Life in the Holy Land amidst war: the view from an American SUV

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. Michael, who lives in Washington, D.C., is going on a picnic with his family. He checks his phone to catch up on the news. There is something about 67 children killed in Gaza during the previous week. He scrolls over the news.

Having read mainstream U.S. media, he thinks, it’s the Palestinians who are destabilizing Israel. There is a “clash” that began with the Palestinian people needlessly insisting to pray at some mosque, as was shown in the headlines. They have been attacking the police officials with stones, and escalating the conflict so much so as to fire rockets into civilian areas.

They may be occupied, but resisting even an illegal occupation with violence is not justified. “Hurry up, folks, we’re getting late,” he exclaims, starting his SUV, as if to take refuge from the voice within, pushing him to make a moral choice.

***

Somewhere in Gaza, Daoud is feeling completely helpless. A building in his neighborhood in Khan Yunis, was struck an hour back. He is confused whether to take his family out and hide somewhere, or to stay inside the building. Going out with his newborn is dangerous. “How long can we stay outside?” he asks, Iman, his wife, rhetorically. “What if a shrapnel injures Sarah (his newborn) and where will we hide?” he wonders. “The bombs can drop any moment, anywhere.”

While they’re discussing, their building is shaken by a huge explosion. It’s a shockwave from another strike that was aimed at the foundation of the building next to theirs. They look at the collapsing building from their shattered windows in horror. That building had a child playing on the balcony.

Even with the risks, Daoud decides to stay in his home, thinking that dying together, in one go, will probably still the lesser of two evils. One of his two sons, whom he has handed over to his brother, gives him hope that his generation may survive. But the rubble of the fallen building in front is also haunting him. What if his nephew, entrusted to him by his brother in exchange, dies with them?

***

Benjamin lives in Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel. Although most of the rockets are intercepted, one reached his neighborhood, injuring one person critically. He remains anxious throughout the night. The sirens can go off anytime. But unlike the Palestinians, he has a shelter to hide.

To him, Palestinians are at the center of all episodes of hostilities. Jews deserve to live in peace in their God-sanctioned lands, he tells himself, and Israel should do whatever it takes to ensure this. The sirens are blaring again. “When will this violence end!” he yells.

***

Since his expulsion from his real home in Acre, when the Zionist militias targeted Palestinian residents in the aftermath of the 1948 war, Ibrahim has lived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where his family fled during the Nakba. The Jordanian authorities, which had control of the West Bank then, agreed to give his family the ownership of the house they settled in. But then, another war broke out in 1967, and Jordan lost control of the territory, which was also occupied by Israel.

Ibrahim is in an Israeli prison, after being held on charges of rioting. He cannot understand how an Israeli court could order the eviction of his family from their house, and is worried how his family will manage. “As an occupied territory, how can an Israeli court have jurisdiction,” he asks himself. “How can the Israeli state expel them on the basis of a ‘legal’ order?” he wonders.

***

Miriam was raised in Lod, a mixed city of Israeli Jews and “Arab Israelis”, i.e., the Palestinians in Israel. Though the two communities were socially distant, she has at least one childhood friend who is Palestinian. She is upset about the “riots”, “the conflict”, and “the disproportionate use of force by Israel.”

Miriam’s great-grandfather lost his life in the Holocaust. When Miriam was young, her grandmother used to tell her about the tragic experiences of those times. She looks at the state with suspicion now. To her, the Israeli state is led by right-wing hateful politics, and politicians vilify and persecute Palestinians to their benefit.

She is trying to find words to offer condolences to her Palestinian friend, who lost her brother to a mob of Israeli violence in the city the other day.

***

Michael’s back from the picnic. His children are jumping on his bed, as he urges them to sit down. He’s scrolling his Twitter feed. Every other post seems to be about massive destruction in Gaza. Biden, whom Michael voted for, has declared support for Israel’s right to self-defense, despite the fact that more than 248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, including 67 children.

