In this Second Series, we deal with why Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf, Iraq, took his coronary troubles to Jewish and Christian cardiologists in London. He went to London, not to Damascus or Cairo or Beirut, for his heart work. For Ali Sistani to agree that infidels (Jews and Christians) be allowed to meddle with his heart is a concession of the first magnitude. On one hand it says that Arab or Persian (Sistani was born in Iran) do not have the required expertise. On the other hand, it says when a life is on the line, religion and sexual orientation make no difference.
The second piece also has to do with some forlorn towns in the news these days in the Darfur region of the Sudan. My visits to these places during World War II convinced me that they were among the least desirable places to live anywhere in the world. It’s hard to believe, but things in those two towns have become worse.
As a saving grace, the Ayatollah piece contains a memorable bit of Donegal doggerel which is often repeated at this house while shaving. The story goes something like this.
Sistani’s Conversion
One of the benefits of my not being involved with any religious organization is that when it is my turn to consult a physician, it makes no difference to me about his religious or sexual preference. The sole exception, it might be supposed, is to have a medico who embraces Christian Science. Other than that exception, it ordinarily makes no difference to me if my visit takes me to a Protestant, a Catholic or a Jewish physician. So far no physician of mine seems to have embraced the Moslem, Buddhist or Hindu faiths, at least to my knowledge. And it may well be that some of the medicos that have treated me are non-believers in any religion. It might be suspected that non-believers would probably not want to advertise that fact for fear of offending red hot believers.
All of this comes from my pondering while my razor does its work, about the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the head man of the Moslem Shia faith in Iraq. Earlier this month, the Grand Ayatollah urgently needed some work on his heart which was unavailable in Iraq or apparently, in all Arab countries. His problem was sufficiently serious that he was sent to London for his cardiology problems. After a month or so in London, Ali Sistani has returned to his headquarters in Najaf, Iraq, where he has issued a call for all Shiites to come to Najaf. Perhaps this means the Grand Ayatollah is in a fighting mood. This must mean that the London cardiologists have done a fine job.
But that is not the main concern here. Muslims have always hated Jews. Now with the occupation of Iraq, Americans who are presumed to be Christians, are as hated as the Jews. The question that goes through my mind is whether in London, Ali Sistani was attended to by a cardiologist who subscribes to the Jewish faith?
Christian Americans often spend some of their training years in places like London. Do you think it is possible for a Jewish cardiologist assisted by an American Christian to have performed the surgery that restored Ali Sistani to full cardio-vascular health? Does anyone believe that the Grand Ayatollah insisted on having the cardio-vascular work performed only by Shiite cardiologists in London? Not a chance. The people who wielded the knives and cutting tools and the sewing kits were Jews assisted by Christian infidels.
So in the end, the Grand Ayatollah was most likely operated on by a Jewish cardiologist who eats only Kosher food. Sistani has no complaint at all. When it was my turn to have a heart by-pass operation, there were Jewish physicians assisted by Irish technicians and nurses in a hospital called Columbia Presbyterian. For a non-believer such as myself, that might be called playing God across the board. To top it off, my nurses in a Presbyterian Hospital were Irish women who intensely disliked the Brits and who were presumably, Catholics.
Most of the Irish nurses at Columbia Presbyterian came from Donegal where it is believed the Carr clan originated. They treated me like a son or brother. One of the nurses offered me an example of Donegal doggerel which is better than anything Shakespeare ever wrote. It says:
Donegal is the place
Where the women eat the praties (potatoes)
Skins and all.
Now wasn’t that free style poem worth waiting for?
If Grand Ayatollah Sistani takes a piece of Donegal doggerel poetry back with him from London, he may live forever. He should have told the nurses that Ali Sistani is an old Donegal name.
Darfur
When news reports this summer began to expose atrocities in Sudan, they all identified it as a large region of that forlorn country, as big as California. When news reports became more specific, two Sudanese towns in the stories on Darfur caused me to think again about an essay produced here. It claimed that those two towns were the loneliest, most forlorn towns that anyone ever saw. Those towns were El Genina and El Fasher.
