Mood Swings:
Bushed by Bushland
By
Muna Hamzeh
It was an eerie sense of déjà-vu. I knew I had been there before. Security was heavy and tight. There were random baggage and body searches and long lines of passengers waiting. Signs warning of a state of "orange" alert were posted everywhere. I could swear I were at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv and could almost hear the security guards speak in Hebrew.
But this was not Tel Aviv and the language spoken was not Hebrew. This was Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, the capital of Texas -- or "Bushland", as I prefer to call it. It was late March, only days after the start of the Israeli (for who can deny their lead role) American-British war on Iraq. The dozens of TV screens scattered throughout the airport's terminal were all tuned to CNN and its disgustingly stupid and unprofessional coverage of the war. I shut my eyes and murmured a thanks to God for Al-Jazeera. When it comes to the Middle East, mainstream American TV and cable news networks are really big on simulated war games, so all you see on the screen are green blurbs and satellite maps, and the overly excited voice of some schmuck reporter trying to explain what the blurbs mean and where on the map the bombs are falling. There are no human faces behind the deadly explosions. There are no scenes of torn flesh or screaming fathers or bleeding children. Muslims and Arabs remain faceless, nameless and ageless in the controlled and censored mainstream American media.
Sensing it was no longer safe to be an Arab in America under the current administration, and getting disgusted by the constant hate mail calling for the "death of filthy Arab pigs", I was permanently leaving the United States for the Middle East. I wanted to live in an Ard Btitkalem Arabi (a land that speaks Arabic), where the Arab version of democracy doesn't include the use of bullets and bombs to kill innocent civilians under the pretext of spreading freedom and liberty.
Indeed, the contradiction between real democracy and the type of democracy that US President George W Bush and his pack are trying to shove down the throat of every Arab and Muslim around the globe has become so vast, that one can no longer be Arab and continue to live in the US.
For its part, the mainstream American public does not feel morally concerned that their tax money is paying for the bullets and bombs that are killing human beings on the other side of the world. On the contrary, the majority of Americans have a gung-ho attitude toward the democratisation of the barbaric Middle East. So long as the Arabs change their textbooks, learn how to eat a McDonald's burger for lunch instead of Kushari, call every "freedom fighter" a "terrorist" and thank America for its divine intervention, then the world is in good shape. And in the process, who cares if the number of Arabs killed eventually reaches six million. No one in the civilised world counts Arab blood.
As my turn approached at the airport security check, I handed my passport and ticket to the airport security guard. There was no longer anything enjoyable about being an Arab in America. I knew that my Arab name, Arab place of birth and Arab destination would attract his attention, as it always attracted the attention of every Israeli security guard. The elderly man looked up at me then leaned over a small box on a table behind him, grabbed a blank orange slip of paper and inserted it inside my ticket. He then clipped a similar slip to my carry-on luggage. The eerie sense of déjà-vu persisted. The Israelis insert a green slip of paper inside the passports of passengers that they intend to take aside for interrogation. I knew something similar was about to happen to me on American soil.
"Please step aside," a friendly but firm female security guard told me, as she led me to the side. "Please take off your boots. Now stretch your arms and place your legs wide apart, wider please." The contents of all my carry-on luggage was removed and carefully examined. Then after waiting for my boots to be returned to me, I was free to go.
"I so envy you being in Cairo," one American friend wrote me last week. "Austin is stagnant, Republican, racist, and totally intellectually unsophisticated." Her e-mail was one of dozens I received from disillusioned Americans who no longer feel they belong in their own country. Bush should read what his people are writing. There are American academics and intellectuals who are so appalled with their country's war and occupation of Iraq, that they admit to feeling "ashamed" of saying they are Americans and ashamed of what their country now represents -- an occupation force, just like Israel.
These academics and intellectuals should come to Cairo to be rejuvenated. And in the process, someone ought to suggest to US President George W Bush to make a trip here too. He can learn a lesson or two from this ancient civilisation that has been around far longer than his ancestors and will be around long after he is gone. He will learn that this city that comes to life after sundown is safer than any of his cities can ever be. He will learn just how clueless he is about who the Muslims are and what Islam is all about.
And if he is smart, he will realise after a single drive around Cairo's streets at night, that for us Arabs, even a dried-up spit on a Cairo sidewalk is more honourable than his entire version of democracy.
Muna Hamzeh is a Palestinian-American author and journalist who has been writing about Israel's occupation of the Palestinians since 1985. She is the author of Ordinary Days in Dheisheh (2000) and Refugees in Our Own Land: Chronicles from a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem (2001). Her new book, Operation Defensive Shield: Witnesses to Israeli War Crimes will be published by Pluto Press in London this month.
