To Be Oneself: The Tragicomedy of an Unfinished Life History Volume 2

By Abdallah Nacereddine

This autobiography gives a detailed account of his childhood in a primitive society and the conditions prevailing during the Franco-Algerian conflict and its aftermath. The book describes his search for a place to settle and his quest to find a niche in society and his chosen profession, tracing his philosophical and psychological course through life. It portrays life in the Muslim community in the USA, the author's relationships with people of all walks of life and origins, and his teaching experiences in an international, multicultural context.

Widely read in world philosophy and religions, and psychology, Abdallah Nacereddine provides a penetrating insight into human nature the world over, with the accounts of his experiences from philosophical and psychological points of view and his comments on the international events in which he was caught up.

His life history is sometimes sad, often funny, but, above all, thought provoking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 13, 2008
• ISBN: 9781467801614

Abdallah Nacereddine

Born in the remote mountains of Algeria, Abdallah Nacereddine knew only a regional dialect of Berber until he was thirteen, although he learned the Koran by heart in Arabic. He left home to attend French primary school in the nearest village and subsequently studied Arabic and Islamic Jurisprudence in the city of Constantine. He taught himself English by reading the Bible and books on philosophy and world religions. Adopting the world as his homeland, he embarked on years of travel and lived in such countries as Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, France, Germany, America and Japan. He eventually settled in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1976, and taught Arabic at the United Nations until his retirement in 1999. The author of numerous Arabic language textbooks, his philosophical writings include Reflections/Réflexions, published by AuthorHouse in 2004. Cover photo: Tuscan sky, Felicity Nacereddine, 2012

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AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2008 Abdallah Nacereddine. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 7/30/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4259-9950-6 (sc)

ISBN: 9781467801614 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008901907

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

CHAPTER 30

Washington, DC, USA

(July 1972 - December 1973)

CHAPTER 31

Los Angeles comes to Washington, DC, USA

(December 1972 - December 1973)

CHAPTER 32

Los Angeles, CA, USA (2)

(December 1973 - December 1974)

CHAPTER 33

Geneva, Switzerland (2)

(January - September 1975)

CHAPTER 34

Monterey, CA, USA

(September 1975 - June 1976)

CHAPTER 35

Los Angeles comes to Geneva

(December 1977 - December 1981)

CHAPTER 36

The United Nations as Idea and Ideal

(September 1976 - March 1999)

CHAPTER 37

The United Nations: Interactions with Students, Other UN Staff, the International Organizations, and the Diplomatic Missions

CHAPTER 38

The United Nations: Publishing Activities

CHAPTER 39

The United Nations: the Last Days and the Aftermath

CHAPTER 40

Other Teaching Activities in Geneva

(1976 - 1992)

CHAPTER 41

A Trip to Asia

(April 1988)

CHAPTER 42

Damascus, Syria

(January 2001)

CHAPTER 43

Medina, Saudi Arabia

(November 2001)

CHAPTER 44

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

(November 2001 and May 2002)

CHAPTER 45

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

(May 2002)

CHAPTER 46

Worcester, MA, USA

(September - November 2006)

CHAPTER 47

Family Relationships

(Recent Years)

CHAPTER 48

Interpersonal Relationships

CHAPTER 49

International Relations

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER 30

Washington, DC, USA

(July 1972 - December 1973)

On my way back to California, I stopped to visit my friend, the director of the Islamic Center in Washington, DC, and his family. Because I had no job, he suggested I come to Washington to work with him again, like I had in New York City, where we made a good team together. In addition, by that time, we had become very good friends. That was in April 1972. I had to go back to California. I do not know why I waited so long, but it was only in July that I decided to go to Washington. The first thing I did on my arrival in Washington was to look for a place to live. I easily found a room in a building near Dupont Circle, not very far from the Islamic Center. It was very hot, day and night. The room was just like a furnace. I could not stand it for even five minutes. I went right away to the Center and decided to live there in the office where I worked. It was very nice and cool thanks to the air conditioning. I was happy. I slept soundly every night on the floor with no bedlinen, nothing. Everybody envied me because of my simple way of life. In addition to the director and his family, I knew one staff member who had been working at the Center in New York. All the other employees were new to me, but I became acquainted with them quickly. Altogether, including guides, there were nine or ten men. There was only one woman at that time. She was the accountant.

