Absence

I haven’t been around lately. This took me a long time to write.

Recently, I’ve had seizures.When I started having them, I decided: these are not seizures. I do not accept them. Guess what? They didn’t go away. On some level, I still find this baffling (and on another level, I find my bafflement amusing and irritating). As if the force of my will ought to be enough to make reality what I wish it were.

Look, I wanted to be healed, not inconvenienced. Healing is something I can do in the evenings. In my spare time. I will learn lessons, grow as a person, etc. etc., and apply those lessons to the life I have. I will be the same, just better. More. I will know the world, be in it, exert myself upon it. And I will be healed. I will know my worth.

All evidence to the contrary, this is what I believed. This is what I believed before. And I believed: if I believe something hard enough, it simply will be so. I didn’t believe this in any organized or coherent way. I believed it even though I knew it was silly. I marched forward toward my goals, shoving this belief before me like a snowplow. It worked. I was, in most of the way these things are measured, becoming successful.

I believed that my worth could be measured by evidence of my presence in the world. Articles. Grades. Conferences. Projects. My Klout Score. These things told me: I am here. As I’ve withdrawn from the world, as I am disconnected from my own memories, I wonder about my worth. Urban told me that once I said: I don’t feel like a real person.

My seizures are not dramatic. It’s almost like passing out or blanking out. These are called “Absence Seizures.” Seizures are one of the side effects of my Traumatic Brain Injury. Having spent the last 8 months absent from life as I know it, these interludes just take me deeper into absenteeism.

I know it sounds alarming but I am ok and we are dealing with it. I get some symptoms just prior to a seizure (metallic taste in mouth, hands & feet go numb, sounds fade in & out) so I am able to sit down or lay down before it happens. My neurologist thinks they are triggered by lack of sleep and overstimulation, which is not unusual for someone with a Traumatic Brain Injury. We have adjusted my medications so I’m sleeping regularly, and have not had any reoccurrence. If they continue, we will do more tests and consider anti-seizure medication, but we don’t think it will be necessary. I also had an EEG (and after washing my hair three times, I still have the gunk on my scalp to prove it), which showed damage to parts of the left side of my brain. It made me angry to find this out. I feel obscurely betrayed by my own brain.

source: http://iyashisource.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/WHEN-THE-BRAIN-STARTS-TO-FALL-APART.jpg

I am being careful of my safety, and only go out to see the horses or take baths and stuff when Urban is around.

Going out to visit the horses was one thing I could do on my own. It is hard to lose this small independence. It is hard to accept this reality.

All this could mean nothing in terms of my long-term recovery. I am improving overall. Most recovery from TBI happens in the first 18 months after the injury. I’m about 8 months in. As inconvenient as it is, I am healing. I’ve had some very difficult times. My life before was lived with engagement. I felt connected to the wider world. I felt influential.

I try to focus on the positive (I can read again!) and understand that the negative (I don’t remember anything I read!) will improve with time. The seizures are scary. I was pretty freaked out about it, but talking with my doctor has helped me calm down and understand that we have the ability to control them. I just have to be sure I am sleeping on a regular schedule and not overtaxing my brain.

The irony of this is not lost on me. I’ve spent my adult life staying up late in order to overtax my brain. Showing up was never enough for me, I always strived to be present: in my own life, in my relationships, in the larger world. Being present was a requirement for exerting control. I had already come a long way to understanding that my drive for control was not always a healthy thing. Having gotten that far, I learn what it’s like not to show up at all. I learn to be absent.

I try not to define my value by imagining a return to what I was (but I do anyway, see above). I have had to admit that I will not pick up where I left off. This is not an interlude. This is radical healing. My old way of living is over. Rather than thinking: someday I will be able to…whatever…again, and there will be value in that, I want to know the value of this absent life, withdrawn from the world. There is a lot going on in this silence. I perceive and experience the world, and myself (as if those are not the same), differently. Time and memory do not march in lock-step. There is no here and there in time. My narrative does not flow, it skips like a smooth rock on still water, glancing in as moments. I exert little influence. Things flow over, around, through me. Events leap out, then vanish. Unfixed. I feel sort of postmodern.

I am at the mercy of my brain. Here’s the thing: I always was. I just didn’t believe it. It didn’t inconvenience me, so I had no reason to think of it. Now I know: how ever far I traveled, however much I ever did, all life, all reality, is lived and known through my mind. Whether I show up or not. In the shallows or in the depths. There is no measurement of my value. Wherever I am: there is life. It’s all I’m worth. All I can know is my self, my ever changing self. It will be enough when I will it to be so.

