I learned from an Afghan friend that one of my most memorable Kabul interviews, Dr. Ayaz Niazi, was killed by ISIS terrorists at his Wazir Abul Khan mosque, the city’s largest. At the end of our interview, concerned that an intimate photo with a Jewish American writer could be dangerous, we posed for a photo after he received my promise that I would not publish it. With his violent, tragic death, I share it now, along with our interview published in WAR: The Afterparty. He showed me extraordinary hospitality and warmth, his staff hosting and caring for me for four hours, then a one hour interview, then a second after he leads the call to prayer. Rest In Peace, Dr. Niazi. 

Excerpt from Chapter Six of WAR: The Afterparty, “Without Peace, We Have Nothing”

I want to speak to a local cleric about the Quran. Fawad’s close friend in school is a mullah’s son and, after several requests, he arranges a meeting. Over lunch, both Farshid and Javid dismiss meeting with a local mullah (a Muslim religious leader, scholar or teacher) as a waste of time. Instead, they insist, I should get a meeting with Dr. Ayaz Niazi, the country’s leading scholar on Islam, educated at a prestigious Cairo University. I call Fawad later to ask if he knows anyone who could get me to see Niazi. He says that’s the guy we’re going to see.

Niazi greets me at the entrance to the Wazir Abul Khan prayer hall with a small entourage, thanking me for my visit. He is in full regalia, and exudes warmth and charm. In the course of six hours, I meet a steady stream of mosque clergy and staff. One, in white dishdasha and headdress, tells me that there is greatness in my face and that I must come to Islam. I tell him flattery will get him everywhere.

Mohammed, the imam’s media producer, shows me his television production gear and downloads the Quran Explorer app to my phone. I am the first American he has met. I am treated to lunch and tea and a visit to the mosque gift shop, where I am presented with black prayer beads. The welcome is warm and expansive.

After the imam leads Friday prayers and counsels families, a weekly tradition, he joins me along with his son, Fawad, Mohammed and several staff. Maybe it’s a sort of learning moment for them as well, an American Jew in Kabul.

The imam admires my hat. “This is a Chitrali cap. You went to Chitral?” I start by asking what for him is the most important teaching of Islam and how Islam brings beauty to his life.

Islam consists of four main parts, or columns. 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.

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.

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.

If Islam is the one true faith, how do you respect other spiritual paths if you believe that, in effect, they are inferior? The imam directs 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 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.

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 10 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.

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 holy Quran, in the speech of prophet Mohammed, in Sharia. So we need a religion, a complete religion for our daily life. In the holy Quran, there are verses about science and technology. Galileo spoke about his theory of the motion of the earth.

“The Church condemned him,” I interject.

But in the holy Quran, 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. At that time there were hundreds of years of religious wars, Catholics and Protestants killing each other. 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 apostasy?

In the noble holy Quran, Allah said there is no pressure to force someone into Islam. (Niazi starts to speak in English and his son interrupts him. I congratulate him on his English and tell him 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 holy Quran, did Allah say so, to kill people, to murder non-Muslims? You should ask them. It’s all a reaction against global policies. For example, I ask you, do Palestinians have the right to live in their territories?

I answer, “yes” and say, there is a similar issue with Jewish fundamentalism. Some Jews 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 the Jews, they should make a Palestinian state. Germany agrees with them, France, England, Russia, but the United States doesn’t accept them. The U.S. accepts and supports Zionist policy. Why are they doing so? If they are doing so, Muslims must react.

When the U.S. 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 U.S. foreign policy, the way the U.S. approaches the world?

The Afghan nation is thankful for the help and support the United States gave in its struggle against the Soviet Union. But after the battle was finished, the U.S. 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 U.S. achieved its goals, why did U.S. policy change and become against Muslims around the world?

You said two things, One, you said the U.S. should have continued to help Afghanistan. Two, I’m curious as to why you believe the U.S. 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 a mistake.

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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. did not prevent it, but this was Egyptians coming to a political resolution in their country.

The muezzin begins the call to prayer. Niazi apologizes that he must go and asks me if I need more time. I tell him I have a few more questions.

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.

In President Obama’s first presidential speech in Cairo, he pointed out some important things and he said that U.S. policy was wrong toward Islamic countries and promised changes. I still remember that speech. I had so much hope when I heard that President 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 U.S. 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 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. Why did Obama not fulfill his promises?

First, I am not an apologist for Obama nor 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. Once al-Qaeda was pushed out and the Taliban removed from power, should the U.S. have left Afghanistan? Were there positive effects from 13 years of the U.S. presence here? And should the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 a revered Islamic scholar in Afghanistan, 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 U.S. 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 Israel 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, “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 mall. He tells me that I am welcome back, any time.

The NETLINKS staircase. Located in the Shar-e-naw district of Kabul, the building served as my home for nearly three weeks.

While en route to Kabul, Afghanistan for my ‘Afterparty’ journey, I was without lodging. To my rescue, via the quirky, unpredictable but sometimes wonderful Couchsurfing site, came an extraordinary offer. The CEO of one of Afghanistan’s leading IT companies, Farshid Ghyasi, offered me an ensuite room in the corporate villa in central Kabul. Three weeks of free lodging, free meals, introductions to interesting people and a bit of covert nightlife. I describe my experience there in the Afghanistan chapter of “WAR: The Afterparty.”

COO Javid (left) is suddenly upstaged by CEO Farshid after-hours in the NETLINKS Executive Office, Kabul, Afghanistan.

Farshid shared his office with COO Javid Hamdard, who is now leaving NETLINKS for new opportunities. Javid offered incisive analysis on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and a host of other issues in an interview I am excerpting below. But before you read the interview, you should watch the video below.

Farshid and Javid provided more than lodging. Most days, they invited me into their office for lunch or refreshments, or a night out. They became for me the face of modern Kabul: smart, aspirational, compassionate, generous and patriotic. And after a stressfull day, the karaoke player was switched on.

In one of my first nights there, quite possibly the first, Javid belt out the Celine Dion standard “My Heart Will Go On” with tremendous emotional conviction, though controversy ensued when Farshid tried to upstage him after grabbing the second mic. The video will either give you renewed hope for the worldy cultural openness of Afghanistan’s educated, professional class or you’ll conclude the country is doomed. You be the judge.

Here is the interview with Javid. All of the Afghan interviews will be available free for one week via PDF download at my Patreon funding site which can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/5758679?alert=1

“WAR: The Afterparty” by Brian Gruber

Chapter Six: Afghanistan

“Without Peace in the World, We Have Nothing”

Javid showing me his award.

I met Javid Hamdard, co-executive at NETLINKS, during my first night living in the company office/ villa; Farshid and Javid invited me to their shared office for refreshments and an impromptu karaoke performance. Farshid, out of a sense of competition or uncontainable emotion, kept jumping in on Javid’s unforgettable rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.

Hamdard won the Afghan national award for IT innovation during my stay. He donated the funds to charity, Islam’s call to zakat. It’s acknowledgement that everything one owns belongs to Allah and one works toward the betterment of the Muslim ummah. According to Islamic regulations, zakat is 2.5 percent of one year’s total cumulative wealth which is distributed to the poor. I ask Javid his sense of the U.S./ coalition mission in Afghanistan and what he thought was accomplished.

