My Memories Of Aafia In Boston - El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan's Second Commentar
23 December 2010By El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
Assalaamu Alaikum (Geetings of Peace):
Words cannot adequately describe the joy I felt from
reading the moving commentary below, composed by a
brother who knew Dr. Aafia Siddiqui when she was a
student in Boston. This is only the second commentary
of this nature that I've read by someone who actually
knew Aafia back in the day, despite repeated efforts
to secure more. (I know for a fact that there are MANY
still around who knew this committed young sister when
she was a student in Boston!)
Please read Bashir Hanif's moving commentary; and then
read my own humble analysis on why I believe it has
been so difficult to encourage others to do the same –
to just share a little something about the Aafia
Siddiqui they knew (to counter the character
assassination which has come in the wake of her arrest
and [now] seven plus year imprisonment.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/951-my-memories-of-aafia-in-bostonMy
memories of Aafia in Boston
Written by Bashir Hanif
I remember the first time that I met her. It was at a
mosque in one of Boston's most affluent suburbs. The
year was 1993. Muslims all over the US, just like
Muslims throughout the world, had been shocked by the
images of the horrors that were being perpetrated
against their co-religionists in Bosnia. A tiny
religious minority with virtually no ability to
influence policy makers or the media, having seen all
their pleas to save the Muslims of Bosnia fall on deaf
ears, they had decided to focus their efforts on
providing humanitarian relief to the suffering.
Fundraisers were held in every city, town or village
that had even a handful of Muslims. Sometimes these
fundraisers were elaborate affairs with hundreds of
people in the audience listening to the passionate
appeals for generous assistance made by community
leaders and representatives of humanitarian relief
organizations. Often they would be small, impromptu
events where an individual or a small group of
activists would seize the opportunity provided by a
gathering to draw the attention of those gathered to
the suffering of Bosnian Muslims, and solicit help on
behalf of some charitable organization. On that Sunday
morning, it seemed like she had decided to turn a
routine Sunday school gathering at the mosque into a
fundraising opportunity.
What struck me most, and that I still remember, is not
just the passion with which she spoke about the
victims as she reminded everyone about their
obligation to help the suffering. But instead of
relying solely on the generosity of her audience, she
had something very enticing to offer them as a quid
pro quo. She had brought a large assortment of
cookies, brownies, samosas (Indian/Pakistani pastries)
and other delicacies that she had prepared. Now there
is nothing unusual about having a bake sale to help
raise funds for a good cause. But for a young student,
living in a dormitory with minimal kitchen privileges
if any, it must have presented a host of challenges.
Later on, I discovered that this kind of striving to
gain an extra edge while pursing something noble is
one of her defining traits.
For the next couple of years we had several
opportunities to work together, as Muslims of the
Greater Boston area remained very active in the Bosnia
relief effort. I remember a fundraiser in January 1994
where she did far more than give the proverbial shirt
off her back. It was organized as an auction. Weeks
were spent in planning the event and collecting items
that were to be auctioned. Members of the community
donated possessions that they thought could fetch a
significant sum. Local businesses from restaurants to
hotels to ski-resorts pitched in by offering gift
certificates for their services. The New England
Patriots donated a football autographed by all their
players and the Boston Celtics did the same with a
basketball. The Saudi embassy in Washington, DC
offered two expense paid trips for the Hajj. We did
not get much cooperation from the weather, however.
Brutally cold weather is to be expected on a January
evening in Boston. That day we broke all records. It
was not enough to dampen the spirits of those who
gathered for the auction, however.
As a student who neither had the material possessions
to donate for the auction nor the money with which to
bid on the items being auctioned, Aafia decided to
make her contribution to the effort in her own way.
She donated a beautiful fur coat that had been given
to her by her father. Perhaps it was the symbolism of
one of the least affluent persons in the crowd giving
up a cherish possession at a time when she needed it
most (it was nearly fifty degrees below zero
Fahrenheit with the wind-chill outside the hall!),
that moved many people in the audience to make such
generous bids for the coat that it became the highest
ticket item auctioned that evening.
I lost direct contact with her after she graduated
from MIT and moved to one of the more distant suburbs
of Boston. Years later, as i was passing by a shop in
my neighborhood, I saw a picture of her on a "MOST
WANTED" poster. While I did not stop to see the
details more closely, it seemed like she was wanted
along with a number of other individuals on terrorism
related charges. Shortly thereafter, her pictures
began appearing in newspapers and on television.
Months later, someone brought to my attention a letter
to the editor published in the Pakistani newspaper,
Dawn, written by Aafia's uncle. According to that
letter, Aafia and her three children had been missing
for several months. Her family had no information
about their whereabouts but suspected the hand of the
Pakistani intelligence acting in concert with their
American counterparts.
Later, especially after pictures of the treatment of
Abu Ghraib prisoners were released amid reports that
the even more outrageous ones, involving treatment of
women prisoners, were being suppressed out of concern
for their inflammatory impact on Muslim sentiment
worldwide, I thought about her many times. The thought
that Pakistani authorities may be familiar with the
conditions of her incarceration or might even be the
ones actually holding her, offered little reassurance.
After all, was it not the Syrians, the self-proclaimed
champion of Arab nationalism, and leader of Arab and
Muslim resistance to western and Zionist hegemony in
the Middle East, who had brutalized one of their own,
Maher Arar, at the behest of his Western accusers even
without a shred of evidence against him?
Finally, in 2008, she resurfaced but as a prisoner of
the US accused of attacking American soldiers during
an interrogation in Afghanistan. Such has been the
chilling effect of the suspicion with which Muslims
are viewed in post 9/11 America, at least in matters
related to national security, that hardly anyone from
the Boston area even acknowledged knowing her, let
alone speaking out in her defense.
At the conclusion of her trial as she was sentenced to
86 years in prison, in effect a life sentence, I could
not help but to think about another young woman who
became somewhat familiar during the Abu Ghraib
scandal. Many will recall seeing her picture with a
"thumbs-up" gesture and a big smile beaming across her
face as she stood in front of the plastic enwrapped
body of a dead Iraqi prisoner. It was reported that
the prisoner had just been tortured to death by US
soldiers and yet there was no trace of remorse on the
woman's face. For her deeds, all that this woman
suffered was a few weeks in jail. Even if we are to
believe the charges brought against Aafia in their
entirety, do her crimes even remotely approach what
this other woman did? And of the society where this
system of injustice goes virtually unchallenged? Or,
was the long sentence inevitable because of what Aafia
has been through during the years of her
disappearance? Is keeping her in jail for the rest of
her life the equivalent of suppressing the pictures of
Muslim women prisoners being abused?
Perhaps, it is our leaders and their collaborators in
the Muslim world who have lost their freedom to do the
right things for as long as they are engaged in this
Global War on Terror.
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