My Soft-Bellied Ignorance
I’m trying to imagine being an Afghan citizen, whether it is one fleeing my home, packed in a plane with other refugees, or remaining in my country unsure of what is to come—fearful for my safety if I go to school, am a journalist, or lifted a finger to help Americans during their prolonged presence in my motherland.
In my lifetime, I have experienced some things that others have difficulty imagining, but none seems as terrifying as a military takeover. The closest I’ve come was during the 1967 “Detroit Riots” when a strict curfew was enacted in portions of Michigan. I had to be in my home by sundown. But there was no rioting in my town. Had I been Black and living in Detroit, I might have felt ire and terror that would have provided a clue.
It was scarier when the “Ypsilanti Ripper” was on the loose in the late ‘60s, a serial killer who murdered young women—one of whom was a classmate of mine, in class one day, and gone forever the next. Young women were allowed to go out, but not knowing who this monster was or where it might strike, my friends and I would tread cautiously. This went on for two years. The man who was arrested—and later convicted—turned out to live in the same old house as a friend of mine, whose apartment I frequented. The killer resided on the other side of her wall. How close we had come.
I lost a home to Hurricane Katrina. It was flattened. Nothing left but the new porcelain tile floor we had installed a month prior to the storm. But I had a rented home out in a New Mexico teacherage at the time, so I hadn’t lost absolutely everything—like my parents did. They spent the storm inland in an elementary school. Their only remaining possessions were the car, a lawn chair, a couple of pillows, and the clothes they were wearing.
Some people cannot imagine losing everything, believing it would feel like the end of the world. But my parents, who my husband and I brought to New Mexico, were rewarded with something they hadn’t anticipated—a revelation. They discovered that stuff is just stuff. What they really valued—their own lives and their family—was still intact. They were discombobulated for weeks. Maybe months. Had trouble remembering their own birthdates or social security numbers, things they’d repeated by rote thousands of times over. But in the long run, the experience brought them a new appreciation of living.
Visiting the Mississippi coast a couple months after the storm, I saw absolute devastation. People sleeping in tents near the rubble that once was home. Mountains of debris that made the town layout difficult to recognize, let alone maneuver. But people took care of each other—and the enemy had departed. There was a loveliness despite the war zone backdrop.
But if my country had been invaded by militants who believed they knew better than I how I should behave, and I was not allowed to protest for fear of harsh retaliation, my experiences would have done nothing to prepare me. I am a soft-bellied American who has had the privilege of taking many comforts for granted. Like traveling to the store on my own, getting educated, or publishing my opinion in a newspaper.
Perhaps if I’d been on a military mission to Afghanistan, I’d have an idea. But I am in the dark, petrified for the Afghan citizens, especially women. There but for fortune go I.