I maintained a happy relationship with everyone. I started my work as secretary of the Center. I had my office next to the accountant’s. She was also in charge of selling books and some other religious articles she had in her office. She was older than I was, not fat but a little overweight. I was always moving around when I was not typing or answering the telephone. Whenever she was ready to get up to reach out for something, out of respect for her, if I was up and nearby, I asked her just to sit still and said I would get the thing for her. She certainly appreciated it. But it never dawned on me what she was imagining in her mind, until one day. I was not doing anything, just sitting at my desk in my office quietly. I might have been reading a book, I guess. Then I heard someone in the accountant’s office asking her for a book. The next thing, to my astonishment, I heard our lady calling me to go to her office, take the book from the self and hand it to the customer. I was furious inside. I did not show it, of course. I kept very quiet. I just could not believe my ears, but I understood what had happened. Because I was courteous and kind to her, the poor, naive lady thought I was her office boy. She called me again and again. Each time she raised her voice in an ordering tone. There was no reaction from me. Still I kept quiet. The customer was waiting. The director and his two assistants heard her calling louder and louder. Nothing came of it. She became threatening. She mumbled something about firing me. When she finally came to her senses and realized that she was simply making a fool of herself, she became very embarrassed. All she had to do was get up and fetch the book herself. She was certainly very mad and frustrated. But, in the final analysis, she understood and realized that she had it all wrong. That is just the way some people are: if you are hostile or indifferent to them, they think that you are no good, selfish, or you are mean. If you are good to them, they think that you are servile, they own you, or you are their slave, until they learn the hard way that they were wrong and that other people are not the way they imagined them to be. That event did not undermine our relationship; it strengthened it on a basis of mutual respect and understanding. We just forgot about what had happened and went on with our work as usual.

* * *

This is how I can describe my daily life in Washington, DC. I do not know why, I had never done it before, but I happened to keep a copy of one of the letters I wrote to my adopted mother in California. I find the account very vivid, describing my daily life as it was lived at that very moment, not relating something of the past. That is why I reproduce it as it was:

I wake up usually every day at 7:30 a.m. By the time I get up, shave, have a shower, dress up, and put everything in order, it is 8:30. Then I go for a half-hour walk. At 9:00 a.m., after having a cup of tea for my breakfast, I start work. It consists of typing, filing, answering the telephone, and so on, at a stretch, till 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. Afterwards, I go to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread and 1/8 of a gallon of milk for my dinner, which I always have in the park under a tree. Note that this is my only meal, since I have neither breakfast, apart from a cup of tea, nor lunch. Very often I share my meal with guests: pigeons and other birds. All I spend each day is 56 cents for bread and milk, including tax. Lately, as I was promoted and received an increase in my salary, I raised my budget to 60 cents a day. After I finish my dinner, I go home. I mean I return to the office because, as you know, I have no home. You see, I spend all my time in the office: day and night, seven days a week—not because I work day and night, since office hours are only from nine to four, Monday through Friday, but because I simply have nowhere else to go. I do not complain at all. I am very contented for now. My situation could be worse, you know. I have no friends here at all for the time being. I do not want to make any. I want to have peace and quiet.

* * *

What I found interesting in the Islamic Center in Washington was the flow of visitors we had daily. We had to have regular guides for that purpose. There were large non-Muslim groups mostly from out of town. They were all very eager to know about the Muslim faith and culture. It was really very impressive. I often visited Washington Cathedral, located not very far away. I even happened to borrow a book from its library: The History of the Arabs, by Philip Hitti. I never saw any Muslims visiting there, for example, or encountered any elsewhere, showing an interest in Christianity or any other religion. Apart from rituals and religious ceremonies, the majority of Muslims are totally ignorant even of their own faith. How can one expect them to know about other religions? I did not interact much with the visitors, but I still had some interesting personal contacts.

One day a non-Muslim American lady came to visit the mosque. She asked me, I am Christian. I would like to visit the mosque. I understand I must enter barefoot. What about wearing something on my head. Will a hat be all right? Should I wear a veil? Perhaps a scarf would be better? She was somehow bargaining. I answered,

Whether you wear or not a veil,

That, I tell you, is of no avail.

For what matters, my dear lady,

Is not what you wear on your head,

But what you bear in your heart.

Thirty years later, in 2003, with these five lines as a base, I kept adding to the poem. It is now at this very moment over three hundred lines.

As I was talking with the lady, the assistant director heard me. He rushed out from his office. He was very angry with me. He addressed the lady, Don’t pay attention to him, pointing to me. He is talking nonsense. I am in charge here, not him. If you wish, madame, to enter into the mosque, you have to cover your head. Period.

As I have already mentioned, it was very interesting to see so many non-Muslims visiting the Islamic Center, in groups or individually. They were not only interested in the Islamic architecture of the building but also in Islamic faith and civilization. Some of them, after they had had their guided tour, stopped by the library and the bookstore to purchase the Holy Koran and other books on Islam, and asked questions in relation to the religion of Islam, etc. There were also many conversions to Islam, mainly by Christian girls married to Muslim boys, when they came for the religious marriage ceremony.

The visitors were mostly educated people, clergymen as well as laymen. From time to time, there were groups who also showed interest in participating as observers in the Friday services, which are the equivalent to the Christian Sunday mass, so they could hear the sermon, followed by the prayer. That was very much appreciated by the Center. A special corner in the mosque was reserved for such groups, where they just sat and listened quietly without being required to do anything. I thought it was very nice of both parties: the groups, whatever their religion, who showed interest in the Islamic faith—in other words, in another religion, cult, and culture—and the members of the Muslim congregation who accepted them wholeheartedly to fulfill their wish.

