An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (24 page)

According to his son Omar, al-Qaeda’s Osama was an exceptionally cruel father who verbally and physically abused, tormented, and endangered his biological sons. According to Omar, Osama routinely beat his sons with his wooden cane “for the slightest infraction.”

“There were times he became so excited when hitting [us] that his heavy cane broke into two pieces. . . . It was not unusual for the sons of Osama bin Laden to be covered with raised red welts on our backs and legs.”

Bin Laden subjected his sons to long forced marches in the desert but allowed them little water. Although his sons suffered from asthma attacks, he had banned the use of Ventolin, an asthma treatment, because it was a Western medication.

In addition, according to Omar, Osama condemned his sons to “inferior schooling” by teachers who were exceptionally cruel to them, and the other students, who envied and hated the bin Laden sons, constantly threatened each boy with gang rape.

Nevertheless, his son Omar writes that he “still desperately loved his father [ . . .] despite his cruelty.” Eventually Omar and his older brothers realized that life was far more agreeable when their revered father was far, far away.

Many Muslim sons seem programmed to dote upon fathers who are both sadistic and absent and to subsequently gravitate toward similar kinds of male leaders.

Thus, when they were in Afghanistan, Omar was thrilled that his father had allowed him to serve “as his personal tea boy.”

Omar was seventeen when bin Laden took his family to Afghanistan. Omar was eighteen or nineteen when his father stopped him from “washing” the senior bin Laden’s feet. This devastated Omar, who displays a classic ambivalence toward the man who had tormented him. He writes, “Although I hated what he did, what his actions brought to his family, he was still my father. As such, I would never have betrayed him.”

For psychological reasons alone, the overthrow of sadistic tyrants might prove exceptionally difficult among people with histories like Omar’s. On the other hand Omar does ultimately leave his father and, together with his mother, writes a book about him.

Why did he do so? I would guess that the family may have needed to publicly disassociate themselves from the mastermind of 9/11. But I believe Omar wrote this book because he had finally concluded that his love for his father was unrequited. He had nothing left to lose or hope for. Omar writes, “My father hated his enemies more than he loved his sons. That’s the moment that I felt myself the fool for wasting my life one moment longer.”

Nevertheless, after bin Laden’s 2011 execution by American Navy SEALs, his family published a letter in the
New York Times
condemning America for not having arrested Osama and given him a fair trial with a “presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law,” something that had been accorded Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and Serbian president Slobodan Milo
s
ˇ
evi
c
´
.

In their letter Osama’s sons note that one son, Omar, had always condemned their father for his violence but that they all now “condemn the president of the United States for ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.” The bin Laden sons view their father’s execution as a “violation of international law” and have vowed to pursue the matter at the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice.

How did bin Laden treat his wives?

Osama permitted himself the most powerful Western cars, planes, and weaponry, but he did not permit his five wives and children to use “refrigerators, electrical stoves, or the cooling or heating systems.” His wives were forced to cook on “portable gas burners.” His family was
condemned to suffer the heat of Saudi Arabia and Sudan without air-conditioning—just as Mohammed the Prophet once did.

In the heat of summer in my own Manhattan neighborhood, I have seen religious Muslim men walking by in white lightweight Western-style summer clothing, followed by women wearing dark-colored and heavy head and body coverings. Increasingly their faces are shrouded as well.

These are the kind of men who permit themselves the best of both worlds while insisting that their women fly the flag of reactionary Islam on their bodies.

Was Osama cruel to women? Well—yes and no. According to his son Omar, like so many sons of Islamic polygamy, Osama loved his mother, Allia, “more than he loved his sons, his wives or his siblings.” And, from his point of view, he was kind to his five wives—at least so long as they remained sexually available, fertile, modest, friendly toward each other, and religious; followed his relentlessly ascetic set of rules without complaint; and were obedient in all ways.

Polygamous husbands are not necessarily cruel to their wives—
beyond the pain that polygamy itself inflicts. In Kabul I never saw my father-in-law, Ismail Mohammed, berate, mock, or physically abuse his wives, daughters, or daughters-in-law. He treated me with great tenderness. We were women and as such were viewed as naturally, biologically, inferior. Women are not worthy opponents; there is no honor in defeating us.

This makes the savage mistreatment of so many Muslim women at the hands of their male and female relatives something of a paradox as well as a tragedy.

According to Najwa bin Laden and Omar bin Laden, Osama allowed his wives to have little furniture. The wives had “no decorations, not even one picture hanging on the walls.” Osama kept them locked up and isolated. Even when they were alone, just with each other, his wives swam in their dresses in their own private swimming pool.

When Osama relocated to Afghanistan, he expected the wives who accompanied him to endure freezing weather without any heat, to live in squalid huts and cave-like dwellings, to live without access to medical care or a social life of any kind.

