Good Strangers and Terrorists

Here are some random and unconnected thoughts about the place I now live.  Today I was riding my bike along a trail at the base of the Margala Hills.  OK, yes I was riding alone again.  Not that it matters.  Anyway I had been riding for over an hour and probably looked pretty crappy given the 108 degree temp.  So along I ride on a flat section of trail and I notice 50 meters ahead a local collecting fire wood.  He had several stacks of 2 to 3 in diameter by 3 ft long branches.  These were laying at the edge of the trail.  His motorcycle was on the trail and another bundle was already placed behind the seat.  I was unclipping because I figured I’d have to walk my bike to get past him.  When he saw me, first he moved the bundles from the trail, and then he removed the bundle from his bike so I could make it past.  I thanked him as I rode by.  He was so polite and cared about not inconveniencing as total stranger.  It is small encounters like that that make me appreciate my neighbors. 

But, this is still not the safest of places for Americans.  There are standing threats from the TTP.  Terrorist acts happen every day in Pakistan.  Luckily they generally don’t take place in Islamabad.  So when we travel on official business to nearby cities it is with military escorts carrying H&K G3 battle rifles.  We move about on official business in up armored Chevy Suburbans.  They tend to stand out, unfortunately.  Around town we drive locally leased vehicles, low profile = safe.  Still whenever I pull onto our street I scan the parked cars for anything that looks out of place.  It’s a rather odd habit and it still catches me off guard when I do so.

Mountain Biking the Margallas

I haven’t gone shopping for rugs yet.  This morning I got off to a late start.  Last night I went to play dominos and some silly card game at one of the other houses.  I was cajoled into staying later than I’d planned.  Not a bad thing though as this morning was a bit of a nasty thunder storm… not nasty as in ugly, rude or in a sexual way, just a serious downpour with lightening and stuff.  So the ride began a bit late.  I rode to Chilla Gah Imam Bari, a Muslim shrine where a local Sufi used to dwell back in the 17^th century.  I had to leave my bike near the bottom of the path up the mountain.  An old gentleman that didn’t speak English told me I couldn’t take my bike.  He also conveyed that it would be safe to leave it, so I did.  It was a nice walk up.  Many nice people, some make jokes in Urdu, usually kids.  I don’t mind as many people were happy to shake my hand and a few took photos with me.  By and large these are very nice people, much like people everywhere.  After visiting the top I collected the bike and went for another ride.  I went way up trail 5 to the top of Pir Sohawa road at Monal.  OK to be honest most of way I was carrying or pushing the bike, lots of big rocks, stair steps and it’s steep.  I made it to the top and took the road back down. I’d been wanting to ride down this road since I first saw it, steep curvy, looks like a blast for a bike.  There are several steep switch backs and I was hoping to take a nice fast run… oops, cheap tires, slippery road like an LA freeway after the 1^st rain, I spilled it on the 1^st switchback.  Luckily the slippery road surface doesn’t just cause rubber to slide, skin does as well, so the road rash is not as bad as I’d feared.  It is a strange and surreal moment, shoes clipped into pedals, knowing the bike is going over and then sliding across the lane; the realization that your skin is being rubbed off as you slide toward the guard rail.  Luckily there were no cars near the turn and I stopped short of the guard rail.  As I was putting my chain back on the chain ring a car stopped to see if I was OK.  Funny, I can rub soap on it to clean it up but water stings like a son of a bitch.  Anyway I rode more carefully the rest of the way down.  Though I did pass a couple of motor scooters on the way.  At the bottom, near 7^th Ave. a kid (boy in his 20’s I’d guess) on a motor scooter, began riding along with me.  He saw my right arm and was concerned.  I told him I was fine.  But he kept pace until we were at Atta Turk road where he was headed to the parking lot for trail 3.  Again some random kid, was genuinely concerned and quite nice.  These are good people, most of them. 

Pill Boxes and Sand Bags

Driving in to work this morning I decided to use the Saudi Shams gate to the diplomatic enclave.  We alter our routes for security reasons and it had been a few days since I used that gate.  When I made the last left hand bend before the U-turn at the barricade I saw an unusually long line of cars waiting to enter the enclave.  Usually there is very little traffic at this gate.  Oh well, so I slowed after the U Turn and joined the line.  The school kids were showing up as many local kids go to school on the enclave.  A kid about 5 was trying to kick start a motor bike next to the curb on my left.  I idly looked across the street to my right and studied the housing on the other side of the large wall.  In front of the wall was a sand bag emplacement just past the curve in the road.  As I looked at this structure I remembered all the bunkers and pill boxes that were in Sasebo, Japan when I first lived there.  Those were remnants of WWII.  Gun emplacements to protect the home port of the Japanese Imperial Fleet.  The sand bag structure I was looking at now was built to protect against civil unrest in a city that did not exist when those Japanese pill boxes fell silent. 

This caused me to think about how we treat one another.  Why is violence such a prevalent element in all societies?  I am unaware of any country, culture or religion without violence in its past.  We write books and make movies that have truly frightening villains capable of unspeakable evil.  Perhaps that is one of our downfalls.  We view evil as so distinctly satanic that we miss the point.  Evil and violence are not an abrupt manifestation of the devil.  These things build over time and have seemingly innocent beginnings.  People grow up and are slowly turned into beasts without even recognizing it in themselves.  How else do we account for the imprisonment of the entire Japanese population of the US during WWII or the attempted genocide of European Jews or the current spate of suicide terrorism based on Wahhabis belief’s.  These are not acts carried out by demons from hell.  These are atrocities carried out by normal people.  People just like your friends and neighbors, like you.  It isn’t all that difficult to get a crowd of people excited enough to do something evil while all the same feeling they are on the path of righteousness, that they have good reasons to act as they are.