browser opens and I log into the Islamic Forum I know I’m done for. It’s going to be a few hours before I get back to work.
I guess the Islamic Forum is my Facebook. Others might be checking out who is dating who, or browsing pictures of people boozing. Instead, I read about how the American "empire" is falling and why drinking a Coke will send you to hell.
You may ask how I got here. How did I become the boy at the end of the computer cluster clicking through an Internet forum seething with anti-Americanism? Good question.
I made my account on the Islamic Forum in March of 2004, my senior year in high school. Americans were being killed in Iraq, bullets were flying, blood was spilling, and the word “Islamic" seemed to follow everything bad that happened on the news. I don’t know why I expected to find Islamic extremists speaking openly, on the Internet, in English, but I decided I wanted to contact them and ask them what the hell they were doing.
Eventually I found the Islamic Forum (IF), an Internet message board located at www.gawaher.com. It was created by an Egyptian man who welcomes everyone "regardless of their faith system" and says his “...dream is for the West and Muslims to understand and respect each other, as brothers and sisters in humanity, for a better world." Despite his goal for unity, the rift between Muslim and non-Muslim members is obvious.
Most of the Muslims on the IF had a different opinion on who "the good guys" and “the bad guys" were. An insurgent could also be a freedom fighter, a liberator could be called an invader, and a secular invasion could be a Christian Crusade, depending on who you talked to.
Not everyone on the Islamic Forum agreed on the same conspiracy theories. Not everyone demonized America, and there were many members of diverse backgrounds.
Much of the time, the discussions repeated themselves. “America is the great Satan" versus "no, it’s not," or "the planes that hit the Twin Towers were remote controlled missiles,” versus “that’s absolutely ridiculous."
With all this polarization I began talking with someone I disagreed with entirely, Omar. He flooded my private message account with anti—West sentiment and blessed the people I condemned. He was so sure that what
he believed was true. The gray crept into my vision until it was all I could see. Where once it had been plain and simple, the true politics revealed themselves as a complex machinery of religious fundamentalism and democratic ideals.
Omar says that he lives in Karachi, the capitol city of Pakistan, is 24 years old, and says that his mother considers him the laziest person alive. Now, as the news networks put it—this can’t be "independently verified." The only way I know he’s real is through two years of online correspondence and a low quality JPEG file showing a tan-skinned twenty-something with a close-cropped beard and a black T-shirt reading, in English, “Bring Islam Back."
Omar and other members of the IF believed in the craziest conspiracy theories. Each theory went through the forum like a passing fad. Some members cited sources proving without a doubt that Israel orchestrated 9/ 11 or that the "terrorists" who flew the planes were merely very dedicated CIA agents.
These members swore by these theories and a week later dropped them to choose others. I got tired of it all, knowing what would be said: The West is the source of all the world’s problems and Islam is the only
solution.
After reading so many strange ideas, my opinions were changing. There was so much of this stuff—not just what Omar said, but throughout the forum—so much hostility towards “the West." When there is a movement this large, all expressing hatred for America, there needs to be some source. I had some ideas, but they didn’t come full circle until my trip to Egypt over the summer.
I was in Egypt on a fifteen-day guided tour. The tour company did their best to hide the poverty around us. For most of the tour we traveled down the Nile in a cruise ship. Every day, at a new port, we were loaded into a large air-conditioned bus, driven to an ancient temple, and then brought back to the ship where we were served hot tea and given a warm wet cloth to wipe off the sweat of our efforts.
Bus bound, rolling through the streets of Egypt, I never saw a neighborhood like the suburbia I know. There was no smooth pavement running between evenly spaced houses. New cars never parked two in a row.
It looked like what I would call urban rot: buildings collapsing and not being rebuilt. Maybe it isn’t worth it to fix things because it costs too much, or maybe no one has the money in the first place.
It is hard to describe the scale of everything that I saw. Going down the Nile, during late afternoon, I talked to the ship’s manager on the top deck. He was a large, dark-skinned man who was always smoking cigarettes and spoke English slowly, searching for words.
I told him I didn’t understand it—why people would want to live this way, in this garbage and broken buildings. Why don’t they get the government to fix the streets, instead of donating all their money to the mosques?
"Why do you think the money goes to them?" he gestured toward a passing mosque. “They are the only people Egyptians can trust."
“Don’t we give your country a lot of money to help out?" I asked.
“How much of that do you think gets to the people? Maybe ninety percent goes to the government. Ten percent makes it down here."
I decided to make small talk, bringing up a news story I’d read in an Egyptian-English newspaper.
"You won't believe this. I read it yesterday. Did you hear they want to pass a law so the press can’t question the financial integrity of politicians?"
He blew out some cigarette smoke and flicked his cigarette. “We already have that law."
* * * *
The next day a police officer boarded the boat, met me on the top deck and tried to sell me hashish.
"Is it legal?" I asked the only crew member who had brought the officer on board. "No. Seven years in jail... so do you want some?"
Our tour guide told us that the police could hold an Egyptian for four days if they didn’t have their identification on them. In Egypt, he said, you are guilty until proven innocent. A retired Canadian tourist that had been to the Middle East before told me: "if the cops try to arrest you just slip them fifty pounds and they’ll let you go."
After I came home and settled into the comfortable lanes of Suburbia I asked Omar how life was in Pakistan.
He responded:
Life in Pakistan sucks most of the time, no implementation of islam results
in pathetic state where everyone is confuse, system sucks, education is bad,
law and order sucks, judiciary system is a complete failure, govt officials
and police are super class corrupt people, Amry is ruling this country,
and above all, Our President is a yes man for America, in a country where
89% of People denounce American policies. Anything more to know about
Pakistan?
After the Islamic forum, Egypt and everything Omar told me I finally got it: much of the unrest in the Middle East is a war of self-determination. People desire to live under their own rule, with the laws they want, under a government that lets them prosper, Instead of this, America is propping up corrupt governments with money and military aid while quietly pushing for democratic reform. There is no reform, and the money only feeds into the government’s corruption.
Muslims see this, while many Americans don’t.
In school we are taught that government should represent those who live under its laws. Is this happening in the Middle East? Also, we are taught about the natural human struggle for self-determination—the will inside
each and every human being to raise the quality of their life and live how they want. In America there seems to be a perception that terrorists, or insurgents, or whatever you call them, aren’t human beings—as if they are made to fill a role and there is no motivation for them to want to attack America. We don’t realize that people can put down the gun as quickly as they pick it up. Just as a soldier can come back from Iraq and regret
he joined the army, there can be dissent within the ranks of terrorists.
And Omar is someone just like me, on the other side of the world, pissed off at the status quo and rambling on the Internet about it. We are both part of two different cultures, but in each culture there are many people who are willing to kill, and to die, for their principles and what they perceive as "right."
So now, when I watch T.V. and hear the word "Islamic" spoken over images of burning AMerican flags and masked men chanting, I understand what's behind it: People just like us, fighting for what they believe in.
The design idea was mine and the graphic work was done by the ever talented Nathan Raymond.