There’s That Dog Again

Or, My Further Adventures in Brain Damage.

I am sitting on the porch with Urban when a handsome, dun-colored dog runs up to the neutral glass door and wags its tail in a friendly way.
There’s a dog outside. I say.

Urban looks at me, and tells me: That’s Barnabas. He’s our dog.
I say: Oh. Are you sure?
Urban: Yeah, pretty sure. Don’t you remember him?
Me: I do now.

Sometimes, I am fine. Yesterday our horse-trainer came to work with Jetta and Styx Jasper and give Urban a salad a caravan a horse a hat what the the the a riding lesson. I sat on the big wooden mounting block and watched. Over the course of two hours, we had normal conversations about the horses. Granted, I could probably have brains leaking out my ears and still have a coherent conversation about yellow legal pads horses. But other times, I have no idea what’s going on, how I got where I happen to be, or what I am supposed to do next. Normal activities or instruments (like a spoon, or my shoelaces, or my phone) take on the mystery and complexity of the Large Hadron Collider and I have about as much much much much luck getting soup to my mouth as I would discovering the Higgs bosun. A life-long writer, I have always – always!—been able to transfer thoughts to written word, but now emails and and emails and emails texts Now, I hack one laborious word at a time. One word, two, three. There. One, two, three sentences. it’s like carving my own flesh. My head pounds. My brain seems to swell and heat.

I don’t know why I’m sitting here, who is even writing this. I take a break. I come back. Four sentences, five. A paragraph. I take a nap. I forget I was writing anything, then I find this open on my computer and I think it sounds pretty good so I keep chopping tat tat tat at it. I write what I think I am thinking things, put them away for a few feet hours and go back and try to pick through and weed out the garden before it rains out all over the phantom words. Everything 1 C flour I write reads like Mad-Libs: The Brain Damage Edition.

Good lord, Saum! people say. Why are you even writing anything?
Me? I have to. I just have to.

Yes, I am incredibly frightened and frustrated, but happily I can’t keep track of anything for very long, so the fear is fleeting and I go back to staring out the window or taking a nap or whatever it is I pass my days doing. I actually have no idea what it is I pass my days doing. I am startled to find that days pass at all.

We are at the dining table. I am really cold, frozen eating a salad with tiny beets (I have a great love for tiny beets) but then it isn’t a salad at all. It is toast. Urban, I say, what happened to my salad? I was just eating a salad with beets. Where the hell did this toast come from?
Urban: I made you the toast. The salad was last night.

I argue with him about this for a few minutes. Finally, he convinces me, and I realize that it’s tomorrow.

A small dun-colored dog walks past. Look, I say. There’s that dog again!
Urban: That’s our dog. Can you remember his name?



I cannot remember the dog’s name. I actually cannot remember the entire dog. Urban reminds me. Then I remember that the dog has lived with us for years, since he was a puppy. I feel terrible that I forgot him, that I forgot his name. His name is Barnabas.

I should write that down, I say. 

I write the dog’s name on a piece of paper and stick it to the glass door connecting the living finish writing this then then then then then lie down room to the porch. It takes me several attempts. 

Awhile later, a friendly, dun-colored dog trots into the living room and presents me with a chewed-up Nylabone. I think I have seen this dog before, but what is he doing in my living room?

Urban! I say, there’s a dog in here again.
Urban: That’s our dog. Can you remember his name?
I try. Urban reminds me.
I say: I should write that down. 

Messages to the Ancestors…

Last year I wrote a piece called “Flesh and Bone: Honoring Ancestors” for State of Formation. The article, and the issues I raise in it, have continued to haunt me. Our disconnection from and fear of our dead: why is this so often the stuff of horror movies? Why do we make our dead into monsters? These are our departed loved ones, our community, our history. Why do we fear them? I felt like the article was the start of something but I didn’t know what else to do. Write another article?

We were brainstorming new ideas for the Fifth Annual Anba Dlo Halloween Festival at the New Orleans Healing Center: how can we make the spiritual principles represented by Halloween fun and engaging? How can we recognize and express our heritage while doing some good for people in the city we all love? I was trying to think of an interactive project to host in the Spiritual Space.

