“The voice of 9/11 has a woman echo”

The Pakistani writer Bapsi Sidhwa criticizes Usa and calls the women to take position

Q. Bapsi, how and why did you decide to contribute to the book To mend the world - Women rifelct on 11/9?

Last year I talked to the Human Rights class at University of Georgia about  American involvement in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980’s, and Betty Jean Craig, an editor, asked me to write for the book. I had a lot to say and this book let me speak from the heart.

Q. What was the primary demand of this book? What was lacking in the already existing dialogue on 11/9 and its consequences?

Women’s voices were lacking; we mostly heard old men like dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield talking of bombs and war. After Sept. 11 America saw itself only as a victim. America did not see how it had positioned itself in world affairs to advance only its own  economic interests. This self-reflection appeared to be missing from American discourse, as were the voices of writers, intellectuals and peace activists from around the world.

Q. How do you live as a woman writer, socially involved, with the consequences of 11/9?

Except for a brief visit to Soviet Russia, I have never felt the need to glance over my shoulder, or be careful of what I say. Now I do. Last month I was talking to an Indian friend, a delegate to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, when he suddenly he said: “Speak in Gujarati. Don’t you know how many people have been spirited  away from their homes and locked up?” U.S. Human Rights activists had supplied the information. The measures  Homeland Security in America is trying to adopt, such as Operation Tips – which plans to turn neighbours, postmen and gass-meter readers into 2 million spies – will turn America into a Police State. As a brown person with origins in Pakistan I feel vulnerable – although so far my right to speak out and write as a U.S. citizen has been respected.

 Q. Many of the writers who have contributed to the essay, belong to two different cultures (multicultural). Do you think that people who have learnt to co-exist with another culture (most likely of the Southern part of the world) have seen the event of 11/9 from a different sensibility? Do you believe the voices of women like you can contribute to a larger intercultural understanding?

As a writer who is equally familiar with the prosperous West and the conservative cultures of poor countries like Pakistan and India, I unconsciously explain one culture to the other in my novels. The cultural diversity enriches the stories of our lives, but the bridge that transcends our religious and social differences is made up of the emotions we share: joy, sorrow, envy, hate, love. The present misunderstanding  between the Muslims and the Christian West is dismaying. In my essay I try to show the suffering of the larger world community and also construct a mirror that reflects the Americans to themselves. In Pakistan I held up a critical mirror that reflected Pakistani society. I feel it is part of the responsibility of being a writer. Because women bear and nurture children, they are not so cavalier about other people’s children dying. Women have a vested interest in peace and their voices need to be heard if our species is to survive the male impulse to war. Women empathise more easily with the emotions that link and bind our world.

 Q. You have been citizen of India, Pakistan and now USA. How did you live as woman and writer the presence of these different “places”?

As a woman who has had to re-locate, I define myself more by my personal and familial relationships that by my sense of citizenship .  As long  as the country  I belong to provides me with security and stability. I am content. For me national borders are becoming blurred, and I feel I belong to these countries  simultaneously; whatever happens in them matters to me. My ideas about patriotism have undergone a change; I would like to be patriotic to all the countries of the world. For patriotism often entails a terrible choice – if you love your country, you must hate your neighbour.

 Q. In your essay you wrote: “History teaches us that the outcomes of the war are unpredictable.” What is the relationship of the Americans with the History?

How swiftly the past turns into history; and in America, like everything else, the passage of time, too, appears accelerated. Who would have thought that the icy grip of the Soviet Cold War would become a dim memory in America’s baby-boomer life time? Or that the trusted buddy Russia? The past is not only relegated to history, but is often banished from a rather selective American memory. Wars are remembered not by their  content or motivation but by their consequences. I wonder  how many of us remember America’s protracted obsession with the USSR, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, whole-heartedly aided by America, that eventually led to the startling collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991. Could anyone have foreseen the unexpected consequences of that invasion? Certainly not the Russians when they pitted their super – power might against the puny Afghan nation in 1979.

 Q. You wrote: “If we don’t learn from history, the future will come back to haunts us. Some aspects of it already has, in the shape  of the biggest terrorist attack in all history, on the Twin Towers in NY.” What went wrong in the world decision after 11/9?

Can one kill a fly with a hammer? It s near impossible and you might end up hurting yourself. This is what the American bombing seems to have done in Afghanistan. The fly and the hammer have opposite strengths and weakness. Has America got it wrong again? The world mourned with America’s declaration of war against the ‘Axis or Evil’ – wide swathes of Muslim opinion has the perception that America has declared war on Islam.

