, the former CNN reporter who took over Kabul Pressistan when her friend was murdered in the Serena Hotel attack, to keep the free flow of ideas alive.

Goodbye to the countless moments of kindness from strangers. Why? Why did they do it? Was it a commercial come-on? Did they appreciate the sacrifices of Americans? Was I a novelty? I’ll never know. But usually, when offered tea and company, free street food, dinners, freshly made juice concoctions, it was with a warm glimmer and a humble request to, please, accept this and, please accept Kabul as your home.

Goodbye to the dark streets, the broken pavements, the psychotic driving, the Bukhari stove-induced haze, the cold nights, the unpredictable wi-fi. the blue burka-wearing women grabbing my arm insisting on baksheesh, the endless packs of stale gum bought from street kids.

Goodbye Kabul.

People stared at me like a circus freak, as I walked each day through Shar-e-Naw, as it became my neighborhood. No one ever gave me trouble or uttered an unkind word. There was potential danger, but I had the protection of Afghans and expats who schooled me in avoiding trouble. I didn’t always listen (“Not a good idea, Brian”), sometimes let bravado or the pursuit of a story belie my promises to keep squeaky-clean safe, but in the end my worse injury was stepping into one of the moats surrounding each block, into a mixture of wet, muddy horror whose smell stayed with me for days.

Goodbye Kabul Museum, looted and defiled by the Taliban philistines, and goodbye Kabul Zoo, many of whose animals were killed and eaten by holy warriors during the civil war. Goodbye to the walks in the park, to unforgettable sites, to the daily images of Kabulis struggling to carve out decent lives for their families.

Goodbye Zahra, with your silky black, gold-gilded hijab. You friended me on Facebook and gave me a lengthy education in the secret life of an Afghan woman. You swore to give your two daughters the life you couldn’t have after the Taliban cut off your schooling as a young girl. Despite our failed encounter at City Center, if you are who you say you are, I am blessed that you opened your heart to me. If, as some of the guys joked, you’re really a dude with nothing better to do than impersonate women, please get married or laid, soon. If you were tracking me to do me harm…too late!

Goodbye Fawad, introduced by Shaira, the Poetess, who opened so many doors for me. We shared fresh juice on Chicken Street, you fifteen years old, a ten year veteran of the street, selling maps, blessings, retail wares, anything that earned a buck. I found out halfway through our talk that you starred in the Oscar-nominated film, Buzhkazi Boys, even attended the Oscars in Los Angeles. Then, through your school chum, you got me in to meet with Afghanistan’s most revered Islamic scholar and imam, where we debated religion, politics, war and peace, sitting cross-legged drinking tea. I’ve rarely been in the presence of a more charismatic, warm and spiritual man. Six hours at the sacred Wazir Akhbar Khan mosque, an American Jew, welcomed and embraced as a brother and fellow seeker.

Each day, I hang on the corner with my young delinquent posse, swapping insults and hand gestures. Viva Afghanistan is our new greeting. They love the word Viva.

Goodbye to my delinquent Shar-e-Naw posse. The first time I walked down Chicken Street, every shopkeeper hawked their wares to me in English. The next day, I wore my pakol hat with an Afghan scarf, and five of seven said Salaam or Salaam Aleikum as I passed and nodded. A small victory, but who was I kidding? I was the only gringo in the neighborhood most days and people could track my movements easily. One day, the juice man on the corner of Herat Restaurant, yelled out at me, part ridicule, part warm hello, part tease, “Hey, Mister Hollywood.” The name stuck. I was warned that the kids on the corner were Panjshiris, an untrustworthy, criminal lot. Each day the group grew larger and we developed a routine. I taught them how to raise a fist in the air and scream Viva Afghanistan, Viva Panjshir, Viva Massoud (the adored Northern Alliance leader murdered by al Qaeda two days before 9/11). Yes, I was attracting unwanted attention, but they looked out for me, gave me street advice, offered to walk me home.

The juice man’s name is “Pure,” a young, tough, quiet, even sullen guy. He prepared a daily mix of fresh carrots, pomegranate, apples and the occasional banana or orange. He refused payment unless I literally stuffed it in his pocket. This is a man making 14,000 Afghani a month, the equivalent of $240. His family is in Sweden and he can’t afford classes, so I showed him how to download free Swedish language apps.

On my last night on the corner, I took in the sights. The sides of mutton in shop windows. The restaurants, the street vendors, the traffic, the once-banned music vendors. And the whole experience just hit me. So much warmth and acceptance, so many great interviews and insights, a chance to breath knowing that my fears were unfounded. I started to cry, just a bit.

Suddenly, Pure walked from his juice stand and stood directly in front of me. He said:

“I want to be the tear.  That falls from your eyes. To move on your cheek. To die on your lips.

“Mountains can fly. Rivers run dry. You can forget me. But never can I you.”

Goodbye Kabul.