Well, obviously it did not start as a humanitarian mission, as it started in reaction to the al-Qaeda attacks in New York, as a reactive combat mission. I personally think (the attacks) might not have happened if the U.S. did not abandon us like an orphan child after us winning the so-called ‘cold,’ but bloody hot for us, war for them. Of course later, the U.S. military presence was extended under the Bonn Conference under the ISAF’s assistance mission. So, all in all, a combat mission brought more war to Afghanistan.

Farshid was an extraordinary host, providing lodging, hospitality, meals, introductions and his unique insights into Afghan politics and culture.

It did end the barbaric reign of Taliban, and has brought some infrastructure development, economic stability and improvement and a government framework. There has been phenomenal development in the media and freedom of expression domain. Afghanistan has a better infrastructure in most areas, namely roads and aviation, telecoms, banking. The condition of higher education has visibly improved. And unlike 15 years ago, we have thousands of well-qualified Afghan youngsters with internationally accredited qualifications. There have been major improvements in the health sector, especially mother and child health, and the child mortality rate, which all became possible with the support of post 9/11 international support, led by the U.S.

But, of course, there are many problems attached to this as with every combat mission. The most significant and tragic are: the continuing loss of life, including precious American lives, but mainly innocent Afghans till this day. The re-empowerment of some sidelined warlords and war criminals to a level that will be almost impossible to fix. The misuse and mismanagement of billions of valuable American taxpayer dollars on very superficial and unsustainable projects and programs that empowered corrupt and dangerous elements in the country. The alienation of a large majority of rural Afghans because of bad governance and the unfair distribution and outreach of international aid.

His hope for the future of his country?

I shared many meals and conversations with NETLINKS staff at this table near my bedroom. For midnight Skype calls to family and friends, I sometimes sat here in 20 degree F weather to be closer to the wfii router (seen on the left).

I am still very optimistic for the future of Afghanistan. The source of my optimism is neither the American military and/or financial support nor our existing, mostly corrupt politicians and officials who are so honest and loyal to the country that most of their families are right now living comfortable and luxurious lives outside the country at the cost of millions of aid and assistance tax dollars of international donors meant for the common Afghan Joe/ Ahmad.

But my source of optimism is mainly the ever-growing and increasing understanding and knowledge of the world and its ways among common Afghans, especially young Afghans who are way smarter than we were 14 or 30 years ago.

The NETLINKS office had three posters as I recall: Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Ghandi.

More than nine million of us are going to schools, many of us have seen the world and have been to the most prestigious educational institutions, have visited the most developed countries of the world.

My sole source of optimism for a proper, peaceful, smart and equal Afghanistan is the more than 75 percent of under-30 years-of-age Afghans who will rise and grow as 21^st century human beings, who will demand equal rights and treatment as such.

Read Part One of the interview at http://briangruber.tumblr.com/post/109933161004/kabuls-white-hat-hacker-on-afghan-cybersecurity

“X” is a cybersecurity and programming staffer in the Afghan government. We agreed to meet for pizza near Shar-e-Naw Park and to keep his identity anonymous in the interview. He is known in Kabul IT circles as a ‘White Hat Hacker.’ This interview was transcribed by Afterparty editor Anaka Allen.

Brian: So what about your personal stance as an Afghan and patriot and and educated smart guy who could probably find great opportunity elsewhere. US forces leaving, Taliban wants to take control again. What do you see for 2015, how worried are you about your own security and the security of the country? Putting network stuff aside.

WHH: Well as I told you the other day, in Kabul everyday something is happening. And the day after that something else happens. (A teenager blew himself up at a school play at Kabul’s Lycee Esqetlal school).

BG: A few days before the suicide bombing, I went by there and took pictures. It’s very centrally located.

WHH: Security is our every worry.

BG: How worried are you that it will get much worse and that the Taliban can take over the country again?

WHH: Well if the system goes like this, like now, definitely there may be some side effects. But, they are not powerful so much that they would take over Afghanistan.

BG: Cause a lot of people are sick of what they saw when they took over. My sense is that there was civil war, fighting and finally here’s these nice Islamic fellows who just want to teach the Quran and create peace, so there was some maybe suspicion but people said, hey, give them a chance. And then they saw these guys are fucking the worst.

WHH: It’s not about Islam. In America we have Muslims, in India we have Muslims, in France we have Muslims. They are living peacefully. It’s a political game. It’s not Islam. They are Pakistani far-side groups. They have support of other countries. It’s not about Islam, they’re just using Islam.

BG: What percentage of Taliban fighters, activists, genuinely believe they are conducting a holy jihad, they are God’s chosen force.

WHH: The people who are on the lower level. Uneducated. The ones who bomb these things, they’re injected with some kind of material. They don’t know what they’re doing.

BG: I mean come on, 16 years old.

WHH: If you check his blood, in a lab, check it out, there might be some kind of chemical.

BG: Some kind of methamphetamine, something, drugs.

WHH: I don’t know, something.

BG: Someone said to me yesterday, the guy has got to be Pakistani or educated at the madrassas there, because an Afghan would not do that.

WHH: Might be true. But our intelligence is not quite good.

BG: Why do you think the United States allows an ally to work against its interests that aggressively over many years? Is it fear of nuclear weapons control? Is it that we need Pakistan for an ally? I’m reading one book by Steve Coll called Ghost Wars. He’s writing about the Pakistan covert involvement with the Taliban 15 years ago. With the United States pushing all this money through ISI, through Pakistan. So why do you think the U.S. puts up with that?

WHH: In the first, there were Russians in Afghanistan. I guess the US created this project.

BG: Cold War.

WHH: Cold War. Created Al Qaeda to fight the Russians.

BG: Created a monster.

WHH: But then this monster went rogue. America wasn’t able to control it anymore. Because they were uneducated people. Suddenly they changed their decision and said I’m not following your orders anymore.

BG: So what you said is what I hear uniformly, which is that Taliban are too weak and too despised by too many people to take over all of Afghanistan again. Having said that, is the threat that they will simply destabilize and create misery for a long time?

WHH: The big problem in Afghanistan is that it’s a house that doesn’t have walls around it. So they can destabilize sometimes, create some kind of incident which would show that Afghanistan is destabilized, but it won’t be critical.

BG: Among your friends, people your age, level of education, professionals, what’s the attitude towards this 13 year occupation? I mean certainly no one wants to be occupied, no one wants foreign military in their country, historically Afghans don’t like foreign military. Occasionally, there is a civilian killing, there’s frustrations with not enough money going to poor people, and to average Afghans. So in your community, your social network, what’s peoples’ attitudes towards these 13 years of occupation or intervention? Good things? Stay longer? Americans go home? Thank you very much for what you’ve done, now go home?

WHH: I would say like we have some improvements. We’re thankful now. We still need some support. I’m not saying only Afghans are dying, Americans are also dying here. They have parents, they have family.  I will just tell you a small answer. NSA is able to create like a (unclear). There are some other agencies behind these people, the Islamic radical people, that America cannot fight that country directly. Like Pakistan…it will create like an international mess. So it is like chess, it’s like an international game. That’s not part of Islam.