One day, there was a large group of visitors sitting as usual in their special corner to observe the Friday services. They were all white people. I was sitting with the congregation, listening to the sermon. The mosque was full of people. Everyone was quiet, sitting still and listening attentively to the sermon. All of a sudden, one man, sitting far away from me, stood up. Everyone I guess wondered why he had stood up and where he was going. They may have thought he just wanted perhaps, for some reason or for no reason at all, to change his seat. He had noticed me from where he was sitting and came straight towards me. I was the only blond person. He did not sit down. He just bowed down. Then he looked at me angrily and started to whisper to me, not noticing that he was disturbing everyone around. I did not understand at the beginning what exactly he wanted from me. All I knew was that he was angry—very mad—at me.

I asked him, What is the matter? He said, You are sitting in the wrong place. I inquired, Where should I be sitting in your point of view? He said, You are a tourist; therefore, you should be sitting over there, he said, pointing with his finger, with that group of tourists.

That was the label he gave the people of the visiting group. I thought it was not worthwhile to give him the reason I was sitting there. Just to tease him, I asked him, Why do you think that I am a tourist? Do I look like a tourist? Do I behave like a tourist? Do I smell like a tourist?

I noticed from his facial expression that he was getting madder and madder. He was frustrated and disgusted. All he could do was to return to his seat disappointed, unable to achieve what he wanted. In addition, he was ridiculed.

I had been attending the Friday services for months, ever since I had been working at the Center. But it was the first time such a thing happened to me. It was the first time that man had come to the mosque. I learned later that he was from an Arab country. Most of the people who came to the mosque regularly knew me. But even those who did not know me had never paid attention to me or made any remark to me before. I think what was going on in the head of that man was that he was sitting in a big hall where there were two groups of people: one white and the other dark, sitting apart from one another. When he saw me as a white person (I happen to be blond, even though I am originally from North Africa) among more or less dark people, he thought I was out of place, and that I should immediately join the other white group to which I belonged, in his point of view. Had he seen a dark man among the group of white people, would he have asked him to join the other group? I wonder. What I could not understand was his not realizing that, if I were an intruder, the whole congregation would have reacted and thrown me out before he did anything himself. If nobody said anything, that meant I was accepted as one of them, whatever the color of my skin. After all, Islam is a universal religion, just as Christianity is.

Finally the man understood. After the service, I went back to work. Shortly afterwards, he came to the office. Just as he entered, he saw me with the director, who was, in addition, the Imam who delivered the Friday sermon and led the prayers. I was speaking with him in Arabic. The man was embarrassed. He came to me, greeted me, and apologized, speaking in Arabic, for his behavior in the mosque. Politely, I said, Never mind. It was all right. Just forget about everything as if nothing happened.

There was a mixture of all kinds of people who came daily to visit the Center. Many of them, even among the educated, knew nothing about the Muslim faith or about Arab culture and civilization. Yet they were not embarrassed to ask all kinds of questions. That was what I appreciated about them. They sincerely wanted to know. For example, one man asked me, Is this Mecca?

I replied to him nicely, explaining to him as if he was a little child, while at the same time treating him with the respect due to an adult, Mecca is the name of a city, like Jerusalem, Rome, etc. But this is called a mosque, which is like a church for the Christians or a synagogue for the Jews.

That was the tactful way I should have answered. To tell the truth, that was not at all the way I answered him. Unfortunately, I replied to him sarcastically, This is not Mecca; this is Jerusalem! I was not gross, of course, but, by the way he reacted, it was as if I had ended my remark with, You stupid person. Vexed or not, he surprisingly answered back, But Jerusalem is a city.

I said, That is right. Just as Jerusalem is a city, Mecca is also a city. But this is called a mosque. I do not know if he noticed my rudeness, since he was courteous with me. I admit he was more refined than I was. I was a grown man, but I behaved like a naughty child.

We all know that good manners are taught by our parents and learned from childhood, such as how to behave with and speak to people, etc. In my case, I never had such luck to be taught anything by my parents, who were never around. I lived like a wild cat, or as a feral child, not with wolves but among sheep. I am not justifying my misconduct; I am only explaining the way I was in those days. It was in 1972 or 1973. I was then thirty-four years old. Still, at that age, in the midst of the capital city of a modern and civilized country, I was behaving as if I was still a primitive living in the remote mountains of Algeria.

I had been always teaching at some time or another, since I was a boy. Yet I was not a real teacher in those days. I still had much to learn before I became a real teacher a few years later, when I started teaching at the United Nations. I certainly made many mistakes. But I was aware of them, unfortunately sometimes very long afterwards, and sometimes right after I had made them. I am glad I always ended up, sooner or later, becoming aware and conscious of my mistakes. It is better late than never, in any case. Thus, I tried as best I could, not to make the same mistake twice. In order to avoid making mistakes for the first time or doing the same mistakes again and again, before I said something, if possible, I tried it first on myself to see how it sounded and then acted accordingly.

