Nonetheless, while I now suspect that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia’s entry on altruism is very likely true, and the longer I think about it, the more examples of its truth I can see — French Jesuit missionaries saving Amerindians from their satanic idols, and destroying their societies in the process; American missionaries saving Afghan women from the misogyny of the Taliban, and in the process bringing about a revival of the same warlordism which raped and abducted vast numbers of Afghan women — the passage of years also strengthens my belief in the absolute necessity of encouraging altruistic aspirations all over this earth of ours. What should I have done, with the knowledge, wealth, and health I had? Exactly what I did. My memories of failure haunt and humiliate me, which is all to the good.
7
In the year 2000, on the eve of entering what was then Taliban Afghanistan, I paid a visit to my former host and adopted father, General N., who gets considerable mention in An Afghanistan Picture Show. The old man had grown older; his mind was not quite as focused as it used to be; two digits had been added to the telephone number on the card I’d kept since 1982. He remembered me most joyfully; he welcomed me; I took his hand with love and respect.
When I set out to participate in, and then to write, An Afghanistan Picture Show, I egotistically supposed myself to be the protagonist of that tragicomic do-gooder’s saga. The truth is that the real hero of my book is General N. He sheltered and fed me, clothed me as a Pathan, arranged my safe passage to Afghanistan and back; above all, he reached my mind before it was fully closed. He told me that we were now friends for life, and we were, although we communicated only by letter for most of our friendship, and after a number of years even the letter-writing stopped. I know in my heart that this fine man took me on not because I was an American or because he thought I could do anything or even necessarily learn anything, but because I was one of his many charity cases.
I had at least shown enough forethought to come to Pakistan with a parallel-text Qur’an, which indeed I still have and always bring with me to Muslim countries. Studying the Qur’an with one’s hosts is an excellent way for non-Muslims such as myself to express interest, show sincerity and respect, and gain knowledge of local custom. I used to read the Qur’an with General N., for much the same reason that I used to read Marx, Lenin, and Stalin in Communist countries, and on my return in 2000 it gave both him and me great pleasure when I asked him to explain a certain passage. I learned something about the text, and meanwhile got to look one more time into his mind.
I remember reading the Qur’an with him in the hot summer of 1982, and I remember his lime tree, and his children now all grown and gone; above all I know and believe in the goodness of his otherness. I will probably never be a Muslim. Nor can I be a Pathan. Yet I have a partial sense of what it might be like to be what General N. is. It is so different from what I am, and the fact that my world and his are now at war breaks my heart; but I’ll never give up believing, and trying to help others see, that we and they are brothers and sisters together. Well, so what? Isn’t that obvious? How I wish it were obvious!
As is mentioned in An Afghanistan Picture Show, the general said to me that in order to carry out any project one needs a brain, a heart, and hands. The average brain is perfectly good enough for most worthwhile things, and by definition at least half of you who read this will be above average in this respect.‡ Many of us also have the heart, the desire to do something good. (I think I was once purehearted.) The hands are another matter. By “hands,” General N. meant “capability.” What are you good at? More practically, what are you good at that you have the resources to accomplish? Can you paint a mural of goodness and truth before you’ve found the right wall? The terrifying issues related to September eleventh will not resolve themselves in our lifetimes. It is up to each of us to do whatever he or she can to understand the grievances of others and, to the extent that we can lovingly and legitimately do so, to help them be satisfied. This defines not only our obligation as decent human beings, but our self-interest as terrorist targets.
W.T.V. (2013)
* Part of this essay is taken from a lecture I gave to the student body of Deep Springs College in 2002. Much is revised from the introduction I wrote to the German edition in 2003. Some is unique to this edition.
† See my essay Rising Up and Rising Down (around 3,500 pages), which contains, among other things, sections on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Taliban Afghanistan.
‡ I steal a line here from my late father, a retired professor, who used to address his first class of business students each year as follows, in order to encourage due diligence on their part: “Half of you gentlemen are below average.”
ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE REVISION
Ten years ago, when Soviet troops were airlifted to Kabul, the radio spoke in shocked tones. This afternoon it seemed to me somewhat reconciled, for the invaders were now called “government spokesmen,” and the Afghans had become “Muslim extremists.” As for me, during this decade I have thought much on Afghanistan and accomplished nothing; and so the Young Man has become the Thirty Years’ Bore. This work for its part has been similarly revised, ossified and prissified. I hope that it is still honest nonetheless. And I pray that this record of my failures may somehow in its negative way help somebody.
W.T.V. (1989)
PREFACE
We are all disposed to live in comfort; and when some people shun the chilly slopes of Lofty Principle, preferring to watch those beneath them from the comfortable plateau of High Dudgeon, we had best forgive; we may not be able to shove them off, as they will have fortified their camp. Their opinion of us is very important, of course: —in metaphors like this one we are all, for some never explained reason, trying hard to work our way up the mountain; and as they have mined all the lower passes, we must be civil and request their escort. I myself, like many a milksop before, chose the path of altruism, on whose more fatiguing switchbacks one may encounter starving children, and lean one’s weight on their little heads in the guise of patting them. The question for me was whom to aid; for I could see the sun shining on the rifle sights of the folks whose opinion of me was of so much consequence. It was not that any of them was particular to excess; in fact, they were a very tolerant lot, believing in democracy, so that they generously allowed among their number many with whom they fought to the death; and thanks to this admirable diversity of view one could never be sure who was currently at the rifle sight. I recollected that the contingent which controlled this one pass was devoutly anti-Soviet (according to latest report), which meant that every Afghan I assisted would make me look so much better than I was; and who knew? — I might even be able to help somebody. I would write a book, I would; that was always safe.