A PROPHECY PERHAPS...

MUSTAFA: A TALE OF WAR-A SEARCH FOR PEACE

I may not have realized at the time, when I selected the name for this book, just how prophetic that name would become...although I think that maybe something inside me sensed it.

Think of it.

You are born into, and raised in, a country. It's YOUR country. YOUR homeland. Your people...and not since LONG before you were born has that homeland been virtually at peace in any traditional sense of that word.

War-torn and ravaged for generations. The scene of endless slaughter, of death, of massive injury to property and human lives.  

Endless or seemingly so, divisions amongst its people. Factions. Sunni vs Shiite, Arabs vs Persians. Kurds, Pashtun. Split on religious differences, split along ethnic lines. Warring over territory and power disputes over things like drug-running. War-lords and tribal factions.

The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and on and on and on. ALL warring with each other, all warring AGAINST the national government, and the people of Afghanistan are but chess pieces in a game with the ultimate goal the ultimate take-over of the entire country or at least regions of it.

Then there is the foreign intervention. The Brits, the Russians, now the American presence. Of course, we did not ostensibly enter Afghanistan with the same attitude or predatory aims as the others, but enter we did...and one has to wonder after almost twelve years what in truth we have accomplished. We got Osama Bin Laden to be sure, but...

Maybe Mustafa can answer that one better than I.

Add to all that the fact that the national government based in the capital is notoriously corrupt. Perhaps not every government official but enough to make the entire government pretty dysfunctional and certainly suspect.

AND, into the middle of ALL this comes a young journalist. Bright, talented, very caring, well-educated and well-trained. He enters the capitol of Kabul...at once zealous and determined to tell the story of what he sees happening all around him, 
AND TELL IT HE DOES.

Brilliantly, and at great personal risk...until...

Over a period of several years, all the horror, the chaos, the death and destruction, finally takes its toll. 

Struggling with and suffering the effects of PTSD, this brave young journalist continues to ply his craft, even while bullets whiz over his head. He is shot, he is stalked. Hacked, and still he perseveres...

UNTIL...

one day he happens to miss a flight back to his hometown. A flight to take him back to his family and a couple weeks of peace, hopefully. But he does the one thing he has never done before. He misses the flight, and good thing too. Cause if he had been on that flight, surely he would have gotten home and walked smack dab into the middle of a massive car-bombing that killed dozens and wounded dozens more.

His brother walked out to see the bodies strewn about the streets like so many toy men tossed about by children at play. Except the only children in this scenario were either dead or injured and this was NOT playtime but deadly serious.

Our brave young journalist lost five personal friends that day, people he had gone to school with...and there were others too. Later he went to the funeral home and saw the remains, which according to him were awful to see. Some weren't even recognizable, so mutilated by the effects of the bomb.

How would YOU like to BE that young journalist?
Can you even imagine bearing up under that kind of stress? Pain? Grief?

Not since the American Civil War of the 1860's have we seen ANYTHING even remotely resembling this kind of carnage in this country...and except for a few isolated events like the bombing in Oklahoma City we have NEVER seen the kind of day-to-day onslaught of terrorism like Afghanistan sees virtually constantly.

MUSTAFA KAZEMI. 

I have felt his pain, almost from the minute we first met, I have felt it almost as if it were something tangible. Felt seemingly every inch and every minute of it, even though I wasn't hearing from him directly through much of it, and a great deal of what he has gone through was before we even met.  But still, I have known it and felt it, without even knowing how I did. Didn't matter how, and that pain he is feeling I feel, somehow, deeply and intensely. That hurt and anguish is cutting me to the bone even as I write this, like a laser beam with rough and jagged edges. 

I FEEL for my Mate. Feel, and ache, and hurt. Without even really knowing why, but again the why doesn't matter. I know my mate needs a friend and I intend to be one if he will let me. I know he needs a sympathetic ear and he has one. Maybe he needs a place of refuge, and he has that too, for that is what friends are for.

I can't go to him as I have done in the book. God knows I would if I could...in a NY minute. 

He probably can't come here either, to get away from all that he is going through...even though if I could snatch him up out of Afghanistan and bring him here I would do that too in a NY minute. For I wonder how it's possible to heal when you're in the middle of all that caused the wounds in the first place and those forces, those memories, those demons keep hammering and cutting away like a run-away chain-saw run amuck. 

