My Stepson Has Some Words for Karen Hughes

By Meteor Blades

Fifty months into the Dubyanocchio Administration and it’s finally been decided that America’s global reputation has some dings in it, particularly among Muslims and Arabs. Amazing how decades of support for coups and monstrous autocrats followed by an imperial war and threats of more to come in the heart of the planet’s largest oil reserves can twist people’s perceptions.

As with any difficulty encountered by the Bush crew, this one eventually had to get designated as a task for PR tweaking. Yep. America’s reputation is just an image problem, a marketing fluke. Assigned to straighten this out from her new post as undersecretary for public diplomacy is Karen Hughes, one of the president’s preeminent tweakers.

You’ve got quite a reputation yourself, Ms. Hughes. Indeed, if I were of a cynical twist of mind, I might yawn and ponder the marginal effects of having yet another Bush loyalist from Texas sculpting bullshit for public edification. For today, however, just back from a few delightful days vacationing with my wife, I choose to cast aside my jaded perceptions and assume against all reasonableness and past evidence that you plan to actually listen instead of lecture, hector, justify and excuse.

You really want to know how to improve America’s image in the Arab world, Ms. Hughes? Pay attention to my stepson. Call him Ibrahim, although that isn’t his name.

It’s true, Ibrahim doesn’t have any credentials in Middle Eastern studies. Indeed, since he ought to be an artist but is studying civil engineering instead, college has been tough for him, made more difficult because English is his second language. That is so because - even though he was born in Oregon the same summer Mount St. Helens blew its top - he’s lived almost all but the past three years in Libya, a country whose very mention elicits snarls from many an American, and whose leader all of Ibrahim’s life (and long before) has been Moammar Qadafi, whose very mention would draw a snarl from many a Libyan if dissent weren’t so harshly dealt with.

Ibrahim is not filled with Jeffersonian ideals. That was not what he learned about the United States in his decrepit Libyan classrooms. Not many positive things at all did he hear about America. Rather the opposite, in big doses. Being missed just half a kilometer by a U.S. bomb in the 1986 raid on Tripoli when he was 6 didn’t get rave reviews at home. The embargo either. Yet Ibrahim loved America long before he arrived here. He was well-acquainted with the words that Mr. Bush has spoken quite frequently of late in defense of his foreign policy: Freedom. Democracy.

When I first met him and his sister in 2000 on Malta, one of the ancient world’s earliest east-west crossroads, Ibrahim had primed himself with what he imagined those precious words to mean, plus the music and myth of America as obtained through pirate CDs and the televised action movie. He loved muscle cars. And he had heard that America was the place to get a real education. He was eager to leave Libya behind.

But let him tell the story, Ms. Hughes. He wrote it at the last minute yesterday for his English comp class. This being his first English course that isn’t taught as a second language, I’m sure you’ll ignore any syntactical clumsiness. I also apologize for the length. I know you have a lot to read; those people at the Project for the New American Century being so prolific and all. (Full Disclosure: I’ve corrected some spelling and a few misuses of tense, but every word is Ibrahim’s.)

The Man with No Country

Although I was born in the United States, I lived most of my life in Libya with my father. In Libya, people live under an oppressive government. One of the most widely known stories happened in the early 1980’s. Several university students were taken from their classrooms. They got hanged just tens of meters away from their classes in the campus square. The only thing they had done was not agreeing with the government’s point of view. The executions were shown on the government TV. The students did not have any trial. Their lives did not mean anything to the people who killed them.

After I left the U.S. at age 3, all of my connection with my mother was cut for several reasons. The political situation between Libya and the United States was one of them. I did not hear from my mother for 15 years. I did not even know what she looked like because I did not have a single picture of her. The day in 1998 that my sister and I saw my mother after so long was very emotional for all of us.

My mother was the only American who came to Tripoli with a group of mothers from the United Kingdom whose children were in Libya. The mothers had been unable to see their children because of the political problems between Libya and the West, and family difficulties with the fathers. An arrangement between a Libyan government-controlled organization and a social organization in the United Kingdom allowed the mothers to visit Libya to see their children for two weeks.

The next summer, my mother came by herself. I noticed that I was being followed everywhere I went by two men. Clearly, they were doing their job! I was afraid that one day I might disappear if I said or did something that the government and their not very secret police disliked. I felt their eyes were on me even when I slept.

The summer of 2000 I went with my sister to meet my mother and stepfather in Malta and to get my American passport. There is no American consulate or embassy in Libya. I took my passport back to Tripoli in my shoe. Luckily, I was not searched.

In the summer of 2001 I decided to go with my sister to visit the United States for the first time in 18 years. It was love, sort of, at first sight.

When I came here, I thought that this country was going to be my home. At the Los Angeles airport, I saw people in the line where the sign said “Americans check in here.” Those Americans were of African, Asian, South American and European descent. We were treated equally.

I stayed here for five weeks. I went to see my grandparents in Oregon, and my stepfather’s parents in Colorado. We had a great time at my uncle’s cabin near a beautiful lake in Washington. We went by car down the coast of Washington, Oregon and California. For the first time, I saw the Pacific Ocean and the redwoods. Everything was so beautiful. I saw that people spoke out against the government without fear of being followed or arrested. I felt the freedom in the air. I loved this country so much that I decided to live here permanently. I wanted to be an American, an American-Arab or Arab-American. I did not care which.