He comes across a picture of a man running with his daughter, who is probably dead, in his hands. Michael’s eyes fall upon his own daughter who is still jumping on the bed carelessly. His eyes are now filled with tears. He wonders how could so many families and children be hit in error by the Israeli military, known for its pinpoint targeting capabilities.

He wants to retweet an opinion article by Bernie Sanders criticizing America’s backing of Israel, but stops short of it. It could affect his apolitical image on social media and his work.

Before putting down his phone, he tweets a quote by Dag Hammarskjöld instead: “Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own convictions.”

Michael’s conscience is somewhat lighter now. He mumbles to his wife that Hamas’s rockets killed 13 Israelis in a week before going to sleep.

—

(First published in Politics Today, here)

Of coffee, conspiracies, and the Sufis

That familiar aroma with the mystical quality of being able to pull you out from a spell with the most devious and captivating of fragrances, has a profound history. If it weren’t for the Sufis, the coffee beans could still have been limited to Ethiopia, or Yemen at best. Still, when the magical beans were actually passed on to our mundane world, they mostly ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Consider this.

The increased socialisation that came with the coffee culture did not just make the coffeehouses – kahvehane – a fertile ground for ideas, but also a cradle of conspiracies.

Coffee was new to the world, and so was the coffee culture. Istanbul got its first  coffeehouse by 1555, and by 1570, Istanbul already had 600. 

The growth was indeed magical. But so was the charm of the new coffee culture. The aroma was an invitation to think, reflect and question. 

People started to spend significant time in what were socially more acceptable alternatives to taverns in an overwhelmingly Muslim society. Musicians played music, storytellers told stories, some played games, some gossiped, but the mutinous plotted conspiracies too.

Among others, the coffeehouses had caught Janissaries’ fancy, who started to go there often. As the coffee culture came to be associated with free and somewhat rebellious thinking, the Janissaries’ frequenting them was not something the Sultan could have ignored.

Back in the 14th century, the Janissary corps was commissioned as special guard to the Sultan in the Ottoman Empire. But it had grown in influence over time, and now represented a threat to the Sultan himself.

Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-40) who remembered the execution of his brother, Osman II, by the Janissaries in a rebellion, banned coffeehouses in 1633, on the pretext that they had often been the source of disastrous fires. 

Historians, however, have pointed out that the real aim of the law was the threat of a rather metaphorical fire – namely, another rebellion. Some, on the other hand, contend that it was for religious reasons as the Sultan did not like these places of idleness and indulgence.

Whatever the rationale, this was not the first ban on coffeehouses in the Empire, but did stand out for its harshness. The coffeehouses in Istanbul were demolished and the violators of the ban, who were found having coffee – and even tobacco, a rather thornier issue for religious reasons – were punished with death.

The coffeehouses in Istanbul were still closed after over a decade of Sultan Murad IV’s death in 1640, lying “as desolate as the heart of the ignorant”, in the words of Katib Celebi.

With the passage of time, however, the laws got relaxed. Who was to stop the coffee, after all? The aroma of the dark brew returned to the streets of Istanbul and the coffee culture thrived for the next few centuries.

But over time, more and more coffeehouses came to be owned by the Janissaries themselves. So when the reformist and headstrong Sultan, Mahmud II (r. 1808-1939) took the daring step of dismantling the Janissary corps, coffeehouses were again shuttered. Not only did the state want to sever this source of income for many of them, but also feared they could become the launching pads for a reorganisation and resurgence of the troublesome corps. 

As the Janissary threat waned, coffeehouses started to reopen, never to be closed in the Empire again. But this time, the state had learned a lesson. It was just a matter of time until the palace would use coffeehouses to their advantage.

Beginning in Sultan Abdul Mecid’s reign (1839-1861), informants of the palace spread everywhere keeping an eye on what, besides coffee, was actually brewing in the coffeehouses. Thus, in a significant turn of events, the erstwhile hotbed of conspiracies got transformed into an apparatus to keep a check on the public’s pulse. 