BAM! It hit me. Messages to the Ancestors. An easy, practical and beautiful way to reach out to our departed ones. A way to ease our guilt and fear, to forge a small connection based in love. To say what might have been unsaid, to soothe our regrets. Maybe a way to make a small peace. I envisioned messages sent as a blog comment, via email, or written out by attendees on the night of the festival, then displayed in the ascetic but resonant 4th floor Spiritual Space. Even more fitting, the adjacent rooftop space will be hosting the 10,000 Bones exhibit (these bones represent a protest against genocide). So we’ll have the symbolic bones of our ancestors keeping company with the created bones of artistic protest against the harms we do to each other. I like that.

I had the idea roughed out and ready to go…then I got (Viral) Meningitis and lost nearly a month of work time. As  recovered and scrambled to get ready to leave for Burkina Faso for a month, I kept worrying about this project. It got pushed back and back. I finally got the website launched the night before I left…and realized that now, the timing felt right: the eve of my departure to Africa, home of all of our ancestors.

So, please: visit Messages to the Ancestors. Reach into your history, reach within you, reach forward into a future where you are at peace with your past. Leave a message.

The Witch of Endo, pt. 4: Surrender

No. I say to my doctor. In fact: Fuck, no. You can’t have my cervix. Let’s just schedule another laparoscopic clean-up. Go in, find the Endo, zap the Endo, and I’ll be home by noon. And it has to be early in November because I have travel plans.   

My OB/Gyn  has known me since I was 18, when I had my first surgery for an ovarian cyst. He does not take the swearing personally. Over the years, he has cut me open, soldered me up, held my hand. He’s the one who told me I was unlikely to have children. I have chronic pelvic pain and this is the guy who has to poke at me and ask me to describe the pain. I can be very descriptive. (The ultrasound tech his office once told me that he’d heard worse language from women on the ultrasound table than he had in his many years in the Navy.) Besides all this, my doctor respects my choices on how I live with and manage this disease. But when Urban comes up to the scheduling office so we can cram a surgery onto our calendars, Doc says to him: She made me a liar. I said the next time this happened, we were taking the cervix out. I said that the time BEFORE the last time. And the time before that! She’s not listening to me. You try talking to her.

You always did call me your problem child I say sweetly to the Doc, who I really am very fond of. He throws up his hands and walks off.

Ok, Toni, I turn to the surgery-scheduling lady, what’ve you got open?

We schedule the surgery for the second week of November. I’ll start getting back to work a week after the procedure. I’ll take it easy for a few weeks but it’s ok. I’ll have plenty of time to recover before heading to India for the holidays, so it won’t screw that up. I can live with this. I’m used to maneuvering around it.

On the way back from the appointment, I sit grimly in the car, gritting my teeth against the pain, absolutely certain I am doing the right thing. I will not have my cervix removed. My doctor thinks I’m insane. He believes that the Endometriosis has eaten into the tissue of the cervix and that these superficial solutions – going in with a laser and cauterizing the Endo on the surface of organs-- have outlived their usefulness. Whey they took out my uterus, it was riddled and veined with Endo (technically, once it eats into organs, it’s called Adenomyosis). I don’t care. I didn’t give a damn about my uterus: it was nothing but trouble and I wasn’t planning on using it anyway. Giving up my last ovary was angsty but not a hard decision to make, just a hard one to accept. But I will not have my cervix removed. Anyway, it’s a major surgery. I would have to be in the hospital for a couple of days, and it’s a longer recovery. I don’t have the time. I have a life, goddamn it. 

My last surgery was in January. I brood over this and watch the familiar scenery slide by on 394. I want to turn on the radio but I’m afraid I would snap the knob right off.

Instead, I review the facts with Urban, and ask him: What do you think?

It’s mostly rhetorical; I know I can count on Urban’s reassurance. But he is quiet for a long time. Then he says that he thinks the reason Gede told me to do the series of ritual baths (which I’m in the middle of) was to help me reach a more open emotional state so I could hear what I needed to hear, and accept it. (Huh? you’re wondering, Who said what? Ritual baths, wtf? Sorry, darlin…that’s a post for another day). He keeps his eyes on the road, but reaches for my hand.

I want to yank my hand away. This is not what I needed to hear! But I feel a truth in my body, in the beat of my blood, the vibrations in my pain seem to resonate a yes. He’s right. I shut my eyes and don’t say much. Urban drops me off at my sister’s, where it takes me all afternoon to talk myself into what I already know. My cervix has to go. I can’t keep putting it off. At this point, I’m just being stubborn.

The idea of this surgery terrifies me. I don’t know why. I’ve had so many other bits cut out, one at a time: appendix, gallbladder, left ovary, uterus, right ovary. I’ve had more surgeries for Endo than I can count.

But this. This.

