Letter from a Soldier

I never knew until now that a woman can write a great war poem as this .

Twenty First Century Woman....hmmm...it would be interesting to ponder upon the term and the applicability of this term on women living in different parts of the world and at different levels within the same societal setups....example...Sakina, with whom I talked to about 8 years ago, living in one of the Chaks in Burewala...her routine? getting up very early in the morning tending the animals, milking the goat, preparing the breakfast...or...food per say....and the routine is the same day in day out....what did the turn of the century do for her? and how did she feel herself changed?....she was very content and thankful to God for having a recluse at the chak, where her husband worked as a mazara, and her two children went to a local school and played in the farm before her...what a life...her worries related with the health of the animals, a suite for her neice, and so on....Then I had the pleasure of sitting with Miriam, a Kenyan woman, living in the suburbs of Nairobi. She used to bring scrap for a friends scrap yard. Her day was pretty much resembled that of Sakina, only the difference being, her day was spent on Nairobi`s street collecting empty cans and plastic bottles...her worries were more related with her husband coming home drunk and beating her and not caring for the only child she had. Each time I met her, she was carrying her child in a cloth that would wrap around her head and she would go about her daily job that way.....what would a turn of the century bring to her, and how would it change her life? and how would she be called the twenty first century woman? Difficult to imagine.....Then I would think about Peon, our house maid in Bangkok, Thailand...a wonderfully simple lady, hardworking....and her day would start in the kitchen, and end in the kitchen....her worries were her grand children because her daugher`s marriage didn`t go that well. How would she be affected with the turn of the century?...how do I look at her as a twenty first century woman? And then I`d like to think about Vicky, our office assistant here in the US...a dedicated worker with a high school diploma, scrambling to learn computers....her worries were more related with her health and retirement and ability to remain independent for many more years to come....is she the twenty first century woman?....And then I think about Dost Muhammad`s wife. Dost Muhammad was a labor while our house was being constructed in Islamabad...a pure honest, hardworking, and most of all a man of wisdom. I learned quite a few things from him....Its been almost twenty years since I met him and had long conversations with him. He used to go home to his wife and four children once a year for 10 to 14 days at a time, when a certain harvesting needed to be done....his wife, according to him, was a very patient, good natured and caring person and was taking very good care of his children and almost running his house back in his village all alone....She would stay away from his husband for a year, and would spend 10 to 14 days out of the whole year with her husband...imagine...is she the twenty first century woman? And if I am not wrong, these are the women that, represent a large proportion of population in the third and the first world....and I can go on....

How do we live with this disparity, no matter where we are? is purely relative...and one thing that made a pretty deep impression in my mind, and that is the harmony and peace I found and felt in these women more than the women I know that belong to the so called modern world, or the representatives of the, so called, twenty first century women. This phrase may be a paradigm for the few....or is it the expectation that is driving the modern women to be paradoxical in perception when it comes to their identity?

Re: FerozK

Your commentary and words are very inspiring. Very glad to see some one say this out loud, out there.

There was an article on Kosovo at Chowk about hatred that said some of what you have just done. Hatred is so tempting that people succumb to it every day.

Thanks for a great discussion. Your information on Kosovo has been edifying for me.

rgds
Saima

Re: Saima Shah #10

First of all, I would like to commend Bina for her poem/article and the interesting discussion it has spawned. War poems are an interesting prism into understanding the phenomena of war, which is above all else is a human phenomena. To study and understand war it helps to understand the reasons which cause its paricipants to fight. Wars are not an abstraction, but a reflection of human fallibilities.

Saima, I agree with you that it is impossible to fully grasp the horror and the inhumanity of a war. It is for that reason that one should not try to interject a moralist viewpoint to describe or understand the nature of a war. Before I try to answer your question and comments, which I think are extermely salient, on the nature of war and what makes or causes people to differeniate on its distinctions. In the past, a society`s right to exist, as a sovereign entity, resided in its war making powers and the concept of a war often reflected the mores of the society that was waging war. In the medieval times, to justify the existence of war and the recourse to war, in Christanity, a doctrine of ad jus bellum - a just war was created. This is the same doctrine which we find in the present NATO-Balkan situation and one which is used by both sides to justify the human cost of war.

In its most brutal defination, a war is simply a case of murder writ large. The concept of a just war is a weak attempt by society to convince itself that its actions are right and the cause it is fighting for is worth while. This is an ad hoc logic which lends credence to NATO bombing Serbs or the Serb killing the ethnic Kosovars. Whether it is right or wrong does not matter as long as the particpants believe that their efforts, in a war, are just.

By your comments, you have digressed into the area of understanding war and in a sense, what consitutes war; what makes normal ordinary people kill each other for religion, country, or any cause which a war might be fought for. There is no easy answer to that question, because wars are a mirror to human petty self-interests and wars can not be understood in isolation of its human context.

As to your reference that I seem to prefer a stoic soldier over a sentimental one, I have never had the priviliege to meet a stoic soldier. I think, correct if I am wrong, that you made that comment probably after reading my post on how the soldiers do not like to talk about their experiences. That statement should not be construed to mean that all soldiers are stoics, but rather that their silence comes from the fact we, the civilians, have no comprehension of what their experiences were like.

