[the BETWEEN TWO WORLDS issue] - Game Changer

56 Pages·2014·1.95 MB·English

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2ECOND THOUGHT
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A publication of the North Dakota Humanities Council all
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[the BETWEEN TWO WORLDS issue]
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BRIDGING When my husband Tom was in journalism school, he vividly remembers one of
his professors offering a cautionary tale to the class: “If you want your audience
to engage with you, never begin a news story with the phrase, ‘More violence in
CULTURES
the Middle East today…’” The point of the lesson–people shut down when the
message is constant and overwhelming.
Tom relayed this story to me when I told him of my dream for the humanities
council to hold an event dedicated to exploring America’s role in the escalating
violence in the Middle East. His class took place in 1995 and things have only
gone from bad to worse. Such an event would be a hard sell to a war-weary
population. Indeed, I found myself turning away from the images of violence and
hatred scattered across the news and social media. As a mother, I didn’t want to
know how many other mothers had to go to bed each night with children to bury
in the morning—whether they were moms to American soldiers or war refugees
didn’t matter. It’s hard to watch anyone living through a nightmare when you feel
helpless to help end it.
“So you don’t think we should do it?” I asked him, disheartened.
“No,” he replied. “I think that’s exactly why you need to do it.”
His response fairly describes our mission at the council.
Our board and staff have worked hard to find a group of people with a foot in
both American and Middle Eastern worlds, people who can bring the tragedy
overseas back down to a human level and help connect our audience in Fargo
in some small way with people in Kabul, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Gaza, and
Tehran. Our hope is to move beyond headlines and politics in order to bridge
cultures and begin envisioning new paths toward peace and justice.
We are so glad you decided to take this journey with us.
Brenna Daugherty Gerhardt
Executive Director
features
[contents]
Cover photo by Josh Rushing.
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
4 Angels in Evin
By Roxana Saberi
14 To Any Would-Be Terrorists
By Naomi Shihab Nye
18 Lunch in Nablus City Park
By Naomi Shihab Nye
22 West of Kabul, East of New York
By Tamim Ansary
26 An Afghan-American Speaks
By Tamim Ansary
30 Journey From the Land of No
By Roya Hakakian
36 No Faith At All
By Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
40 With Our Own Eyes
By G. Willow Wilson
44 America’s Greater Jihad
By Josh Rushing
52 Between Two Worlds ON SECOND THOUGHT is published by the
North Dakota Humanities Council.
Complete Schedule of Events
Brenna Daugherty Gerhardt, Editor
Janet Daley Jury, Associate Editor
Erin Goodale Price, Copy Editor
To subscribe please contact us:
North Dakota Humanities Council
418 E. Broadway, Suite 8
Bismarck, ND 58501
800-338-6543
[email protected]
ndhumanities.org
Any views, findings, conclusions, or
recommendations expressed in this magazine do
not necessarily represent those of the National
Endowment for the Humanities or
the North Dakota Humanities Council.
[between two worlds]
Roxana Saberi is a senior producer/reporter for Al Jazeera
America in New York. From 2003 to 2009, she lived and worked as
a journalist in Iran, filing reports for organizations such as Feature Story
News, NPR, BBC, ABC Radio and Fox News. She was writing a book
about Iran when she was arrested in 2009 in Tehran and falsely accused of
espionage. She was released after 100 days. Back in the United States, Ms.
Saberi wrote Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran. She also
worked as a freelance journalist, with articles appearing in The Washington
Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST
TAKEN HOSTAGE IN IRAN
R O X A N A S A B E R I
Saberi has also spoken across the United States and has traveled to Europe,
South America, and the Middle East to speak with the public, media, and
government officials about Iran, human rights, and overcoming adversity.
She has received the Medill Medal of Courage, the Ilaria Alpi Freedom of the
Press Award, the NCAA Award of Valor, a Project for Middle East Democracy
Award, a Concordia College Sent Forth Alumni Award, and an East-West
Freedom Award from the Levantine Cultural Center. She was named one
of Jaycees’ 2011 Ten Outstanding Young Americans and was honored by
the Japanese American Citizens League as an “Outstanding Woman.”
Saberi grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, the daughter of Reza Saberi, who
was born in Iran, and Akiko Saberi, who is from Japan. She was chosen Miss
North Dakota in 1997 and was among the top ten finalists in Miss America
1998. She graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, with
degrees in communications and French. Saberi holds her first master’s degree
in journalism from Northwestern University and her second master’s degree in
international relations from the University of Cambridge.
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[between two worlds]
The most compelling passages [in Between Two Worlds] are about a form of religious experience —
the struggle of this young American-Iranian as she moves from false ‘confessions’ calculated to secure
freedom to fierce truth-telling that grants her an inner liberation so powerful that even death is no
longer frightening. ‘Roxana,’ her father says, ‘just remember: they can never hurt your soul.’ Truth,
in other words, is impregnable. – Roger Cohen, The New York Times
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[between two worlds]
As my cellmates and I were preparing for bed that night, our door swung open
again. This time, a thin young woman in loose-fitting prison pajamas shuffled in. Peeking out
between her long bangs, below one eye, was a dark red gash.
