What was the most famous revolution in the world in 2011? Of course the answer is the Egyptian Revolution, known as the 25th January Revolution or the White Revolution. And yet there aren't any books about this great peaceful revolution. This is a real pi
The Quiver Land and the Black Era of Tyranny
By Ahmad S. Abdul-AzizAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Ahmad S. Abdul-Aziz
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4685-0783-6Contents
Preface.................................................xiiiStage One Admiration Vs Fear...........................1Stage Two Hitting with an Iron Fist.....................19Stage Three The Need to Change..........................41The White Revolution....................................51For the Souls of Martyrs................................77The People Want.........................................89
Chapter One
Stage One
Admiration Vs. Fear
For about thirty years, beginning five years after I was born, I feared the Shadow Man and respected him. Those thirty years were divided into three stages. The first one was the stage of respect and admiration mixed with fear. All of us as children, when seeing him, expressed our appreciation and gratitude. Why? This is a good question. The answer is easy—we were still young. The oldest one of us was ten. Our full understanding of the universe, the environment, and what was going on around us was not complete yet. When we lived in our beloved land, the Quiver Land, we saw him protecting it and looking after it. Also, the stories of his heroism told to us again and again by our parents and grandparents increased our admiration of him. His picture never left us, day or night, and he became part of our souls, a pulse in our hearts, a parent, a friend, a brother, and a teacher.
This small piece of land named the Quiver Land—which we considered our paradise, our source of protection, shelter, recreation, and refuge—was totally seen under the power of his hands. This land was the place where we worked, where we produced our food, and where we were educated—not only formal education, but life education as well. It was the place where we met our friends, where we enjoyed playing different games. What really gave the Quiver Land a magic touch was the kind souls of her people. Those are a sort of people that are rare to find. When you meet them and see the smile on their faces, you know how they are suffering. Strange, isn't it? They suffered a lot, but they tried to forget their suffering and the hardship of their lives with a simple smile and maybe a long laugh when hearing a joke or a funny story.
The relationship between the Quiver Land and him was very strong. Over time, we were told that he was one of the heroes who had fought the enemies to free it. Then, after gaining its freedom, he governed it, protected its borders, and led its area for nearly thirty years.
So, in this stage of ten years, we loved him, respected him, and helped him raise the flag of our land among our neighbors and produce the best yield every year. As could be seen by us as children and the narrow-minded, passionate people around us, he was honest, responsible, and reliable. He protected and defended our land against every attempt to mistreat or exploit it. Whenever our parents took us on a walk, we saw him standing in the middle of our land, in the burning sun of summer and in the freezing cold of winter. Day and night, he was there sending the birds away, protecting the plants during the growing period till they matured and flourished. His role in helping our land achieve its goals every agricultural season couldn't be denied.
We spent those ten years admiring his courage in protecting and saving the seeds and little bushes from being eaten, snatched, or stolen. He was the right person for the right task, and he was a model of sincerity, honesty, courage, and responsibility. Our admiration of him and pride in his personality increased day after day, week after week, month after month, season after season, and year after year.
I used to listen to stories about him from my father during picnics, family gatherings, and while we spent time together, especially with my Uncle Sami. What follows is an excerpt from a conversation I had with Uncle Sami while I was on summer vacation in the sixth year of elementary school.
"Uncle, I would like to listen to a distinguished part of our Shadow Man's story—if you don't mind of course," I said.
Uncle Sami replied, "Not at all. I will be happy to tell you anything about him, as we all respect him and appreciate the role he plays in our land." Uncle Sami continued, "You know, my nephew, this Shadow Man is the leader of our land. Though he is made of straw and sticks, wearing his distinguished cap that protects his face from sunlight, wind, and rain, he does his best to care about the land and protect it from any aggression."
"Do you remember anything special about him?" I asked.
"Once, the Shadow Man was infected with a virus that affected his health greatly. All around him advised him that he had to consult a doctor abroad."
"Was it serious, Uncle?" I asked.
"In fact, it was. You won't believe what he did. His mentors and all the people who knew him advised him to travel abroad to have treatment. But he refused to leave his beloved Quiver Land," Uncle Sami replied.
"So, what did he do?" I asked eagerly.
"My nephew, the Shadow Man was a hero. He loved his land. He preferred to die in his land than leave it even for an hour. You know what he said to all the people around him?"
"What did he say?" I inquired impatiently.