Does anyone believe war will stop acts of terror? Won’t an attack on Iraq breed only more humiliated and hate filled terrorists? Even if we hide every plastic knife in America, will it stop an attack from a man who is desperate enough to commit suicide? Isn’t it time we addressed the grievances that are generating so much hostility  and hopelessness-the suffering of the larger world community whose misery we take for granted: Who ordained that we may pamper ourselves in Victoria’s Secrets underwear, while millions in Afghanistan or Rawanda can’t even  get badly – fitted artificial limbs?

 Q. How does it matter for a nation, for a population, to preserve alive the memory of its history? If we don’t learn from our history we will keep repeating the same old mistakes.

Countries have histories, and events their consequences, and it is dangerous to disregard the past. If we don’t learn from the experience of our devastating wars we will keep on repeating the same old mistakes and blow up the world with our terrible weapons. The only nations who appear to have learned from history are the countries who have suffered the consequences of defeat: countries like Germany, Japan and Italy. They remember the cost and futility of war and refuse to participate in war games. God bless them, and keep their memories alive.

Q. Let’s talk about one of the most important topics you reflect on in the book: the use of religion as a fuel for the Afghan. War and the Islamization of Pakistan. In what way has religion influenced the war in Afghanistan  and in other countries?

One of the strategies in the war against the Soviet Union was the casual manipulation of religion by America. Saudi Arabia was encouraged to export its ultra orthodox Wahabi brand of Islam, and hundreds of religious schools sprang up around the refugee camps in North Pakistan, 4 million Afghan refugees were roused to wage holy-war, jehad,  against their Godless communist invaders.. The men were armed with American weapons, and made to believe that no bullet would penetrate a Koran. Thousands of Afghans died clutching Korans to their breasts. Pakistani and Arab volunteers were also recruited and trained to fight by the Americans, the most infamous being Osama Bin Laden.

When the Russian tanks and soldiers finally lumbered out of Afghanistan in 1989, they left behind a moonscape of ruined cities. The land-mines they planted exceeded the population of Afghanistan. There are whole armies of legless men and children, and God alone knows how many maimed women, have died behind mud walls. The United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan.

The defeated  and demoralized Soviet Empire, un ravelled. A few months ago, in a documentary on the Soviet-Afghan war, I heard Frank Anderson, who was involved with the American effort in Afghanistan, say on television: ‘It is true, it was a war fought by their (Afghan) blood’.

And, their purpose served, the Americans just up and left – walked away like spoilt children who expect someone else to clean up the mess after them.

Afghanistan spiralled into a free-fall. Bands of armed men and tribal warlords  with private armies went on a looting and killing rampage. Women were kidnapped and raped.

The consequences of this war have been devastating for Pakistan also. Thousands of religious madrassahs (schools) erupted throughout Pakistan , and the extremism they preached  have led to uncontrollable sectarian violence between the Shias and Sunnis. The massive influx of the Afghan refugees has debilitated the social   and economic structure of Pakistan and created what has come to be known as the Kalashnikov culture, after the popular Russian guns favoured by the mujahideen: every second household now boasts a gun. The heroin poppy cultivated to finance the resistance has become a curse: heroin usage pervades the working classes of Pakistan society. All variety of chickens have come home to roost.

Q. History teaches us that Religion has been frequently used to start wars. In this case  history hasn’t taught the people nothing about it. Why?

Religious sentiment has always been whipped up to wage war. The Protestant-Roman Catholic conflict in Northern Ireland, the violent Tamil Hindu-Buddhist struggle in Sri Lanka, the Hindu-Muslim conflict that brought about the partition of India and today threatens to explode into a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, the nightmare scenario between the Jews and Muslims in the Middle East, are present examples, to name only a few, of violence  perpetrated  in the name of religion and righteous causes.

One is aware, too, that the spirit of the Inquisition and of the Crusades still exists in the Christian West in various guises. It is ironic that believers in a compassionate faith that directs “Thou shall not kill” should be the perpetrators of the Holocaust (although it was racially motivated), and the first to cast the nuclear stones that obliterated two Japanese cities. And, as if Stalin’s cold-blooded decimation of the Central Asian Muslims were not ruthless enough, the Russian aggression against the Chechnians continues with ineffectual protest from the West.

Some nations have forgotten the human cost of war and the havoc it causes; and so long as man’s territorial  instinct and lust for power are not curtailed, wars will happen. I don’t think anything short of genetic engineering will stop mankind from waging war.

Valentina A. Mmaka

STILOS 12th Novembre 2002