Nor have I in all my discussions with veterans come across a ``heroic mindset``. After talking with many veterans, British, American, German, Pakistani and Indians, my impression is that these were normal people caught up in abnormal circumtances. The heroic mindset is a civilian myth, popularized in the John Wayne movies and Hollywood, to reinforce the concept of a just war. To me, personally, a war hero is someone who surivives a war with his sense of decency and humanity intact and not someone who wins rows of medals or manages to kill scores of enemy soldiers.

If we are to understand the human phenomena which is war, we have to move beyond terms like ``heroic mindsets`` and stoicism, because whether we realize it or not, there is tendency in these terms to put a romantic gloss and thus, glorify war. Wars are, by nature of their conduct, human experiences. I have a deep abhorance for war, not because I have studied it for so long, but because I seen its true face in my discussions with veterans. Hence, I do not subsribe to those terms and I was surprised that you attributed those terms to my InterActs.

What I was trying to express, poorly I am afraid, was that wars should be seen for they really are without any contextual definations or terms. I thank Bina, Anita and yourself for having the courage to tackle and discuss the concept of war in all its ugly premuatations. If we are going to overcome this waste of human potential, we have to talk about it and let us discuss this in clear terms, because an understanding into the causes of war is an attempt to understand ourselves as human beings. The source of all wars lies not in some arcane political, religious or dogmatic assumptions, but in the tangled web of the human mind itself.

Re: FerozK

Romantic and sentimental are context sensitive--by your use of the term I understood that you favour the `stoic soldier` over the sentimental one, because that means dignity and an ability to fight.

For me that is just sublimating the truth under the facade of strength. The `hero` mindset in literature/media is a value initself. It seems to be a very `macho` feature of life as it stands today. I for one am tired of all these macho heros who kill because they think it is morally correct and justifiable because they do so in the name of religion, freedom, morality, country etc etc. Kill is kill no matter why or by whom. Will the value of life always be a second priority to nationality? I donot understand why it is okay to kill if NATO kills and not okay if Milosevic does so. The captured soldier would do the same as the Serbian soldier if he was on the other side.

I wish that all soldiers would break down and lose, if the price of winning is a soul.

Also, no matter how well prepared the human mind is to pay the price of violence for freedom, it can never truly grasp the horror of war. Putting on facades seems to be the gift of modern civilization which seeks to create superhumans at the price of humans.

Re: Bina #8

You are absolutely right that soldiers are humans and not robots.

If you have read Siegfried Sasson, you have no doubt read Wilfred Owens, Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Lt.Col John McCrae, et al who wrote about their war experinces. Their sense of disillusionment, at the horror of war, was directed at the institutions: God, King and country which made the slaughter of World War I possible. The sense of dispair which was reflected in their poems was their own sense of accepting the fact that war is an ugly enterprise. In the words of Owens, the future generations should not believe the old lie, ``doluce et decorum est pro patria mori.`` It was this sentiment which angered them and was the reason why they questioned, not the nature of war, but its conduct which was feeding millions into a cauldron of death called the ``no man`s land.``

There is an article, I wrote on how the perceptions of war changed and its portrayals in the literture, which is languishing some where in the Chowk queue!

Bina, the study of post-battlefield stress disorders (shell shock) is only about 80 years old. The most detailed documentation of shell shock, during the First World War, is archived in the Royal Military Hospital at Craiglockhart, in Scotland. It was here that Owens, Graves and Sasson all were treated for shell shock and exchanged and discussed their poems with each other. Shell shock is different in each war, but the reason for it is the same; the inability of the mind to deal with prolonged periods of stress, puncuated with moments of stark terror on a daily basis.

Shell shock, as a combat related symptom, is relativily new phenomena. It must remembered that the modern battlefield is an extermely loud place and the ``din of battle`` is deafening. Having talked with many veterans, they all remember the noise of battle as a cresendo from hell. Shell shock is often a reaction to that never ending barrage of artillery shells, and rifle bullets which fray the nerves to a breaking point. Just imagine, Bina, what it must be like in the trenches. The closet I ever came to experiencing trench war was one summer when I dug a six feet hole, filled it upto three feet of water. Next I stood in the hole for about two hours and had friends explode firecrackers all around the hole and my head while another friend was firing a rifle over my head at a embankment. It was a nightmare and to this day, everytime a car misfires, I have an instinctive urge to hit the ground.

As to the soldiers in your poem, they might be suffering from a host of problems, but I can assure you it will not be post-combat stress. Also, what I objected to was that you made the soldiers sound as if they did not expect this treatment, of being captured by the Serbs. They knew what they were getting into.

Sorry for the lenght of this post!


Those experiences need to be assimilated as you mentioned and they are, but in small groups of veterans. I know a lot of people who fought in Vietnam and they will not talk about their war experiences. As one gentlemen, a veteran of World War II, told me, it is hard to describe an experience to someone who has no comprehension of what is being discussed.