A lady asked me one day, Is Gibran Khalil Gibran the prophet of the Arabs? Of course, I did not ask her, Where did you get that idea from? because I knew she had simply read the very well known book, The Prophet, by Gibran. I replied right away, "That would make, one, Gibran the founder of the religion of Islam; two, his book, The Prophet, the holy book called the Koran; and three, Islam a religion of the twentieth century. That would be the conclusion of your belief, I guess. Am I not right? But that is not the case at all. I will explain it all to you: First Gibran was for sure an Arab, but he was not even a Muslim. He was a Christian, born in Lebanon in 1883, and he died in New York in 1931. He wrote a book entitled The Prophet. But, he himself was no prophet. He was a poet, a writer, and also a painter. With regard to the prophet of the Arabs, the founder of the religion of Islam, his name was Mohammed. He was born in Mecca in 570 and died in Medina. The two cities are located in what is now called Saudi Arabia. His book was the Holy Koran." I showed it to her. She was very satisfied. She not only was not embarrassed to ask what one may think was a silly question; she was glad she did and was proud of herself to have learned something new.

I really admired such people who, because of being eager to know, asked just any question that came to their minds. This is how they learned many things and became very knowledgeable. For them, no question that led to knowledge was a stupid one. The only stupid people are the ignorant who never or seldom ask questions, thinking that they know everything, or those who are ashamed to ask questions. Some people call themselves teachers, like myself. However, no teacher is a teacher one hundred percent. One is partly a teacher and partly a student because, while one is teaching, one also learns from one’s students. Likewise, those who call themselves students are not one hundred percent students, because while they are learning, they have things to teach their teachers. In fact, even without working as teachers and without going to school, just by asking and answering questions, in some situations we all find ourselves learning and giving lessons everywhere and all the time.

* * *

As we were selling all kinds of little articles, such as compasses that indicated the direction of Mecca for prayers, perfumes, etc. A visitor—he was a clergyman—looked at a small bottle of perfume and asked me, Is this holy water? I was shocked. Without thinking of the courteous way to answer him in order not to shock and offend him in return, I told him straight to his face, There is no such thing as holy water. There is either clean water or dirty or polluted water. But this is only perfume. I do not know if he was convinced by my answer or not. But he did not say anything. He was too polite. He could have challenged me. What I had just expressed was my own point of view. In that church minister’s point of view, I was wrong. Holy or sacred water does exist for Christians and Muslims as well as for Hindus. There are the sacred waters of the grotto in Lourdes, in France, for Christians, the sacred water of Zemzem, the name of a well in Mecca, and the sacred waters of the river Ganges in India.

In any case, whatever my belief, I reacted the wrong way, I regret. I should have simply answered, That is perfume. He was only asking me a question. He was not asking me to teach him a lesson. But in those days I seemed to be teaching people lessons all the time. Fortunately, I learned a lot from my own lessons. Later on, I became a real teacher for many years. But outside of my classroom, I had nothing to teach anybody.

* * *

Mustapha was in charge of the cleaning of the Center and was helped by another young man. Mustapha means chosen, selected. Al-Mustapha is also an epithet of the Prophet Mohammed. He was a Turkish middle-aged man. All his large family—his wife and children—lived in Turkey. He occupied a little room in the basement. He lived alone, but he was not lonely. He had no radio, no television, no telephone, no books, and no magazines. I have never seen him read. He could be illiterate. He did not need any of that. He always had people around him from his country visiting him. Apart from a few words, he knew no English. He did not need it either. He had no use for English for his cleaning work. As for communicating, he only had to deal with his people, with whom he spoke Turkish.

He had a big heart. In spite of having to save money to help his family, he was very generous with his guests. Some members of the congregation complained about his friends coming to see him, without bothering to go to the mosque for prayers. I explained to them, The aim of their visit is to meet not God but Mustapha. Being Mustapha’s friends, I am sure they are good Muslims and very religious people. Therefore, they surely came on other occasions to the mosque, especially for prayers. Furthermore, because of God being omnipresent, they could meet him anywhere, whereas they could meet Mustapha nowhere except in the Center, since he seldom went out except for doing his errands.

One day he received a check for his wife. I guess it was an allowance from some governmental agency. He did not know what to do with it. He could cash it, but it had first to be endorsed by his wife, who was living in Turkey. Then the accountant of the Center, an Egyptian lady, suggested signing it for his wife. It was obvious she did not warn him not to say anything to the teller upon cashing the check. He asked me to accompany him to the bank. When he submitted the check to the teller, he told her right away in his broken English that it was not his wife who had signed the check, as she was living in Turkey, but the accountant of the Islamic Center who had signed it for her. As he did not speak English, I helped him a little. I was sure he was not going to have his check cashed, but in his point of view that had been the right thing to do. After the tellers had discussed and deliberated together and with the manager, they decided after all to cash the check. Legally that was not permitted. But, seeing how sincere and honest he was, they were sure he would hand the money over to his wife, confessing to her probably that someone had signed for her.