“Did they hit you?” the three of us wanted to know, once our new cellmate, Sara, had arranged her
blankets in the middle of the floor.
She smiled conspiratorially, her swollen cheek pushing into her left eye.
Sara told us she was arrested early that morning with her fiancé and two of her girlfriends. They had
been asleep at their friend’s apartment when several plainclothes
intelligence agents burst in. The intruders were looking for the
ANGELS owner of the apartment, but because he was absent, they decided
to detain the four college students instead.
I N EVIN
Sara’s fiancé had resisted arrest, so the men started to beat him.
Sara reacted by punching one of the agents in the head. In turn,
By Roxana Saberi he whacked her in the face with a hard object, leaving the wound
beneath her eye.
Eventually the agents collected the four friends and forced them
“Did they hit you?”
into a van, which was parked so close to the apartment complex’s
the three of us front door that the only way out of the building was into the
vehicle.
wanted to know...
They had been interrogated all day, Sara explained. Now her two
girlfriends were in another cell, while her fiancé had been taken
to the men’s ward of 209. She chuckled softly as she related this story, as if she found these events
quite amusing.
Sara and her fiancé had predicted they might one day end up in prison. They were active in a leftist
student group, had taken part in university demonstrations, and several of their classmates had
been detained before them.
Imprisonment, I knew, was one risk Iranian students faced for political activism, which had been
growing increasingly dangerous—especially after the hard-liners expanded their control over
universities following Ahmadinejad’s 2005 victory. Student activists could also be dealt lesser
punishments, such as suspension, expulsion, or the denial of entry to graduate school.
Given the possible costs, only the most daring students continued to openly call for human rights
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and democracy. Many other young Iranians preferred to Despite her own discouraging news, Sara wasn’t worried. She
follow the political scene from the sidelines or to stay out said she had learned from some classmates what to expect in
of it altogether, believing they had little part in determining jail.
their country’s future.
“What have you told your interrogators?” I asked.
Nevertheless, Iranian youth remained a large and
potentially potent force. Roughly two-thirds of the country’s “It depends on what they ask me,” she said. “I try to either tell
70 million people were under thirty, and around 3.5 million them the truth, or if I can’t, I say nothing at all.”
Iranians were enrolled in universities.
Sara gave me an example of how one of her interrogators
As hotbeds of political ideas and activities, Iran’s campuses pressured her to name other members of her student group.
had played a major role in shaping the nation and had Instead of answering directly, she had said something to the
often served as launching pads for protests that spread effect of, “We stand for equality and brotherhood. Don’t you
into society. Soon after anti-shah university students believe in those values?” He had replied yes. “Then,” she had
helped the revolution succeed, the new regime shut down parried, “you must be a member, too.”
universities for more than two years to implement its
Cultural Revolution, which aimed to purge universities of First Roya, then Silva and Nargess, and now this twenty-year-old
students and academics with leftist or liberal tendencies student had used a variety of methods to resist their captor’s
and to purify the curricula. The Cultural Revolution also demands to lie or to admit to crimes they did not commit.
transformed the student movement in Iran, with the Unity They had stood up to threats and pressures knowing that by
Consolidation Office, or UCO, becoming the predominant telling the truth and proclaiming their innocence, they could
student organization. jeopardize their chances at freedom.
The UCO pledged total support for Ayatollah Khomeini “Do your parents know where you are?” I asked Sara,
and became a tool for the regime to cleanse universities of wondering if her family, like mine, was in the dark.
opposition. But as a new generation of students emerged
in the early 1990s, the group began to shift. Although “I think so,” she said. “My brother was arrested last year and
still loyal to the Islamic Republic’s main tenets, it turned was later released on bail. After that, we decided that in case
against conservatives and transformed into a proponent of I was next, he should call me every night at a certain time to
civil society, pluralism, and freedom of expression. Many make sure I’m OK. If my phone is turned off at that time, he
students supported President Khatami and the reformists. should assume I’ve been detained.
Gradually, however, they became disillusioned with the slow
pace of reforms. Sara was concerned, however, that her parents would be
terrified their daughter was now reliving their son’s ordeal, so
Iran’s student activists could now be divided into four main that afternoon, she asked the guard on duty if she could call
groupings. The first included Basijis who swore absolute them. Sara’s chief interrogator would have to approve, she
loyalty to the supreme leader and his policies. The second was told. The rest of the day and all of Monday passed with no
was a democracy-seeking movement led by the UCO, reply.
which had split into various factions and included many
secular students. The third were modern-thinking Islamists When Haj Khanom brought breakfast to our cell on Tuesday
who supported reform within the existing system. And the morning, Sara pushed aside the tray and flatly announced: “I
fourth were leftists, such as Sara, who advocated socialism, want no breakfast, no lunch, and no dinner. I won’t take my cold
particularly Marxism-Leninism. medication. I only want to call my parents, and I refuse to eat
anything until I can.”
