Monday
Jan232012
Mujahideen Plunder
Monday, January 23, 2012 at 4:19AM 
It was 1996.
My father had recently returned from a trip that allowed him the unusual opportunity of venturing beyond Lahore. He and my cousin went on a road trip and wandered through Peshawar and areas bordering Afghanistan. During that excursion, my father met and conversed with some Afghani "mujahideen."
The word mujahideen has become synonymous with "Islamist" and “terrorist.” For Americans knowledgeable on the topic in 1996, though, a mujahideen was something different. Mujahideen means "one who fights in the way of jihad," and this is not the post 9/11 "jihad" that Muslims in the United States are quick to point out as a spiritual struggle. It's am actual reference to battle.
In 1979, the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and Afghanis fought back. The defense of Afghanistan proved significant to Pakistan and the United States by virtue of a enemy that was perceived to be shared. Many of the young men who battled tanks with hand held weaponry strongly felt that God had contributed to their victory. The most famous mujahideen we all know was a Yemeni man named Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden never directly fought the Soviets in combat, but instead funded and supported training facilities and medical camps during the war. In this way, he seems less representative of Afghani mujahideen than most conservative talking heads are willing to admit.
By the time the Soviets were defeated, over 2 million Afghanis had died. That was the beginning of the death toll, though. In the next ten years, a complex series of battles, both physical and ideological, within Afghanistan would create circumstances that would lead to the rise of a Taliban government. Ultra-orthodox interpretations of Islam of this religio-political faction would lead to repeated violations of basic human rights to education, justice and even mobility. It also provided fertile soil for the development of an ideological movement that has contributed to the deaths of over one million people all over the world.
But back to 1996.
My nineteen year old self's sense of awe at the mujahideen victory claimed against the USSR with little more than borrowed training and ammunition from its neighboring nation of Pakistan and funding from the United States was likely naive. I was just a kid and couldn't have foreseen how the stories of these victorious underdogs would contribute significantly to an ideology that would change us all forever.
I knew at the time that these were people who had fought to save their homeland, and that both of the countries I called home, America and Pakistan, had helped them do that. It was childlike on my part, but when I listened to those stories in 1996, I felt whole.
One story my father told me of his visit had to do with shopping in makeshift markets that former mujahideen had set up. Many of the goods weren't the usual fare. When my father inquired about the origin of certain items that looked more eastern European in nature than south Asian, the sellers gave mysterious smiles and assured him that he was lucky to have the ability to acquire such quality merchandise at such a low cost.
I don't know if it was my dad's addiction to getting a good bargain or that he felt sorry for the guys, but he bought some stuff and brought it home. When he presented my mother with some of the things he had bought, my brother and I laughed at how gaudy it was, made jokes about it belonging to the Romanovs and feigned horror at my dad's purchase of what was essentially "war plunder."
After getting married, though, I took a few of the things with me. Maybe I wanted to hold on to the innocence that led me to believe that Pakistan and the U.S. had worked together to make something good happen. Or maybe it was just that no matter how gaudy those things were, they reminded me of my parents and I wanted to take that with me to my new home.
The item deemed "most gaudy" in 1996 sits at the entrance of my home today. I don't find it tacky anymore, but tremendously beautiful and significant. On dusting days, when it’s given more attention than usual, I pass my hands over its delicately beaded surfaces and wonder how far this item has journeyed. I imagine the places and the homes that it once occupied.
I worry for the people who first owned it and I wonder what it might have meant to them. I also worry for the people who sold it (stole it?) and wonder if they are even in this world now. I think of countless yet imagined hands that have touched this odd item and wonder about the hopefulness of the hearts to which those hands belonged.
As I wipe the dust, I think of how best laid plans and intentions often end in despair. I remember that small moment when I thought all was right in the world and then I'm suddenly shoved back into the present reality of being a grown up where nothing is ever simple and things seldom make perfect sense.
Life is tragic, fleeting, unpredictable, and yet it is, like this item, extraordinarily beautiful in the most complex of ways.