On our way back to the Center, on Massachusetts Avenue, we were approached by a nun. She was asking for money. She explained to us that she was collecting it for some charitable society to help the poor. She did not ask me. She asked Mustapha. Perhaps she thought we were a family, a father and son. Without hesitation, he took some money from his pocket and handed it over to her. I thought that was extremely nice of him. I certainly did not doubt his goodness or his generosity. But I was somehow surprised by his indiscrimination.

To make sure of his true feelings, I wanted to test him. As we went on our way, I asked him, Do you realize what you have just done? You gave money to that nun who was a Christian as charity, probably for her own Christian people.

He replied, It does not make any difference. She was collecting money for the needy. And those poor people are human beings just like us. Therefore, they need our help, whatever their religion.

Mustapha had a young man to help him in his task. This young man’s main function was as reciter of the Koran at Friday services and other Islamic celebrations. He was also the muezzin, the announcer of the hour of prayer. The call to prayer is usually done, as everybody knows, from the minaret. But instead it was performed inside the mosque. It is true that the Washington mosque has a very beautiful minaret with a normal height, as in any other Muslim country. Nobody objected to it, whereas in Geneva, Switzerland, when permission was given for the building of the mosque, the local authorities required that the minaret must not be higher than the surrounding buildings. As there are no skyscrapers in Geneva, especially in that residential area where the mosque is to be found, the buildings around were only a few stories high; therefore, the minaret had to be low. One can hardly notice it.

The idea of building a mosque in Washington, DC, goes back to 1945. But the building was finished only in 1956. It was inaugurated by the then President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Its minaret is indeed very beautiful. However, it does not serve the purpose it was built for, as it was impossible to make a call to prayer from it. The first day when the mosque was opened for services, the first call to prayer was attempted at dawn for the early-morning prayer. But the sleeping residents of the neighborhood who were disturbed and awoken by the call that morning protested and ordered that it must never be repeated again. The call to prayer was useless anyway because the Muslims it was destined for were unable to hear it. They were all living very far from the mosque, in the city of Washington, or tens of miles away in Maryland or Virginia. In Geneva, the city of John Calvin (1509–1564, a leader of the Protestant Reformation), the Muslims not only did not attempt to make the call to prayer from the minaret; they were not even allowed to dream of such a thing. If it had been in the times of Calvin, the mosque would have never been built in the first place. That would have been blasphemy.

I did not have any outside contacts apart from some interaction with the visitors and my colleagues at work. While I maintained a happy relationship with everyone, I did not socialize with anyone, and made no friends. In other words, I was friendly but without making any friends, just as advised by Buddha, who is reported to have said, Don’t make friends, because that is the first step towards making enemies. He said, Be friendly; don’t make friends. If you make friends you have already taken the first step; now it is not very far from when you will make enemies.¹ I came across this quotation recently, because it was highlighted by another writer. I may have been acquainted with the saying, since I have read several books on Buddhism, but I do not remember. Whether I was influenced by it or not, this is the attitude I have always adopted since childhood: in school, in the army, at the university, at work. All my life I had many acquaintances but only very few real friends scattered all over the world.

In Washington, as was the case elsewhere, I spent my time outside work reading or going for long strolls, which I called walking meditations. What I wanted, when I started my work as a secretary, was to be able to teach. But there was no possibility to fulfill my wish even at the Center where Arabic was taught by another person, who had been there for years.

Happily, one day I received a phone call from the Algerian embassy. I was asked if the Center could provide an Arabic teacher for the embassy for a few hours a week. I said, I am an Algerian native myself, and I could do the job. The person calling did not take me seriously. He said to me with some aggressiveness in the tone of his voice (which was unlike a diplomat), Yes, but we need someone to teach our staff not the Koran but contemporary classical Arabic. I did not ask him, What do you mean by that? You do not know me. How can you tell in advance that I am not the man you are looking for? because I knew very well the reason when he made such a remark. In occupied Algeria there were not many people who knew classical Arabic very well compared to people who knew the Koran, as the mosques for the teaching of the holy book were spread all over the country.

For this reason, I was not offended by his undiplomatic way of dealing with me. Instead, I gently and with diplomacy replied, Yes, I understand, but in addition to knowing the Koran by heart, I also know classical Arabic very well. I studied at the Ben Badis Institute. As soon as I mentioned the name of that very renowned Arabic school, his attitude changed completely toward me. He became more positive and was very pleased to find the right person without searching too hard.

He said right away, You are hired. When can we see you?

I replied, Today. As I did not have any diploma, they still insisted upon giving me a small test, which I passed easily.

