Amsterdam 2012 (18 page)

After the prayer, Sara
Jiluwis
came back to speak with me.
 
“I’m so glad you’re here, Ann.
 
We are making an effort to reach out to the non-Muslim community.
 
There is so much people don’t understand about Islam.
 
We would like them to experience the beauty of Islamic spirituality.”

“How can
a spirituality
be beautiful?” I asked skeptically.

“The beauty of Islam is in its poetry, words that move the soul, that speak of the harmony between God and man.
 
Islam is a religion of daily lived piety.
 
It allows Muslims to live in the secular world, but asks us to remember our divine source five times a day.
 
Prayers and receiving revelation are woven into our daily life.
 
There is a wonderful phrase in the
Quran
, ‘God is closer to you than the beating of your own heart.’
 
Our daily life is a process of transformation of mind, heart, and soul, of coming to peace with ourselves and God.”
 

“Doesn’t it bother you as a woman to be treated as a second class citizen?”

She smiled.
 
“The beginning of every chapter or
sura
in the
Quran
starts with ‘In the name of Allah, the compassionate and caring.’
 
The root of both words in Arabic is
rahim
or womb.
 
The
Quran
is very pro female.”

“I guess it depends on what part of the
Quran
you are reading.”

Sara smiled again.
 
“Do any of the women here appear oppressed?
 
Humiliated?
 
Frightened?”

“You don’t ever feel inhibited by the head scarf?”

“Not at all.
 
I love the head scarf.
 
To me it is my portable sanctuary.
 
When I place it over my head, I am reminded of the presence of God.
 
That he is never separate from me.”

I was beginning to feel a rash of irritation.
 
I had seen people’s heads cut off in the name of Islam, and here was this woman talking about Islam’s beauty without the slightest hint of irony.
 
I reminded myself I had come there for a reason.
 
“The women here seem very close, very intimate.”

“Yes.
 
We are sisters.”

“You are a well connected community, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes.
 
What are you getting at?”

“Do you know how I might go about finding out if someone is in an Islamic safe house?”

She looked at me, lips pressed firmly together.
 
“There is a tiny sect of Christian fundamentalists called The Covenant, The Sword, and The Arm of the Lord which the U.S. government considers to be a terrorist organization.
 
If I asked you to get a message to one of them, could you?”

“No.
 
Of course not.
 
I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Without my realizing it, Sara
Jiluwis
had taken my arm and had escorted me out of the mosque.
 
A fire truck rolled slowly past.
 
“I can’t help you, Ann.
 
I wish I could.”

“Don’t you know of someone at your mosque, maybe a young man with fundamentalist leanings?
 
Couldn’t you ask him to contact his network?
 
You can talk to men, can’t you?”

“Ann, I know you want to do everything you can to find your friend.
 
I would, too.
 
But your friend does not want to be found.
 
It would be best to forget about contacting him.”

“You mean best for me, or for him?”

She gently pressed the top of my shoulder with her fingers and whispered in my ear.
 
I took a step back, then turned to look at her as if I were saying goodbye while glancing over her shoulder.
 
A man across the street was putting quarters into a meter.
 
“Are you sure he is following me?” I asked.

“He was at the farmers’ market, too.
 
When you wear a headscarf, you are aware of long looks, no matter how discreet.
 
Please be careful, Ann.”

#

I hurried home leaving Cynthia at the mosque.
 
Sara
Jiluwis’s
warning unnerved me.

Who would be following me? I wondered.
 
The FBI?
 
Did they think Peter might contact me?
 
Did they think I might also be involved in a terrorist cell?
 
No, it made more sense to me they were following Sara
Jiluwis
.
 
They knew I had made two contacts with her and might suspect I knew something or was in someway involved.
 
Maybe she was mistaken.
 

Over the next week as I did my errands around the city I tried to catch sight of anyone following me—a dark figure ducking into a doorway as I turned.
 
I never did.
 
Not even once.
 
But the feeling it left me was raw and vulnerable.
 
I began to think wearing a
burka
wasn’t such a bad idea.

I tried it one day, not a full
burka
but a
dopatta
, a single long piece of cloth wrapped around my head, shoulders, and chest.
 
As I walked through the streets I felt anonymous.
 
I passed construction sites without a chorus of catcalls.
 
I felt at once part of the world, carried softly by my purpose, yet contained and protected.
 
As strong as my desire was to shake my head free and let the wind blow in my hair, was the desire to hide, to be anonymous,
to
disappear in the shadows.
 
To be invisible.

The thought that I should find comfort in such a guise made me very uneasy and oddly distrustful of myself.

#

The next Thursday, several days before the end of Ramadan, the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Elliot
Gladwell
as candidate for a second term in the White House.
 
While the nomination was not unexpected—he had won virtually all of the primaries except for a few Southern states—there appeared to be, as in the Republican convention, little consensus about how to handle Europe.

Nationwide Gallup Polls showed only 23% of Democrats thought the United States should get involved in the Middle East.
 
Only 40% thought we should help Europe.
 