Let’s go back a step or two in the history of air transport in World War II. Until mid or late 1944, crossing the North Atlantic from the U.S. to Britain was often a hazardous endeavor. The weather, particularly in winter, was treacherous. Fog, icebergs, cold weather and all that. Even more dangerous were the German submarines called U-Boats. To avoid all those factors, the U.S. Army Air Force used the much longer Southern route. Boy, it was a long, long route for everything that could be carried by air.
The planes were generally C-47’s called DC-3’s in civilian life. They had internal cabin gas tanks. A fleet of C-87’s which had the capacity for longer flights were also used. When the C-87’s were intended for bombing missions they were called B-24’s.
The key points on the Southern route were Miami and the British-American base at Accra. Until the 1960’s, that base was located in a country called the Gold Coast which was a part of British West Africa in the English Empire. Since the late 1960’s, it is called Ghana.
From Miami, the trail led southward to Barinquen, Puerto Rico. Barinquen was the end of civilization for a time on this route. Next came a long over-water hop onto a jungle air strip outside of Georgetown, British Guiana. That country is now called Guyana. The enlisted men’s barracks at Georgetown had snakes and flying birds – inside! It was truly a jungle.
The next stop heading southward was Belem, Brazil. The Brazilians made things more civilized – and there was a town to visit for lucky GI’s. The next stop was the eastern most spot in Brazil called Natal. Most of us had some lovely boots made in Natal or Belem. Brazil suits me well. The people are outgoing and cheerful. They even tried to sell lipstick and other cosmetics to GI’s who had little use for such exotic products.
Heading eastward, the next stop was over the South Atlantic to a British island called Ascension. That tiny island had a semi-mountain with a hole cut through it to accommodate a single air strip. The wind blew constantly which made it important to line up for landings – and sometimes for take offs – in the center of the strip to avoid having the wing tips touching the side of the excavated hill.
By my estimation, Ascension has to be one of the loneliest places anywhere in the world. The soil cannot be cultivated, so at one time, vegetables were grown hydroponically. The vegetables were simply tasteless. There was no town there.
A GI told me that he had spent a tour in the Aleutian Islands. When he asked for a transfer, the Army fixed his clock by sending him to Ascension. Today, as far as can be told, Ascension is unpopulated and barely appears on maps of the South Atlantic region, appearing only in expensive atlases. That was and is, a lonely place.
My travels caused me to spend three nights on separate trips on Ascension. It was good to know that in the morning, we would head westward to Natal or eastward to Accra. The GI’s who were assigned there cursed their fate. We all understood.
Continuing eastward, there is a long over-water hop to Accra. At that base, material, supplies, engines and so forth were separated. Those intended for the European Theater went to Roberts Field in Liberia and then to Dakar, Senegal. In Dakar, where one could drink French wine, there were spies by the hundreds who made no real effort to hide their occupation. From Dakar, heading northward and easterly, there were some bases largely unknown to the outside world. First there was Atar, Mauritania and then Tindouf, Algeria. Then came Colom Bechar, Algeria and finally Oran, Algeria. All these were former French bases. From Oran, the cargo headed for the fighting in the North African and European battles.
Keep in mind Atar and Tindouf for later reference. Remember, Colom Bechon had the finest eating oranges in my memory.
It will be recalled that the U.S. was at war with Germany, Italy and their European allies, as well as with the Japanese Empire. For many years, some strategists argued that the best way to attack Japan was through China. So Accra became the distributing point for materiel heading eastward. First there was Kano and Maiduguri, Nigeria. Then
El Genina, El Fasher and Khartoum, Sudan. Then came Asmara, formerly in Ethiopia, now in Eritrea, Aden, Yemen and Karachi, formerly in India now in Pakistan. From Karachi, there were four or more bases until the supplies crossed the Himalayan mountains and wound up with allied forces in China.
From all this, remember if you will, El Genina and El Fasher.
