I am as American as it gets and a bit too Texan for my liking: "y'all" occasionally creeps into my colloquialisms. But originally, my family hails from Pakistan. In my culture, we have a great love of carpets. Carpets, spicy food and colorful, kaleidoscopic clothes with too much bling. Yes, it is because of the fine embroidery, but mostly it is because some carpets can take generations to make. Between the carefully knotted silk threads you will find our family histories. Carpets function as anything from a prayer mat to a dining table, but really, they are breathing, animated family photo albums.
My mother taught me how to shop for carpets:
We cannot come to the negotiating table with false promises, fake alliances and mouths full of venom. It takes genuine, wholesome attitudes of sincerity to make honest deals that will pave the way for progress. Natural is always better.
I recently assisted in a surgical procedure in Kabul on a young boy. The chief surgeon was an Afghan man. I didn't know how he would respond to a woman in the operating theatre with him. At the start of the case, our fierce Asian eyes met over surgical masks. He handed me the scalpel and stepped aside from the patient, offering me the prestigious first cut on the patient. The simple, powerful gesture showed his immense respect for me and his willingness to yield to an outsider, not to mention a female physician. Simple is more meaningful.
The back is where the depth is. It is not in burqas or in the front page news. It is in the details: the back stories of women helping other women succeed, or how Afghan doctors extended their hospitality to a Pakistani-American, or how Pakistan's borders are open to offer medical care to Afghan children. It's in the story of a widow who buries her ten children, but also in the one where a young Afghan couple in love rejoices at the birth of their daughter. It's when Afghan doctors are ecstatic over a few medical textbooks an American doctor bought for them. It's in the fact that everyone is a victim, but no Afghan is consumed by their victimhood.
The chronicles of Afghanistan will continue long after military forces withdraw. It is up to us to decide whose narrative we choose to engrave in our carpets. We cannot continue to paint this region with broad strokes of rhetoric akin to re-runs of Three's Company: massive amounts of chaos and confusion (Jack), interjected with a few sleazy references to women (Larry), some emotional blackmail (oh-so-cute-Chrissy), and a smart alec quote (Janet), followed by a hollow, yet authoritative one by a General (Mr. Furley). Afghanistan has more substance than "X amount of people killed again in Blank-abad Province," and a cliched reference to Alexander the Great and the Soviet invasion. Tread lightly and respect their stories.
Some flaws will make you cringe, but they are a reflection of humanity. I struggle with the idea of sharing my faith with a people whose vision of Islam is vastly different than mine. Until we Muslims collectively recognize that our religion is being raped by zealots who are ignorant of the progressive texts of Islam, all our future holds is more atrocities committed in the name of Islam.
The flaws lend a degree of authenticity. There is something to be said for my Afghan colleagues who initially suspected I was a Pakistani spy, but who later realized that I was just a doctor treating Afghan children. As much as I complain, I like having to prove myself to the Afghan people. I respect the fact that they are a bit suspicious and that their threshold for fake niceties is low. I enjoy rising to the occasion to prove that my intentions are pure, and not poisoned by ulterior motives. I admire the intelligence it takes to cultivate such a seasoned litmus test for people. Their refined radar for artificiality resonates with me.
As I close this chapter in Afghanistan, I hope I have approached my medical work and my writing with a sense of responsibility. I hope I have told a few Afghans' stories with truth and allowed their dignity to flicker through, that I have done their magnificent and inspiring stories justice.
I chose pediatrics because I wanted to advocate for a forgotten population, and perhaps I was a delusional, young hippie when I thought I could be the voice for the voiceless. Shoved to the periphery, children are the most marginalized demographic of the world's population, but also the most insightful. My pediatric patients are the colors in this great tapestry and without them, there would be no vibrance, no depth to my life. Natural, simple, and innately keen judges of character, children have taught me more and healed my heart more than I could ever hope to do for them. They understand things we struggle with, like dying young. "I've been chosen to leave this world early because the walk home is easier when you are younger. I have less suitcases than you grown-ups," one of my patients with cancer once told me. She was 9 years old. They get it, more than we ever will.
Now back in the U.S., I am honored to have received several letters from my Afghan colleagues asking me to hurry back. We are woven together now. The way to keep this great carpet brilliant and strong for decades is to continue to hold the Afghans up, to continue to advocate for their children. We must do more than begrudgingly allow them a few crumbs from the table. We must sit on their floors with them, drink their teas, eat together, share tales of our families, and shower affection on their children. When we step up to the plate we will we be accepted as friends and more importantly, sewn into the tapestry of their lives. If we can weave our stories together tightly enough, what a magnificent carpet we would share - one we could all be proud of, and one that holds tender tales that we can pass on to many generations.
To get respect you must earn it. So, if radical Muslims don't respect my religion and think I must be converted by the word or the "sword", then my instinct is to fight and be angry. If moderate Muslims can live and let livee and find a way to convert their radical brethern to this philosophy, the world would be a much better place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-CpCUOygqU&feature=player_embedded
By a vast majority, the Afghan people very much want the US and NATO soldiers to remain in Afghanistan. They are terrified of what Pakistan's proxy forces (the most well known being the Taliban) will do as soon as the international community leaves. They are terrified because they have lived through the horrors of civil war and Taliban rule before, and it is clear from what is happening on the ground in Pakistan that the Taliban has not changed its stripes in the past 9 years.
The feudal lords of Pakistan, working through the Pakistani military, are the real threat to Afghanistan, not the US and NATO. In Afghanistan, our military is protecting the civilians from attacks by Pakistan's proxies. They are the cause of 75% of all violence in Afghanistan.