Uncle Sami said, "He told them words that still repeat in my ears like a ringing bell. The Shadow Man said, `Look, all of you, I won't leave this land. I was raised on it, flourished on it, and I will die on it. If I am ill now and in need of treatment, then I will have it on this land, in the place I have been my whole life. I trust the doctors that were raised in this land and educated in its universities. I am one of you. I am just like this brown farmer who spent his life planting this land and providing his people with all the food they need. If he were ill, would he go to Germany to get treatment? No, he wouldn't, as he has no money to travel. I am like him. I will live and die on this land, and if I am in need of any medicine, I will have it here and in no other place.'"
"Wow. How wonderful he is. He is a great hero, and every word he utters shows how patriotic he is."
"I wish he would stay with us forever," my uncle concluded.
This view of the Shadow Man as a patriotic hero never changed in the eyes of my uncle and those people his age, and even the children at my age. These people saw the Shadow Man as their close friend, who even if he betrayed them couldn't be tortured, insulted, or snubbed. With this attitude and passive conduct, they helped him to change from being humble to arrogant, from being respected to feared, from being transparent to opaque. But up till this part of his life, he was still considered the hero by the little, unaware people who were not apt to accept change and adapt to it.
Let's go back again to the initial moments of this Shadow Man governing the Quiver Land and how he played the role of the piteous man who showed fear to God and did his best to gain the satisfaction of God and the people he governed. The Shadow Man was giving glamorous and sensational speeches that bred a sense of admiration, approval, and contentment in the people living in the land. Every time he rose upon the platform and gave a speech, it was followed by a wave of appreciation and applause by all the people.
In one of his speeches, as Uncle Sami told me in one of our gatherings, he appeared to be addressing the cultured elite of society, as he was illustrating some of the world concepts that emerged in the era of his regime. My uncle told me the highlights of this speech, commenting that although the Shadow Man was addressing people who could be classified as sophisticated, he used very simple words that made the matter interesting for illiterate people. There were many in our land that lacked life's essentials for a period of time, enough to make the sighted man blind and the strong man weak and the alive dead!
My uncle said, "Do you know, my nephew, that I can't help but laugh at our conduct in the hall of celebration when the Shadow Man gave this speech and how naïve the people were listening to him."
"Why do you say that, Uncle?" I asked.
"Do you know the meaning of socialism?" asked my uncle.
"A little. I think it is an economical concept that means that all the resources of the country are owned by the country itself and its people."
"You are right. Socialism is a system in which the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution of capital, land, etcetera, is the community as a whole. The Shadow Man, in his speech explaining this meaning, said, `Socialism means if you own two cows, you give one to your neighbor, so both of you have one cow and both of you have a share in the building of the society and a share in the capital of this land.'"
"I think he is right in this comparison," I said.
"Yes, and he used the same technique to define other concepts, such as capitalism, fascism, Nazism, communism, etcetera."
"Interesting. I think it would be a wonderful tale to hear," I said.
"I know, and I will be happy to tell you his allegories," Uncle Sami replied.
"I am all ears, my uncle."
"The Shadow Man defined communism as when you own two cows, and then the government comes and takes the two of them and gives you some milk," Uncle Sami said.
"Ha ha ha! Marvelous," I said.
My uncle continued, "For the Shadow Man, fascism is similar to communism except that the government will sell the milk to you instead of giving it to you."
"Uncle, I think the Shadow Man was also very funny. His sense of humor can't be resisted," I whispered.
But my uncle didn't listen. He was deeply interested in recalling the speech of the Shadow Man and his funny definitions of cultural concepts. He continued as if he didn't hear me, "The Shadow Man defined Nazism as something terrible—which is to be executed after taking both your cows."
"Oh, my God! Nazism is that bad?" I said, as I had no idea about this concept."
Uncle Sami went on, "The Shadow Man defined bureaucracy as having two cows. Then the government comes, kills one of the two cows, milks the other, and spills the milk on the ground."
"Mmmmm! Seems nice," I uttered.
Uncle Sami said, "Capitalism was defined as having two cows, and then you sell one of them and buy an ox, and thus the cattle grows. So you sell it and retire, depending on the revenue."
Are you with me? Was the Shadow Man so wise and shrewd? You may think so, and all the people in the Quiver Land were thinking so, too. However, someone who knows the real meaning of these economic and political systems must apply the best of them for the good of his people. This never happened in the Quiver Land under the regime of the Shadow Man.
