By: Rehan Ansari
October 11,2001
Before the fortress like walls of a monastery in Manhattan, a Rastafarian
was chanting Osama, Osama...Only the two desis in the lineup of tourists
laughedat the sight. The cloister is an unused monastery on the northern
tip of Manhattan, around 200th street. It is open to the public as a park
and a museum. It seems a brainchild of an American capitalist from the
pages of P G Wodehouse. Buy a British castle and have it transported brick
by brick to New York. It is most authentic, and together with the herb
gardens, gives the feeling of Europe and civilisation. From the heights
of the monastery you can see the Hudson valley and in the other direction
New York. From the shadows of the monastery I can hear the chants of Osama.
Saying it with white Arjun Seluja, is a fashion designer who divides his
time between Delhi and New York. He was dismayed to find a building with
flags in all its windows. "InChelsea, Rehan, in Chelsea. In a gay
bar, also in Chelsea, a white man stepped on his toe to make a point.
In a gay bar, Rehan!" Arjun is also horrified by what he saw happen
to the New York fashion week after September 11. All of haute couture
worked to change their lines. They chose to work exclusively in white.
I walked into a magazine office in midtown the other day and noticed the
secretary was frantically searching on the Internet. She told me she was
looking for bin Laden's zodiac sign. These are strange signs of the coming
of a strange prophet.
A prince, a prophet Of Bush and Osama who do
you think is the prophet? Both are talking about the war between good
and evil. Both claim God is on their side. Bush talks from the capital
of the empire, the Rome of our time, and Osama is a man living in the
middle of the desert. A prince who has given up on the princely life and
lives in the poorest country in the world. He also speaks poetically.
The US should vacate the Arabian peninsula, the life of a Palestinian
should be as peaceful as that of an American (at the risk of sounding
redundant this means that we are all equal) and that the US must stop
supporting the client states of Arabia and Egypt. A perfect rhyme. A
racial profiling of Osama would be the same as many a Judaeo Christian
prophet, who is in the service of a wrathful god. I think if Osama didn't
look so damn Middle Eastern, had the blonde hair and blue eyes of a Christmas
pageant Jesus, Bush might dream about negotiation. God knows there are
few creative ideas in the Muslim world.
No new ideas about democracy, no new news on despotism and no revolution
in gender relations. The last time the Iranians had a new idea was when
they threw out the West. That was almost 25 years ago. Now bin Laden has
a new idea: throw the political west out of the Middle East. This is an
idea in a land parched for one. It has the poetry of justice. This is
why every western reporter is hearing this from the mouth of his or her
Egyptian, Arabian and, even, Pakistani interviewee.
Storm clouds of change My father and I had the ritual of going to the
same prayer ground for the Id ki namaaz in Karachi. We were always late,
so when I was four, he would pick me up chuckling mulla bol para and start
running. The other thing I remember from then, and is true to this day,
is how in the prayer there was talk of the freedom of the Palestinians
and Kashmiris.
I remember the names of these causes when I didn't know what they stood
for. My father introduced me to the Israeli conflict. He took the side
of the Israelis. Against the unending retrogressiveness of the Arabian
Peninsula he was also for the Israelis for their back to the wall, preemptive,
survival against all odds.
I think he recognised the kinship as his family had escaped the teeth
of the Delhi riots and had clawed their way out of the refugee colony
of Karachi. As for Kashmir, I got sick of it having realised that everything
in Pakistan is mortgaged to it. It is very discomforting to recognise
in the video messages of Osama his determination to change the status
quo
because, well, it's been so for too long.