Feroz,

I never thought of this poem as ``romantic``. If anything, I wanted to portray the soldier`s struggle to block out the horrors of what he had seen. I believe trying to suppress rather than assimilate traumatic experiences (and fighting in war, being captured and beaten etc. is traumatic no matter how tough you are!) can lead to a lot of psychological disturbances (``shell shock`` of WWI, post-traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam vets etc.) - correct me if I`m wrong, Anita. In the poem, I was trying to capture this dilemma. Soldiers have been trained not to crack but that does not mean they`ve been turned into fighting robots without thoughts or emotions. And sitting in a cell as a prisoner gives you a lot of time to think, I would imagine.

A lot of very powerful poetry was written by soldiers throughout many wars, their attempts to assimilate what had happened to them and their comrades. Rather than being very romantic and patriotic, though, it dealt with the brutality of war and of the disillusionment that the writers felt on being forgotten and betrayed by their own countries and rulers. I am thinking of Sigfried Sassoon in particular (who wrote ``Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man``). Wartime poetry is particularly haunting, as is poetry inspired by the Holocaust or any great human tragedy, because at no other time are such strong emotions evoked. And the essence of poetry is strong emotions!

Perhaps if this poem sounded inauthentic, it was because I`m not a soldier. But that shouldn`t stop me from imagining what one might be thinking, should it?

Bina

From the mother of murdered albanian girl

Your song, a blissful mourn

Of perplexed emotions

Upon your defoliation,

Passed unnoticed through my burning soul.

My child cries in rage,

The rage sacred than our age,

In heaven she burns herself each moment

To convince Him for the liberty

That she sought till death.

I hear and hear her cries

That are farthest but nearest to me,

Others can`t hear her echo

While I burn and die in her cries,

When she prays

When she cries.

She sought your help

When you looked those bones,

She pleaded you to gather her again

And put your soul in those bones

The sacred liberal flesh, give her again

And bestow her with same beauty,

same youth that you couldn`t see

among her bones

three feet away.

Did you hear all her cries?

Did you saw her sacred soul?

Did you adore her desire more

Than your mourn and your cries?

Don`t let my child teased

I plead I really plead,

By looking to those bones

three feet away.

Re: Ferozk

``If we as a society are ever going to avoid the scourge of war, we have to stop romantizing it. The only logical end begetted by the romance of war is a morbid heartache of a loved one and the silent sorrow of an orphan.``

Couldn`t agree more...add to that generations of enmity and hatred, destroyed spirits, permanently physically and mentally disabled individuals, billions in structural damage, billions in more weapon production...there is not an ounce of romance in war. There are no victors and no heroes.

az

Re: Saima Shah # 3

You wrote: ``That `romantic` side is the only hope that the Serbians will see /at some point/ the folly of this macho war and grow beyond their nationalistic agenda.``

It was the Serbian ``romance`` with Kosovo that created the present mess in the Balkans. The romance of war is a love affair between nationalism and the militarism. It was the romance of war that prompted millions to march off to war in 1914 and die in the mud of Flanders, Somme, Ypres, Charlesroi and Paschendale. Just as it was romance of martial glory that caused Pakistan to suffer twin defeats at the hands of the Indians within 6 years!

A soldier, more than anyone else, trully knows and understands ``the slings and arrows of war``, and he has the least romantic outlook on the nature of war. The landscape of war is not dotted with ``California palm trees`` and ocean waves, but it is a mirror to Dante`s inferno where steel rains down and waters the earth with blood. War is not an idle game to be played for a chance of glory and it is because of those who utter such lies, that the romance of war lingers as a bittersweet nostalgia.

I agree with you. The wounds of war cut deep and their scars last a lifetime and it was for that reason why I posted my comments. The poem/article by Bina, though evocative of misery and alienation, was sentimentalizing the nature of war and the soldiers who fight in them. It is us, the civilans, who have a misinformed view of wars. The soldier has no such mispreceptions, because he or she knows the risk and they are prepared to accept the consequences of their choice; to be killed in a war. A soldier has no romantic illushions about war. It is the civilians who romantize war and the politicans who use that sentiment to start wars.

If we as a society are ever going to avoid the scourge of war, we have to stop romantizing it. The only logical end begetted by the romance of war is a morbid heartache of a loved one and the silent sorrow of an orphan.

Re: My reply #2

Realised I did not clarify that I meant all soldiers by the term `soldier`.

Re: Ferozk

With some level of semi-agreement, I wish that some `romantic` side of the soldier is alive, and that he is not completely de-humanized as a `Serb`.

That `romantic` side is the only hope that the Serbians will see /at some point/ the folly of this macho war and grow beyond their nationalistic agenda.

It is a known fact that soldiers who survive brutal wars have deep emotional scars that may be repressed completely in the sub-conscious at the time of war but do appear later in life.

I hope the soldier speaks and writes how he feels.

nice work.

Re: Bina Shah

Those soldiers may be saying a lot of things, but none of it would include the romantic perspective you have created!

I had an interesting coversation with a friend of mine who was in the spec-ops and he mentioned that during the required survival course training, the basic drill is to concentrate on maintaining your own sense of dignity. Secondly, you would never write such a letter, because it would give the Serbs, who are sure to censor it, an opportunity to mentally break your resistence down by knowing which buttons to push.