Current Events in Context

One of my Dari teachers is a former diplomat and trained political scientist. Every class we talk about the news of the day and its implications. He keeps abreast of all the major developments in Afghanistan and the world over. Living without easy access to internet, TV, and newspapers, I rely on him more than any other source to keep informed about what’s going on in the world. As part of our class we read articles from BBC Persian and various Afghan newspapers. This last month has been full of important news regarding revolution and war in Arab states, the tsunami and earthquakes in Japan, disputed election in Cote d’Ivoire, and various other incidents. With Persian-language publications and his own opinions filtering the information, I’ve learned about these events from points of view that I wouldn’t find in my usual American sources like MSNBC, the Economist, and the New York Times, and I hear detailed stories about Afghan politics that wouldn’t even be on their radars.

To be sure, the biggest differences in our interpretations of world events have shown themselves in our discussions of the Quran burning in California and the ensuing fallout in Afghanistan. Like most of my American friends, I saw this as an asinine and misguided gesture by an ignorant and spiteful nut. We characterize this as an isolated act of a narrow-minded redneck, a deed that should be deplored, but also not really taken seriously. In contrast, the Afghans that I spend time with here in Dushanbe feel this as a personal affront by the American people, an interpretation that has led to a number of lengthy discussions between us. In particular, they’ve been disappointed by Obama’s seeming acceptance of this act. They wonder why the man wasn’t immediately put in jail and made an example of; surely there must be laws against this kind of desecration. How can a country that has laws against racial and gender discrimination, they ask, let someone perpetrate such a flagrant act of hatred against a major world religion?
I explained that there weren’t really laws in place to prohibit this act, and that it’s not only too insignificant for our president—who has his hands full at the moment with multiple military operations, domestic economic woes, and his party’s loss of influence—to engage with personally, but that if he did he would be going beyond his jurisdiction and acting outside of our law. This was met with the criticism that our laws are outdated and don’t reflect the realities of America: we are currently engaged in military operations in three Muslim countries, and our ties to and reputation in the Muslim world are tenuous and strained. If we really cared about effecting positive change in these areas, I was told, we should tread more lightly when it comes to our relationship with Islam, and put measures in place to show a commitment to the respect and tolerance that we claim to have and ostensibly espouse.

Though we butted heads when first discussing these issues, we gradually came to an understanding, as tends to happen when both sides are able to engage each other and listen cool-headedly. I described the perpetrating minister as qishloqee, or provincial, and with little influence and a miniscule following, and that people in the US didn’t take him seriously and didn’t respond too earnestly because we didn’t want to implicitly give credence to his point of view. I explained about how laws regarding freedom of speech are so fundamental to the American identity that any efforts to temper them would be met with so much resistance that, if they were successfully changed, it probably wouldn’t happen until the context that made the changes worthwhile would be totally changed. I then made them asked them to consider some of the Afghan responses: the death of over a dozen UN workers in Mazar-e-Sharif who had nothing to do with the act and no ties to the US, and the burning of buildings in Kandahar (including stores that had stocked copies of Qurans, thus replicating the offense, albeit without the same intention, that started all this turmoil). Meanwhile, millions of other Muslims the world over disapprove peacefully.

None of my Afghan teachers or friends condoned these actions of Afghans, but they were able to explain them so that they made more sense to me. If they, well-read and well-traveled Afghans, weren’t aware of how unrepresentative and non-influential this minister was, and didn’t know enough about American law to understand why our government hasn’t taken swifter and harsher action against him, then how could we expect the largely-uneducated populace of Afghanistan to be aware of the context? As far as they were concerned, this act was representative of American policy and indicative of the designs of the thousands of Americans currently occupying their country. For many of these less worldly Afghan citizens, there is little distinction between the various foreigners working there, and the difference between the expats working for the UN and the residents of the US is nominal.

The main lesson from all this was that ignorant reactions to ignorant actions are catastrophic, and that only through contact and open, respectful discussion can we make sense of the things that at first seem evil, inexplicable, and impossible to relate to.

Kramer Gillin is studying Dari in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.