We well understand the force of the shock waves running through the world today, thanks in part to the e-mails we’ve been getting from our friends and family. Everybody asks the same question: how are you experiencing this crisis in far away Hanoi? Can you remain informed? Are you as shaken as we are or has distance reduced the seriousness of what is happening?

I saw people gathered around the television set in the lobby of the Alliance Française to watch the One o’clock news on TV5 on Wednesday the 12^th of September. It was with eyes opened in horror that I saw the impact of the plane crashing into the 2^nd tower of the WTC, followed by scenes of rejoicing in Napluse as well as some interviews with barely awake Parisians saying, "Well, now when I look at the Tour Montparnasse it’s scary!". Needless to say, everybody was in shock…a Frenchman there who had already heard about it told me about the different attacks and the images piled up to create a truly terrifying image. Most of the people around me were French (some had just come out of Vietnamese class, others were just passing by) and I don’t remember seeing any Vietnamese watching the T.V.. This disaster seems even further away for them than for us, and the language barrier makes it hard to interpret their feelings.

We don’t have a television set in our flat so we went to watch CNN on the night of the 14^th at a friend’s place, I continue getting a bit of information at the Alliance, we listen to the BBC and of course there’s the Internet where we could see the photos on the site of the Nouvel Observateur and read the articles in Le Monde. So we know what’s happening but we aren’t flooded with images, news specials and opinions as you must be. Life goes on in the streets and at work as though nothing had happened. We speak to other ex-pats living here and are able to share information. Most of the French people think that President Bush was rather ridiculous in speaking about the struggle between Good and Evil, but I guess it’s a question of style.

I saw a few seconds of film taken in Afghanistan, men in turbans and djellabas walking in the streets giving their opinions to a journalist. Women in purdah, remote and silent. We did not cross Afghanistan but these images, those faces, the cut of their clothing, seemed so much like those we had seen in Quetta in Pakistan that it troubled me. It seems to me that if we had never made this trip, these images would seems cold and far away, representing a nebulous Elsewhere somewhere ‘over there’, whereas today these images are much more meaningful to me.

This avalanche of fanaticism makes me think about several different moments from our trip. One of these we already spoke about and you can read it in the link to Tabriz on this site when we were spectators to a mourning procession in the old bazaar. The memory of those men in trance, beating themselves and weeping always fills me with fear whenever I think about it. I had then the impression of seeing for the first time a truly fanatic side of Islam. A palpable violence filled that bazaar and echoed off the brick walls, making us tremble even behind the door of the carpet stall.

But at the same time I remember the warm welcome we received in all the Arab and Moslem countries we went through. Moslems know how to give a real place to the Stranger; their hospitality often bothered us and we often thought that we had much to learn from them. On the site we spoke of Mohammed in Syria, for example, but we did not tell of the anecdote in Jericho which seems to me to be of capital importance today when all reasonable men tell us that there is no hope for peace in the Middle East or the world.

It was during Ramadan in the winter of 1999-2000 when peace talks were going on between Israel and Syria. We were on our way back from a week end at the Dead Sea, Maïr, Cléa and myself, and on the way up to Jerusalem we decided to stop in Jericho (in the Palestinian Autonomous Areas) to visit an ancient synagogue and its mosaic floor.

Palestinian and Israeli police were guarding the entrance because there was a Yeshiva on the floor above the old synagogue. We had only a few Shekels between us and were dying to have a tea in one of the many stalls there.

The Palestinian who sold the tickets told us the price. We didn’t have enough money to buy tickets and have a tea. We tried to get him to lower his price, "Please," we said, "we’re dying to have a tea…" The conversation was in Hebrew. He wouldn’t budge on the price of the tickets but proposed to make us a cup of tea himself when we got out of the synagogue. ‘We Arabs know how to receive guests’, he said and he was right.

While sipping his strong sweet tea, the calls to prayer could be heard coming from the surrounding mosques. It was sunset. The policemen there invited us to share with them their dinner. Their tents was at the far end of the parking lot and there were six of them for dinner, the dinner which marks the end of the Ramadan fast for the day.

Each one of use knew who the other one was and what he represented and that is why this invitation was so precious to us, it carried such joy and hope! It is more precious now than ever before if we want to see beyond the terrorist bombs, the kamikazes and the calls for blood.

It’s only an anecdote, but I like remembering it when I see the whole thing tumbling down like a house of cards and madness getting the upper hand.




Marie-Do