If you’re the guy leading the Islamic groups, you are everyday sending e-mail…you can find his router in like a millisecond. You don’t need to send a force to him, you can get him with a drone. But, you cannot do it because there are some kind of supports behind him.

BG: You’re saying, if the United States NSA is so strong and so smart, that they can get through.

WHH: I believe the NSA can crack anything in the world. Why? You didn’t ask me why.

BG: Why?

WHH: If you’re creating something, you are the owner, you know everything about it. The internet was created by DARPA…defense project right? They can crack anything.

BG: Yea, that’s a nice advantage to have. From a hypothetical point of view, what you say makes sense to me. Now I’m trying to drill down to the specifics. So you think the United States can’t go to Pakistan and say, “Hey motherfucker, our soldiers are dying, you’re destabilizing the world, we’re giving you all this money, time to come to some agreement…”

WHH: I believe they can. America can do that. But something bigger will happen if they go there and tell them, “Hey motherfucker, don’t do that.”…but some powerful countries…they would start by saying, “Don’t touch our friends,” then at the end what would happen? World War III would happen. That’s why I guess America is avoiding to make this bigger.

BG: Because Afghanistan’s important, but World War III is more important. Afghanistan security at this restaurant is important, but avoiding Pakistani nuclear weapons hitting New York is more important….

WHH: But I hope there would be politicals talking with them so they could solve it by talking with each other.

BG: Well, they’ve been talking a long time. How long do you need to talk? [Laughs]

What do you think is the state of the Afghan army and police force? Do you think that they are going to do a credible job next year of keeping security in the country?

WHH: Well, you don’t only need troops to do the job. You need to have some accessories like you need good guns and good armor. You need good surveillance. Surveillance first to find out what the enemy is doing.

BG: Which I think the general sense is, the United States is not going to stop providing that, so I think surveillance, hardware…

WHH: United States has given them everything, but there is not capacity. I’m telling you for 13 years America is trying to make us something, but the middleware is trying to kill it.

BG: And by middleware, you mean middle people.

WHH: So Americans try and America is giving money.

BG: Do you have friends or people you know who have a really different attitude than you, and they’re saying, “American imperialists, infidels occupying our country, get them out of here, we want them gone completely, we can do fine on our own?” Do you have any friends who have that point of view?

WHH: No, because my friends that I talk to are educated.

BG: So educated professional people do not have that point of view? Like I told you this guy from Herat, 65 years old, former mujaheddin, really wonderful smart guy, but probably uneducated, certainly doesn’t have the modern education that you do. He says that it’s time for Americans to go, we can actually do better with security without the United States, and he says the United States is behind the Taliban. The first part you probably wouldn’t agree with, the second part is, he said, “America is behind the Taliban,” which I found too strong a statement without context, because, he said, “If America really wanted to find the Taliban, really wanted to shut down the Taliban they could do it overnight. They’re providing them with funding.” And I thought, really? The United States is directly funding the Taliban? I can’t imagine any strategy that would make sense to drive that.

WHH: I wouldn’t exactly agree with him. I guess the other parties put in Taliban, but because America cannot fight with them directly, that’s why these guys are not fighting with them.

BG: What was your impression of Massoud? Do you think Massoud would have been a good leader?

WHH: He was a great leader.

BG: Heroic guy.

WHH: He was not corrupted…he was a good leader.

BG: I stayed up one night studying Massoud. It’s an incredible story, of course, tragic. Incredible personality, and I don’t know if it’s true, but the things he wrote about his vision for Afghan culture…about women’s rights, freedom of speech, open culture…he was a bright guy.

WHH: They killed him.

BG: Two days before 9/11.

WHH: Everything is a plan.

BG: My understanding is, because Bin Laden knew that he needed Mullah Omar’s protection, then he’s going to say, “I’m going to do this for you, and then you protect me.” Do you think that was the quid pro quo, or no?

WHH: I don’t know. I’m not going to say directly. [laughs]

I worked with Shahid Butt at Charter Cable years ago, a smart, congenial fellow and accomplished marketer. As I posted interviews from my swing through the Islamic world, and pointed remarks about Pakistan’s role in the emergence of the Taliban, he offered some unique insights. I talked with Shahid over Skype one night from my guesthouse room in Kabul. We began by talking about Pakistan’s role in supporting the mujeheddin jihad against the Soviet invasion in the 1980’s. The interview was transcribed by “War: The Afterparty” book project editor and intern Anaka Allen.

Shahid: In Pakistan right around that time, you could rent AK47s by the hour, there were just so many weapons. There was a military parade in one of the Arab countries; I think it may have been Qatar. As part of that military parade there was these weapons that were on display and as the U.S. was there, you know they were invited.

Brian: Sure. And they were like, those are our fucking weapons. [laughs]

S: And they were trying to figure out where did these come from? And they realized, oh shit, this is stuff that was supposed to go to Pakistan to go over next door to fight the Soviets. And when they found that trail, all of a sudden in Rawalpindi, there was a huge explosion where the munitions dump, in the garrison where people were living. This had to be, Brian, in 1981, yeah. And so people were just syphoning off weapons and selling them to anybody else.

B: You put that many weapons out in the world over so many years, and so many conflicts and the world just becomes a much more violent place.

S: WWII was the only war after which the factories that were converted to make wartime stuff, didn’t go back to making what they were making before. So, now you have this huge production capacity making stuff and if you want to keep people employed you have to sell the stuff and then they have to use the stuff; that’s why we will have wars, otherwise it’s jobs.

Here’s what so bizarre for someone like me, and you know, being a marketing guy, I try to break it down, I try to re-orient the issue. As I see it, we have a branding problem. Because if you look at the brand of Pakistan, the white part of the flag was put there on purpose, I think it’s two-fifths of the flag, to represent that there are minorities in the country who are equal citizens. And what we have basically done is, we fuck with all kinds of — pick a minority, we fuck with it now. So that’s off-brand. If you look at our version of the declaration of independence, I think there’s 230 words in there, and 40% of the words talk about protecting minorities and, again, we’re fucking that up. So, you got that issue off-brand. Second, if you say that the country was created to help the Muslims of India achieve economic prosperity, it was an economic need for a group of people, it wasn’t a religious need. And we’ve moved off of that and become this Islamic state, which is not what we’re supposed to have been. We were supposed to have been a place where the Muslims of India could have economic equality and prosperity and get access to jobs and bank loans and all that kind of stuff, education, so we fuck that up. The third thing is, if you even do convert their thinking to, hey, we’re an Islamic state, the concepts of Islam, you know we’re supposed to, let’s say, follow the teachings of the prophet. The prophet married a business woman, right? An educated, working woman, and if that’s supposed to be who we’re emulating then what the fuck? [laughs] Why do more women not have opportunity to go to school, to work in the workplace? So, we’re off target there.

B: Is that a more of a cultural, national thing than a theological thing?