I started my Arabic classes at the embassy right away, for a few hours a week, after my work at the Islamic Center. They were so pleased with my performance that they wanted me to work full time for the embassy, entrusting me with some administrative tasks in addition to Arabic classes. I was not really very enthusiastic about it, since I already had a job at the Center, even though it was not my ideal job. From experience, I did not expect that the work at the embassy would be any better, as I had already worked before in three diplomatic missions on three continents: Africa, Europe, and Asia. I worked at the Algerian embassy in Cairo, in the Algerian consulate in Paris, and at the delegation of the League of Arab States in Tokyo. It was not the same work, but somehow I had an idea what I would be getting into. Yet, as usual, I was curious to see what they had to offer me.

The ambassador wanted to discuss the matter with me personally in the presence of other embassy staff members. When I found out that I was offered the same salary for more or less the same type of work, I remarked to him, What would be the point in changing just for the sake of changing, if there is no advancement?

He added, But we are grateful to you and would appreciate you more.

I thanked him for his praise, but I said to him, I forgot to mention one more advantage I have in my present work. That was an already established rule when I was working at the Islamic Center in New York with the same director. Anytime during working hours, when I feel like going out to have some fresh air, I drop everything and go for a walk for an hour or half an hour or so.

He said, That is something we, unfortunately, cannot grant you here. Even myself, as ambassador and chief of this embassy, I am not allowed to do such a thing.

I said, In that case, working with you here full-time would be out of the question.

He replied, I understand your point of view. Then we would be most pleased just to have you as an Arabic teacher as usual.

* * *

As I already have pointed out, apart from the little incident I had with the Egyptian lady accountant, I maintained a happy and harmonious relationship with everyone, including her. But I had no friends among them and exchanged no ideas with them, only greetings. I spent a lot of time reading, not only outside working hours, but even during working hours, when I had nothing to do, whereas they never read. All they did was chew gum. I mean they read the Koran over and over, every day, without even thinking of what they were reading. One day, while I was reading a book entitled, Buddhist Tradition, the director of the Center became annoyed. He asked me, Why are you reading such a book? I did not answer, because it was not really a question; it was a protestation. In his point of view, I should have been reading about the Muslim tradition. I was not a scholar of the Muslim tradition instead, but I knew enough of it. And for sure I did not want to chew gum like him, and read the Koran, as I had seen him do every morning before starting work. Since he himself had written several books, I assumed he must have done some reading, but the books were all on the same topic. They were all saying the same things, expressing them in a slightly different way. The young man who was a chanter of the Koran and, at the same time, helped with cleaning was an expert in his domain. When he started chanting the Koran in the mosque, I noticed people were all trance-like. I did not test him, but I do not think he knew classical Arabic very well. He did not know English at all and did not want to learn. Back in New York, the director of the Center had brought him to America, as he was from his hometown in Egypt. He urged him, as he did with me, to learn English, so that he could get a better job to earn his living and have a better life. He protested and said to him, quoting a Hadith, a saying of the prophet, "He who knows the Holy Koran by heart and says that he is poor or ignorant, he is Kafer, an infidel. The director then told him, implicitly, In that case you may stay ignorant and poor."

One of the director’s assistants, who later became a director himself of the Center in New York, admired the fact that I dared to move around the world at ease, without any fear whatsoever. One day he asked me how I could have done it. I immediately answered, Most of all because I have faith.

He retorted, No, you have no faith; you have courage, only courage.

I did not tell him that I also had courage, because faith and courage—I mean real courage not temerity—go hand in hand. I did not argue with him. I knew I would never convince him that what he meant by faith was not true faith; it was nothing but superstition. To believe for them also meant to believe in lies, fairy tales, stories, and an imaginary world—in life after death, angels, Satan, jinns, hell, paradise and all those nonexistent and incredible things, and they had been doing that for fourteen centuries.

That was the kind of environment I lived in and the kind of people I lived with. We spoke the same language; therefore, we were supposed to be of the same culture, the same Arab and Muslim world. Yet we were different. However, I accepted them as they were and they accepted me, or seemed to accept me, as I was. As I minded my own business, they never bothered me or interfered in my private life, so to say, because in fact I had nothing to hide; I had no private life. As I liked them all, they all, likewise, liked me. They sure were not hypocritical or just acting out; they were very sincere. I could tell. There was only one man who, for no reason and without showing it overtly, disliked me. He was not even working at the Center. He was a former Egyptian diplomat living in Washington with his crippled wife. He was a member of the Board of Trustees. He used to come from time to time to the Center. Perhaps he wanted to chat with his countrymen. There were five or six of them, including the director. But nobody cared to talk to him, really. I noticed they simply returned his greetings, while doing their work without even looking at him straight in his face. He never spoke to me personally, as if I did not exist. Having never had to deal with him, I assumed there was no reason for him either to love or to hate me. But I was wrong. People never take the trouble to search for a reason to love a person, only one single person, but they always take delight in easily finding good reasons to hate a whole nation consisting of hundreds of millions of people.

