The dust storm brought with it the spring. The sky was devoid of clouds, and the sun shone above the store buildings in downtown Er Rachidia. I watched as children roamed the streets. Because of the protests and the holiday of Muhammad's birthday, the children were out of school. Men lined the streets hawking their wares that were laid out on an old blanket. From down the street, I could smell the restaurant preparing shawarma for lunch. The buses' horns blew continuously throughout the morning as passengers traveled to the surrounding cities.
My coffee had just arrived by the time D_____ showed up. D_____, the Moroccan who is usually used by the new volunteers as a language instructor, wanted to develop an association with me and another volunteer to "encourage cultural exchange and human development opportunities between Morocco and America". This meeting, however, wasn't focused on business.
"I think I'm going to give up on some bad habits." I said.
"Why do you want to do that?" D_____ asked.
"One, it costs money," I began, "And when I wake up the next morning, I usually think to myself, "So, you really paid money for that?""
"Okay," he said, "But are you just going to stop buying it, or are you stopping completely?"
"Well, I'll just have to take it one day at a time," I said, "I've reached a point where I'm beginning to think that it does nothing but bring empty happiness."
"Empty happiness?" He asked.
"Yes, empty happiness. A happiness that doesn't last. It's not the same happiness I seem to experience when I meditate."
"So, you're still Buddhist?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well, think of it this way," D_____ said, "With your habit, the empty happiness goes away after a few hours, but I've seen the empty happiness of religion in followers, but that empty happiness lasts their entire lives."
"So you think it's like the opiate of the masses?" I asked.
"That's a good way of putting it."
Two women passed by; each held the side of a souk bag filled with vegetables. I looked down at my coffee and began to stir. For a moment, the sounds of the street seemed to leave the cafe, leaving only the sound of my spoon clinking against the glass. A man walked by, and D_____ pointed him out to me.
"Hey, that man is like you." D_____ said.
"Really?" I asked, "Here?"
"Yes. Sometimes the children throw rocks at him. When I see it, I usually go up to the kids and tell them that he is human, just like them."
I began to drink my coffee.
"That's one thing I like about America," D_____ continued, "There is freedom. People can believe whatever they want. They can be whoever they want to be."
I looked down the street again. My mind traveled to six years ago. I was on a beach in Florida with friends. We had just left a restaurant when I heard someone shout in the parking lot. Even though the rest of the words were a blur, I remember that word they used. It had since seared itself into my brain. I reached the parking lot just as two men knocked down the third man, shouting that word over and over again. My immediate reaction was to jump in and try to pull them away, but they pushed me aside. I spun around and watched as a crowd had formed around us. Why aren't you helping? I thought as I watched their blank faces, he is one of us. The faces in the crowd remained blank, cold, indifferent, as though they weren't witnessing a beating, but were Romans sitting inside the Colosseum.
I remember the glass bottle I found, and I remember the sound and feeling of it breaking over one of the attacker's head. The most vivid detail that I remember though was their eyes. The look in their eyes wasn't an anger one sees at another human, but an anger one sees directed at a dog that did something bad, or a car that won't start. Their anger wasn't directed at the man as a person who needed to be killed, but as a thing that needed to be destroyed. After I chased them away, I remember looking down at the man. He was now just a pulp; blood streamed down his face, a tooth dangled in his mouth, and his clothes were torn. I remember crying as I held him. I remember being told, you saved your friend's life, and I replied, I don't know him. I remember the look of confusion on some of the people's faces, and I remember the anger welling inside of me, not at the attackers, but at the people who surrounded me that night.
As my mind returned to the cafe on the corner of the street in Er Rachidia, I turned to D_____.
"What is one thing you don't like about Islam?" D_____ asked.
"Are you familiar with Sufism?" I asked in an attempt to alter the subject.
"I knows about them." D_____ replied.
"I like the Sufi. When I read the Quran, it reminded me of Christianity very much. In Islam, mankind is seen as a completely depraved creature, something not worthy of grace, much less life. It is only through God that mankind is saved. Christianity and Islam share this in common, the belief that mankind is inherently worthless without God. In Christianity, this is called total depravity."
D_____ leaned forward and nodded his head in agreement.
"The Sufi are different," I said, "In Sufism, the belief in the fitra is ever-present. It is the understanding that God is the fitra, the source of all wisdom. God is complete fitra, complete wisdom. All living things contain within themselves a piece of this fitra, this wisdom. The seeming depravities exist like shrouds that cover our fitra, but our inherent nature is this holiness, this wisdom, this fitra. In Christianity, this is called the inner light. In Buddhism, this is called Buddha nature."
This is, and always has been, my favorite religion discussion to have with people. Whether people embrace their culture to the point of denigrating others, or whether they denigrate themselves to embrace a Western worldview, I feel that discussing this concept, and the connection that they have with each other, helps people realize that there is no need to unify cultures or religions, nor is there a need of dominant cultures. It is akin to believing that the cultures, in their essence, are like this pureness, and the negative expressions that we find - racism, xenophobia, terrorism - are all shrouds that cover them. The positive expressions of these cultures are present in all cultures, just as the negative examples are found there, as well.
I left D_____, and returned to the Fulbright scholar's house, and imagined what it would be like to alter my memory of the event that occurred six years ago. Maybe there was no attacker, there was no victim, there was no mass of bystanders. There was only fitra and shrouds.
No comments:
Post a Comment