From Waziristan to Washington
By Melody Fox
Berkeley Center
Georgetown University
Tribal elders and Dr Akbar Ahmed as a CSP officer in Waziristan (left). Dr Ahmed meets the Queen of England (right)
Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.
- Rumi
On Monday night, March 23, 2009 at Washington DC's Theater J, Dr. Akbar Ahmed launched his new play, From Waziristan to Washington: A Muslim at the Crossroads. The play, written and performed by Dr. Ahmed and directed by Stephen Stern and John Milewski, was a one-man piece of multimedia showmanship that took the audience on a journey framed by the motif of a pair of converging railroad tracks.
Meeting Lady Diana (left). Dr Akbar Ahmed is seen lecturing Princess Diana on Islam (right)
The black and white image of the tracks opened the play as Dr. Ahmed took the sparsely decorated stage, and carried the audience back in time to 1947 and the Partition of India. He recalled - with a mixture of still-felt terror, bewilderment, and admiration - how his usually gentle and distinguished father protected his family with a revolver, albeit unloaded, on a train headed to Pakistan that narrowly escaped the ravages of communal slaughter.
Ahmed's recounting of how his young, idyllic world was torn apart reverberated from where he stood at a solitary podium into the audience. The filled-to-capacity audience felt tense with the memory of a shared tragedy on many levels. One felt a collective remembrance and shudder for the Holocaust, where trains also carried innocents to their deaths. One also felt an introspective memory of the first time when their own world was torn apart - an event that may not have been as terribly cataclysmic and symbolic as Ahmed's early memory of Partition, but one that is an unavoidably universal experience for all people when the blindfold of childhood is removed.
Princess Diana shows Dr Akbar Ahmed’s book to the media (left). Rabbi Lustig,
Bishop Chane and Dr Akbar Ahmed shortly after September 11 (right)
Moving from the podium, to a simple school-teacher's desk, to standing alone in the center of the stage, Ahmed traced the next phases of his life, supported by evocative pictures, film footage, and words projected on a screen behind him. Some episodes served as larger symbols, and some were the small idiosyncrasies of everyday experience that nonetheless marked and shaped his life. "The House of Compassion" shows the audience Ahmed's stately home in Karachi, which for years functioned as a respite for refugees and symbolized the sheltering embrace of familial and spiritual love for Ahmed.
The audience sees and hears Ahmed as an eager schoolboy at Burn Hall Catholic boarding school, earnest in a blazer and entranced by the comic books and adventures of all young boys. We see him begin to experience the world - he travels to Thailand and encounters Buddhism, and to England for university, where for the first time he feels forced to express his identity as the Other. He begins to grapple with what it means to straddle the divide between East and West, and to search for his place between the two worlds. Poetry pours out of him – he quotes verses from the poem "I, Saracen", written when he was twenty-one years old, which reflects the fiery impetus of youth and the passionate embrace of Muslim history and culture that would define Ahmed from then on.
As a newly-minted PhD in Anthropology, Ahmed joins the Civil Service of Pakistan, and quickly puts his training into life-or-death fieldwork situations among the most notorious tribes and terrain of Pakistan's tribal regions. The audience recognizes the images of rough and ready tribesmen from the media barrage, but is captivated, and jarred, to watch 1970s footage of Ahmed negotiating with tribal leaders in Pashto, denying their requests for guns and promising development programs instead.
Drs Akbar Ahmed and Judea Pearl at William and Mary
In photos, Ahmed matches the tribesmen in simple dress and squatting pose. His stories of the personal danger he placed himself in to connect directly with the hearts and minds of the peoples he was charged to administer cause a sense of disquiet - what happened to this style of hands-on, personalistic, and compassionate governance? Why, as Ahmed asks, do leaders now only drop bombs, instead of focusing on simple gestures that can go much farther: learning a local language, venerating a local custom, or simply refusing to give up in a tough security situation, and conducting oneself with steely resolve, yet honor and compassion as well? Ahmed repeatedly queries history - of Partition, of Pakistan's Civil War, of communal violence, of peoples under siege, of 9/11, of Daniel Pearl's murder - with a simple question: What happened? The question, disembodied, yet pregnant with personal meaning to each viewer, hangs in the air and lingers in the mind long after the play has ended. What happened?
Ahmed's history of Pakistan frames his personal life - the birth of his eldest daughter allowed him potentially life-saving leave from the bloody conflict in Bangladesh; his hand protectively steadies his small son on his first bicycle in Sibi, site of crucial diplomatic work. The images are spectacular – in one, Princess Diana, radiant, clutches his first book on Islam, Discovering Islam, for the paparazzi to capture. Ahmed appears with generals, presidents, and royalty - but to hear him tell it, the encounter that told him he'd "arrived" in the United States was his appearance on Oprah Winfrey's show to talk about "Islam 101". In their photo, Oprah clasps his hand and beams at him. Ahmed finally had gained the needed entree to captivate his detached students' attention in the classroom.