One day, I was with the director, who trusted me more than his own children. We were in his car driving somewhere. He announced me that Mr. H. had said, You are a spy. I made no comment. I understood from the tone of his voice that he disapproved of what he had been told. Like any employee, I had the right to take a paid vacation once a year, which I did not. When I decided to go away for only a week or so, as he was one of the signatories of the paychecks, he objected when I got paid, so the director let me know. Unfortunately, he could do nothing about it. God knows what other bad things he could have said about me. I not only held no grudge against him; I pitied him, knowing that he was only using me as a scapegoat. Perhaps he found something to blame in everyone else. I found it cruel of the employees of the Center not to spare even five minutes to talk to him and cheer him up. He seemed so sad and frustrated. One could see it clearly showing in his face. He could not hide it.

Were he not in conflict with me, I could have spoken to him. But I had been working there for months and he completed ignored me. For this reason, I did not even venture to greet him. But the day came when I absolutely had to talk to him. I had to inform him when he came to the Center that, a day before, a young lady had called and asked to talk to Mr. H., but unfortunately she had not left her name, phone, or anything. From that day on, he never left me alone. Whenever he came in, before saying anything to anybody, he walked straight to me and asked, Did that lady call again? It was an obsession, but the good lady never called again. If only I had known the outcome, I would never have told him about the phone call. The least I could have done was ask the lady for her name and telephone number. I should not have missed asking. I guess she did not give me a chance to ask; she hung up right away. Whether the lady called back again or not, I do not know. I started work in July 1972. After I left in December 1973, and went back to California, I heard that Mr. H. had passed away.

* * *

References

¹ Quoted by Osho. The Book of Secrets. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1974, p. 879.

CHAPTER 31

Los Angeles comes to Washington, DC, USA

(December 1972 - December 1973)

When I left my adopted American family in California, I was sure we would be visiting each other. But there would be no chance of living together again, either in California or in New England, where the family had lived before in a big estate, and certainly not in Washington, DC. Then, I realized that I was wrong in trying to foretell the future. Only two months or so after I started work, I was informed by my adopted mother on the telephone (and this was confirmed by letter) that she was considering joining me in Washington, DC, buying a house, and living with me again. She announced that to me without any introduction. I thought she was joking, but she seemed very serious. I did not know what to say. I was living in very bad conditions, sleeping in the office on the floor, with only a blanket for bedding, and living on bread and milk alone. To live in a house with someone who would be caring for me, and eat properly, would be most desirable, especially as I had a job. On this basis, I could not help but give my consent. I could not dissuade her in any case, for she was very determined.

She came and found a house within just a few days. It was on Massachusetts Avenue—on the same avenue where the mosque was situated, but in a different state, i.e. not in DC but in Maryland. Then she went back to California, where she made arrangements for moving the furniture and having her eldest son drive her across the country. But what about the cat? She decided to send him by plane several days before. It was very embarrassing for me to have him even for only those few days before moving to the house, because I had no shelter to give him since I had none myself. On the day of his arrival, I went to meet him at Dallas International Airport. It was not the first time I had to meet someone at the airport. So I behaved just as usual. It was silly, but I guess I did it out of habit. I went to the arrival hall and stood there waiting with other people. The difference was that they were all looking straight, whereas I was looking down, as if I was expecting to see the cat walking out just like an ordinary passenger. That was normal, since I was waiting not for a human being but for a cat. As I saw no cat coming out, I went to the information desk to inquire if they had a list of passengers. I was asked, What is the name of the person you are expecting? I answered, It is not a person, it is a cat. They said, In that case, you have to inquire in Cargo.

I said, I agree he is not a person, but he is not merchandise either.

They replied, That would be the only place to look for it.

As advised, I went Cargo, but he was not there. I was told, That is right, he was supposed to be on that flight, but it was held up at Los Angeles airport, where it was given a shot and it had to be held there for twenty four hours before it could travel. Therefore, it may be on tomorrow’s flight. Give us your phone number, and we will give you a call for confirmation.

The next day in the afternoon, while I was giving my lesson at the Algerian embassy as usual, I received a phone call from the mosque. They let me know that there had been a call for me from Dallas airport to inform me that the cat would be arriving in the evening at such and such a time. I did not mean to keep it a secret, but I was embarrassed that all those people were involved and knew about the whole thing. Just after I finished my lesson, I headed for the airport. This time I went straight to Cargo, and he was there, all right, waiting for me. I took him in his cage to the airport bus. I was going to put him in the luggage compartment with the suitcases. But the driver said, No, he will suffocate there. You carry him with you. I thought that was more appropriate. But I was a little confused. In the plane he was sent like merchandise, but in the bus he rode like a human being. So I took him home—I mean to the mosque, which was my home. I am sure it must have been horrible for the cat to see me in that miserable condition compared to the great comfort in which we both lived in California. We were inseparable. He used to sleep with me in a king-size bed at night and followed me all over the house or in the garden during the daytime. There in Washington I hardly saw him. He never came around me. I was like a stranger to him. I bought him food, of course. He only came to eat and then disappeared. I was so worried about him. I was afraid that he would run away or be run over by a car. I had no idea how he was spending his time or where he slept. It was really a strange feeling. I was not a woman or a mother, but the analogy would be perfect, for I did feel like a mother caring and worrying for her child. Luckily, there was a garden and he was kept safe. The problem was that it was not his territory; it was the territory of the cat belonging to the director’s family. Fortunately, I did not hear of any fights going on between them. I guess they made some kind of peace agreement, since they had to share the territory only on a temporary basis.