 

It’s a pretty major surgery, since they are cutting out an organ. The cervix is the lower part of the uterus; sometimes it’s removed with a hysterectomy. Also, it’s connected to the top of the vagina (the cervix-bone connected to the vagina-bone!), where there are lots and lots of nerves; my doc says it may be more painful than the hysterectomy. So, yeah. Not fun.

And what if… oh, crap, what if? Some women have “decreased sexual function” (i.e. are unable to have an orgasm) after having their cervix removed. Of course, constant pelvic pain also decreases sexual function (duh) so my chances of having an orgasm right now are roughly 0 anyway. When I brought up this sucktastic, potentially life-altering side-effect with Urban, he said…well, sorry, what he said is private but let’s just say I’m not so worried anymore.

That leaves the worst, the real: what if this doesn’t help at all?

For all these years, this has been the last step, the one thing we could do if nothing else worked. Well, nothing else did work. We’ve tried it all: conventional, alternative, metaphysical. I’m better than I was before but it’s still pretty bad. What if I have this surgery but I don’t get better? One of the things Gede said is that I have to believe I can recover. Deep inside, I don’t know if I really do believe that. I’ve lived with this pain so long. It seems…inevitable. When I try to imagine or envision a life that is pain-free, I come up blank. I have vague images of being able to drive again, and ride my horse more often…but it seems suspect. Have I been holding off on this surgery because I’m afraid it won’t work?

Here I am, coolly assessing one of my organs and deciding whether to kick it out of the club of Saum. Trying to figure out what I’m really feeling. I talk to my sister all day. I talk to Urban all night. I go out to the barn and lean against Styx for so long that she dozes off. Then I call my doctor and tell him to schedule the whatever-the-medical-term-for-cervix-removal-is. I expect him to gloat a little. He doesn’t.

I hate breaking myself into pieces. I want to think of myself as whole, entire, not made up of disposable parts that can be excised and thrown away.

I don’t get any better at this. I WANT MY CERVIX. I’m not exactly sure why. But I do. It’s me. I’ve imbued it with meaning.It’s the part of me where the inside meets the outside. It’s one of my thresholds.  In sex, when so many other boundaries blur, this is where you becomes me. This is what holds me in. I feel like if I keep giving parts of myself up, it will all come spilling out: guts and organs, everything raw and essential. What will be left of me? This fear feels simultaneously terrifying and ridiculous.

I also feel failure. Aren’t I supposed to heal myself? Or something?

Maybe not. Maybe I’m meant to be unhealed and raw. Open wounds are passageways. Burden is a door. I feel like I’ve been braced in this threshold for so long. What am I holding on to?

I remember something the Doc said: Saumya, this is not something you did.

One of my other doctors (I have, like, a whole panel of them) once said: This disease has put so many limits on you, but you do so much. I’d like to see what you’d be capable of if you were healthy.

You know what? So would I. So would I.
Fuck yes. Let’s find out.

Flesh and Bone

The wheel of the year has spun around again. Today is the Day of the Dead, All Soul’s Day, All Saint’s Day. Today, I remember and pay respects to my predecessors: my beloved departed ones, teachers of my spiritual traditions, folk hero(ine)s who inspire me, artists and writers who humble me, scholars who provide my intellectual foundation, and the nameless ancients whose gift is my DNA. We are the living flesh on the bones of these ancestors.

A relationship does not end just because one person passes away.  We carry our dead with us: in our DNA, our memories, our hang-ups, our culture. But after their death, we can choose to have a relationship with the best part of someone, and let the worst parts go. We can forgive them.

We are defined by our relationships. In some ways, we are relevant only as part of a community. Your history, life and fate of are not distinct from the history, life and fate of your community. My definition of community used to only include people who live in my time zone, as it were. I don’t mean Central Daylight Time: I mean, people who are alive at the same time as me. But the truth is that we are supported and influenced by the dead as much as the living: community looks like a circle, but it is actually a sphere that crosses the visible and invisible realms. The community is our bones. 

My physical ancestors’ bones are part of the rich soil of India and the Caribbean. The land I live on now is contains the bones of Native American people and pioneers of European descent. My intellectual and moral heritage is built on the bones of scholars, artists, warriors and healers of heritages too countless to name. While my spiritual traditions are Neo-Pagan, Vodou and Hindu, this practice of honoring one’s ancestors is practiced across the globe. 

It is not ancestor “worship” any more than throwing a birthday party for someone is worshipping them. And it looks much the same: food is offered, candles are lit, we stand around and sing. For this one day, they are the center of the circle. We acknowledge their importance to us, and honor their essential spirit.

