From: "genet son of genet" <radiogenet-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: In his own words-homosexual-Robert Fisk Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 06:41:08 +0000 <html><div style='background-color:'><DIV> <P>Here now this is strange as i was writing to you about Robert Fisk he was being beaten. What a sad strange world. As Genet used to say I am here, but I could just as easily be somewhere else. A child throws a stone. and what a man, and the man who loves them mos t almost loses his life. Here below find enclosed the comments of Michael Albert about the incident and then Fisk's own account.</P> <P>About Genet being my Papapappa well I can only say you need to learn to read between the lines, between the characters of black and white.</P> <P> </P> <P>Love<BR><BR><BR></P></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>>From: "Michael Albert" <SYSOP-AT-ZMAG.ORG> <DIV></DIV>>>Reply-To: znetupdates-AT-zmag.org <DIV></DIV>>>To: <ZNETUPDATES-AT-ZMAG.ORG> <DIV></DIV>>>Subject: Update & Commentary from ZNet <DIV></DIV>>>Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 22:34:57 -0500 <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>Hi, <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>This is from ZNet (http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm ) and is being <DIV></DIV>>>sent <DIV></DIV>>>admittedly much sooner than I would ordinarily be sending another <DIV></DIV>>>free <DIV></DIV>>>update. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>The impetus is that I have gotten many queries from people worried <DIV></DIV>>>about <DIV></DIV>>>the well being of Robert Fisk, a person who ZNet features very <DIV></DIV>>>often on <DIV></DIV>>>our site. I don't personally know Fisk, but I very much admire his <DIV></DIV>>>work. <DIV></DIV>>>He is in my view the foremost reporter in the world today, <DIV></DIV>>>courageous <DIV></DIV>>>beyond words, and first rate as well for analysis. I haven't heard <DIV></DIV>>>directly from him, but his reaction to his beating published in The <DIV></DIV>>>Independent appears below, clarifying his condition. And like his <DIV></DIV>>>reaction to most things, it also provides context, a sense of <DIV></DIV>>>proportion, and understanding, and is therefore well worth sending <DIV></DIV>>>in <DIV></DIV>>>its own right. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>The Independent (U.K.) <DIV></DIV>>>Monday, December 10, 2001 <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this <DIV></DIV>>>filthy <DIV></DIV>>>war <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>Report by Robert Fisk <DIV></DIV>>>in Kila Abdullah after Afghan border ordeal <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>They started by shaking hands. We said "Salaam aleikum" peace be <DIV></DIV>>>upon <DIV></DIV>>>you then the first pebbles flew past my face. A small boy tried <DIV></DIV>>>to <DIV></DIV>>>grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in the back. <DIV></DIV>>>Then <DIV></DIV>>>young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones into my face and <DIV></DIV>>>head. <DIV></DIV>>>I couldn't see for the blood pouring down my forehead and swamping <DIV></DIV>>>my <DIV></DIV>>>eyes. And even then, I understood. I couldn't blame them for what <DIV></DIV>>>they <DIV></DIV>>>were doing. In fact, if I were the Afghan refugees of Kila <DIV></DIV>>>Abdullah, <DIV></DIV>>>close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the <DIV></DIV>>>same to <DIV></DIV>>>Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>So why record my few minutes of terror and self-disgust under <DIV></DIV>>>assault <DIV></DIV>>>near the Afghan border, bleeding and crying like an animal, when <DIV></DIV>>>hundreds let us be frank and say thousands of innocent <DIV></DIV>>>civilians are <DIV></DIV>>>dying under American air strikes in Afghanistan, when the "War of <DIV></DIV>>>Civilisation" is burning and maiming the Pashtuns of Kandahar and <DIV></DIV>>>destroying their homes because "good" must triumph over "evil"? <DIV></DIV>>>Some of the Afghans in the little village had been there for years, <DIV></DIV>>>others had arrived desperate and angry and mourning their <DIV></DIV>>>slaughtered <DIV></DIV>>>loved ones over the past two weeks. It was a bad place for a car <DIV></DIV>>>to <DIV></DIV>>>break down. A bad time, just before the Iftar, the end of the daily <DIV></DIV>>>fast <DIV></DIV>>>of Ramadan. But what happened to us was symbolic of the hatred and <DIV></DIV>>>fury <DIV></DIV>>>and hypocrisy of this filthy war, a growing band of destitute <DIV></DIV>>>Afghan <DIV></DIV>>>men, young and old, who saw foreigners enemies in their midst <DIV></DIV>>>and <DIV></DIV>>>tried to destroy at least one of them. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>Many of these Afghans, so we were to learn, were outraged by what <DIV></DIV>>>they <DIV></DIV>>>had seen on television of the Mazar-i-Sharif massacres, of the <DIV></DIV>>>prisoners <DIV></DIV>>>killed with their hands tied behind their backs. A villager later <DIV></DIV>>>told <DIV></DIV>>>one of our drivers that they had seen the videotape of CIA officers <DIV></DIV>>>"Mike" and "Dave" threatening death to a kneeling prisoner at <DIV></DIV>>>Mazar. <DIV></DIV>>>They were uneducated I doubt if many could read but you don't <DIV></DIV>>>have <DIV></DIV>>>to have a schooling to respond to the death of loved ones under a <DIV></DIV>>>B-52's <DIV></DIV>>>bombs. At one point a screaming teenager had turned to my driver <DIV></DIV>>>and <DIV></DIV>>>asked, in all sincerity: "Is that Mr Bush?" <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>It must have been about 4.30pm that we reached Kila Abdullah, <DIV></DIV>>>halfway <DIV></DIV>>>between the Pakistani city of Quetta and the border town of Chaman; <DIV></DIV>>>Amanullah, our driver, Fayyaz Ahmed, our translator, Justin Huggler <DIV></DIV>>>of <DIV></DIV>>>The Independent fresh from covering the Mazar massacre and <DIV></DIV>>>myself. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>The first we knew that something was wrong was when the car stopped <DIV></DIV>>>in <DIV></DIV>>>the middle of the narrow, crowded street. A film of white steam was <DIV></DIV>>>rising from the bonnet of our jeep, a constant shriek of car horns <DIV></DIV>>>and <DIV></DIV>>>buses and trucks and rickshaws protesting at the road-block we had <DIV></DIV>>>created. All four of us got out of the car and pushed it to the <DIV></DIV>>>side of <DIV></DIV>>>the road. I muttered something to Justin about this being "a bad <DIV></DIV>>>place <DIV></DIV>>>to break down". Kila Abdulla was home to thousands of Afghan <DIV></DIV>>>refugees, <DIV></DIV>>>the poor and huddled masses that the war has produced in Pakistan. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>Amanullah went off to find another car there is only one thing <DIV></DIV>>>worse <DIV></DIV>>>than a crowd of angry men and that's a crowd of angry men after <DIV></DIV>>>dark <DIV></DIV>>>and Justin and I smiled at the initially friendly crowd that had <DIV></DIV>>>already <DIV></DIV>>>gathered round our steaming vehicle. I shook a lot of hands <DIV></DIV>>>perhaps I <DIV></DIV>>>should have thought of Mr Bush and uttered a lot of "Salaam <DIV></DIV>>>aleikums". <DIV></DIV>>>I knew what could happen if the smiling stopped. <DIV></DIV>>>The crowd grew larger and I suggested to Justin that we move away <DIV></DIV>>>from <DIV></DIV>>>the jeep, walk into the open road. A child had flicked his finger <DIV></DIV>>>hard <DIV></DIV>>>against my wrist and I persuaded myself that it was an accident, a <DIV></DIV>>>childish moment of contempt. Then a pebble whisked past my head and <DIV></DIV>>>bounced off Justin's shoulder. Justin turned round. His eyes spoke <DIV></DIV>>>of <DIV></DIV>>>concern and I remember how I breathed in. Please, I thought, it was <DIV></DIV>>>just <DIV></DIV>>>a prank. Then another kid tried to grab my bag. It contained my <DIV></DIV>>>passport, credit cards, money, diary, contacts book, mobile phone. <DIV></DIV>>>I <DIV></DIV>>>yanked it back and put the strap round my shoulder. Justin and I <DIV></DIV>>>crossed <DIV></DIV>>>the road and someone punched me in the back. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>How do you walk out of a dream when the characters suddenly turn <DIV></DIV>>>hostile? I saw one of the men who had been all smiles when we shook <DIV></DIV>>>hands. He wasn't smiling now. Some of the smaller boys were still <DIV></DIV>>>laughing but their grins were transforming into something else. The <DIV></DIV>>>respected foreigner the man who had been all "salaam aleikum" a <DIV></DIV>>>few <DIV></DIV>>>minutes ago was upset, frightened, on the run. The West was being <DIV></DIV>>>brought low. Justin was being pushed around and, in the middle of <DIV></DIV>>>the <DIV></DIV>>>road, we noticed a bus driver waving us to his vehicle. Fayyaz, <DIV></DIV>>>still by <DIV></DIV>>>the car, unable to understand why we had walked away, could no <DIV></DIV>>>longer <DIV></DIV>>>see us. Justin reached the bus and climbed aboard. As I put my foot <DIV></DIV>>>on <DIV></DIV>>>the step three men grabbed the strap of my bag and wrenched me back <DIV></DIV>>>on <DIV></DIV>>>to the road. Justin's hand shot out. "Hold on," he shouted. I did. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>That's when the first mighty crack descended on my head. I almost <DIV></DIV>>>fell <DIV></DIV>>>down under the blow, my ears singing with the impact. I had <DIV></DIV>>>expected <DIV></DIV>>>this, though not so painful or hard, not so immediate. Its message <DIV></DIV>>>was <DIV></DIV>>>awful. Someone hated me enough to hurt me. There were two more <DIV></DIV>>>blows, <DIV></DIV>>>one on the back of my shoulder, a powerful fist that sent me <DIV></DIV>>>crashing <DIV></DIV>>>against the side of the bus while still clutching Justin's hand. <DIV></DIV>>>The <DIV></DIV>>>passengers were looking out at me and then at Justin. But they did <DIV></DIV>>>not <DIV></DIV>>>move. No one wanted to help. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>I cried out "Help me Justin", and Justin who was doing more than <DIV></DIV>>>any <DIV></DIV>>>human could <DIV></DIV>>>do by clinging to my ever loosening grip asked me over the <DIV></DIV>>>screams of <DIV></DIV>>>the crowd what I wanted him to do. Then I realised. I could only <DIV></DIV>>>just <DIV></DIV>>>hear him. Yes, they were shouting. Did I catch the word "kaffir" <DIV></DIV>>>infidel? Perhaps I was was wrong. That's when I was dragged away <DIV></DIV>>>from <DIV></DIV>>>Justin. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>There were two more cracks on my head, one on each side and for <DIV></DIV>>>some odd <DIV></DIV>>>reason, part of my memory some small crack in my brain <DIV></DIV>>>registered a <DIV></DIV>>>moment at school, at a primary school called the Cedars in <DIV></DIV>>>Maidstone <DIV></DIV>>>more than 50 years ago when a tall boy building sandcastles in the <DIV></DIV>>>playground had hit me on the head. I had a memory of the blow <DIV></DIV>>>smelling, <DIV></DIV>>>as if it had affected my nose. The next blow came from a man I saw <DIV></DIV>>>carrying a big stone in his right hand. He brought it down on my <DIV></DIV>>>forehead with tremendous force and something hot and liquid <DIV></DIV>>>splashed <DIV></DIV>>>down my face and lips and chin. I was kicked. On the back, on the <DIV></DIV>>>shins, <DIV></DIV>>>on my right thigh. Another teenager grabbed my bag yet again and I <DIV></DIV>>>was <DIV></DIV>>>left clinging to the strap, looking up suddenly and realising there <DIV></DIV>>>must <DIV></DIV>>>have been 60 men in front of me, howling. Oddly, it wasn't fear I <DIV></DIV>>>felt <DIV></DIV>>>but a kind of wonderment. So this is how it happens. I knew that I <DIV></DIV>>>had <DIV></DIV>>>to respond. Or, so I reasoned in my stunned state, I had to die. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>The only thing that shocked me was my own physical sense of <DIV></DIV>>>collapse, my <DIV></DIV>>>growing awareness of the liquid beginning to cover me. I don't <DIV></DIV>>>think <DIV></DIV>>>I've ever seen so much blood before. For a second, I caught a <DIV></DIV>>>glimpse of <DIV></DIV>>>something terrible, a nightmare face my own reflected in the <DIV></DIV>>>window <DIV></DIV>>>of the bus, streaked in blood, my hands drenched in the stuff like <DIV></DIV>>>Lady <DIV></DIV>>>Macbeth, slopping down my pullover and the collar of my shirt until <DIV></DIV>>>my <DIV></DIV>>>back was wet and my bag dripping with crimson and vague splashes <DIV></DIV>>>suddenly appearing on my trousers. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>The more I bled, the more the crowd gathered and beat me with their <DIV></DIV>>>fists. Pebbles and small stones began to bounce off my head and <DIV></DIV>>>shoulders. How long, I remembered thinking, could this go on? My <DIV></DIV>>>head <DIV></DIV>>>was suddenly struck by stones on both sides at the same time not <DIV></DIV>>>thrown stones but stones in the palms of men who were using them to <DIV></DIV>>>try <DIV></DIV>>>and crack my skull. Then a fist punched me in the face, splintering <DIV></DIV>>>my <DIV></DIV>>>glasses on my nose, another hand grabbed at the spare pair of <DIV></DIV>>>spectacles <DIV></DIV>>>round my neck and ripped the leather container from the cord. <DIV></DIV>>>I guess at this point I should thank Lebanon. For 25 years, I have <DIV></DIV>>>covered Lebanon's wars and the Lebanese used to teach me, over and <DIV></DIV>>>over <DIV></DIV>>>again, how to stay alive: take a decision any decision but <DIV></DIV>>>don't do <DIV></DIV>>>nothing. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>So I wrenched the bag back from the hands of the young man who was <DIV></DIV>>>holding it. He stepped back. Then I turned on the man on my right, <DIV></DIV>>>the <DIV></DIV>>>one holding the bloody stone in his hand and I bashed my fist into <DIV></DIV>>>his <DIV></DIV>>>mouth. I couldn't see very much my eyes were not only <DIV></DIV>>>short-sighted <DIV></DIV>>>without my glasses but were misting over with a red haze but I <DIV></DIV>>>saw the <DIV></DIV>>>man sort of cough and a tooth fall from his lip and then he fell <DIV></DIV>>>back on <DIV></DIV>>>the road. For a second the crowd stopped. Then I went for the other <DIV></DIV>>>man, <DIV></DIV>>>clutching my bag under my arm and banging my fist into his nose. He <DIV></DIV>>>roared in anger and it suddenly turned all red. I missed another <DIV></DIV>>>man <DIV></DIV>>>with a punch, hit one more in the face, and ran. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>I was back in the middle of the road but could not see. I brought <DIV></DIV>>>my <DIV></DIV>>>hands to my eyes and they were full of blood and with my fingers I <DIV></DIV>>>tried <DIV></DIV>>>to scrape the gooey stuff out. It made a kind of sucking sound but <DIV></DIV>>>I <DIV></DIV>>>began to see again and realised that I was crying and weeping and <DIV></DIV>>>that <DIV></DIV>>>the tears were cleaning my eyes of blood. What had I done, I kept <DIV></DIV>>>asking <DIV></DIV>>>myself? I had been punching and attacking Afghan refugees, the very <DIV></DIV>>>people I had been writing about for so long, the very dispossessed, <DIV></DIV>>>mutilated people whom my own country among others was killing <DIV></DIV>>>along, <DIV></DIV>>>with the Taliban, just across the border. God spare me, I thought. <DIV></DIV>>>I <DIV></DIV>>>think I actually said it. The men whose families our bombers were <DIV></DIV>>>killing were now my enemies too. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>Then something quite remarkable happened. A man walked up to me, <DIV></DIV>>>very <DIV></DIV>>>calmly, and took me by the arm. I couldn't see him very well for <DIV></DIV>>>all the <DIV></DIV>>>blood that was running into my eyes but he was dressed in a kind of <DIV></DIV>>>robe <DIV></DIV>>>and wore a turban and had a white-grey beard. And he led me away <DIV></DIV>>>from <DIV></DIV>>>the crowd. I looked over my shoulder. There were now a hundred men <DIV></DIV>>>behind me and a few stones skittered along the road, but they were <DIV></DIV>>>not <DIV></DIV>>>aimed at me presumably to avoid hitting the stranger. He was like <DIV></DIV>>>an <DIV></DIV>>>Old Testament figure or some Bible story, the Good Samaritan, a <DIV></DIV>>>Muslim <DIV></DIV>>>man perhaps a mullah in the village who was trying to save my <DIV></DIV>>>life. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>He pushed me into the back of a police truck. But the policemen <DIV></DIV>>>didn't <DIV></DIV>>>move. They were terrified. "Help me," I kept shouting through the <DIV></DIV>>>tiny <DIV></DIV>>>window at the back of their cab, my hands leaving streams of blood <DIV></DIV>>>down <DIV></DIV>>>the glass. They drove a few metres and stopped until the tall man <DIV></DIV>>>spoke <DIV></DIV>>>to them again. Then they drove another 300 metres. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>And there, beside the road, was a Red Cross-Red Crescent convoy. <DIV></DIV>>>The <DIV></DIV>>>crowd was still behind us. But two of the medical attendants pulled <DIV></DIV>>>me <DIV></DIV>>>behind one of their vehicles, poured water over my hands and face <DIV></DIV>>>and <DIV></DIV>>>began pushing bandages on to my head and face and the back of my <DIV></DIV>>>head. <DIV></DIV>>>"Lie down and we'll cover you with a blanket so they can't see <DIV></DIV>>>you," one <DIV></DIV>>>of them said. They were both Muslims, Bangladeshis and their names <DIV></DIV>>>should be recorded because they were good men and true: Mohamed <DIV></DIV>>>Abdul <DIV></DIV>>>Halim and Sikder Mokaddes Ahmed. I lay on the floor, groaning, <DIV></DIV>>>aware <DIV></DIV>>>that I might live. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>Within minutes, Justin arrived. He had been protected by a massive <DIV></DIV>>>soldier from the Baluchistan Levies true ghost of the British <DIV></DIV>>>Empire <DIV></DIV>>>who, with a single rifle, kept the crowds away from the car in <DIV></DIV>>>which <DIV></DIV>>>Justin was now sitting. I fumbled with my bag. They never got the <DIV></DIV>>>bag, I <DIV></DIV>>>kept saying to myself, as if my passport and my credit cards were a <DIV></DIV>>>kind <DIV></DIV>>>of Holy Grail. But they had seized my final pair of spare glasses <DIV></DIV>>>I <DIV></DIV>>>was blind without all three and my mobile telephone was missing <DIV></DIV>>>and so <DIV></DIV>>>was my contacts book, containing 25 years of telephone numbers <DIV></DIV>>>throughout the Middle East. What was I supposed to do? Ask everyone <DIV></DIV>>>who <DIV></DIV>>>ever knew me to re-send their telephone numbers? <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>Goddamit, I said and tried to bang my fist on my side until I <DIV></DIV>>>realised <DIV></DIV>>>it was bleeding from a big gash on the wrist the mark of the <DIV></DIV>>>tooth I <DIV></DIV>>>had just knocked out of a man's jaw, a man who was truly innocent <DIV></DIV>>>of any <DIV></DIV>>>crime except that of being the victim of the world. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>I had spent more than two and a half decades reporting the <DIV></DIV>>>humiliation <DIV></DIV>>>and misery of the Muslim world and now their anger had embraced me <DIV></DIV>>>too. <DIV></DIV>>>Or had it? There were Mohamed and Sikder of the Red Crescent and <DIV></DIV>>>Fayyaz <DIV></DIV>>>who came panting back to the car incandescent at our treatment and <DIV></DIV>>>Amanullah who invited us to his home for medical treatment. And <DIV></DIV>>>there <DIV></DIV>>>was the Muslim saint who had taken me by the arm. <DIV></DIV>>>And I realised there were all the Afghan men and boys who had <DIV></DIV>>>attacked me who should never have done so but whose brutality was <DIV></DIV>>>entirely the product of others, of us of we who had armed their <DIV></DIV>>>struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at <DIV></DIV>>>their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the "War for <DIV></DIV>>>Civilisation" just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and <DIV></DIV>>>ripped up their families and called them "collateral damage". <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>So I thought I should write about what happened to us in this <DIV></DIV>>>fearful, <DIV></DIV>>>silly, bloody, tiny incident. I feared other versions would produce <DIV></DIV>>>a <DIV></DIV>>>different narrative, of how a British journalist was "beaten up by <DIV></DIV>>>a mob <DIV></DIV>>>of Afghan refugees". <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>And of course, that's the point. The people who were assaulted were <DIV></DIV>>>the <DIV></DIV>>>Afghans, the scars inflicted by us by B-52s, not by them. And <DIV></DIV>>>I'll say <DIV></DIV>>>it again. If I was an Afghan refugee in Kila Abdullah, I would have <DIV></DIV>>>done <DIV></DIV>>>just what they did. I would have attacked Robert Fisk. Or any other <DIV></DIV>>>Westerner I could find. <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>> <DIV></DIV>>>===================================This message has been brought to <DIV></DIV>>>you by ZNet (http://www.zmag.org). 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