S: You look at Saudi Arabia, they’re the worse at it. Because at least we’ve had a prime minister who is a woman, at least we’ve had women in parliament. Part of it is cultural, pre-Islam, and part of it is another way to keep minorities down. Women are minorities, let’s keep them down. Number two, if you look at the religion, the first interaction, according to tradition, that the prophet had with Gabriel; the first words that were said to the prophet were, “Read.” And the prophet said, “I can’t read.” The angel Gabriel again said, “Read.” And the prophet said, “I can’t.” So this went back and forth a couple of times and then he was inspired with the ability to read. And again the tradition is supposed to reinforce how important education is and if you look at our federal budget, and the amount of money we put towards education, it’s totally contradictory to the concept of how important education should be in the religion. So, on so many different levels we have missed our brand, we’re just off-brand, and that’s what’s causing some of these problems. And now, this blasphemy law that we have, where if I have a beef with my neighbor, I can go down to the police station, and say, “I heard him say something bad about the prophet,” and the cops have to come up and arrest me.

B: I heard a lot of stories of NATO and coalition troops in Afghanistan selecting certain people as partners, and those people would accuse neighbors or friends as a way to revenge or a competitive business advantage.

S: Exactly! And so the correlation to what you’re writing about, even though the U.S. didn’t directly attack Pakistan, the impact of the Soviet-era U.S. involvement and then how right away, right after the Soviets pulled back, all the funding stopped. Right, Charlie Wilson couldn’t even get a billion dollars anymore, or even 100 million dollars. It just stopped. So you have this country now, completely decimated, no money, the only infrastructure, the only crop that they have is poppy. And then the Afghans, I love those people, but they are brutal to each other as well. They just massacred each other. And then what happened in Pakistan is the blowback of the mujaheddin, the weapons, the drug trade. We may as well have been attacked.

B: Don’t you also acknowledge that there was some opportunism there, where, both at the time of the mujaheddin and then during the rise of the Taliban, there were people in the ISI and the Pakistani military and one or two of your leaders, who saw it as an opportunity to not only make some money, but to dominate Afghan politics and to use that conflict to their own advantage?

S: So, two things. What happens is, so you have a leader like, let’s say Zia with the Soviet problem, and then Musharraf with the 9/11 problem, who, both unpopular, both overthrowing a civilian government, now have lucked into the fact that the U.S. needs Pakistan’s help to go into Afghanistan. And so, these two leaders and their top-level ISI staff or generals, they all did whatever they could to stay in power. It’s all a matter of a few people staying in power. So if that means we fuck up the country with all these weapons, so be it, but we will stay in power. So that clearly happened, there was opportunism there. And then I read somewhere recently that the reason why the Pakistanis are so pro-Taliban in Afghanistan, or the ISI has been, is because they’re Pashto-speaking, we are Pashto-speaking, and the Indians were supporting the Uzbeks and Tajiks from the north. And since they were funding those guys, we felt we had to counterbalance that, who knows what came first, but there was a counterbalance to the support of the other ethnic groups to the north that the Indians were supporting. So to keep India’s control out of the western border, we needed to have the Taliban on our side.

B: Right, it’s a messy situation. What’s your sense of that whole border area with Waziristan and the whole Pashtun area? Is this another situation where Western powers like the British carved up things illicitly and illogically, and you basically have a nation or a tribe of people that, as I understand it, are ⅔ in Pakistan and ⅓ in Afghanistan, and that ultimately, those borders are so porous and the rule of law there is so thin, that you have this perpetual political issue that has been going on for a long time?

S: You have to go find the exact data point, but I think that the British guy who helped create the borders of Pakistan and India, for the new countries, I think he got there, he created the borders, never having been there before, and within 6 weeks he created these borders, and this is without Google. He did not know what he was doing. And so that is exactly why you have these tribes split by a line created by England. That’s exactly what happened.

B: And by the way, why would he know what he was doing? How in the world can any Brit understand 500 years of history and what’s happening in tribes where no Brit has ever walked the earth?

S: There were British folks there for a couple hundred years, right. So, there could be some people who knew, or provided input, but, I don’t think they were used.

B: I’m asking a lot of questions certain provocative passages in the Quran and certain provocative behaviors on the part of groups that are claiming them to be true believers, from the Islamic State to the Taliban, etc. Every Afghan I meet says Islam is a religion of peace, here is the way it teaches me, I don’t want to hurt a fly, here’s all the specific ways that our religion respects other religions and people and forbids bad behavior.

S: I think you have to put a lot of this stuff, in the Quran, into some kind of historical context. Yeah, there were some brutal, bloody battles, but if you look at it in context of what else is going on during those times, this was pretty mild. And, I think you can read the bible, and come up with how violent it is. You can read the Quran and come up with how violent it is. But at the end of the day, that’s not really the teaching, they’re just some stories that happened along the way. The teachings are very similar: peace, don’t hurt your neighbor, that kind of stuff. So the teachings are all really really similar. My father always used to joke, Do you ever wonder why Judaism, Christianity, Islam all came to that little strip of land in the Middle East? And I said, “No Pops, why?” He goes, “They’re the ones that need the most help.” [laughs] But the teachings are all so similar. People, throughout history I’m sure, have taken religion out of context to kill other people and to create fear. It’s just humans being humans.

Another interesting thing that I always try to struggle with is, when the prophet was dying, and he was trying to choose his successor, he could have chosen someone who was his relative, but he did not. He chose someone who was well-experienced, was older, and the learning from there is, leadership is not hereditary. Leadership is based on ability. But, when you look at all of these kingdoms, they are totally repugnant to that teaching. And even when you look at Pakistani politics, the political parties are not really parties. They are family club mafias, really. They keep on passing down from one to the other…it’s a mafia. Again, totally repugnant to that example that we were supposed to follow.

While in Kabul doing research for “War: The Afterparty,” I was approached via Facebook by “X,” a cybersecurity expert and programming staffer in the Afghan government. We agreed to meet for pizza near Shar-e-Naw Park and to keep his identity anonymous in the interview. When I mentioned our meeting to the head of a prominent national IT company, he said, “Oh, the white hat hacker?” The name stuck. This interview was transcribed by Afterparty editor Anaka Allen.

WHH: I am a computer forensics guy. I do computer investigation for the government.

BG: Who would be the main targets for cyber crime here?

WHH: For now, as I see it, our government doesn’t care about cyber crime.

BG: ’Cause they have other things to worry about.

WHH: No. They don’t know the importance of cybercrime. They say we need physical security first, but our physical security depends on cyber security. For example, our cabinet is doing planning, strategy. If your cyber is not secure, someone can get that data and give it to your enemies. An enemy that knows your plan, you cannot defeat him.

BG: Are you hopeful for Afghanistan’s security next year, with most Western security gone?

WHH: Well, I have good friends in ISAF that are cyber security specialist guys. They are really trying to help us build something. So I am hopeful.

BG: So, having the United States/ coalition expertise over the last 13 years, did that create some window of opportunity to develop certain things for the country?

WHH: Well, since the beginning, I saw them trying to do something for Afghanistan, there are people who don’t want to work, they don’t want to improve.

For example, your guys provide an advisor to a government guy at a senior management level. And I’m the guy who works at the lower level but I have a supervisor above me. You are giving me some standard materials, and I’m making a framework. But once this framework reaches to my management level, they’re saying, “You’re wasting your time.” See, there are people in the middle level who don’t want to work for their country. So, ISAF is trying, I am trying, but in the middle there are people who don’t want to work.

