Teaching the enemy.

There are times when we are asked to represent something larger than ourselves: Alissa, please give us the viewpoint of Christians, Americans, or Women on such-and-such topic. While not always comfortable to speak on behalf of an impossibly large number of people, it can also be an important time for advocacy, correction of wrongs, and reconciliation.

Since my time in Egypt, I have been asked on a number of occasions to begin the monumental work of reconciling Christianity to Islam, reconciling the West to the Middle East. Drinking tea in the homes of Egyptian friends or sitting with my office mates at work, we have put our toes in the water, feeling one another one with increasing trust and frankness. From differing views on gender relations to the validity of including the apostle Paul in the Bible and explanations of how Americans could have possibly voted Bush into office a second time, there are times when you feel that the whole of the "Clash of Civilizations" is present in the microcosm of these intimate discussions.

But none of these sensitive and fruitful conversations have matched the intensity or significance of what happened last night. I returned last night to my language center after nearly a month break from teaching. In addition to enjoying chattering with my co-workers there, who are all bent on getting me fluent in Arabic by the end of the year (so help me God), and enduring lots of teasing and pointed questions about Nod's recent visit, I was also looking forward to meeting my new students.
I was perhaps most nervous about a private, 2 hour class I would be teaching to a man who had tested in at a Level One--Level One, as in, teaching the alphabet. My co-workers assured me my Arabic would be enough to get him going on the basics of English. Yeah, right. They told me his name was Gasim. What? I had never heard this name before in Egypt.
I walk into the classroom to see a balding, bulbous man shyly slinking down behind his round, silver-framed glasses and folding his arms across his bulging stomach. His voice was muffled as I practiced some basic greetings with him in English. "What's your name?" I smiled. "Jasim," he responded. Hmm, I thought. That didn't sound like an Egyptian accent.
His English was clearly better than his level would indicate. So much for my alphabet lesson plans. I started drawing verb charts and listing pronouns on the board, trying to gauge exactly how much English he had down. After a few minutes, he interrupted me.
"Excuse me, Miss, I need to tell you something." Of course, I motioned.
"I am an Iraqi man. I fought in the Iraq-Iran war, from 1980 to 1988. I fought in the war with Kuwait in 1992. I live here alone as a manager for a bank. My family is in Baghdad. I studied English twenty years ago so that I could talk to the foreign officers and translate messages. I am here to remember."
I let out a long, slow breath. Jasim is not the first Iraqi I have met, though he is only one among a very small handful. I know several Iraqis at my internship, including one office mate that I am fairly close with. But something felt different with Jasim, this portly 50 year old shifting his weight back and forth in front of me.
According to the BBC, the confirmed death toll of Iraqi civilians since the 2002 invasion is nearing 100,000. Jasim stared at me intently. I stared back, my mind racing. What is he thinking right now, with an American in front of him? What does he think that I'm thinking right now, to be confronted with an officer from Saddam's Iraqi army?
I was dying to know more, but afraid to open my mouth. I returned to diagraming subject and object pronouns on the board. Later, I tested the waters as part of our conversation practice. "So, what do you do after work every day?"
"I watch TV."
"What programs? News programs?"
"Sometimes."
"What do you think about the American elections? Obama or McCain?"
"That's not my problem."

Cut short, I decided not to risk anything broaching politics again.
Still, my mind was churning: What does it mean that my uncle fought in the Gulf War? That my student fought on the other side? That soldiers I know in Iraq right now may have killed his relatives; that his relatives may have killed soldiers I know? Do I take responsibility for the toll my country has taken on his? Should any of this affect my relationship to my student--should this mean anything at all?
I felt as if the Iraq war were suddenly in my classroom, and that reconciliation between our two countries had to begin here or not at all.
Vacillating between guilt and wariness toward him, I couldn't tell you now what I would have asked him even if I had the chance. Perhaps grammar lessons alone are enough of a step for now--preparing him to return to Baghdad with new language skills necessary to thrive in a post-war Iraq. And yet, at the same time, I wonder what use he will put his language skills toward--whether benign or malevolent--and then feel guilty for my skepticism.

This man is not my enemy. I don't believe in enemies. Nor do I have any inclination to consider Jasim as such.
But, in the Gulf War, he quite literally was an enemy--an enemy of America, and personally, an enemy of my uncle and others who were fighting. Never before confronted with a situation like this, I find myself with too much to digest easily.