According to Omar, Osama viewed the younger jihadists in Afghanistan as eager to kill—but “the quality of their characters appeared questionable.” They had run away from “problems in their home countries. Some had fled to avoid being punished for violent crimes. . . . Others
lived in such severe poverty that they had only eaten meat a few times in their lives. Most could not afford to marry.”

Omar describes how such young men were shown doctored videotapes of “Israeli soldiers gleefully stomping on Palestinian women; Israeli tanks purposely destroying Palestinian homes; Israeli soldiers viciously kicking young Palestinian boys.”

It is a known fact that Palestinians celebrated 9/11 in the streets. The women trilled and gave out candies. The men shot rifles into the air; everyone literally danced for joy.

In the late 1980s or early 1990s the author and filmmaker Saira Shah (yes, the granddaughter of Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah), noted anti-Israel graffiti on the Afghan border. In her riveting book,
The Storyteller’s Daughter,
she writes, “We passed a gigantic military installation. . . . Daubed on its flat surface, a patch of graffiti said, in English, ‘Down with Israel.’ I laughed aloud. What had Israel to do with this conflict? We were witnessing the birthplace of a worldwide Islamic movement. We had just passed one of the military installations sponsored by the CIA, funded by Saudi Arabia and engineered by an idealistic young Islamist firebrand. His name was Osama bin Laden. The volunteers were known to the Afghans as Arabs, although they were actually Islamic radicals from all over the Muslim world.”

W
hen I was in Kabul, I was laughed at for wanting to befriend a dog and for adopting a gentle deer that had been wounded.

“Dogs are dirty, filthy, unclean,” my mother-in-law insisted.

Years later I encountered a Muslim taxi driver in New York City who became dangerously and righteously incensed when a passenger wanted to board with a small dog in tow.

Osama bin Laden was cruel to animals, including pigeons but especially dogs. Omar and his brothers had a pet monkey they doted on. Yet one of their father’s men chased their pet down and then ran over it with a water tanker. Apparently Osama had convinced this follower that the baby monkey was really a “Jewish person.”

I will never forget bin Laden and 9/11. It abruptly brought me back to my time in Afghanistan and reminded me of what I had learned about the difference between freedom and tyranny. It set my feet upon a new path.

Twelve

9/11/11

A
bdul-Kareem’s wife, Kamile, is ill and has been asking to see me. My first free day happens to be the tenth anniversary of 9/11. So I agree to spend the afternoon, ironically or appropriately, with my Afghan relatives.

Kamile can no longer travel, so I make the trip to the suburbs. I have been visiting them in their home for more than a quarter-century.

When I arrive, Kamile and I embrace. Having shared the same husband makes us feel like sisters. We hug, we kiss—these are gestures I do not repeat with Abdul-Kareem.

No one mentions that it is the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks—the day that tore a hole through history. It is as though this event did not happen. It has nothing to do with them. Perhaps, they will not discuss it with
me.

Perhaps it is shameful to them that Muslims attacked America and that the plan was hatched in Afghanistan; as with all things shameful, silence reigns. Or maybe Kamile is too ill and Abdul-Kareem too worn down with worry to focus on anything larger than themselves.

Kamile and I first met in the early 1980s when, unannounced, she rang the bell to my apartment in the midst of a blizzard. I laughed—because, unlike me, Kamile has blond hair and blue eyes, something Abdul-Kareem’s brothers had valued. I liked her straight off. We talked for hours.

“I did not get along with his family. I think they hated me,” she says. “Probably because I worked and remained independent.”

“I don’t think they hated me,” I say. “I was not there long enough to be able to work, but I was a foreigner who could not be tamed. To them I was a liability.”

“His mother was so mean to me.” We say this at the same time. Softly I say, “She was a poor soul, driven mad by her life, but no daughter-in-law should have had to live with her.”

I ask Kamile, “Why have you come alone and on such a dark and stormy night?”

Kamile wants me to stand by her side “for the sake of sisterhood” at an upcoming family gathering.

“We two are independent women, strong in spirit. Please come.”

I arrive at their home. She is used to glamorous parties as a way of life. Abdul-Kareem is her protector, her life. As a mid-life immigrant, who has endured exile from two countries, she has no job, no money of her own, and her English could stand some improvement.

They are having a party that afternoon, and relatives are coming and going. Ismail Mohammed’s third wife, Meena, and some of her children are present. They all hug and greet me with considerable affection. I am touched by their earnest welcome and return their warmth.

We all share having been in Kabul at a more hopeful time, when it was not at war, when the aroma of flowers and the songs of birds filled the air, and servants poured our tea. Even though I was unhappy there, this bond of sorts is unbreakable.