BG: So we gotta get rid of the old people [laughter]. Or the generation that doesn’t get it.

WHH: The generation that’s corrupted. Do you know how much money is coming every year to Afghanistan? That’s like uncountable.

BG: Uncountable. At one point, more than the national GDP, right?

WHH: That’s too much. Where does it go?

BG: You tell me, where does it go?

WHH: I’m telling you the middleware people are corrupted. They’re taking bribes, they’re not honest.

In a network, there are PCs connected to each other, then these PCs are infected by a virus. If you want to control the situation, you need to reinstall the PCs, you need to install the firewall for them. You need to monitor them continuously. You have to make the system clean. For example, we went to audit, the minister of finance has a system that collects taxes from the people. The problem is sometimes the people who are responsible for the entry in the system, they’re not registering these to the system. So the system will not work. You have to do some background check on the guy, if you’re hiring him for the job. So my idea, if someone wants to make Afghanistan a better place, you have to first make the system.

BG: And how do you do that?

WHH: For example, we have in Afghanistan, 26 ministries. You design everything for them, a single system. You give them their part. We have a system, one database, one part belongs to the minister of finance, another part to MOI, MOD and you’re doing a bit of specification for everyone. This ministry has rights to do this, this ministry has rights to this. And then they have to put their entries, and this whole system should be monitored by another agency which is like a national security agency, like NSA in America. So, if anyone is corrupting things, illegal things here, they will know this.

BG: So how much of what you’re describing is being built now? Nothing?

WHH: Nothing.

BG: Do you think Ghani and Abdullah, of course they’re not IT people, do you think they get the need for these kinds of controls?

WHH: Well maybe they want to, but as I told you…

BG: There’s mid-level people who are either incompetent or corrupt. Is that what you are saying?

WHH: The middleware people will not allow us to give the information to Ghani.

BG: ‘Will not allow us,’ that’s a strong statement. But is it because of incompetence or corruption?

WHH: I think that it’s some kind of politics, because maybe these middleware guys working for another country and doesn’t want our government to improve.

BG: So you think they are, in effect, treasonous…

WHH: Exactly.

BG: Another strong statement. Because they have either some philosophical and cultural allegiance to Iran, Pakistan, Russia or wherever, or they are actually being paid?

WHH: Being paid.

BG: That’s a serious problem. And you better be careful how aggressive you are…

WHH: Well I’m not telling these things to everyone. I’m just telling you because you would be conveying this message to the outside world. People need to hear, all the Americans are not here, but they need to know what’s going on here. We are using their money, but we are not getting their money, it’s middleware.

BG: When you say “middleware” is that sort of like a metaphor for the middle management people?

WHH: Yeah. Well what I’m trying to tell you, in conclusion, if the system is computerized, there would be less corruption.

BG: So technology is the answer at some level. One of the answers.

WHH: Yes. You have to use technology to make it right.

In my travels, I ask most every Muslim I meet about Islam and the Quran. In every case, I am told that Islam is a religion of peace, often with great passion. I approach those answers skeptically, as public relations for the religion. And then you meet men like Dr. Saber Perdes, CEO of Kabul’s Jumhuriat Hospital, a short walk from Chicken Street and my adopted Shar-e-Naw neighborhood. Being in the presence of a man like Saber, I think, if this man exemplifies what Islam is about, sign me up.

The historiography of how I ended up in his office goes like this: Afterparty project backer and old friend Forrest Wright introduces me to his sister Leslie for my research on the Kosovo war who then introduces me to Shqipe Malushi, who spent years running workshops on issues like women’s rights in Afghanistan. An Albanian American, she is beloved by Afghans. If you assume to know Shaira, her honorific Afghan name ( “The Poetess”) people drop everything and make themselves available.

I walk to the hospital, where I am kindly and efficiently treated by Saber’s staff.  He welcomes me to his office and apologizes for the short delay. And then schools me on Afghan public health, the real power behind the Taliban and how Islam informs his work as a medical professional.  He begins with his extraordinary personal history.

—————-

Jumhuriat Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan

I’m a physician by training, but I am not practicing medicine right now. I studied primary school and then high school, and most of my faculty of medicine in Pakistan as a refugee.

Why were you a refugee?

Because of the war. First, we were displaced from Kabul to another province in 1985. Then in 1988, we moved to Pakistan. We lived in a refugee camp where there were no facilities, where life was so hard and most of the people were living in poverty. I can recall the days when I went to the English language classes. I took four classes of English language obtaining the first or second position, but I couldn’t continue due to financial problems. My father was keeping a farm of honey bees and we had a lot of honey at home, but we couldn’t’t sell it. So, it was a hard life. I didn’t give up and my family supported me.

Was there something about your experience in the camp, seeing the suffering there, that motivated you to want to get into medicine?

Shqipe Malushi, referred to with great affection by Afghans as Shaira, originally from Albania, now living in New Jersey.

In fact, at that time, the situation got difficult in Afghanistan because there was the civil war in the early 1990s and then later on there was Taliban and we didn’t have a specific future to look to. The only two fields that were bringing in money were engineering and medicine as everyone needed that, even Taliban needed a doctor to be employed. Since my elder brother was a doctor and I had worked with him at a clinic as an assistant for some time, I was motivated to study medicine. In Afghanistan, when you obtain the highest marks in the university entry test (Kankor), then you go to the school of medicine. So mostly it’s the cream of the crop. Until 2001, I understood Basic English, but I couldn’t’t talk for more than a minute. Then, when I was in the final class of my medical courses, I decided to continue studying the English language. I went to a very famous center, it was called ELP. The International Rescue Committee had established the center in 1985. I got admission and they told me that the new class would start in 45 days. I said that’s fine, I just want to pay my money so that I will come and I will make sure that I take that class. Before that, I had procrastinated for a long time saying that I will do it this year, next year…

As a medical professional, is English important for understanding research?

At that time, it wasn’t important since all of our classes were in local languages and the professors tried to prepare notes for us. We had very few reference books, but the professors were not asking for them. They would give us a reference like, “If you want to study more, you can read this book.” It was not a required reading. It was just recommended reading. But I thought that if I studied English, it would make me stand out among my classmates. And when I completed  my classes in July of 2002, not only did I get the first position, but also I made a record score for that center, which was 98% in Advanced Level 2. And it motivated me a lot. At that time, there was the collapse of the Taliban’s government and I came to Afghanistan. I started teaching English and I did my residency at different hospitals in Kabul. Still, the financial status of the family was not good. I was receiving some money from my brother while I was teaching English and doing little works of translation services. So I started to translate one of the articles for a kids’ magazine called Parwaz which means fright. And when I translated that article, I think they paid me ten bucks. And they were translating one article every two months, so ten bucks in two months. It was pocket money for me. And I was traveling mostly on my bike to different areas of Kabul. It was not crowded like this. There were very few cars and I could ride my bike even in front of the US embassy as the roads were open. Now, they are all closed to the public. By teaching English and doing some translations, I improved my English language capacity. In 2003, I got a chance to do interpretations in a workshop, which was about the constitution in Afghanistan.