But whatever else I can do to be there for him and try at least to ease whatever pain and conflict is going on inside him, I will do. For as long as it takes. I will offer my thoughts or I will merely sit and listen. Whatever he needs, that's what matters.

Again, THAT is what friends are for. 

Wouldn't YOU?

I will, in all likelihood, never meet Mustafa Kazemi in person...much to MY detriment I am sure. But, in truth, I really don't NEED to for I can feel him as surely as if he was sitting right here next to me and I will be damned if I know why, but again. Why doesn't matter, really. Sometimes it truly is what the late writer Oscar Wilde once wrote...

"FOR ONE MOMENT, OUR LIVES MET. 
OUR SOULS TOUCHED."

Maybe that in the end IS all that matters. When you can touch another human being, and BE touched BY them, what greater gift can one receive? 

To make a difference in the life of someone else, and have them make a difference in YOUR life, IS a gift.

One to be recognized and cherished, for there is NO GREATER GIFT ON THIS EARTH, than the gift we are TO EACH OTHER.

At this moment, all I know is the world is at least a slightly better place for having Mustafa in it...and I intend to do anything and everything I can to make sure it stays that way.

Reaching out a hand is like driving a car. You will never go anywhere UNTIL you start the engine...and reaching back and taking that hand...two people can then begin to walk, and talk, and share...and cry and laugh and feel...until the darkness and the demons begin to fall  and fade away.

Then, KNOWING that that hand will ALWAYS BE THERE anytime you need it...will help to KEEP them away, until they are no more.

PEACE, Mustafa. THAT is my wish and prayer for you now. &, a hand outstretched in friendship. PLEASE come take it and let's try to push the darkness away and turn it into light.

I know and can feel that you have a long and bright future ahead of you, filled with promise. You have SO much to give. BUT NOW is NOT the time to worry about that or others. 

THIS is YOUR time. A time to heal and to break free from the chains that would bind you and ultimately destroy THE PROMISE YOU ARE, for you are FIRST OF ALL a promise TO YOURSELF, and UNLESS YOU are whole, you cannot be and never will be whole to ANYONE else. How ironic and seemingly self-centered but true nonetheless. If you don't love you, how can you expect anyone else to?

So, now is not the time to worry about ANYONE but you, my Mate. This is YOUR time...a time to heal. You need you now, and perhaps you need me too...and if so, I am here.  A friend who cares and always will. An ear that will always listen and HEAR you. Your words and your soul...and a heart and spirit that cares deeply with a fervent intense desire to see you go forward and prosper unfettered by that which would wish you ill. 

You CANNOT allow the dark visions and forces of anger and hate to destroy someone so full of light and as yet unfulfilled accomplishments. Maybe you have already noticed that that which would seek to destroy ALWAYS comes clothed in deception, and hate, and anger, and fear. Those demons are LIARS, trying to masquerade as YOUR TRUTH. Mate, they are NOT. 

THAT is the enemy of your soul just as it is mine and all of us.

If there is ONE THING I KNOW, it's this. The darkness and the demons (of the past AND the present) do NOT deserve to win. DO NOT DESERVE my Mate. THEY DO NOT. MUSTAFA DESERVES to win. MUSTAFA DESERVES the life of promise waiting for him. THE DEMONS DO NOT.

ANYTHING THAT WOULD SEEK TO HURT, TO CONFUSE, AND TO DESTROY DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE ANYWHERE NEAR YOU, MATE. It doesn't. For all that you ARE, and all that you will brcome.. for others but most of all for yourself, it is CRUCIAL that YOU win this battle.  NOTHING ELSE MATTERS RIGHT NOW. NOTHING Mate. ONLY YOU DO.

PLEASE...listen to me. DO NOT give up or give in. Because otherwise THEY win...and they have NOT EARNED THE RIGHT TO DO SO. THEY HAVE NOT EARNED THE RIGHT TO...YOU. 

YOU have earned the right to go forward in peace. To walk in the sunshine, and amidst the fullness of all that you can become.

YOU are what is important now, and let THAT be uppermost in your mind now. YOU are what matters, and I will help in any way that I can. That's a promise. I may not be able to work miracles, but I CAN be a friend, Mustafa.

Db