The shop where I get my photos framed is run by an Afghan family. Always, always, the elderly father insists on bringing me the expertly framed works himself. He can count on my greeting him in his native Dari: “
Choob astain? Chitoor astain?
” (Are you well? How are you?)

I offer him tea, he sits, he reminisces, he cannot believe I was actually in Kabul when he was a young man. He is the quintessential Afghan: courteous, courtly, gracious, and sweet. He has chosen to take care of me personally.

At Abdul-Kareem’s family parties everyone gets up and dances—all together. I love this custom. The gathering that Kamile has asked me to attend is so crowded there is no room for all of us to dance. Finally, reluctantly, I leave the people with the warm and shining eyes, each of whom formally embraces me to say good-bye as they continue to drink tea and coffee and munch on nuts and little cakes.

In all the years that I’ve known her, Kamile has smoked nonstop—but in such an elegant way. She is known to take more than a drink or two. No matter. For years Kamile always managed to dress the part of a fashionable woman-about-town—yet as time went by, she left her home less and less and took to wearing the kind of caftans long associated with at-home harem life.

Well, as I’ve noted, I also wear a caftan when I write, and I write at home even though I have a writing studio.

Ma sœur, mon semblable.
My sister, myself.

Despite everything, Kamile has two children who adore her and take care of her, just as they take care of their father. Abdul-Kareem now takes care of her, too, and very tenderly.

T
he three of us sit together in a room overlooking their swimming pool, which is surrounded by plants. Nearby Abdul-Kareem has a small library strewn with newspapers and a computer. They are both tired and worn down today. I actually have to ask for tea. This minor failing is uncharacteristic, unthinkable.

I am here this 9/11/11 on an errand of mercy, not to cross swords, but the heavy purposeful silence about 9/11 is deafening and painful. I should not be surprised—but actually I am stunned and a bit frightened.

“Phyllisjan,” Kamile says, “my daughter was so glad that you introduced her to Seyran Ates.”

Seyran is a Turkish German feminist who was shot and nearly killed for her work on behalf of battered Turkish female immigrants. Her latest book is titled
Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution.
Right after it came out the Berlin police suggested she take a vacation, and she came and stayed with me in New York.

Kamile speaks in heavily accented English. She continues but in a whisper.

“Talk to me about Seyran. Tell
him
”—and here she glances darkly at Abdul-Kareem—“that there are Muslim women in the world who want their freedom.”

Kamile always comes brightly to life whenever I talk about the bravery and charm of Muslim feminists. She leans forward, smiles, and starts to speak—but Abdul-Kareem usually interrupts her and changes the subject. He is not that interested in what his wife might have to say, nor is he interested in what interests her—at least, not when I am there.

She expects me to mount a spirited defense of women’s rights. I do what I can. Reluctantly I begin to tell Abdul-Kareem about some of the work I have done with or in support of Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and dissidents. I express how horrified I am by the state of Afghan women. He responds by attacking American culture and American women.

“Phyllis, my dear,” he begins. “Do you think that American women are happy? Look at them, half-naked, running after men, having to hunt down a husband on their own, they can’t even keep him, they all get divorced. The grandparents live too far away to help with the grandchildren. Why should they bother? Americans throw their old parents out in the cold, just like the Eskimos do.”

He goes on. His family indulges him. No one dares interrupt him. He is the patriarch, and Afghan family rules still apply, even in exile in America.

“Abdul-Kareem,” Kamile ventures, “I want to hear about Phyllis’s work.”

“But I am talking,” he explains.

Kamile tries again.

“Phyllis knows Muslim feminists, from Egypt, Syria, and Turkey.”

Abdul-Kareem continues talking.

Kamile keeps rolling her eyes. She whispers to me, “C’mon, talk to him. Tell him he is wrong.”

Finally Kamile says, “Abdul-Kareem, let Phyllis speak. She knows many Muslim feminists who are unhappy in their countries, who want change. Maybe America is not the paradise for women, but, really, do you think how Turkish or Egyptian brothers treat their sisters is right? They steal their inheritance money and their property and then try to marry them off for more money to horrible men. Is that right?”

I step in as her knight, prepared to do battle for my lady. But I also smile a lot and try to find points of agreement. I even propose toasts.

I raise my tea cup and say, “Here we still are, together and safe. May we all remain healthy for many more years. Here’s to Kamile’s health—and here’s to many more meals together at your dinner table.”

On this day Abdul-Kareem refuses to step around our differences. He launches attacks and refuses to concede a single point. The ceremonially courteous Afghan digs in his heels and dares me to protest. He says, “The so-called Westernization of Muslim women has not really led to their liberation. They dress and drink like whores and call that freedom. They are fools.”

“Abdul-Kareem,” I say, “are you really back to this again? Will Muslim women be free only when they wear face masks or full body coverings? Is it freedom from the West that has you mesmerized? Afghanistan was never conquered by the West, and Afghan Muslim women were never free.”