I think it was March or April 2003. An organization called FNST was administering the workshop. They tried their best to find two interpreters, but they found only one. They couldn’t’t find another one, and finally they picked me up because they just wanted to fill the second slot. They didn’t believe in my skills. Although one of the bosses of that organization was a close friend, he had never given me a chance before that. So, there were two interpreters at the workshop. The other interpreter had worked with international organizations and he had spent some time in Australia. When I heard about him, I prayed a lot to Allah, I said, “I don’t want to be ashamed in front of an audience of sixty people.” The German facilitator was a very kind person, but he was very strict, he was to the point, and he was speaking outstanding English. His name was Mark Killer. So he was really a killer. (Laughter) During the workshop, we were taking sessions. And I clearly remember that during one of the sessions, Mark asked the audience a question and the audience responded in a very different way than he had expected. And then Mark told the respondent that if I ask you, “What are dogs?” you respond to me that, “Hens lay eggs!” They are totally irrelevant. The other interpreter couldn’t pick the words for “lay eggs”. Maybe he didn’t know the specific expression. He said, “Pardon?” And Mark told him again and then he translated that into something wrong. And among the audience, there were people who knew English and they laughed. Mark asked, “why are you laughing?” They said, “the translation was not accurate.” When the workshop finished, he tapped me on the back and told his people, “whenever I come to Afghanistan, this person should be my interpreter.” It was a great moment of boosting self-confidence, and also a great moment of appreciating what I had learned. Since then, I have served as an interpreter at different events. I had the pleasure of doing simultaneous interpretations at very high level meetings where the vice president and other high level people from different ministries and the parliament were present. Shaira was one of the facilitators who came to Kabul and GTZ hired me as a part time interpreter. I remember that when I was hired, there was another interpreter as well. So I was their standby interpreter. And when I did interpretations, they liked me and after some time, she kicked out the other interpreter and I worked with her for a long time.

To come to the point, I see that the English language and computer skills have helped me a lot during my career. In 2009, I got a Fulbright Scholarship and I studied Masters of Public Health at St. Louis University in Missouri. My concentration was health policy. I finished with a GPA of 3.9 and distinction at comprehensive exams.

Can I ask you a question about the Taliban? It’s an odd question. You mentioned that of course everyone, including the Taliban, needed healthcare. What was the attitude and the quality of administration of healthcare in the country during the time of the Taliban? Besides being a bit severe in their theology, were they good administrators or was the country basically in a state of collapse and chaos during those years?

As I’ve heard from people who have worked with them, they were not good administrators. When they needed something, they were just giving orders. Like, “We need this in a very short time!” They were respecting doctors because of the profession. That’s what people say about them.

Did you consider, I’m sure you would have had no problem with a visa, did you consider not coming back?

No. Even though I was told several times, “If you stay here, it will be good for you”, I preferred to come back home. There is no doubt that the quality of life is better there, but my people need me. Life is very short. We should be in service of those who need us the most.

How long have you worked at the Ministry of Public Health? And in what capacities?

I joined the Health Promotion Department of the Ministry of Public Health in late 2006 and I worked there until I left for US in Aug 2009. When I came back to Afghanistan, I joined the Health Economics and Financing Directorate (HEFD) as an intern in Jan 2011.

During my first week of internship, I was offered a full time job and I accepted the offer. After working for six months as a Health Economics Advisor, I got promoted to the position of Health Economics Unit Head. I worked for three and half years at HEFD and then I was selected as a Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of this hospital through an open competition. I joined Jumhuriat Hospital in mid-September 2014.

Hospital Signage

This money was for the Health Policy Project (HPP). And it was up to the government how they wanted to spend it. We had a say in managing that fund, or I would say in at least prioritizing the areas where it should be spent. One of the areas was to support nine of our staff members who were full time based at MoPH. I was happy that I was receiving a competitive salary which met my needs. However, I never acted as a USAID official. I have always stood out as a Health Economics Unit Head because I had a governmental position there. I had a P2 form, which means that I was a civil servant, but only the salary came from the Health Policy Project. I was not reporting to the health policy project. I was only sending them my monthly attendance sheet for the reimbursements. You’re right that there are mixed feelings in some cases with the money that comes from other donors. If I worked for a bank, I would definitely have that kind of a feeling as I don’t want to take money that comes from interest.

For religious reasons or political reasons?

For religious reasons! I don’t like to be paid from interest because I believe that interest is not allowed in Islam. But if anyone donates to the health sector, we should happily accept it and then try to use it in the best possible way.

Because the need is so great.

Yeah, the need is so great and the health sector hasn’t received a lot of money. I believe that expenditures in the health sector should be considered investments. When I considered coming to the hospital, I was told that, “you don’t know about hospital management and you do not have experience from hospital management, how would you run such a large hospital?” I told them that I would try to use the knowledge that I have, combine it with the experiences of other hospitals, consider what’s not working well, and be a role model. I would not be micro-managing things, but I would be running the hospital as a leader. s I have a vision for this hospital, I believe that this hospital will be very different in five years from now. In the past thirteen years, there have been significant investments in the health sector and expansion of services, but mostly those services were expanded to rural areas and provinces under the Essential Package of Hospital Services (EPHS) and the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS). BPHS is primary care and EPHS is secondary/tertiary care. However, national hospitals have always been ignored. We have a saying that if you are very close to someone, you could be hidden under his beard. Since I have joined the hospital, I have always tried to communicate to stakeholders at different levels and to give them reasons why this hospital needs more attention and why we need to bring in reform.

If I can ask, what’s this hospital’s position in Afghanistan and Kabul, what unique role does it play?

It is a specialty hospital and it should be serving as a tertiary care center. Although we have services that are not available in most provinces, my vision for this hospital is that we should have subspecialties. Soon, we will be inaugurating plastic surgery ward mainly for reconstruction of cleft lip, cleft palate, burns, and other issues. We have also planned gastroenterology in our proposed organogram for the next year. We will be doing trainings for our staff to do the different procedures that are required for being a specialist of gastroenterology. Research shows that majority of our patients who go to Pakistan and India, suffer from gastroenterology problems. If we have those services in Kabul, we will stop them from going there. We have also planned an organ transplant center, but that will not be operated within the next year even if it is approved by the MoPH.

Are those gastro issues caused in some ways by Afghan life, by diet or pollution or stress? 

That’s a very good question. There are multiple reasons for that. Since I haven’t done a research in this area, this is my guess and also what I have heard from other people. Diet and stress could be two major causes. Patients have heartburn, hyperacidity or some other issues, but their causes are different. Most of our people like spicy food and we know that spices play a crucial role in gastric disease. Stress could also be a major cause, but there is need for research to approve or reject this hypothesis. Evidence from other countries might be available on the internet, but I haven’t searched it.

Refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan. About 1.6 million refugees from the 1980’s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan  still reside in such camps. More information at: http://www.rferl.org/content/pakistan-soviet-afghan-refugees/25264055.html

Is there research or personal perspective that you have about what are the effects on the body of decades of conflict? Even when you’re not a mujaheddin and you’re going about your daily life, does that have some long-term traumatic effect across the population? Or is that just hard to measure?