I told my mother that I wanted to live with her. She was thrilled to hear that.

I had to take my sister back to Libya, tell my father what I had decided and get my college transcripts. On my way back to Tripoli my mother and stepfather went with us all the way to the gate of the airplane to say goodbye. When I left on September 6th, I was treated like any American. I was so proud of my blue passport.

I remember the night I talked to my father about coming to live in the United States. I saw tears on his face. He told me, “Son, you are a man now and you can make your own decisions.” I remember that night very well because the day after would change my fate forever.

I was having lunch at my friend’s farm when his cousin came running to us. He told us that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York. My first reaction was that it must have been an accident. We went to the TV to see what was going on. I was standing not believing what I was looking at when we saw the other airplane crashing into the second tower. I felt like a bullet went through my heart. I could not stand on my feet. When I went back home, my father asked me whether I still wanted to go to the United States. I was determined to go. I was not afraid.

I came back to the United States two months after September the 11th. Everything was different, like day and night. The United States was at war. This war was with an enemy that the government had little knowledge about. I saw how the airport had transformed from almost a bus station with metal detectors to a chaos of lines and confusion. There were soldiers with guns, just like in Libya. I was asked many questions about my passport and my family and why I was in America. They asked me the same questions several times. All of a sudden, I had become a suspect simply because of the color of my skin, my name and my religion. My blue passport meant nothing to them. Instead of an Arab-American, I was now an Arab-Suspect.

I understood why this was happening. America was attacked. I thought America was right to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. I thought that after the war Arabs and Muslims would not be treated differently. I was wrong.

I have traveled by airplane six times overseas and four times in the U.S. in the past three years. I notice that I am selected in their “random search” every single time before I get into an airplane. I have been “interviewed” several times, once for more than an hour. Not only me. My mother and my stepfather are selected every time they travel as well. Also every time before I leave the package claim area I get pulled aside for another full search. All that treatment because my name is [Ibrahim] and my religion is Islam. It is humiliating to have my freedom in the hands of people who don’t understand my religion or my culture.

The war on Iraq makes everything worse. What happens at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo shames me, but this does not seem to matter very much to other Americans. When I am in the airport now and they search me I wonder if they would torture me. President Bush talks about how bad Iran and Syria are, and I worry we will have more war against Muslims. I think Bush believes in a Crusade, not in freedom and democracy.

September the 11th robbed my right to be like any other American. September the 11th gave the excuse for the government to chew my freedom and my pride. Government policies let airport authorities digest my American citizenship into a name on the “must search list.” September the 11th made the United States act in ways that sometimes makes me ashamed of my blue passport.

I still love America. But I am thinking about moving to another country. I am now worried about my life here. I am worried about what will happen to us if another terror attack happens. Will the government put all of the Arabs or Muslims in camps like what they did to the Japanese in World War II?

You want to improve America’s image overseas, Ms. Hughes? Start on the home front.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

See, the trouble is that the essay from your step-son is real and from the heart. Nothing about Karen Hughes is real.

It's always been a mystery to me as to why Hughes has the rep she does. Bullshit is bullshit whether in texas or DC.

[Mike S]

Sad. A country built on hope yet governed by fear mongering pushes away people who are our best hope for the future. Your son understands what makes this country great but has the misfortune to find that out while it slips away.

[emptypockets]

Please thank him for sharing that with us &, if you would, pass on the suggestion that he submit it to his local paper as an op-ed piece.

[MS]

Thanks to your brave stepson.

I am so sorry that my country's officialdom is doing all this to our citizens and friends.

Please remind your stepson that many of us are with him in spirit, and appreciate how lucky the country is that he has come here to share his energy and his gifts.

Not in my name, please.

[emptywheel]

kagro

Karen has the rep because bullshit works in Texas and DC and most of the states. She has been caught in blatant lies so many times it's not worth counting. But people still accept something she says. Oh, okay Karen.

But the problem with US public diplomacy, as many have pointed out, is that the rest of the world actually does care whether a product lives up to its billing. Much of the rest of the world can sniff BS better than Americans.

Which doesn't bode well for Hughes' little project.

[emptywheel]

Oh, and ditto > pockets' suggestion to submit as an oped. The folks outside of the blogosphere need to hear his story.

[Kagro X]

Eh? Did I do something here, or is mine just the kind of name people like to say to soothe themselves?

[MS]

Thanks to your brave stepson.

I am so sorry that my country's officialdom is doing all this to our citizens and friends.

Please remind your stepson that many of us are with him in spirit, and appreciate how lucky the country is that he has come here to share his energy and his gifts.

Not in my name, please.

[Sandals]

Op-Ed! Op-Ed!

[MollyM]

Op-ed, indeed!!! With a little more polishing, I think it would make a fantastic My Turn in Newsweek (or whatever that page is called).

[Chris Clarke]

Let me add my voice to the groundswell of Op-Edness.

I work with native-speaking English writers every damn day who couldn't pull off the suasion and beautiful economy of language that Ibrahim tossed off in a few minutes before class.

Get this spread around.

[dog mp3 snoop]

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http://reddit.com/user/TEGRETOL_ONLINE/

[bang]

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[John]

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