Loving Sanity Is so Rare that It Stands Out — Malik Abdul Hakim’s Example in the Hell that Is Afghanistan

© 2015 Peter Free

 

06 January 2015

 

 

Reporter Azam Ahmed brought us this story, demonstrating the power of committed journalism

 

He wrote:

 

 

On the brindled plains of southern Afghanistan, Malik Abdul Hakim is death’s ferryman.

 

He collects the bodies of soldiers and police officers killed in areas of Taliban dominance and takes them home. From government centers, he carries slain insurgents back to their families, negotiating roads laced with roadside bombs.

 

Mr. Hakim, a slender 66-year-old with a white beard that hangs to his chest, laughs when asked what drives him. He never envisioned he would have this life, crossing front lines for strangers. But he finds meaning in his work, delivering a measure of dignity to families scarred by war.

 

Since he started seven years ago, Mr. Hakim has carried 713 bodies, including 313 in the past year alone.

 

“I will be thankful when there is peace and stability, and I no longer have work.”

 

Until then, he says, he will not be deterred. Not by the wretched smell of corpses, the physical demands of lifting the bodies or the psychological toll inflicted by a front-row seat to the atrocities of war.

 

Not even by the death of his two sons at insurgents’ hands.

 

© 2015 Azam Ahmed, An Afghan Cares for the Living by Carrying the Dead of Both Sides, New York Times (05 January 2014) (extracts)

 

 

Sanity sometimes (and usually only eventually) comes from recognizing what is insane

 

The lesson is one that many generations never learn, no matter how starkly one or more of its members demonstrate the grace of carrying an old soul:

 

 

“They have been at war for 13 years, and if they fight another 13 years they will not see peace,” he says. “They must sit down and speak with one another.”

 

© 2015 Azam Ahmed, An Afghan Cares for the Living by Carrying the Dead of Both Sides, New York Times (05 January 2014)

 

Speaking (of course) will not help, unless both sides recognize the futility of bending each other completely to their will.

 

Old souls can help with that, too.

 

 

The moral? — Too frequently, widespread and self-inflicted tragedy serves only to give the extraordinary few the opportunity to make visible their contrary examples

 

I am indebted to Azam Ahmed’s clear eyes and Malik Abdul Hakim’ courageous example of how to be, even while surrounded and repeatedly touched by Hell.