On September 11th

On page 18, Rageh Omar mentioned that Jason Bruke, in the introduction of his work Al Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, wrote the following:


"In the weeks immediately following the tragedy of September 11th there was a genuine interest in understanding 'why'. Why 'they' hate us, why were 'they' prepared to kill themselves, why such a thing could happen. That curiosity has dwindled and is being replaced by other questions: how did it happen, how many of 'them' are there, how many are there left to capture and kill?"

We want to promote a culture of openness and understanding, one in which otherness is not disciplined or annihilated unless it presents a real threat to life. Even in such a case, an attempt to contain its destructive force seems worth being made.

The way I see it, the shift from the "why" questions to the "how" questions is some sort of a misculculation in that for a problem to be solved we first of all need to understand the reasons behind it. When we, for the sake of vengeance, forget to deal with the real reasons and seek an inner satisfaction in the destruction of the other, then we are simply adding fuel to a culture of hate. We all know that violence breeds violence.

A person may ask the "how questions" (how many are there left to capture and kill) but a wise person would take the trouble to dwell on the first part of the questions (the why questions).

Understanding the actual reasons behing those deadly acts is the first step in the long path of peace, mutual understanding, and even an appreciation of difference.

Those who committed those deadly acts are certainly to be brought to justice but in taking revenge from so many people, thousands of souls were lost- most of them innocent; and the world is not safer than before September 11 2001.

The curiosity that dwindled, as Rageh Omar put it, should have been nurtured and the reasons why such a terrible thing happened should be considered objectively.

Leaving

On page 4, Rageh Omar wrote the following:

"Until the early 1990s I had not thought of a life in London. My parents had never believed we would stay. They had left Somalia before the catastropes of war and fanine had descended on our country and so had not come to Britain as exiles but to send us to the English private schools to be educated in the skills that would help to build and renew post-colonial Somalia. It was temporary for them; it felt even more temporay for those who were forced to flee. I was at the tail end of the generation whose parents were convinced that their children would become part of a generation that would help lead Somalia towards the developed world. The civil war changed that."

This, I think, is neither the story of Rageh Omar alone nor that of the great number of Somalis leaving their country to whatever place or country on earth. This is the story of people from far and wide, especially in the third world or may be in what, out of compassion may be, is called developing world. Personally, I don't tink this is a developing world. The direction is, to some extent, to the other way.

Many of those who studied in the West and then came back to help develop their coutries simply, and put bluntly, regertted it. They find that no body is willing to listen to them and no body is open towards change. When I was at secondary school we had a teacher who spoke 8 languages. He was 45 years old. He had very smart kids and a nice family but still he regretted the day he decided to come beck from America.

Later on, and as I was starting the C.A.P.E.S training program and wanted to move from one governarate to the other in order to be able to pursue an MA degree, I was made to know by an official who had to sign a paper that I was not supposed to finish my MA- he himself tried 18 years ago but did not make it.

Some 3 months later, and as I was half-way through with my C.A.P.E.S training, the teacher trainer asked me, in very clear terms, to abandon my MA studies because it did not make sense to her to teach for some time at secondary schools and then to get a promotion and move on to work at the tertiary level.

The story does not stop there. I know a researcher who had to wait a whole year to get what he needed in the lab, and guess what he needed??!!! MICE!!!

Hard-working people like these, when they get the opportunity to study abroad, and work in an environment where the only criterion whereby a person is judged is his or her perseverance should no longer be looked at with mistrust or contempt when they do not come back.

A book I liked / a book I read

Only half of me is a book I liked, a book which I found very inspiring and very telling in many ways. It tells the story of Rageh Omar who works for Ajazeera International. The copy I have has the picture of a young black boy wearing 2 things: a T-shirt for the English football team and a muslim prayer cap.

Now, in the few coming weeks, I intend to re-read the book and comment on the passages that seem, to me, most interesting and probably most intriguing.

The book is compelling for many reasons. It comes from someone who worked for the bbc and then moved to Aljazeera, someone very much revered by a large section of the British society, however different he is from them.

It also brings to the surface underlying feelings, emotions, attitudes, viewpoints regarding many issues that touch deep in the mind and soul of people belonging to different cultures, and tries at the same time to play down the rift that might annihilate us all.

The book is an attempt to understand oneself and a call for a better understanding of the other.

Tunisian Food

My room was number 9, which was in the second floor. The place was nice, to say the least. You only need to walk for something like two minutes to find yourself in Pembroke College. There was a group of Japanese students with whom I had a very good relationship. We had Tunisian food one day, and of course I was the cook. We ate the Tunisian way.

Trumpington Street

Trumpington Street was a different story, a much more beautiful one. Imogen was the first person I met. Imogen was doing a PhD on religion and she said that she intended to spend 6 months in the college for the write-up of her thesis and her husband would visit her every weekend. She was a great help to me and in spite of her work load, she was always there to answer any of my questions. She would admire my dishes every time we met in the kitchen.