Reader Comments (15)
Faiqa,
This is the last thing I'm reading before going to bed in a minute, and I'll be going to sleep with a catch in my throat--and with something I remember from when we were in Makkah for Hajj in early 2001. There was a man with a stall in a side street who was selling things he acquired from Hajjis paying their way through the pilgrimage; he was selling the most exquisite tasbeehs (our version of rosaries?), and he'd point to each one and say, "This is from a woman from Uzbekistan, this is from a man from Afghanistan, these are from a family from China." I don't know if he really knew which tasbeehs where from which place/person...but we bought a couple of amber tasbeehs with silver tassels from Afghanistan as gifts for my brothers. Whenever I look at them, or touch them, I feel the same thing I felt through reading your post about this beautiful item (is it a bowl? a pitcher?) your father brought back from Peshawar: a sense of sadness for people who had lives once upon a time.
Thank you for making me feel.
Hm. Interesting to think that we might actually leave traces of our energy behind on our possessions for others to find. Great argument for not letting stuff end up in a landfill.
It's beautiful, really, as is your story behind it.
I love pieces with a history. The only thing that freaks me out are old farm tables. They're lovely, but people were birthed on those things!
Well how about this one...?
23 years old and unattached I had moved back home after my father passed away and, while keeping a job, did the heavy work for my Mom around the house. After a year she returned all the rent money I'd paid her and when I added it to what I had normally saved it amounted to a quite staggering sum for those days (close to $8,000 which - we should remember - was like more than half a year's wages for some people back then). I decided that what I was going to do was take my one shot and see the world before I probably settled down. I got in touch with a travel agent (no internet in 1977, you used those people then) through a friend who knew my mind and we started to plan. I signed up for language courses through Berlitz. A little French, Arabic, Pashto and my own English (though American) would have sufficed for where I intended on going. Just to give you and idea, the African leg had Mauritania was on the list. The Asian leg had Afghanistan. He was getting me train schedules west-to-east from India. I was looking at youth hostels in Austria. Plane flights from Jakarta to Hawaii. We were going to have all my documents and all my tickets in advance. It was going to be awesome.
Instead I got married in early 1978 after helping to pay off my wife's bills and in October of that year I was a Dad. So much for Arabic and all that.
Lucky for me, my itinerary would have had me in Kabul the very month the Russians invaded. Needless to say my marriage, it could be argued, saved my life.
I have always had an affinity for Afghanistan since I was a kid collecting (don't laugh, if I was out of work my collection to feed me and pay all our bills for months) stamps. Yes I said stamps, wanna make something out of it?
Long story short there were these guys who toured America looking for money for the Mujahideen to help fight the Russians and I sent some of that money to them too... little knowing I was supporting some of the people who eventually turned into the Taliban and worse. Best intentions, etc.
But I cheered their victories against the Russians too, and in fact told my more knowing older relatives that for thousands of years Afghanistan's chief exports have been opium and failed foreign empire, and Russia will get its butt kicked.
Now I have a nephew with the Marines in Helmand. Not the relationship with Afghanistan I always wanted. And no pretty art to show for it either.
The dust you wipe off may have even come from Kandahar for all you know. Dust does that. Hope this wasn't too long.
Sigh.
Now I watch the Travel channel a lot. Heh...
Two stories for the price of one post: yours and RW's. Loved them both.
I love this story. My mother has one of the only, if not the only, item left in the family that came when my great grandparents emigrated from Germany, a doll that was my grandpa's. It's locked away in a cedar chest because it's too fragile to display. I'd love to know more about their journey across the seas, but they never spoke of it. It was during the war and they were ashamed of their country, so they never talked about the before times. In fact, they didn't talk at all until they learned English as they refused to speak German. Stubborn goes back a long way in my family.
Beautiful. To find dignity and honor in the common, overlooked, or neglected... is profound. You captured the capture well. Thank you.
Comments like these are why I write. Thank you for making me feel *heard*.
I think we do leave traces of ourselves on things depending on their significance to us.
Okay, really? I had no idea. Gross.
I loved this. Thanks for sharing it.
We aim to please around here.
Are they still around?
Thank you.