–––––––––––––––––
“As you wish,” Haj Khanom said, her characteristic smile a little
The next day, Sunday, March 1, Sara was taken to court and subdued by this outburst. “You can’t get what you want here by
charged with having links to communist opposition groups not eating.”
abroad. So was her fiancé. Their two friends, however, were
to be released on bail. I had never witnessed anyone go on a hunger strike, although
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I had met and reported on Akbar Ganji, a famous Iranian had abided by many orders that were in conflict with my
political dissident who had been freed from Evin in 2006 conscience. It may have been late for me to start resisting,
after fasting for more than seventy days. His strike was but if those women could do it, why couldn’t I?
highly publicized, and it intensified demands by the
international human-rights community for his release. He “No,” I told Javan meekly.
later went abroad, where he continued to speak out for the
movement of democracy in Iran. “What did you say?” he asked.
But because no one outside of Evin knew of Sara’s strike, it “No,” I repeated, a little louder.
was difficult to predict how effective the move would be for
her. “Why not?” The pitch of his voice had become higher than
usual.
Sara reduced her daily diet to three cups of tea and three
dates, a box of which we purchased each Tuesday. She was “Because,” I said, straightening up in my chair, “I don’t want
already so skinny that her collarbones protruded from her to lie anymore.”
neck, and the rest of us were worried she wouldn’t last long.
Javan fell silent. Several seconds went by. He must have been
––––––––––––––––– analyzing my unexpected act of noncompliance.
I sat facing the wall with my eyes bound in the interrogation I heard a pen drop onto my desk, followed by the swoosh of
room, where Javan had summoned me one day later that a piece of paper. Then came the interrogator’s voice, once
week. I thought he might quiz me about my conversation again under control. “Write: ‘I don’t want to call my father,’
with the magistrate, but instead he informed me that my and sign it.”
father had started to “make some noise.”
I lifted my blindfold, picked up the pen, and wrote: I don’t
I wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret the word “noise.” want to call my father unless I am allowed to tell him the
truth. Then I signed it.
“Really?” I asked. “Does he know where I am?” Even if he
didn’t know, he must have decided he could no longer stay Javan took the paper and read it. Without another word to
quiet—ignoring what I had been pressured to tell him by me, he instructed a guard to return me to my cell.
phone nearly three weeks earlier.
–––––––––––––––––
The interrogator answered my question with an order. “His
noise is not helpful for you. Call him. Don’t tell him where “You seem very distressed,” Nargess remarked.
you are. Say you’re fine and he should remain quiet.”
Vida and Sara had fallen asleep, while I had lain awake,
I reflected for a moment on this latest command. My bâzju tracing a stain on the ceiling as I thought about the day’s
was noticeably irritated. On the one hand, my father’s events.
actions might hurt me if my captors decided not to release
me in order to demonstrate that they were impervious to I looked at Nargess. She was cradling the Koran in her lap as
outside pressures. On the other hand, media attention, if she often did. Since she had joined our cell, she had begun
that’s what my father was drumming up, could compel them to appear healthier. Her eyes were no longer puffy from
to free me sooner—that is, if they even admitted to having crying, and she had regained some of the weight she had lost
me in custody. in solitary confinement.
In any case, my interrogator was telling me to lie once “Sit here,” Nargess said, patting a folded blanket beside her.
again.
I crawled onto it, and she took my hands in hers.
The women I had met over the previous several days
had defied their interrogator’s demands to lie, while I “Think of me as your sister,” she said, gazing into my eyes. “If
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you want, you can tell me what’s bothering you. You can trust
me.”
So I told her. I told her about my false confession and my
desire to recant it, but not to my interrogator. I also implored
her not to tell any of this to anyone, fearing if Haj Agha found
out, he might have me killed as he had vowed.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said to Nargess in a muted voice.
“If I tell the truth, I may never be released. But if the only
way I can go free is to lie, then freedom has little value. I now
know that I was very weak, especially after meeting women
like you.”
“Regardless of
Nargess blushed. “I am glad I didn’t succumb to these
people’s threats to tell lies,” she said softly. “Regardless of
what they might do
what they might do to me now, my soul will be at peace.” She
to me now, my soul rubbed my palms gently. “I will pray to God to help you.”
will be at peace.” Then she released my hands, tenderly rain her fingers across
the Koran, and asked, “Do you want me to do an estekhâre
for you?”
Estekhâre, I had learned years before, was a Muslim tradition
of divining answers to questions; in this case, by consulting
the Koran. The practice was fairly common in Iran, where
many people turned to fortune-tellers for answers to their
personal and financial questions and problems.
I had largely regarded fortune-telling as superstitious, but
now I was willing to search for clues to my fate through almost
any means.
“You know how to do estekhâre?” I asked Nargess.
She nodded solemnly.
“OK, please do,” I said.
She closed her eyes and wrapped her fingers around the top
edge of the Koran. “Look into your heart, and specify your
intention or wish,” she whispered.
I immediately made two: that no one would ever be harmed
because of the falsehoods I had told in this prison and that
I would be freed within the week. Then I told Nargess I was
ready.
She uttered some incomprehensible verses, opened the
Koran without looking, and read the page before her. She
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