Why There Will Never Be Peace in the Middle East

            In 1974, Arabs were still noble, the oil embargo against America had just lifted and Ali and I were young. Ali Gabriel el Kubti met me in front of my prefab house on the morning of my first day at work in Marsa-el-Brega, Libya, and I liked him right away. His high cheekbones and the curly black hair covering his ears and the collar of his denim shirt could have marked him as American Indian instead of Libyan. Only his exact enunciation of a few words gave a hint that he hadn't grown up in Wisconsin.

            "Hi, howya doin'?" he greeted me with a brilliant smile and a firm handshake. "Welcome to Libya. I'm supposed to show you to the office and help you get settled."

            He was about my age, late twenties, and I knew he hadn't picked up that accent in Tripoli. "Thanks. You went to school in the States?" I asked as I threw my briefcase into his car.

            "Two of them. They send all us Arab students to Michigan State to learn English before we go to the school where we've been accepted to study our major."

            "And where did you study?"

            "California, man. Sun, surf...and chicks," he said with a wink. "I got my chemical engineering degree from UCLA in June, and here I am, back home again."

            The way he said "home" made me smile, and he broke into a grin as he made a grand sweep of his arms to indicate the sand dunes stretching away in the distance. "Home" was Marsa-el-Brega, a small community built by Exxon at the site of its Libyan oil terminal. Surrounded by sand and rocks on three sides, it sat on a windswept cove at the southern tip of the Gulf of Sirte, the southernmost reach of the Mediterranean Sea. It was home only to lizards, ten billion flies and the Exxon employees and families who worked there.

            Nearby ran the coast road connecting Brega with Tripoli to the west and Benghasi to the east, Libya's two main ports, separated by a thousand miles of Sahara Desert. Apart from an occasional Bedouin camp and a few dusty little towns, the thousand miles held nothing but sand.

            As we turned the last corner out of the housing complex onto the main road to the industrial section of Brega, the car began to list to the right, and a thump came from the rear tire.

            Ali thumped the steering wheel hard. "Oh, man, not a flat, not today! Rotten luck!"

            "Ah, no big deal," I said, thinking he was embarrassed at getting me to work late on his first day as my mentor. "We can change it out and still be at the office on time."

            "Yeah, but it's Ramadan."

            Exxon had briefed me on the Moslem holy month, the fasting from dawn to dusk, but the significance didn't register. "Let's get your jack."

            He got out and opened the trunk, still muttering to himself, and made a show of tossing some bits of trash around searching for the jack. I pulled up the floor liner and took out the jack and handle and the lug wrench.

            "Um, I've never done this before," he said, a little sheepishly, I thought.

            "Well, the jack goes there," I said, stooping to slide it under the frame of the car. "Then the handle goes in here."

            He stood with his arms crossed. "Oh, yeah. I see."

            I stood and brushed the sand off my hands. He didn't move.

            "Now you have to jack it up."

            "Oh, right." He squatted and fumbled with getting the handle into the jack. He glanced up at me. "I've never done this before."

            I squatted beside him, put the handle in and started to jack the car. I pointed to the lug wrench, "You can loosen the lug nuts."

            "Lug nuts?"

            "Yes, those nuts that hold the wheel on."

            "Right."

            He got the lug wrench on, but heading in the wrong direction to loosen the nuts. I saw where this was leading, and determined not to fall for it.

            "No, the other way," I said.

            "Uh, could you..."

            "Just rotate it ninety degrees." I stood and watched while he struggled with the nut, finally getting it loose. "Now that one."

            He gave me another glance, and any sign of embarrassment was gone. "I've never done this before," he repeated, and turned back to the task, muttering something in Arabic.

            I lifted the spare out of the trunk while he finished the lug nuts. I took the flat tire off the wheel and put the spare on. Meanwhile, he stood and brushed his hands together, grimacing. "It's Ramadan, man," he growled. "My mouth is all dry and I can't drink anything!! Rotten luck!"

            "No water?" I asked, incredulously. I thought fasting meant no eating.

            "No, man, we can't even have a drink."

I finally understood his annoyance at the flat, and wondered if his attempts to trick me into doing the work might be something other than laziness. It was my early introduction to Libya's complexity.

            Over the next few weeks, I got to know more about Ali. His father was a merchant who owned a large importing firm in Benghasi. Ali was the youngest of four sons and he spoke proudly of his brothers, all several years older. One was manager of a wire manufacturing plant, another a banker and the third was engineering manager of Libya's largest fertilizer plant.

            "How'd you get along in America?" I asked. "It must have been, um, tough on you last year." I remembered some anti-Arab headlines and political cartoons showing Arabs as nasty money-grubbers. On TV I had seen more than one punch up between Arab and American students.

His smile hardened a bit, but he shrugged. "I just studied and tried to blend in." He leaned closer and whispered, "It's that crazy Qaddafi who causes the trouble."

            "But Americans are pretty narrow minded sometimes," I said apologetically. He just shrugged.

            Ali introduced me around the office. In contrast to Ali, the other engineers were serious, reserved, especially with me, and they all spoke English with difficulty in heavy accents. Yet I found through persistent questioning that all had studied in America just as Ali had done.

            "Ali, your English is so much better than your friends'. Why is that?"

I expected him to respond to the compliment, but his answer was harsh. "Because I worked at it," he said angrily. "Those guys," he jammed a thumb in their direction, "hung around each other like sheep, speaking Arabic, listening to Arab music. Me, from the time I left Michigan I didn't speak a word of Arabic in America."

He glared at the group of men on the other side of the office while I thought about Lawrence of Arabia and what a hard time he had getting the Arabs to work together.