According to my essay of several years ago, the loneliest places in the world are Ascension Island, Atar and Tindouf and El Genina and El Fasher. While my shaving was underway, it dawned on me that all those bases shared several characteristics. At all five of those lonely places, the wind blew endlessly. If one of us had a cup of coffee on the flight line, the wind would cool it automatically.
In the four African bases, Atar, Tindouf, El Genina and El Fasher, sand and dirt were constant problems. When an airplane was to spend the night there, at any of these bases, each engine had to be shrouded to attempt to protect it from sand and dirt. The mess halls – such as they were – had the same problem with the sand and dirt blowing through the tar-paper covering of the structure. On more than one occasion, sleeping in the airplane was preferable to trying to deal with bed clothes that had sand in them. There was absolutely no town to visit. In my estimation, English speaking foreigners would not have made any Arab shop owners very happy.
On all these bases, there were no rivers nearby. Water was a luxury. It was ladled out by the canteen. The Army loves to call its toilets or bathrooms “latrines,” which has both French and Latin ancestry. The dictionary says latrines are a place to wash. Not so in Atar, Tindouf,
El Genina and El Fasher. This was the case because there was no water for it at all. The latrines – for all their Frenchness – were known to my parents as outhouses. In this case, the sand and dirt made them pretty poor outhouses, at that.
This may destroy a myth about our soldiers being squeaky clean, but it is my duty to tell you that soldiers go for days or weeks without bathing or showering. My journeys took me through these bases on several trips. My bathing took place after we had reached a more civilized place, maybe two or three days later.
A final story about the El Genina and El Fasher. At the time of my enlistment, the Army issued a costume to us called “fatigues.” The Army loves French words, but these were simply work clothes. The fatigues had pants with metal buttons on the fly. The jacket had probably four metal buttons as well. Uniformly, the fatigues were some sort of green in color. Knowing how things are done in the Army, it is probably true that the color was given an undecipherable name. Take my word for it. They were green. And they were work clothes.
The first time my journeys brought me to El Genina, the ground mechanic who greeted us was dressed in what appeared to be off-white fatigues. My astonishment had no bounds. Was this a new issue that we had not seen or was it something that the El Genina ground crew had dreamed up by itself?
The next stop was El Fasher and again, we were greeted by ground mechanics in off-white uniforms. So some questions needed to be asked. An El Fasher mechanic said it was a simple matter. There was an Arab man who appeared to collect clothes for laundry. He took them home to be washed by one of his wives. The soap she used must have been industrial strength. After the washing, the clothes were hung on a line in the African desert sun with the African desert wind blowing on them. Before long, those green fatigues turned a dingy white. That is not an inspiring tale about the fatigues, but it must be said that in El Genina and El Fasher, that’s all the news we have to report.
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Clearly, the Arabs in Darfur are chasing and killing the black inhabitants. The Arabs believe that they are a superior race, it must be supposed. My heart goes out to the poor black people of Darfur. From all appearances, there have been no efforts to help them. Kofi Annan and Colin Powell shook their fists at the Sudanese government. The net effect was a big, fat zero. The killing and the displacement go on.
It may also be supposed that this country cares much more for the inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the black people of
El Genina, El Fasher and Darfur. Perhaps some day those black people will finally get a break. The politicians here are worried right now about same sex marriages and late term abortions. Do you think after those issues are settled, there may be some attention directed to the people of the Darfur region who are dying – right now?
While shaving these days, my thoughts are often on the people of the Sudan who badly need a break.
E. E. CARR
August 31, 2004
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This is actually pretty organized for a shaving thought. I was expecting a good meander through all sorts of topics, but we kept a pretty consistent narrative instead. Man, part of me really wants to visit Ascension and some of these other places, but the other part of me is generally there to remind me that I’ve only ever heard negative things about these places. Seems like the perpetual wind would get pretty frustrating, at the very least.
From my short time in Sao Paulo, however, I could definitely see Pop getting along well in Brazil. The people I met there were all friendly, boisterous and unpretentious.