Now that the second presidential cycle was about to finish, the pictures of the Shadow Man were in all streets, clubs, shops, offices, factories, gardens, and public places. Democracy was there, opening the way for anyone to put himself forward as a candidate for presidency. However, no one could stand as a rival in the face of the Shadow Man, and so he succeeded. Wasn't there anyone fit for this position except for the Shadow Man? Had not all the wise men, experts, specialists, statesmen, and scholars—which the Quiver Land was full of—been fit for this position? This idea never struck the minds of the people in this period when admiration mixed with fear of the Shadow Man dominated the atmosphere in the Quiver Land. So, as usual, cheers and applause filled every spot in the Quiver Land, for 99.9 percent of the people voted for the Shadow Man, though you can say that almost no one appeared in the voting poll!
However, the patriotic feelings were increasing in those days. I remember those days well, especially the moments when my friend Najm and I sang a lot of famous songs that kept our hearts and souls burning with the love of our land. Here I would like to end this stage of my story of the Quiver Land and the Shadow Man with one of the songs I admired most entitled, "You're My Land."
You're my land
My close friend and beloved
My hope and dream
In time of danger.
You're my mom
Who bears my sufferings
From time and days
To you I sing with love and passion.
If once I forget, you forgive me, you forgive me!
I can't forget the touch of your heart
On my heart.
My land, take me.
Your chest holds me
And lightens my way.
To you I sing with love and passion.
If once I forget, you forgive me, you forgive me!
Here comes the end of the first stage of the Shadow Man's story. Regardless of the severe life and bad conditions of the people, they brought up their children with a consistent motto: "Long Live Quiver Land!"
Chapter Two
Stage Two
Hitting with an Iron Fist
Time passed quickly. The elections were over, and the Shadow Man swept all his rivals, if there were any! All the eloquent speeches he uttered during his election campaign disappeared or might have gone with the wind. Nothing changed in the whole land. Everything was the same in color, appearance, smell, and touch. The streets were not paved, and it used to take half an hour by bus to reach the house of my friend Najm, which was fifteen kilometers away. The same situation was repeatedly seen in all the infrastructure of the Quiver Land, and the people were still unaware of or indifferent to all that they faced. They seemed hypnotized.
While we exported electricity and natural gas to places that showed hostility and enmity to us over the years—at very cheap prices that were less than the international rates all over the world—electricity stopped several times during the day and night in our land. Some places went without electricity for a whole day or a whole night. It happened under full supervision and control of His Majesty, the Shadow Man and his Little Clan signing contracts. There wasn't a man who could utter even a word of objection. No one was there to speak. The people were occupied with more important things to think about, such as food, clothing, and housing, which were as rare as gold or precious stones in the eyes of the normal Quiverians.
One of the sayings about the people living in our land that really described the reality of life under the control and governing of the Shadow Man was: "The Quiverian citizen practices sport all the day long." Let me explain the idea of this saying. When the Quiverian citizen was young, he practiced leaping barriers when he wanted to escape from school, as a good deal of the students in our land did. This, of course, reflected the great standards of education under his sovereignty!
The Quiverian citizen in our land practiced breathing exercises on the steps of any government establishment. The red tape and long waiting time at the door of any official or in queues, in order to have a look at his ugly—sorry, I mean very handsome face—could cause not only frustration but sometimes depression and insanity.
The Quiverian citizen also practiced the sport of running because he would run after vehicles of public transportation to reach the places he wanted to go—and of course he would be late in the end. Every place in the world has rush hour. In our land, all hours were rush hours. If one wanted to catch the bus, he or she had to fight, scream, and seize even an inch to sneak into the only spare place to reach their work, schools, offices, or even their graves.
The Quiverian citizen strived in a continuous marathon to earn his living. All day long, the farmer in his field, the worker in the factory, the carpenter in his workshop, the teacher in his school—all the people spent their life in the hunt for money to buy the food they needed and the necessities life demanded. Of course, after all, they failed to satisfy their needs.
We can add some fun to the situation if we describe the status of the Quiverian citizen when he demanded the simplest of his rights. He seemed to be wrestling or doing another type of sport similar to that. He fought to get some bread at the bakery for his hungry little children. He fought to get his sick child treated at the hospital with some aspirin or an ointment or an antibiotic. He fought to get a license for building a little house for his family. Even fighting was not enough. He had to pay bribes everywhere to get his tasks done and his rights attained. That was the kind of fairness and justice the Quiverian citizen enjoyed during the reign of the Shadow Man.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Quiver Land and the Black Era of Tyrannyby Ahmad S. Abdul-Aziz Copyright © 2011 by Ahmad S. Abdul-Aziz. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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