We should not dwell in grief, but neither should we forget our dead ones. They are our bones. Bones are strength. They literally hold us up.

When you see images of bones, do you shudder? One of the reasons people tell me they fear of Vodou is “all the bones:” images of the skeletal Spirits of the Dead. Why do we fear the dead? Why is the idea of departed ones a source of horror? Vodou empowered me to confront and overcome my own fear, to build a healthy relationship with the dead.

The Vodou I practice is based in New Orleans, but that is based in Haiti and the Caribbean, which in turn is based in Africa. Follow anything back far enough, you’ll end up in Africa. Africa is our bones.

West African philosophy charts an intersection of ancestors, community and time. You seem to believe that time marches ever onward: what is gone is discarded as you look eagerly forward. We live in the present and the future is before us. The past is history. This is not true. You may not be able to see it, but the past is your bones.

The African concept of time and community helps us understand this. In the West African system, there are two kinds of time: Sasa and Zamani. Sasa is encompassed by the memory of the community's eldest to the potential lifetime of the youngest. This is “immediate” time, the time of the living. Zamani is “far” time, the temporal geography in which the consciousness of all the community’s dead and unborn reside. It is heritage and hope. It the well from which both tradition and innovation spring. It is a sphere made up of many circular time-lines. It looks forwards and backwards in the same direction. Zamani encompasses Sasa like a womb, cradles, supports and nourishes it.  The future is the past returning, but we make it our own. Sasa is the flesh; Zamani, the bones.

Strip us bare: we are bones. The skeleton is us, seen through the mirror of time.

As we come around again to this time of year when the bones of the trees are laid bare, take a moment to connect with Zamani. Honor those who helped create the reality you dwell in. Let yourself love your departed ones. You cannot see them, but they are there, deep within, supporting you. Share their stories. Hold their wisdom. Forgive your dead.

Do not be afraid. Remember your bones.

The Witch of Endo, part 1

This just in: It’s really hard for me to ask for help. I’m sure you’re shocked.

I had a midterm due at the beginning of the week; I have been dealing with pelvic pain from the endometriosis and feeling crabby and useless. I had every reason to ask for an extension on my papers but…I felt like a loser. I didn’t want to ask. It was hard to admit that I *couldn’t* do it. I hate “can’t.” I hate it in myself. I would never judge another person who asked for an extension on a paper because it felt like their pelvis was eating itself (and, actually, with endo, that’s not far from what is actually happening) but oh no, not ME. I can do anything, dammit. Except I can’t. It was humbling to look at my notes strewn around me, books piled up, Word doc open and ready to go, and realize: I can’t fucking do this. I need to go to bed.

I have two choices when I’m in pain and have a paper/project due: I can grit my teeth and work through the pain, or I can take a painkiller and work through the narcotic haze. The pain pills work pretty well but they make it hard to focus, retain information and express myself coherently. In short, everything I need to write a paper.

I have learned the hard way that the pain will not just go away because I ignore it.  Ignoring it will make it worse. So although I am capable of working through it, I will pay for it when the work is done. Often that payment is more than I can afford and --listen to me! I feel like I have to justify my decision to not stay in pain. It’s a little excessive. I have such little sympathy for myself.

There is some crazy part of me that believes that if I wish hard enough, or do the correct breathing exercise, or stop eating dairy (for the record, I’ve tried: it’s bullshit) or something, this disease will go away. So if it doesn’t go away it must mean that I don’t want it gone enough. Some strange part of me thinks I should be able to wave a magic wand and make it all go away: some part of me believes I can do anything, so why can’t I do this? It’s like the dark, distorted side of empowerment. I’m always hearing how tough people are, they beat cancer, just fucking kicked it to the curb. I don’t even have a life-threatening disease and I can’t kick it out of my own way, never mind the curb. It makes me feel inadequate and weak. 

Now I know that makes no sense, but at the same time I don’t know it. I remember being at the pre-op appointment before my last surgery, going though the litany of diet, meds, everything from the previous few months, trying to figure out where I went wrong, when my surgeon, who has been my doctor, therapist, advisor and friend for the last 20 years (yeah, I’ve had surgery often enough that I’m buddies -–good buddies-- with my surgeon)-- looked up from his note-taking, waited for me to stop, then said “Saum, this isn’t something you did.” I burst into tears. Because I needed to hear it.

I don’t have magical powers (Or if I do, they’re not that kind of magical power, but only good for conjuring 80s power ballads and rain). What I do have is a disease with symptoms I can’t predict or control. I have issues with giving up control –- and, baby, it is allllll about giving up control.

