I remember quite clearly the first time I visited
North Africa—it was a school trip to Tunisia. But somehow I don’t remember that
much novelty to the visit. Oh sure, I spent a lot of time kissing a boy I had a
huge crush on, and I drank too much (there is no drinking age in Tunisia,
certainly not for blonde American girls with cash in their pockets), and that
was new, or new-ish, and certainly exciting.
But there were also roman ruins, and franco-italian-arabic tourist
dialects, and delicious bread, and the Mediterranean. The flight from Rome was only a few hours,
but it seemed closer.
A map will show you that Italy and Morocco and Libya and Algeria and Tunisia and Egypt are 6 countries on two different continents. But I once accidentally drove into Libya from Tunisia, the (main) Prime Minister of my youth died at his home in Tunisia, and, as a child, classmates’ fathers commuted to Libya, a former colony of Italy.
You could—any many have—row a boat from Kelibia to
Sciacca. And in Rome it has always been possible to find delicious, authentic
Tunisan couscous.
My father had a fetish for the food of the Maghreb.
We would eat at a Libyan-owned fish restaurant in Trastervere once a month, for
Sunday lunch, after dinner, when I was a teenager. It was with my father, too,
that I first visited the Couscousterie on the bad side of Testaccio.
I do remember being thrilled by the idea of
visiting Tunisia, I thought certainly this was one place my father hadn’t
been-- I hadn’t ever heard any stories of it. And, he hadn’t been to Tunisia,
but of course, I learned, he’d been to Morocco (where he slept in a bath tub in
a falling down palace), and Algeria (When? Why? I’m still not sure), and he
couldn’t say that he hadn’t been to Libya.
For me, these were the “next countries over”, the
easy exotic, like going to Mexico from
the United States.
The last time
I was in North Africa was the summer of 2001. A few weeks after I left,
there was a bombing in Casablanca. And
then of course, 6 weeks later was 9/11.
I never planned not to go back. But now I don’t know when I will. Not because
of 9/11, but because of Benghazi. And it makes me second guess what
semi-dangerous place I might ever venture into again.
My first memory of awareness of terror and danger
and bombing and threats is from quite a young age: I moved to Italy during Gli
Anni di Piombo. There was the Red Brigade, the Mafia, and Abu Nidal. And, one
day, my mother told me I couldn't ride the bus to school. Nor the next day. My
mother said that the other children might be hurt if someone tried to kill me.
Of course, we never used the word "kill"-- it was "death
threat" or "blow [something] up".
In those days the Embassy, an old Palace the U.S.
had commandeered in the aftermath of the Second World War, was guarded by a
long iron gate and a few marines standing duty. You showed your identity card,
at the gate, perhaps explain your reason for visiting, and would then be waived
across the cobblestones to the reception hall, where there was an actual
appointment book, and telephones, and a switch board. It was only once inside
the Embassy that your identity and appointment might actually verified,
confirmed.... or refuted.
After a friend died in a bombing, I asked my
mother what the iron gates could do to keep us safe. She said that no one would
be foolish enough to attack an embassy, or our home.
My mother had took special driving classes, and
always checked under the car if it had been parked outside, unattended, for a
while. There were ways to walk and things to be aware of that I and my embassy
friends knew form an early age. We learned Italian fluently, some Arabic, a
smattering of French. We were expected to be the best and the brightest, but
also to learn everything we could about where we were, to try to understand it
in as many different ways as we could. And then, there was always the embassy
if worse came to worst. And stick together.
It wasn’t polite, or safe, to be an arrogant,
ignorant, oafish, superior American alone, but together, we were invincible.
And besides, only really crazy people really hated America (secretly, we all
knew, we really were the best. And we could show that by being polite,
respectful, and friendly). And the crazies were disorganized, young, and
persuadable; ideology would burn out. A sort of lone-gunman theory of
terrorism.
When we came back to Italy in the late 80's,
getting into the Embassy was much harder, the marines much stricter about ID.
And the gate at our house had been beefed up, and there was always a car of
policemen out front, and motion dictators caught me sneaking through the garden
to break curfew, once I got older. And sometimes there was a helicopter overhead.
I didn't really think Italy had gotten more dangerous-- if anything, it seemed
safer. No more Prime Ministers being murdered, no more CIA station chiefs being
kidnapped. It seemed as though the crazies had burned themselves out, and
at the same time, we were being better taken care of, more protected. Safe.
In retrospect, the Beirut bombings must have prompted
the extra security I experienced, and American “symbolic” security actually
decreased: Embassies were bombed again in 1998.
But from the standpoint of today, it seems easy to dismiss those as
anomalies: Osama Bin Laden was responsible for that attack, after all. If you
had asked me 2 years ago what to do when travelling overseas, and cared for
whatever reason, I would have said
confidently, perhaps with some nostalgia,
“Get to the Embassy”.
I've always thought of our embassies and consulates
as safe havens, and felt certain that if I went, they would take me: that they
would always be my home and family.
And, I imagine, the personnel-- U.S. government officers, civil
servants, contractors-- who died last
year in Benghazi must have thought sort of the same thing.
From what I’ve read, they’ve done everything my
mother always told me to do, from the best of their abilities/positions: learned Arabic, asked for help, met with the
locals, grabbed a gun.
To the last point: I know that when people sign up
for the military or are military contractors for the CIA there is some
acceptance of potential death And, certainly, the Foreign Service officers
killed would have been receiving hazard pay.
But, they were Americans. The best and the
brightest, who had done everything right.
And we are a country that famously says “no man left behind”.
On the ground, support was asked for, and on the ground,
Americans acted like Americans and came to help their compatriots. But no support arrived form the United States.
I don't have a recipe, or a pattern, or a photo for this one. Being
aware, communicating, making your own help, and then asking for more help is
strength, not weakness. But what do you do when help doesn't come?
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