Against the backdrop of Ahmed's vignettes, we see images of the changing world: protests, murders, battles, the destruction of the Twin Towers. Many of the images are familiar, but take on a new and deeper meaning framed by Ahmed's personal experience. The viewer grapples with the implications of seeing certain images in the same work, not directly juxtaposed, yet significant: A woman being buried alive with terror in her eyes. Ahmed's regal wife riding proudly beside him in a carriage en route to visit Queen Elizabeth II. Riotous mobs burning the American flag or Salman Rushdie or Bush in effigy. An image of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and more religious groups praying together at an interfaith service. Twisted corpses littering a street, a woman sobbing over her son's coffin swathed in green. Ahmed and Judea Pearl on stage confronting the murder of his son Daniel. Ahmed mixes poetry of outrage with Rumi's poetry of peace with all.
Ahmed's disarming wit shone throughout the play and provided levity to the serious subjects. He joked about bawdy military culture, venerable leaders, himself. Ahmed's voice, energy, and aura rose and fell in precise calibration throughout the play. One moment he laughed gustily with eyes closed, recalling the taunting of an army mate as if he were at a dinner party, the next he became quiet and downcast, recounting this man's death and the decline and fall of the civil, military, and moral framework of the Pakistan he once held so closely as a treasured ideal. We see his anger and disappointment at the path Pakistan has taken, but feel his steadfast refusal to abandon the dream of Jinnah's "Land of the Pure", built upon the rule of law, justice, human rights and freedom for all.
For Americans, the legacy of the founding fathers is a known but distant ideal, often taken for granted. For Ahmed, Jinnah's legacy is a living, breathing entity that must never be forgotten. The passion of the young man in "I, Saracen" returns to Ahmed, and he becomes illuminated and energetic with the hope of a better, peaceful world.
"Hope" was Ahmed's repertoire of contention before it ever crossed Obama's mind. One wishes that this administration could see this play and learn from Ahmed's wealth of experiences and wisdom that are deeply relevant to the problems of 2009 and beyond. Despite many setbacks, trials, and periods of self-doubt, Ahmed never lost hope that he could give something of himself to better the life and times he found himself part of. He confronted darkness that no one asked him to: he came out of retirement to become a Muslim spokesman after 9/11. He made himself a symbol of forgiveness by confronting Danny Pearl's murder as a Muslim from Karachi. His books, appearances, and work are dedicated to the often enigmatic and thankless task of fostering dialogue and understanding, not schemes of personal enrichment which could have come easily to a man with high position, connections, and intelligence. His ability to remain humble while recounting all this, and to plead for help, is striking. Dressed in a traditional Pakistani vest and shalwar kameez, his presence fills the theater, and yet he is symbolically alone on the stage. It is through the images projected behind him that the audience sees the depth and breadth of Ahmed's inspiration to others: amongst them are luminaries, ordinary people, and family. The images of his family and his subtle yet powerful references to their unending support speak to the crucial role they have played and remind us that no one can achieve anything alone. One of the closing images is of Ahmed's smiling grandson, Ibrahim, whose name aptly symbolizes the Abrahamic focus of Ahmed's faith and work. Leaders do not arise from a vacuum, and the glimpse into his private world is enlightening.
The audience absorbed and responded - after a standing ovation, Ahmed returned to the stage for a panel discussion with the play's directors. One of the audience comments came from a Colonel in the US Army - he had brought his fellow officers to see the play, and mentioned that they had all seen action in Afghanistan and Iraq. No doubt Ahmed's recounting of his time on the ground in Waziristan hit home to these men. The Colonel thanked Ahmed, calling the play a “jewel” and said that they hoped that more people could see the work to learn from it, and that they now believed in and wanted to promote its message of dialogue and understanding. Simple words, but the audience responded immediately with loud applause. The military is not usually in attendance at the Theater J, as the Artistic Director, Ari Roth, noted when he exclaimed that the tickets sold to the Colonel and his men were the best tickets ever sold at the Theater J. An achievement indeed - the challenge of dialogue is reaching and engaging those who don't want to participate or who are not usually included. Ahmed has achieved this throughout his life and continues it daily. His work is far from over - but on Monday night, the feeling was he had gained 200 more supporters to help him.
Comments from attendees:
“The play last night was superb and so were the contents, the presentation and particularly your performance. I suggest that you get a CD of the play made and distribute it at academic institutions and civil and military academies in Pakistan and USA, where everyone should be encouraged to watch it. It is high time that our younger generation and those in the corridors of power learn about how important it is to have dialogues with even your rivals. That’s what our religion as well as our culture teaches us.” ~Dr. Mehtab S. Karim, Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Religion and World Affairs, Pew Forum
“Ma Sha Allah, the play was excellent. Absolutely marvelous! You said all that needs to be said to everyone on all sides. It is a prescription for the ailments of our current world. Thank you for sharing Rumi’s words. I am a student of the students of Rumi. I have been fortunate to visit Konya and actually find myself there.” ~Dr. Saud Anwar, President of the Pakistani American Public Affairs Committee (PAKPAC).
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