I haven’t read a research paper on this topic, but I think that there are effects of war and we can see them everywhere. Most health workers are not behaving well with their clients and with their colleagues. They’re harsh and their attitude is not good. If you reason with them for a couple of minutes, it could escalate to a very hot issue and it may end up in physical clash.

Very interesting. 

I have seen people who have gotten engaged in physical fights with physicians inside the health facilities. If you go to a shop and you ask for prices of three or four things and you don’t buy them, they will probably tell you that, “Okay, you’re not buying them. Get lost.” But in other countries, if you ask them for ten items and you don’t buy them, at the end they will give you a business card while wearing a smile. So that’s a difference we can see. The first day when I came back from US, I took a taxi from the airport. I noticed that this person was not driving well, he was not obeying the lines, he was not turning on his signals when he was changing lanes. He didn’t even care for the red light. He just crossed it. I said, “Oh my God, this person is crazy. This is not appropriate.” But after some time, I got used to it. Now when I drive, sometimes I may disobey some of the traffic rules and regulations.  Behavior is contagious. It is well explained in (Malcolm Gladwell’s) Tipping Point, the book. So when someone does something wrong, the others also either get encouraged to do that or they get it without any intention. And they practice that behavior for a long time. That’s something that I have noticed from the effects of war.

So it’s not an Afghan culture thing, it’s the effects of war.

It’s the effect of war. It’s not the culture. Our culture is very rich and according to our culture, if someone comes to our home, for example let’s say you are my guest and someone comes and tries to snatch you out of my home, I can fight for you until the last drop of my blood is spilled because you are my guest. You are my honor. The effects of war can be seen in the younger generation more than the older one, because they have grown up in war.

Besides all the deaths, there must have been so many lifelong injuries through the eras of the Taliban, the Soviets and the mujaheddin. How do you and your colleagues nationwide deal with that large of a population of people who were so badly hurt over so many years?

I think people get desensitized to that. As we get insensitive to the suicide attacks and a lot of bad things that are happening. Like when I was in the US, one of my classmates invited me to a dinner party. Many other Americans were there. During our conversations, they asked me about my life in Afghanistan. I told them about how I lived my childhood. What I told you just at a glance; I told them in details. One of my classmates exclaimed “I can’t believe that you are still alive.”

And sane.

Yeah. When we hear in the Western world about gunfire in a school, everyone is shocked. That is considered one of the worst things that could happen in a community. But here, a lot of bad things happen. Like, a suicide attack happened over there in the Kabul Security Department. I could see it from this chair (he points out the window to a large building nearby). And when I heard the sound of the explosion, I said, “Oh my God, it’s in the Security Department.” But I didn’t even move out of my room because I think we are desensitized to that. We somehow get used to that. We say that this is the reality of life and just accept it. Whenever something bad happens, I receive a call from my parents, they ask me, “Are you safe?” and I say, “Yeah, I’m safe.” It has happened several times that I have crossed a square and after fifteen minutes or so, there was an explosion in the same area. My parents ask “Where are you?” And I say, “I just crossed the area where there was explosion, but I am fine.”

So it’s almost like you have to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. One, to know how to be careful and alert and to be safe. But also not to be obsessed with that and to go about your business and not live a life driven by fear.

Yeah.

Afghanistan’s new President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, right, and Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah take the oath during their inauguration in Kabul on Sept. 29. After a disputed election, the two men share power. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

Before the elections, I had met President Ghani twice. Once, we had a Fulbright conference and he was there for a full day with us. And then he invited a bunch of Fulbright Scholars, including me, to his home. Since he is also a Fulbright Scholar, he knew that we were a little bit different than others in terms of the way we think; the way we analyze things and see things from a different perspective. At that time, he had not been elected. We asked him if he would run for presidential elections. He replied, “I’m thinking about this. Our goal would be to reduce corruption by 60% within the next five years and then the rest of the 40% would be enough for the big sharks to move around.’” When President Ghani won the elections, I was very hopeful and I thought that he would bring a lot of changes. But I think US didn’t play the role that was expected from them. When there is democracy, if someone wins by only one vote, he is the winner. That’s democracy and US should have backed that principle.

Abdullah.

Abdullah is a great person; he is also a doctor. But I think a car with two steering wheels will never get to its destiny. Right now, everything is going in an ambiguous direction, we don’t know what will happen. But at least I believe that if President Ghani and Abdullah are serving the country within the next five years, there will be many positive changes because both of them are determined people, they don’t give up. On the other hand, President Ghani holds others accountable. Like if we are talking with him, he will say, “what can you do?” And when we give him a word, he will take notes and then after a while, he will ask us “Why didn’t you do this?” That’s something that makes him different. He also thinks critically. The critical thinking is something that’s absent among most of our politicians. Thus, I am very much hopeful that we will have a peaceful Afghanistan after the western troops leave.

How worried are you about the Taliban can take over Afghanistan again?

It depends on their supporters. How much do they support them? I know the Taliban’s game. A game played in Afghanistan supported by neighboring countries and they didn’t even want the whole of Afghanistan to be conquered by the Taliban.  If their funds are cut now, I’m sure that they cannot survive more than a month

Really, more than a month?

Yeah. As we saw in 2001, they collapsed in two weeks. No one could imagine ever that the Taliban would collapse in two weeks, and they did. Just two weeks. Now, they have funding and they are highly supported.

At that time, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and some others thought, “We better do what the United States is asking of us after we’ve supported these groups that were responsible for Al Qaeda’s attack on 9/11.” But then years passed, maybe Pakistan became emboldened to support the Taliban again. As I understand it, there were some Pakistani Taliban that were attacking Pakistani troops and that were causing problems for Pakistan as well. What do you make of that?

I pray that their numbers increase, so that they can feel it on their skin. Because Pakistani religious scholars are giving statements such as “go for jihad to Afghanistan.” But they have red light districts in Lahore and many other cities. They have a worse situation in Pakistan. No one is calling for jihad there. They are brainwashing youths and sending them to Afghanistan for jihad. If there is jihad, first they should do it in Pakistan.

The 16-year-old at the Lycée the other day  blew himself up, Do you think he Pakistani or Afghan?

I don’t know about his identity. People say that he was arrested a couple of years back, but he was forgiven by (then President) Karzai. And then he planned to blow himself up this year.

Terrible. Some people in the west think that there’s something in Islam that encourages that kind of behavior. As with any holy book, there are certain phrases that people can take and say, “Here is proof that it’s a war-like religion.” Or, “They’re encouraging violence.” What, if I may ask, is your experience with Islam? How does it affect your role, your behavior as a medical professional and as a man of faith, which you apparently are, how do you look at these people who, in the name of Islam, are doing these extreme things?