I also have a TF who rejected my request for a 48-hour extension on my midterm but instead gave me 5 days... and said if I needed more time it was not a problem. I burst into tears then too. Luckily I was just reading an email so there were no witnesses.

Something else my surgeon said that day has stuck in my head: Men are stronger, but women are tougher. They are also tougher on themselves. I don’t know if that’s true, but it certainly resonates. I doubt that it has anything whatsoever to do with my gender, but I have high standards for myself: I push myself, I love a challenge, and I do stuff that I am afraid of doing. I don’t give up. I think those are all good things. But, I also judge myself very harshly. I would never speak to another suffering creature the way I speak to myself.

Sometimes I think I’ll never be enough for myself. I construct and overcome hurdle after hurdle: going back to school wasn’t enough, I had to get into Harvard. Getting into Harvard wasn’t enough, I had to maintain a 4.0…and ok I’ll admit it, there’s times that I think my 4.0 at Harvard is worthless because all the really smart people are over at MIT.

There is a part of me that, assuming I get an A in this class, which I will move heaven and earth to achieve, will feel like I don’t deserve it because I got an extension on my goddamn midterm.

It’s telling that while pain is part of my everyday life, it’s not something I’m comfortable talking about. It hurts everyday, and I don’t just mean physical hurt. I have not ridden my horse in over a month. I live to ride, and I cannot ride.

I have blogged about pain it in the past but it’s something I struggle to express. I avoid writing about it. I avoid talking about it. I’m not registered with the disability support office at school although I ought to be. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away, but it does keep anyone else from knowing about it, from witnessing my vulnerability. I want to be tougher than I am.  I want a life that is miraculously free from “can’t.” I don’t want to need help.

But I’ve realized, while writing this, that needing is good for me (sorry, Buddha). It opens a part of myself that would otherwise remain closed. It humbles me and introduces another kind of empowerment: one that acknowledges that maybe I can do anything…just not on my own.

I titled this post The Witch of Endo, part I The “part I” is a promise to myself. I will keep writing about this. I will keep needing, too.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it. I couldn’t do this without you.

Dear Friend, The Majority of People Can Still Be Wrong

The thing I always wonder about Nazi Germany is this: how did it happen? Did all the Germans just go insane? How does an entire culture get to the point that they can turn away and ignore the torture and murder of MILLIONS of people: and not far away, hidden from view people, but people they pass by on the street, people they do business with, people that are their neighbors? How do people support a political party that treats people, based on their religion/culture, as a problem that must be solved? Well, I think it helps that Germans were scared of “them.” Really scared.

It’s hard to reason with fear.

From: Saumya Arya Haas
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 6:01 PM
To: xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Cold Chills

Hello Dear xxxxxxx,

It was truly wonderful to see you! and thank you for giving me the chance to respond to Wilders’ speech/ideas.

Regardless of what I say here… if you would like to know what Muslims think, you should get to know some Muslims and ask them, rather than basing your opinions on what someone else (including me) thinks that Muslims think.  However that’s not practical right away, so here is my response, based on my instincts, my experience with actual Muslims, living in India where Hindu-Muslim violence is not uncommon, being familiar with terrorist attacks (from many different groups: religious, political, secular, ethnic, etc.) in various parts of the world from a young age, and being an extremely patriotic American. It’s a long reply so bear with me.

Geert Wilders, the writer of this piece, is considered an extremist by many people. He is up on hate-speech charges in his native country, where no established political party will be associated with him. The UK tried to ban him from entering their country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders

There is so much wrong with the reasoning in this article that I do not know where to start. Here is only one, minor, example. He says (about “Muslim ghettos”) :

“The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find  any economic activity.” Well, which is it? Are there shops, where presumably, people are exchanging money for products… or is there no economic activity?

What would you think of an architect who said “The pipes leak water everywhere. There is no plumbing in the house.” You would think they were mistaken, lying, or insane. How much would you trust their other statements?

Where are the references for his claims on facts and figures? is there reputable, government supported information, or are these figures produced by partisan organizations with an particular agenda? And if they are correct, so what? People can say, think and believe whatever they like. It is actions that count, and even that is does not justify discrimination. I’ve heard it said that the majority of convicted criminals in the USA are young African-American men. Should we treat all young Black guys like potential criminals? Lock them up just to be safe?