People were more worried about rising gas prices.
 
The U.S. economy, while strong, was still struggling with the enormous debt left by the Bush administration, and raising taxes to cover the increased military expenditures was obviously not an issue to campaign on.
 
On the other hand the Democratic Party did not want to appear to be soft on national security, a description the Republicans had used to defeat any number of Democratic candidates in the last twenty years.

Gladwell’s
acceptance speech was listened to carefully by both Republicans and Democrats.
 
“The world is in deep, deep trouble,” he began.
 
“The greatest nation in the world, the one remaining superpower, cannot stand back while Europe is threatened and Asia Minor is overrun by the greatest illegal land accumulation since
Adolf
Hitler.
 
The world faces a monumental struggle between moderates and extremists.
 
The United States must take a stand.

“The United States has 294 military installations in Europe with 26,000 combat personnel and 34,000 military support and administrative personnel.
 
Tomorrow I will ask Congress to make all of these personnel available to our European allies, and to approve an additional 40,000 combat personnel for Europe.
 
In addition I will ask Congress to approve the mobilization of 40,000 troops to Pakistan and 80,000 to the Middle East.
 
These are dramatic measures for a country on the cusp of an election, a country that four years ago decided it wanted no part of war, a country that worries that high gasoline prices will push it into another recession.
 
But if nuclear warheads in Pakistan fall into the hands of Al Qaeda and Pakistani insurgents, there will be no security in these United States, or any place in the world.
 
I ask you, is any price too high to pay to know that your children are safe, and that they will enjoy the same freedoms that Americans have enjoyed and fought for since the founding of our nation?
 
We must fight for world security, and we must fight now.”

The speech was loudly cheered by the delegates.
 
Many of the party bigwigs, however, appeared anxious, clapping politely.
 
They imagined the polls dropping before their eyes.

As expected, the Republican response was to accuse the Democratic party of having created this dangerous situation in the first place by withdrawing from Iraq, of endangering national security by unilaterally decreasing the size of the U.S. forces to pre-9/11 numbers, and of proposing too little too late.
 
That dreaded word
flip-flop
blazoned headlines of the conservative press.

“It looks like we’re going to war,” my father said.
 
We owned four televisions, but the whole family watched the nightly news together in our parents’ bedroom.
 
I suppose it made it all a little less scary.

“That’s a piss in the ocean,” Alex protested.
 
“What does he think he can accomplish with eighty thousand troops in the Middle East?”

“There aren’t enough to send many more.
 
I can’t believe he’s signing on for war before an election,” said Dad.
 
“Not even Roosevelt had balls for that, and he was as popular as they get.”

“
Gladwell
won’t get enough people to enlist,” said Alex.
 
“He’s going to have to impose a draft.”

“He for sure can’t do that before the election,” I added.
 
“He’d get demonstrations on every college campus in the country.”
 

Mother hugged a pillow to her chest while watching the news.
 
“I’m surprised
Gladwell
is being this aggressive,” she said.
 
“He must know America isn’t ready for another war.
 
It took America forever to get involved in World War II.
 
If it wasn’t for Pearl Harbor, we probably never would’ve gone.”

“The Republicans aren’t suggesting anything else,” said Father.
 
“McMillan is calling for full engagement.
 
But people trust
Gladwell
going to war more than the Republicans.
 
He doesn’t sleep with the oil conglomerates and arms manufacturers.
 
They know he will only send America to war if he really has to.
 
Gladwell
will get reelected.”
 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Alex.
 
“Warren Mullet has as much support as the Republicans.
 
Any of the three parties could win.”

Despite his loss to McMillan for the Republican nomination, Florida Congressman and talk show host Warren Mullet had walked away from the Republican Convention with enormous political momentum.
 
He was quickly tapped as the candidate for the Americans for America Party, which had worked diligently to get on the presidential ballot in all fifty states.
 
The party, largely made up of isolationists and “traditional values” populists, supported stricter illegal immigration laws and sought to end U.S. involvement with the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, and other foreign trade agreements.
 
The party advocated closing of all United States military bases outside of the U.S., and transferring resources to the National Guard.
 
It vigorously opposed sending U.S. troops or financial aid to Europe or to U.S. allies in the Middle East.
 

Contributions, mostly from working class conservative voters, flooded Mullet’s election campaign offices.
 
His straight-talking manner and relentless call to put “America First” appealed to a population confused and terrified by what was happening in the world.
 

Mullet used his radio call-in show to promote his ideas, and appeared as a guest on all of the top television talk shows.
 
Security at home was his mantra.
 
“We must prevent what is happening in Europe from happening in the United States.
 
We must close mosques,
madrassahs
, and Muslim community centers that spawn terrorists.
 
We must close university Middle East studies programs that skew the thinking of our young people.
 
We must expel non-citizen Muslims, and close our borders, particularly to anyone of Middle Eastern, Pakistani, or African descent.
 
No immigration.
 
No visas.
 
The American Civil Liberties Union can go to hell for all I care.”