My two cultures are at war. America versus Islam. Secularism versus Religion. East versus West. And, however it is termed, it is a conflict that has been going on for years. It took the horrific attacks of 9/11/01 to bring the battle to the common people of America, but Muslim immigrant families like mine have known the conflict, in different forms, for years.
Now, in a new world consisting of a shattered myth of American invincibility and a radicalized base of Islamists, we are being told to choose, one or the other. You are with us, or you are against us. Good and Evil are the choices you have, and your life and your children's lives depend on your decision. Of course, just which choice represents Good and which choice represents Evil is all a question of your perspective.
One perspective could be of my cousin Kamran. He is 33, and by a stroke of fate, he grew up in Karachi, the bustling port city at the southern tip of Pakistan. When he was a baby, my father (who is his uncle) decided that he didn't like the inherent nepotism and laziness that corporate Pakistan had to offer, so he took his engineering degree and went to seek his fortune in America. Kamran's father could have done the same, but he was happy where he was. To him, the drawbacks of Pakistan did not outweigh the advantages - a slower pace of life, a huge extended family, the national cricket team. These were the things he enjoyed, so he stayed. And as a result, I grew up in California while Kamran did not.
When Kamran was 9 years old, the Soviet Union invaded neighboring Afghanistan. I'm sure he didn't think much about it - kids in Pakistan had been used to wars (there have been three and counting with neighboring India). At about the time he hit adolescence, the CIA and its Pakistani equivalent, the ISI, were engaged in a grand recruitment drive, bringing thugs, felons and anyone else from all around the Muslim world to join the mujahideen, or freedom fighters. These fighters were encouraged to see their effort as a jihad against a godless enemy. For the political climate of the times, the concept of holy war was a perfect tool. It allowed the Cold War practitioners to create a fanatical fighting force that would engage the Soviets in a guerrilla war that was virtually unwinnable. It was the policy of containment executed to perfection. The Soviets would eventually lose the war, and with it their empire, and as the 1980s drew to a close the Cold War was over. 50 years of nuclear brinkmanship had ended, and America had emerged victorious.
Kamran was about 20 at this time. During his teens, America had been a great friend of Pakistan. Military and economic aid flowed freely. Pakistan's dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, was a close friend to President Reagan. The mujahideen, complete with turbans and long beards, had actually visited Reagan's White House, where they had been compared to America's own founding fathers. But, once the war was over, everything changed. Virtually overnight, the CIA pulled out. Aid dried up. Sanctions were imposed on Pakistan, for being both undemocratic and for pursuing a nuclear arms race with India. Living conditions started to plummet. Afghanistan had descended in to chaos, with rival warlords battling for territory throughout the country. Millions of refugees poured in to Pakistan. The fledgling country was already economically unstable, and the burden of the refugees began to take its toll. Karachi became a dangerous town, as kidnappings and sectarian violence became regular occurrences. The arms that had flooded the area during the war were now the tools of roving gangs of Afghans and Pakistanis from the wild west-like border, who intimidated and looted at will. Pakistan was forced to take loans from the World Bank, and as things got worse, its credit rating plummeted and jobs were no where to be found.
It was in this environment that Kamran went to college. He had always dreamed of being a pilot, so he went to flight school. During school, he had participated in some student political organizations, but after getting shot at during a rally he decided that a lower profile would be better for him and his family. He graduated, but could not find a job. Across the world, I was living in San Francisco, making more money than I knew what to do with.
Sometimes I would speak to Kamran and would feel a bit guilty, but he was always so sweet, so nice. He was happy for me, for our family, and was never one to bemoan his own lot in life. Eventually, around his 28th birthday, he got a job flying small cargo planes all over the southern part of Pakistan, and it seemed as though things were finally starting to go his way. Pakistan still had its problems, but with a new government and a booming world economy, it seemed as though maybe the country could pull out of its decade long funk.
It was not to be. After 9/11/01, Pakistan was again a much-needed client state of the U.S. It was issued an impossible ultimatum, and it had no choice but to back its old master. War started again, more refugees arrived, and the security situation began to unravel. Kamran's flight paths were restricted to impossibly narrow zones, and he had to fly in constant fear of straying into the path of an American warplane. If that wasn't enough, his father's house was on the outskirts of Karachi, where three Afghan refugee camps sprung up. Rumors of a new Arab presence, linked to Al Qaeda, abounded, and a grenade battle between CIA operatives and Arab fighters occurred not three blocks away from the family home. The fact that none of these people were Pakistani, or even Afghan, was not lost on Kamran or the other locals there. In fact, in a part of the world where memories run long, the irony of the CIA battling the very people it had recruited 20 years earlier was plain for the whole community to see.
Kamran has never uttered a bad word about America to me. He knows it is my home, and like most people in the developing world, he recognizes the achievements of the greatest modern society as the amazing, inventive, and distinguished feats that they most certainly are. But, if you ask a man like Kamran to choose between right and wrong, Good and Evil, what would you expect him to say? Surely the side of Good can't be the same side that flooded his country with weapons and fundamentalist foreigners and then abandoned them when they were no longer needed? Surely he can't be asked to completely forgive and forget just because his opinion, and his nation's opinion, suddenly seems to matter again?
For me, there is no Good or Evil. There are only humans. And, as humans, we are perfectly imperfect, blessed with the knowledge that we are finite, fallible beings. We know this, yet we press on, constructing new technology and new myths to comfort us in our mortal world. That is both our beauty and our curse. The newest myths being created tell of black and white, and of there being no middle ground between them. I say this is not true - if you look deeply at the choices the only conclusion is that there is none. There is only grey.