I believe that Islam is not the Islam that is portrayed by extremists. Islam is always encouraging people to do good things. For every good thing that we do, we get rewarded ten times. And there is a verse in the Holy Quran that if you spend your money just for the sake of Allah, to get Allah’s blessings, you could be rewarded up to 700 times or more. This concept is explained as if you have one wheat and you cultivate it, it has seven stalks and every stalk has one hundred wheat grains. So you get 700, or more than that. On the other hand, if our neighbor is suffering from something and we do not help them, or if we eat something good and we do not share it with them, we will be held accountable by Allah. “Why didn’t you do that? Your neighbor was suffering from, I would say, hunger and you were eating a lot of good stuff.” If we cross a street and we go on the right side, we will be rewarded for that as that’s something good. Go on the right side. The routes are already set.

There are principles in Islam, for example, Tawhid. Like if someone says “La Elaha Ellalah o Mohammad ur Rasoollullah (speaks in Arabic),” it means, “We believe in only one Allah, one God and that Mohammad is the prophet of Allah” he/she is a Muslim. After that, being a good or bad Muslim depends on their good and bad actions. Calling Mohammad the prophet of Allah doesn’t mean that we deny other prophets. In fact, we as Muslims believe that Mohammad Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH) is the last prophet of Allah and we believe in about 124,000 prophets including Jesus, Noah and David.

That’s a lot of prophets.

I believe that Islam never encourages killing innocent people. There are verses in Quran which are about fighting others and they are translated as, if someone attacks you, you should defend yourself. At that time, I think there were people opposing Mohammad because they had done the worship of statues for hundreds of years and Mohammad introduced in the new religion. They felt ashamed of that and they didn’t want Islam to grow up. So the followers of other religions wanted to kill Muslims. There was the verse, if they want to kill you, you’re also allowed to kill them. That was self-defense! But some extremists are taking that verse as when you see a person from another religion, just kill them. I believe that it is just the personal interpretation of those people. Islam never encourages violence.

In Islam, there are rules set for everything and respect of elders is always encouraged. Some verses address only Muslims, others address the general humanity. In humanity, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist… everyone is included. When I talk to my people and I give speeches, I sometimes recite a verse that is about saving one’s life. I believe there is a similar verse in the book of Judaism, as well. Its interpretation is like this: “if you save one life, you have saved the whole humanity.”

Yes, that’s right.  

It’s a clear verse from the holy Quran. It doesn’t say if you save the life of one Muslim, you have saved the lives of the whole Muslim community. Rather, it is about humanity, so everyone is included. The interpretation of verses from Quran makes a difference for Muslims around the world.

In the professional and medical circles that you travel in, if I can ask, what’s the attitude toward the United States’ thirteen years in Afghanistan and the decision to cut back most of the troops but keep about 13,000? Is there gratitude, is there hatred, is there a sense that it’s time to go, are there mixed feelings, is there criticism about strategy, it could have been done differently? What is the general feeling that you get about this thirteen years of American presence in Afghanistan?

I think the US didn’t want to have a very strong government in Afghanistan right from the beginning. That’s my personal opinion and I can link it to Karzai. Because Karzai had worked at very low level positions before becoming a president. Everyone knows that managing a small business or a restaurant is very different from running a country.

(Laughs.) Yeah, that’s fair.

I believe that Karzai is a good leader and  an outstanding tribal person for his people, but when someone becomes a leader of a country, they should be visionary people who can think about ten years from now or fifteen years from now. For example, Karzai has always talked about fighting corruption and deploying the right people in the right places. He just talked the talk, but he didn’t walk the walk. And it was just a lip service. He didn’t have a vision for Afghanistan. I have never heard him saying that “In 2015, Afghanistan will have this, this, and that.” If I were Karzai in 2002, and I had the international assistance in different areas, I would say that, “Okay, I have these priorities for Afghanistan, who wants to support this?” Like in this hospital, if someone tells me now “what support do you need?” I tell them that I want to establish an organ transplant center; a gastroenterology ward, an allergy center; train ten of my staff members, need machinery for imaging and their maintenance; ….. etc. Each donor may pick one or two areas that are in line with their strategic plans and the hospital services will be improved before long. While the donors are supporting the hospital, I can do supervision. The same could happen to Afghanistan. He could have thought about the traffic jams, about a subway, about having our own power …. etc.  We don’t have our power. We are importing energy from Tajikistan and other countries. We are losing a lot of the energy throughout the way and also we are losing the money that goes out of the country. He could have thought about encouraging the local production in Afghanistan. Right now whatever is produced, that’s not standardized. He could have thought about having a health sector that’s meeting the needs of people. I can say that he was just trying to be there or maybe he was under external pressures. Who knows!?

Is there some suspicion or disparagement of the United States, that perhaps he was intentionally their guy who could be controlled? And all this talk about democracy for much of the thirteen years is really undermined by the fact that this western power, protected by their military, decided who was going to be leading in Afghanistan?

He looked like a puppet.

So what’s the answer for your country? Is it negotiating with the Taliban? Is it taming Pakistan, as you were talking about before? Is it patience and faith? Is it more US troops? What’s the answer, do you think, for Afghanistan?

If you look at the war, it is mostly in the areas where there are Pashtuns. From the south to the east. Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, Ghazni, Logar, Nangarhar, Kunar …etc. Majority of their population is Pashtuns and they are near the border of Pakistan. I also think that the Northern Alliance, have convinced the US military and US officials that Pashtun is Talib and Talib is Pashtun, which is not correct.

Yeah, there is that impression.

Yeah, that impression is incorrect. Because of that, we have suffered the war in these areas. Some people become Talib because either they lose their family or they don’t have any other things to do. Or they get very angry at the current government due to the high levels of corruption and bureaucracy and they say “it’s better to be against the government.” Some others get brainwashed. But when we are trying to, let’s say, fight cockroaches in a building, we cannot fight them one by one unless we find their source, where they come from. When we track them, we can find that these cockroaches lead to a specific area. We go there and we see that there is a big hole and thousands of cockroaches come out of that hole. So we have to spray something there, make sure that no single cockroach comes out of that hole again. And then try to track the rest of them everywhere. Wherever we find them, we kill them. Then it will be safe. I, as a civilian, know that there are bases of Taliban in different areas of our neighboring countries. How wouldn’t US officials know about that? Although Osama was captured and killed in Pakistan, and many other high-level Taliban might be living there. I would like to say that Pakistan is playing a double-faced game right now. They tell the US, “We are trying to fight the terrorism.” And then they are supporting terrorists “Okay, go to Afghanistan, do the jihad, they are Americans, they are infidels, kill them, and when you kill them you will be rewarded several times.” That’s it.

I like that cockroach analogy. Finally, I’m just curious about your experience in the United States. What was that like and what were your impressions of America?

I spent just under 400 days in the US in total. It was a great time, I learned a lot from my professors, classmates, and friends. It was not only learning about public health, but also I tried to serve as a cultural ambassador of Afghanistan. I attended different social events and gatherings and I delivered speeches at events where I was requested to do so. I talked to them about the differences and similarities in our cultures. Some of them had never seen an Afghan in person before. I remember that at one social event, I talked to a bunch of Americans and answered their questions. One of them said “you are just like us!” I made a lot of great friends. I had host families whom I am still in contact with. What I want to say is that there are good and bad people everywhere. Most of the people I met in US were very kind, honest and friendly.

—————

Thanks to Afterparty project intern Kayley Ingalls for transcribing the interview and providing background research.

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.