A
bdul-Kareem is shrewd, worldly, and jovial, but, like many Afghan men, thin-skinned when it comes to criticism. He loves to criticize others, beginning with other Afghans. He easily sees through people and enjoys criticizing them.

Abdul-Kareem praises unreservedly all the important people who have treated
him
as an important person. He praises his private high school and college in America and all his American surgeons and physicians. Other than that, he enjoys delivering scathing criticisms of America, Americans, Afghan leaders, women, and especially feminists. He is sometimes right.

I once took him along with me when a Muslim feminist was delivering a lecture. I had hoped that he would hear her on the issues that I often raised. Afterward his only comment was this: “She is an opportunist who is more interested in money for herself than in helping Muslim women. She will take no risks.”

To my chagrin he turned out to be right.

As assimilated as Abdul-Kareem may be, he is incapable of praising any woman—unless she is an actress, the wife of an important man—or his daughter. Abdul-Kareem is not pro-Taliban. He is in favor of female education and careers. His daughter lives as a free woman and has a career. Yet his blind spots and prejudices about gender apartheid are typical; many other educated Afghan men share his views and his tactics.

In 2007 an Afghan American anthropologist wrote to me. He praised an article I had written about my time in Kabul as the “only objective glimpse we have of upper class urban households in Kabul during the 1960s,” and urged me to “expand your account.” He thanked me for my “keen observations and insights about gender relations”—and then, unasked, began to lecture me about women. He told me that women are most exploited, abused, and demeaned in America and Europe. As proof, he referred to a “growing industry” of shelters for abused women in the West, not in Afghanistan. I saved his emails, but I did not tell him what I thought. I will do so here and now.

I am one of those second-wave feminists who, for the last forty-six years, is on record opposing pornography, trafficking, and prostitution;
bemoaning the vulgar eroticization of women, including female children both in the West and worldwide.

Does this anthropologist really believe that women are not abused and demeaned in Afghanistan and in other Muslim countries? We have at least criminalized domestic violence in the West and have tried to prosecute the perpetrators; we have given some minimal shelter to victims of sexual assault, forced prostitution, and domestic violence.

In Afghanistan, with a few exceptions, girls and women are sent to
jail
when they run away from the most gruesome torture at the hands of their in-laws, husbands, and parents. Their spirits are broken, and many are victims of honor murder long before they can find shelter anywhere in the land.

I might agree with the anthropologist on one issue. The religious commitment to preserve the multigenerational family, which is true of all religions—not only Islam—is a positive and prowoman ideal for traditional women. But this is only an ideal, not a reality, and the price, female-only chastity, obedience, and a lifetime of domestic servitude and multiple pregnancies, is extremely high.

I do not believe that the antidote to Western seminudity is to force women into ambulatory body bags.

I favor modesty for both men and women, and I am aware that the Qur’an does, too. However, the burqa is not merely modest. As I’ve written, it is a sensory deprivation chamber, a moving prison-shroud that renders women socially invisible. Are Muslim men immodest because they do not wear burqas?

W
hen they were young, Abdul-Kareem’s children looked up to me and asked me many charming questions; they hung on my every answer. Now they are in their forties, and both they and the times have changed. I think they are disappointed by my refusal to sufficiently criticize the West and angry that I support Israel’s right to exist. Jameela is suspicious of my research into honor killings and has argued with me about this once or twice.

I love them both. Once, in my home and at dinners in Manhattan, they kept insisting that I visit Istanbul. They told me that it is the best party town in the universe.

At another kind of party I meet three Turks. One is a wealthy Turkish intellectual who was “born a Muslim but is not a believer.” She says, “I am afraid for my husband. We are known as proud Turkish
secularists. My husband is a journalist. He is the type the ‘beards and the scarves’ will come for first. He refuses to consider leaving.”

The other two, Turkish Jews, are grandparents who have already left Turkey. They tell me, “Our children have so many beautiful homes, such an enchanted life, that they do not see the danger coming. It is up to us to establish a beachfront in America. Perhaps one day they will have to run to us.”

All three Turks are worried by the rapid Islamist gains in their country. They wonder whether they, their children, or their grandchildren will be impoverished, imprisoned, or even murdered for their intellectual or religious beliefs.

I cannot think of Istanbul as a party town—at least not at this time and not for me. I could be wrong. I have a colleague who lives there who confirms that the city is still vibrant and wonderful.

Now Kamile whispers to me, “Please find out whether what Abdul-Kareem is saying about Kemal Atatürk and Recep Erdo
g
ˇ
an is true.”

I assume she is talking about Erdo
g
ˇ
an’s increasing acceptance of Islamist fundamentalist values.