When you read Wilders piece, is there any other group that you would be comfortable generalizing about in this way? If you take out the word “Muslim” and insert the word “Black,” “Gay,” “Women,””Jewish,” whatever, how does it make you feel?  People call Wilder’s views racist and extremist because they are. As far as quoting numbers of what percentage of people fear Islam, I wonder, what percentage of Americans supported the abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote, interracial marriage, Civil Rights, etc, etc.? Do you think that if 60% of Americans are afraid of young African-American men we should do something about it? I’ve read that when it became legal for whites and non-whites to marry, the majority of Americans were against it. (I bring this one up because I’m in an interracial marriage and I know you would find it as distasteful as I do that there was a time that Urban & I, both American citizens, could not legally marry in our own country.)

The majority of people can still be wrong.

Wilder’s arguments and solution (which is not stated, but I am familiar with) do not stand up to common sense, common decently, the American Constitution or international human rights guidelines. People become criminals, and can be treated as criminals, the minute they are found guilty of a crime. Each person deserves to be treated as an individual. What crime have millions of Muslims committed, that we are so comfortable talking about them as though they are guilty of something? If Muslims are 25% or whatever of the population of Europe, so what?  Europe is made up of many nations and cultures; Muslims have been a part of that since Islam has existed.

The questions about Israel is a separate, political issue about governmental policies, not what citizens think. I know a number of (white, Jewish) Americans who are critical of Israel for whatever reasons. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.

Wilder advocates against dialogue with Muslim leaders; I find that disturbing. His writing is full of absolute statements and hysteria.

I feel that Wilders’ speech and writings follow this formula and philosophy:

“It [does] not investigate the truth objectively and.. it present[s] only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) [It is] confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans [are] persistently repeated (…) Every change.. must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.”

This is very effective because:

“[People]are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.”

These quotes are from Hitler, Mein Kampf.

Have you ever read the anti-Jewish rhetoric from Germany in the 1930s? It sounds very much the same. It was just as passionate, just as popular, and just as based on “facts.”

This is my theory: Germans believed that they had to protect themselves against an enemy, and that their survival depended on destroying this enemy before the enemy destroyed them. Germans began to believe that people who had lived peacefully alongside them, contributed to their economy and enriched their culture,  were dangerous outsiders who did not belong in Germany. I’m sure there were some Jews that were unprincipled, dangerous criminals—people are human after all. So, one Jew committing a crime became “proof” of the evil nature of all Jews. Jewish “ghettos” were portrayed as cancerous, dangerous cells that would spread and wipe out European values. Does any of this sound familiar?

What is Wilders solution? The mass rounding up and “deportation” of millions of people? Does that sound familiar?

The other thing I wonder about Nazi Germany is this: When was the moment? When did the German people tip from the talk to the walk? How did it go from free speech to state-sponsored genocide? Why didn’t anyone say: enough is enough. We are terrified of Jews, but we don’t have the right to eradicate them. Did any one say: We must stop before we do something insane.  If we look back with the luxury of hindsight, I think it’s apparent that there was not one moment, but many. Many.

The only cold chills I get are imaging what will happen to millions of innocent people if politicians like Wilder come into power.

I would like to be open and be able to talk about these issues, and I would like you to be comfortable talking to me. You are my friend and I love and respect you. But emails like the one you forwarded are hate speech, nothing more. I support the right of free speech for all, but it is a challenge to know how to reasonably respond to such virulent hatred masquerading as fact.

It’s ok to be ignorant and it’s understandable to be scared of things and cultures that we don’t understand. But it is not okay when our ignorance and fear is justification to limit the rights of other people…actually, there is nothing that justifies limiting the rights of other people. I cannot stand by in silence while my fellow (Muslim/Gay/Jewish/Whatever) Americans and fellow humans are demonized and have their dignity & rights stripped from them. These people are innocent. Where is this thinking going to end up?

I hope that you understand, and that your intrinsic compassion, intelligence and sense of justice will advise your thoughts and feelings.

With best intentions and much love,
Saumya

I’ll help you pack, even.

Dear People-Who-Are-Afraid-of-Islam-And-Think-Your-Fear-Should-Affect-Other-People's-Freedoms,

You have a right to your feelings. But you do not have to right to expect your feelings to limit the rights of other Americans.

The 9/11 terrorists were angry, violent, screwed-up people, ok? Muslim, male, young, Middle-Eastern, dark-skinned, angry, violent, screwed-up. It's the angry, violent, screwed-up action that makes a terrorist. Nothing else.

Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, or, it has as much to do with terrorism as does ethnicity, national origin, age and gender...which is to say, nothing. We may as well associate maleness with terrorism...all the 9/11 terrorists were men. That's just as (ir)relevant as the fact that they were Muslim.

Most terrorists are men. Many cultures of "manhood" advocate violence, but I haven't noticed a backlash against male culture as terrorism. Imagine people making statements, writing tweets and articles or holding signs that say:

We will be overtaken by MEN, and their goal is to get people in Congress.

It’s provocative for these MEN to want a community center near Ground Zero.

Don’t Dishonor my Son’s Grave. No MEN Near Ground Zero.

It’s ridiculous, right? It’s ridiculous no matter what word is substituted for “MEN.”

There is a word for generalizing about people who practice a particular religion, look a particular way, or are a particular gender: it is called BIGOTRY and it is not protected by the Constitution of the United States, or any rational, moral or ethical argument.

So, get over the Islam thing. Or shut the hell up, let people worship as they choose and get some professional help for your anger, insecurity and paranoia. Or move out of the USA to a nation that does not give people the right of religious freedom. (Did Saudi Arabia come to mind? One of those nations run by…MEN?) If you can’t respect the basic beliefs of this country: Liberty and Justice for All—then it’s you who doesn’t belong here.

Best Wishes,
Saumya

P.S. If you’re wondering what triggered this rant, it was this article:
Festive Muslim Holiday falls around Sept. 11 this year; US Muslims leaders fear backlash

It pisses me off that people in our country have to be afraid of celebrating their holidays. If terrorism is using fear to intimidate and control people, or words to that effect, and the Muslim community is afraid of us, who is it that is advocating terrorism??

Immersion ~Belize part 2

I always have some fear when I swim out the first time, after an absence from the Sea. I love the Ocean, but depths frighten me.

It is especially unnerving because right now I can’t see anything; this is not the clear brochure blue Caribbean but a slightly marshy seaside with a muddy floor. The waves stir everything up and visibility is about what I expect in a blizzard, except with coral heads and parrotfish suddenly materializing in front of me. We have vague directions to the little reef (“About 200 yards North off the dock of the house with the barking dogs”). We periodically stop, pop our heads out of the water and pull our facemasks up to squint at the shore. The waves have a different idea of which way we should be heading, and disagreeing with them is tiring. The water is choppy and not really that warm. I tread water and try to untangle strands of my hair from the clasp that holds snorkel to mask; I hear them rip. I yank the mask down, lower my head, and swim. The snorkel sometimes offers air, other times, salt water. My breath sounds amplified, loud and fast: Darth Vader having a panic attack. I feel both claustrophobic and exposed. I try to relax and slow my breathing, which only makes me realize how not-relaxed I am.

I feel simultaneously afraid, foolish for being afraid, and afraid of showing my fear. Are fish like tigers? Can they smell fear? I feel like turning around and swimming back for shore, back to where I can see what’s coming at me.

I’m tired. I float for a minute, facedown, bobbing. My limbs relax.  My back is warm then cool, warm then cool, as small waves come between flesh and sun. Out of the gloom a 5 ft Eagle Ray soars by in slow motion. My head turns to follow its glide. The waters swirl, then I am alone again.

I stop breathing for a moment. Silence rushes in my ears. This is what being a priestess is like.

I have spent so much time gazing at the surface of the Waters. It is mirrored. It’s all the same Ocean, but there is a lot of publicity about the clear places where you can see below. I never seem to end up there. I always end up in the obscure, muddy parts, where the light bounces off the surface. There’s only one way to know what’s there. I wade until the ground drops out from under me and I’m forced to swim. Any given directions are vague, meaningless once I’m on on my way.

I paddle through a vast and murky Sea, not sure where I’m going, not sure what I’ve come to see, not sure I really want to be out here at all. 

Immersion is a constant caress, both distant and intimate. Invisible currents carry me along; I fight against them, wanting to go my own way. I am beneath the surface, but barely. There are unimagined depths below. I do not understand the nature or intentions of the deep, or what may dwell there. The speculation chills me. I long to see, but fear the encounter. Things seem to appear out of nowhere and I am startled by their grace, their belonging to this place. I flounder around, awkward and scared; my tension only makes it worse. Insight is only a byproduct of exhaustion. Be still and listen. Nothing can give me the release I am seeking; I have only been struggling against myself. I am more water than flesh: I am made of the substance I am immersed in. I have been gliding farther into myself, into my own Waters. I am the deep.

My breaths are the waves beneath the waves. Movement is effortless. The depths I fear are what bear me up.