Because of a virtually omnipresent intelligence, and with the dawn of the printing press, these cafes morphed into powerhouses for sharing of news, views, and satire. Criticism of the state did not go beyond satire. An artful narrator would read the newspapers and magazines out loud to those who could not, or simply did not want, to read. Thus, conversations in coffeehouses now began to become relatively more grounded. 

No wonder, when coffee from the Empire reached the West, the coffeehouses came to be known there as ‘penny universities’. Whether in Istanbul or London, the coffeehouses served as places for educated exchange in the midst of an inspiring aroma.

Coffee in Turkey today

Hardly anyone narrates legends anymore, or reads the newspaper to others – at least in urban Turkey today. But the tradition of small talk over coffee – or relatively recently, çay – lives on. In Istanbul, for one, alongside the chic private cafes that adorn its beautiful land- and seascape, the government-sanctioned Kiraathane – literally places of learning – with their dedicated libraries, offer opportunity for socialisation and learning at once. 

You can teleport yourself into a book to 400 BC, over a cup of çay or  kahve to bring your imagination to life. The origins of the Kiraathane can be traced back, again, to Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1494-1566) who ordered special books for coffeehouses – so that people didn’t waste time.

In addition to the traditional cafes serving the emblematic Turk Kahvesi – recognised as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO – Turkey has over 500 branches of Starbucks, which makes the country second only to the United Kingdom within Europe. 

With a rich history of its own Turk Kahvesi, such a large number of the foreign coffee cafés is somewhat remarkable, not least because the Turk Kahvesi is one of the most authentic tastes in the coffee-verse.

According to experts, one explanation for the exceptional success of Starbucks in Turkey may be its ability to capitalise on the already established coffee culture in the country and target the new generation. For the hipper young people in Turkey now, the instant European alternatives to the Turk Kahvesi are chic, quicker to prepare, and suit their taste buds perhaps equally well.

In search of its soul

The obligations of express-paced modern life have reduced coffee to a kind of fast food. This, for coffee, and for us, the lovers of the beverage, is indeed heartbreaking. While speed may be valuable, coffee seeks a deeper meaning – thanks to its mystical roots.

The most frequently used reference to the history of coffee is ‘Mocha’ – yes, that smooth creamy delight with a dash of chocolate we all love. But did you know that Mocha, originally was, and remains, a port in Yemen, that was at the heart of the early coffee trade?

It is in Yemen that the extraordinary beans were first brought from Ethiopia, just across the Red Sea, a few miles away from the Port of Mocha, from where they eventually got popularised. Like much else that is connected with love and compassion, it is the Sufis that are credited to have sprung life into this hitherto undiscovered treasure, opening the gates of the blessed aroma to the world around the 15th century.

While tracing the name of the person responsible for the eventual popularisation of coffee is difficult, the feat is sometimes attributed to Shaykh Ali ibn Umar al-Shadhili. No wonder, coffee is sometimes referred to as the Shadhiliye in Algeria to this day.

But, another account connects coffee to Abu Bakar al-Aydarus, a pious Sufi Shaikh and poet, who is even said to have written a poem eulogising coffee. He recommended the beverage to his followers. The entrancing aroma with the unifying quality of being able to awaken the head and heart at once, facilitated the Dhikr – remembrance for tryst between the soul and the spirit, as such.

Whosoever got to coffee first, what is largely agreed by historians is the role of the Sufis in the eventual diffusion of the enlivening aroma into the mundane world.

So the next time you decide to treat yourself with a rich cup of coffee, take a break from the outside world and let its blissful elan take over. The mystical connection of the beans may be your gateway to the sea of love and tranquil within yourself. From a deep silence, I can hear an echoing chant, “What you seek, is seeking you.”

(First published on the TRT World Digital, here)