[Reader-list] Ich Bin Ein Mussulman

[rehan ansari]

The start of the war for the conquest, and
reconstruction (both terms are to imperialism  like
milk & sugar to coffee) of the Middle East finds me in
Berlin. 

By the way, the conquest of the Middle East is only a
smart aleck way of referring to what is true. TodayÕs
Wall St Journal(European Edition) carries a headline
story saying that the Bush administration is following
through on a plan first thought out by a neo
conservative (Berlin tempts me to say Neo-Nazi)
Washington-based think tank called ÔProject for the
New American CenturyÕ. 

I am in Berlin to attend a festival of literature,
film, performance, music, theatre, and visual arts by
artists from my generation living in Syria, Lebanon,
Israel-Palestine, Egypt.

The festival is called DisORIENTation. 

It is disorienting to be in Berlin, what to speak of
attending the festival. 

My hotel room window is right across the Spree River
from a magnificent building. 
At dawn, at noon, at night I view it, and its dappling
reflection in the Spree, and see the glory of German
Romanticism and empire. 

Empire is good, look, see the high taste. 

I walk any old strasse and see monumental buildings
with plaques dedicated to a founding father of
microbiology, pharmacy, chemistry, or some fundamental
modern science. I was unreasonably intimidated and
then I found the barbarism kin to this European
Civilization.

-------

I walked one avenue and saw the spires of a mosque.
Closer, I found out it was a synagogue. It was not
just the dome and the spires that were Islamic, the
abstractions on the tile and windows recalled for me
geometries (or should I say cosmo-etries) I have seen
in Fatehpur Sikri and on AkbarÕs Tomb. I remembered
how a Dilli ka Yaar, Shuddha, oriented me once about
the designs we saw in HumayunÕs Tomb: they represent
the universe breathing in and out.

This beautiful synagogue was the epicentre of the
desecration on Kristalnaacht, the night in 1933 when
the Nazis burnt the books. Berlin, like Delhi, Lahore,
Kolkata, Dhaka, Ahmedabad has broken many hearts, and
worse.

I can see the high romanticism of Berlin in places but
most of the city feels like some power has cleaned up
the place with acid and built an anaesthesised,
functional city. 

I wonder if this is what Baghdad is going to look like
in ten years: bombed to hell and then germ-free. Not
bad, but Gabbar, kitnay banday maray ga? 

My disorientation with the festival began when I
entered the palatial venue on John Foster Dulles road
(the Dulles were brothers, one secretary of state and
the other defence secretary in the 50s). The American
made structure for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (the
House of World Culture) has been built opposite the
Reichstag (HitlerÕs offices), and symbolically
disempowers the Nazi past. Inside I read the
dedication, from Benjamin Franklin (one of AmericaÕs
Founding Fathers) about the future time when all the
countries in the world will respect human values and a
philosopher will be at home everywhere. 

50 years of US billions in Pakistan have not made a
home for soldiers, not philosophers. 

Perhaps Baghdad will fare well, and soon have a Colin
Powell dedicated House of Culture on Paul Wolfowitz
Boulevard (Paul is Assistant Secretary of Defence and
leading light of the Project for the New American
Century). 

I hope my final disorientation will not occur on the
way back to New York. 

Though in Berlin I am part of an American group, some
of us, a Palestinian American member and me, joke that
we are the Imperial Delegation, the way back makes me
nervous. A civil liberties lawyer I consulted in New
York before I left said you are brown, Muslim, born in
Pakistan (three strikes! No, itÕs really one strike!),
going to Germany (a country that is not an ally and
considered a breeding ground for al-QaedaÑ America has
woken up to more germs!), and attending an Arab
festival (now its three strikes...), you may be... er,
harassed. 

Anyway, my next writing may be from Karachi (remember,
they deported a Canadian passport holder like me, but
who was born in Syria, to Syria).


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