Growing up in Wars

       A ten year old boy had spent half of the day watching his father duct taping all the windows, vents and doors in the house. Imagine same kid, in the night being approached by his mom only to be guided in the use of chemical gas mask. He naturally anticipated many answers before the usual bed time stories that day.

This was first gulf war of 1991 and I was fresh in my 5^th class at school. Dad tried to explain how Iraq had invaded Kuwait and now Saudi Arabia was the next stop for Saddam’s marching forces. We lived in the farther most corner of the Arabian Peninsula, but still Jeddah was well within the range of Iraqi missiles. I was told that Saddam has chemical bombs which can give a person seriously bad cough. Very next day “the cough bomb” was well elaborated by our science teacher at school. He metaphorically compared melting candle wax to human bodies upon exposure to the fumes of this bomb.

 I was not too young to not contemplate the dynamics facing us, in the wake of this war phenomenon. Suddenly we could see torches, candles, water filters, storage tanks and battery lights, popping up in every bazar and stores we went to in the following days.

The grim horrors of war were further explained by friends, family, relatives and were essentially the talk of the town. Suddenly cars with Kuwaiti number plates started showing up on streets, and there came the refugees. People from Dammam, Bahrain, Riyadh all made it to my city. We could feel the population swelling up the local districts. Sirens made their first test runs, and city exercised a complete blackout.

History remembers first gulf war of 1991 as the first military campaign in the human history with Live television coverage from the battle ground. CNN would be re-telecasted live from the national TV channel of Saudi Arabia every night between 9 to 12. I have many a tales from my first ever war to tell, but I want to take you back to the first day.

 Watching dad covering all windows and doors with duct tape was essentially like seeing the most natural instincts of survival at play. The son of Adam, the receiver of survival instincts from his ancestors, here was taking steps to protect his family. But again I want you to imagine how a mother would have approached her son and talked about some basic safety measures.

I remember mom saying, that If there was a bomb dropped closed to the house or upon us, she insisted we try to run away from the impact zone. Fire or rubble whatever that we are faced with, she said don’t lose nerves. Look for your brother first. Even if you don’t see your parents just don’t stay, go as far away from the bomb site as you can. We will meet again, InshAllah. These words echo in my head to this day. Most important than the words, I clearly can recall the concern and pain in their voices. The most agonizing experience of this entire war was the first look on her face and the volumes her expressions spoke.

Wars are life altering experiences. I lived through my first ever war in the most luxurious and wealthiest of all nations on the earth. Money can buy anything, and so the Saudis literally paid the world super power to protect itself. US troops averted all the aerial and ground dangers the Peninsula was faced with. There was not a single bomb dropped in Jeddah, nor any Saddam’s fighter pilots made it to Hijaz. Throughout the war, the constant fear of never being able to meet school friends again, was enough tragedy for a 10 year old.

Today as I read about bombs being dropped inside Pakistan, by foreign occupational forces based in Afghanistan, you must know how I feel. I think about a 10 year old boy in those villages who actually hear these pilotless drones humming in the skies throughout the day, sometimes continuously for weeks ahead of the strikes. Only difference is, he doesn’t have petro-dollars to recruit a soldier to protect himself. He doesn’t have a fraudulent and symbolic representation or voice inside United Nations. He doesn’t have a single journalist allowed to tell his tale, measure his loss or to even verify the body count. Worst, he probably has already lost a loved one or a limb in this daily reign of terror and bombing, from thousands of feet in the sky without any charges, trial or conviction.

But he has something, a choice. A choice to pick up arms and fight till the last of his aggressor dies. It is once again, Son of Adam displaying the most natural instinct he has inherited from the lineage of his fine ancestry; that is to ‘fight for survival’.

May Allah Bless All Muslims facing trials and tribulations. 

Ameen