A few days ago, spent some time acknowledging the greatness that pervades this place, rugged and vast white mountains against a stark blue sky, sun setting in the west, smoking a cigar and just thinking. Was trying to understand current events here in Afghanistan. Protesters, agitated by what appears to us an unintentional burning of holy Qurans, shout, among other things, "Allahua akhbar!!!," and continue to express themselves with regard to what they believe is a direct assault on God. "Allahu akhbar!!! means, "God is great!!!" Some Afghans (and Pakistanis and Iranians, who for some reason are in Afghanistan) are using violence and destruction as voice. Over forty people, six Americans, have been killed, many injured. Fast apologies from U. S. officials did not mollify. Two U. S. military officers who are doing what I am doing, working in a ministry, were shot point blank in the back of the head allegedly in required retaliation for the Quran burning. I don't understand it, being from the West, where freedom to do what you will--believe it, live it, burn it-- with what some believe to be the Book of God makes us what we are. Destruction, accidental or even intentional, of symbols on paper in books would not evoke such a response, would not require killing anyone. Unable to apprehend the inscrutable, my mind diverted to the language of "Allahu akhbar," searching for equivalent use of those words in the West; perhaps comparing would offer insight. Southern Germans greet one another with, "Gruss Got," which mostly acknowledges, "Great God." It's what one says in Bavaria when you greet someone or walk into a place or a shop. We have the children's dinner prayer, "God is great, God is good..." Surrounded by these mountains, I see how these people see God is great. In the expansive deserts of Kuwait back in 1994 looking at the quiet night starlit sky I perceived the same thing: sheer greatness. No doubt, Allahu akhbar. But is God good? How would the families of those two officers answer that question at this point? How would families of the Afghan casualties answer? Would they even ask the question?
Have always been a small sized person. At least that is how I grew up. In elementary school, when my sister wanted to provoke me, she would call me, "Small." And I would roll in with violence to "defend myself," as if she needed to learn that she were wrong and should be punished; that I could make her think what I wanted her to think with beatings! (Please forgive me, dear Judy.) Friends in high school, as our culture unwittingly promotes, tried to thicken my skin, prepare me for the onslaughts of the coming adult world, and would tease me about being small. I realize how much I wanted to be big, to be great, like the guys who were taller than me in the neighborhood, at school, on the football field. Size mattered as a kid. I took comfort in the story of King David, the small, ruddy lad who took down the giant Goliath and became king after Saul. To wit: Saul was chosen mostly because he was a head taller than anyone else and the people needed a king; tall people are popular from the gitgo. But what happened to Saul? Saul ends up a blithering idiot. Heck, what happened to David? Geez, one could look at those stories and legitimately wonder, Is God good? David gets chased across the countryside by Saul, the very king he served so loyally. Kingly though David was, with an eye for attractive women, he commits and is convicted of adultery, one of his sons dies as a child, and another son, Absalom, as a young man leads an insurrection against him! Talk about heartbreak: David, favored and chosen by the One True God in the holy book of the West, had his share.
Back to size from heartbreak. What is going on here in Afghanistan is so much bigger than what one person can change. Oh, I should have liked to imagine that I could be so big or great as to walk out the embassy gates, join the crowd with clenched fist, riled jaw, protest the burnings with fiery compassion, and shout, "Allahu akhbar!!!" from the bottom of my soul until a leader of the crowd noticed my white man zeal and then invited me to address the crowd. And I would find the words through a translator and a bullhorn that would promote peace and reconciliation not only between the West and Afghanistan but among the people themselves. And they would all go home to their families and the next day wake up and go to their jobs to build a country from the mud up into the beautiful place that Afghanistan could be. I did not imagine it, was not smoking hallucinogens. Perhaps it was the cigar and the setting sun and the sharpening cold but the mountains sent the very clear message to me about my size; I accepted my relative size in this situation and am even obeying the embassy rule of not going outside the compound for the past two weeks. Small truth is: no one person in this world has the power to affect this situation. Even our ambassador, Ryan Crocker, who did great things in Iraq, and by the way is a small man (I'm taller than he is!), could not do what I just outlined above. Larger truth: no one nation can change this place. Even larger truth: even our coalition of nations may not change Afghanistan to the degree that we in the West will be able to appreciate. Could be very heartbreaking for all the lives we have lost and treasure we have spent.
In a separate but related event, am reading Gone with the Wind, an especially appropriate book for this place for the art in the book expresses an idyllic world changed through war and time. Reading the book makes me think that culture, along with all of its required ingredients--common language, foods, ethics, etc.-- also includes common and accepted distortions of reality that people mutually support to keep what they got, whether its things or belief systems. That is, truth becomes secondary to stories they tell themselves. A specific example from the old South: chattel slavery is a fine way to live for the slaves. A specific example from here and now from the Ulema council in Afghanistan, endorsed by President Karzai: "women are secondary." Time marches on, seasons change, and I see Afghanistan in a civil war with those of us in our world. Inexorable conflict as people meet people, old ways give way, and ambient temperatures change. What will happen here? Again, an open question. But to ask offers hope.
For the first day since the killings, I go back to the Ministry of Finance tomorrow. To what true and lasting effect, I do not know. All I know is I work alongside Afghan counterparts; they have affected me with their humanness, their work for change, their sense of humor, their hope for the future, their goodness. Is God good? I know where I come down on that question, whatever happens. But the question bears authentic asking. I request your prayers again, now more than ever, for the final stretch. Love, Tim
Here is a picture of Tammy, my coworker, just before we got into a car and headed toward the Ministry of Finance.