As Ali and I left the office one day after work, we passed a bus stop where a group of about fifteen Arab workers were waiting as two company shuttle buses approached. He slowed the car. "Watch this, he said, indicating the queue of workers.

The men began pushing and shoving to get on the first bus as it stopped. The buses could each seat about twelve people, but the fighting was violent enough that one man was knocked off his feet. The first bus was filled and the three losers boarded the second.

"Where do those buses go?" I asked.

"To the barracks," Ali replied.

"Both of them?"

"Yep," he said with a grin. "Nobody wants to be second."

The office work was not demanding, and coffee breaks were frequent, with the men gathering in one office or another for a chat. I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about this culture which had brought the world Khalil Gabran and our decimal system of numbers. I badly wanted to be accepted by the Libyans.

I knew they joked about Americans' poor language ability, and I felt ashamed that it was true. America the Great Melting Pot had melted all the culture out of those who came to seek a better life. They came to escape poverty and were forced to abandon all traces of their former heritage, good or bad. America considered it ungrateful of immigrants to speak their native languages. Those wops and micks, the spiks and bohunks, the polacks and himeys had to learn to speak American or they didn't get jobs. I felt responsible for America's scorn of anything not American. These guys had gotten college degrees in a foreign country so different from their own, with classes and everyday life being conducted in a foreign language, surrounded by an unsympathetic, even hostile society. And I thought of the contempt, which Americans showed to anyone who spoke with a foreign accent. I determined to try to make up for that by learning to speak Arabic.

"Salaam alaykum." I gave the universal Arab greeting in the hallway one morning to a group of engineers. After a few snickers and embarrassed glances at each other, they answered, "Wa alaykum es salaam," in a group mumble. Then I tried "Sabah il 'khair," good morning. This required a throat pinch and a coughing sound, very difficult for most westerners. Their embarrassed glances became smug half smiles, and I saw a hint of scorn.

"Good morning," came the reply in English.

I persisted. "Kaif halak?" How are you, another difficult guttural.

"Fine, how are you?" More chuckles.

Ali had approached the group and his delighted smile at my efforts faded with the English replies. He spoke harshly to one of the men who began to argue with him. The only word I understood was "takalum", speak. The group broke up and headed back to work. Ali followed me to my office.

"Hey, you're learning Arabic pretty well."

"They didn't think so. I can count and I know a few colors, but that's baby talk."

"To hell with them. Would you like me to teach you?"

"Hey, I don't want to be a bother."

"Bother, hell! It'll be fun teaching a language instead of learning one. I can get my own back. In fact, why don't we organize a class. Let's see if the others want to join."

Over the next several days, Ali had talked several other engineers and their wives into a class in Arabic. We met in one of the training classrooms, and Ali kept us busy learning numbers and practical conversation that we could use shopping at the Crossroads. He was a good teacher, and I practiced with the Arabs every chance I had. They stopped answering in English, but I suspected that it was because of Ali's threats rather than any respect for me.

In December that year, Ali had been with the company for six months, and was eligible for a week's vacation. He was excited about being able to visit his family in Benghasi.

"My father is old, you know," he said. "He's old enough to be my grandfather."

"You're the baby of the family?"

"That's right. My sister is the next youngest, and she was 20 when I was born. My brother has sons older than me."

The week while Ali was gone was my busiest in months, and when I saw him back at work, I was a bit surprised. All his friends had gathered around the water cooler chatting about his trip, asking for news of mutual friends in Benghasi and of the city itself. Ali began an excited description of his trip back. He shifted to English as I approached.

"I stopped in Agedabia for a drink, you know that little cafe near the big mosque?"

I knew the place he meant, having been there myself once or twice. The town was small, and strung along the highway for about two miles. It was the center of government for the central section of Libya, and consisted of a dusty collection of stores, houses and a few office buildings four or five stories high.

Agedabia is an ancient city, located at the intersection of a major caravan route from the southern regions of what is now Chad, and the east-west route which was now the major trans-Libyan highway. None of its history is apparent to a visitor, however. The buildings are of caliche stone, a soft, chalky material quarried a few miles away. Every private residence has a six-foot high wall of caliche bricks around it to shelter the female occupants from the view of strangers. Piles of construction rubble and drifted sand give everything a weather-beaten, derelict look. Goats roam throughout the town, clambering over the rubble piles, nibbling at bits of trash and the scattered acacia trees. Groups of children play in the open areas, darting across the road, the younger ones rolling hoops with a stick, older ones playing soccer. Ten miles from the sea, it is a place remarkable only for its ugliness.

The cafe Ali had mentioned sits next to the mosque, which is probably the largest piece of modern architecture between Tripoli and Benghasi. Taxis streak through the town along the highway, carrying passengers to Benghasi or Tripoli, slowing down only if the driver is ready for a drink, a rest or prayer at the mosque.

            Ali continued his story. "While I was having my tea, a taxi came along doing at least a hundred. Just as he passed the mosque, a boy ran out and, Pow!"

            He smacked his fist into his palm and I winced at the sound. I was amazed to see him smile,

and he paused to take a drink from the fountain. The other Arabs smiled at each other and waited for him to continue.

            "It must have knocked him fifty feet. The kid's father came running out and picked him up, but he was already dead. And, you know, the way that guy was howling and carrying on, you'd think it was him that was run over instead of the kid."

            I was stunned, and stared at Ali in horror with my mouth open. His friends laughed along with him at the story, and his good luck to see such a spectacle. They shifted into Arabic. I didn't see if Ali noticed me leave the group and go back to my office. But I know he never heard the shattering of my images.

From "Oil Patch" available at www.authorhouse.com/bookstore