As soon as my adopted mother arrived, we moved to our new house. This time she did not put down my name as co-owner. There was no point in doing so. The reason she did it in California was to tie me to her, to keep me with her. But I left nonetheless. It was not at all a good idea for her to buy the house just to sell it and move again. But she did not know what she was doing. I do not know how she spent her time while she was waiting for me to get home from work. She must have been bored living away from her children. She had no activities, no hobbies, and no friends. She said she had a friend, but he was only an acquaintance, a gentleman of Jordanian origin. He had a PhD. and was working at the Smithsonian Institute. He wrote a book on Arab pharmacy and published several articles in different specialized medical journals. He was a scholar. In addition to that, he had a private church of Presbyterian denomination right next to his home on Massachusetts Avenue, near the American University. The services were conducted in Arabic by himself or another minister. We invited him to our house for lunch. But he never invited us to his. For this reason, I said he was only an acquaintance. Yet he did invite us to his church with the other members of the congregation. I enjoyed taking part in the Christian services in Arabic for the first time.

The children came with their families to visit us from California and New England. I also invited my sister and cousin from Algeria. Apart from the extra hours of Arabic lessons I was giving at the Algerian embassy, the work of typist, telephone operator, errand boy, and book seller was not interesting at all. The pay was very low and there were no social benefits. A year after we moved to our new house, as I had not stopped working for a year and a half, I decided to finally ask for a two-week vacation.

To my dismay, I was told by the director that I could go, but that I would not be paid. Of course it was not his fault, and he himself was not happy about it. But it was the decision of one of the finance committee members, the signatories of the checks. The gentleman was a frustrated former diplomat living in Washington, DC, with his handicapped wife, who was in need of someone to pick on for no reason. I have spoken about him at length in the previous chapter. I was very mad. I was doing many jobs and I was not even entitled, like everybody, to a vacation. However, I accepted the conditions and took a two-week vacation in Switzerland, accompanied by my adopted mother, whom I introduced to all my friends of different nationalities in Geneva.

Under the circumstances, upon our return to Washington, I was reluctant to resume my work. Then I found myself face to face with another situation. My adopted mother announced to me that she wanted us to move back to California. It was either out of the blue or she had planned it a long time before. I was not very keen on going back to California, because of the bad experience I had had there as regards finding a job. But staying in Washington meant going back to that miserable life working every day from morning till evening, sleeping in the office. That was unimaginable, especially as working conditions were getting worse and worse, as I already have mentioned. So I decided to choose the lesser evil, i.e. go back to California. It then dawned on me to ask myself, Did my adoptive mother come to Washington just to take me back to California? If that was her intention, she, for sure, succeeded.

During the year and a half I spent in Washington, I made no friends apart from the gentleman of Jordanian origin who was working at the Smithsonian Institute. He was only an acquaintance, I thought. But we got to know each other better when I went back to Washington, DC, in 1976 and worked for three months at the Islamic Center, which organized an art exhibition for the bicentennial of the American independence. He volunteered to participate in the organization. We always kept in touch after I left the States. We mostly exchanged greeting cards. One day, I received a letter from him from Jordan, announcing to me that he was teaching at Yarmuk University. He started to write more often and longer letters. He sent me copies of articles he published about Arab pharmacology and the like. Then he informed me that his neice was working at the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent (formerly the League of Red Cross Societies) headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. My wife and I invited her to our house for lunch. I appreciated very much the relationship I had with that scholarly gentleman and thought he was really a good friend. In one of his letters, he asked me to send him a Swiss watch but not of any sort. He gave the name of a specific make. Of course, he said he would be sending me the money after I had bought the watch and told him the price. I did as he requested and he sent me a check.

While I did with pleasure what he wanted me to do for him, I wondered why he did not rather ask his neice for such a private matter. It would have been more appropriate. Then I said to myself, It is all right with me. He must consider me a close friend, almost like a relative. A few weeks later, he asked me again to send him this time not one but two watches. I sent them to him, followed by a letter in which I let him know the price, expecting to receive a check shortly, as previously. But I never heard from him again. I waited weeks. Then I had to give up. I did not care about the money, but I was sad to lose a friend. What saddened me most was that he might have planned it that way from the start—to ask for one watch, pay me, and