Zaid was a client of the British Refugee Council, where I used to work, and the first time I saw him it was my job to take down his details - first name, surname, nationality - in order to register him on the system. The moment I asked him whether he was Muslim (following the questions on the proforma which I had to follow) he accused me of being a racist.
My immediate thought was that I was dealing with another of these stubborn, pig-headed types, but at the same time there was something about his aggressive behaviour which I quite liked, even if it was directed towards myself. Towards myself, yes, but only accidentally. I showed him the form I was filling out, in which there were boxes containing the names of the most common religions of the people who attended the refugee service.
"Look", I said to him, "It's of no interest to me personally what your religion is; I have to put something down, and the first box in the list asks me to put a tick if you're a Muslim". - The form wasn't my own design but merely a procedure I had to follow.
I should explain - I didn't understand his rational: he was Iraqi, or some such culture; his name was Zaid or whatever, he's from the Islamic world, although more atheist than Voltaire; and indeed all the Iraqis I know - and I know a lot - are Muslim. In other words I didn't have the remotest idea what was going on in his mind for saying what he said, but I was convinced nonetheless that he was an interesting person - really interesting - if categorically wrong. And however huge the fallacy of his argument, this moment, this moment in particular, was not one for discussing his reasoning. So I limited my response to simply showing him that I was not a part of the prejudice that he carried around with him. I made sure that he could see clearly the form on the screen. He leaned in, looked very closely and then nodded, as if to say I knew I was right, and then he said,
"There are several options. Only one of them is Muslim. Others are atheist or agnostic. Why did you assume I might be Muslim?
This guy thinks that he is smart, I thought. And also - I continued to think - of course! He's assuming I think everyone in Iraq is Muslim - though of course that's not at all what I was thinking. Probably none of my colleagues would know anything about this (at least not Paul, Vicky, Debby and William, as they never read anything about anything, not even the few university students - their weekends are dedicated to their family or partners, or to just getting drunk, if they happen to be single) but in Venezuela I had learnt about the Kurdish people and I knew something of Iraq. And I knew all this without even knowing a single Kurd or a single Iraqi. Some of it came from a leaflet published by the Centro Gumilla - to whom I am more indebted for my education than my actual Alma Mater - and other bits came from reports I had read earlier, published by the MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement). So I knew that there were Jews in Iraq too, although Saddam Husain had tried to eradicate them, and of course I could guess that there were many atheists, as the Ba'ath party was secular and had support from amongst the non-religious.
And this Zaid smart arse thinks I'm as ignorant as everyone else. But all the same, I wasn't going to fall into the trap of saying, "Yeah, I knew they weren't all Muslims". And then a more interesting idea occurred to me:
This guy could be a religious dissident, someone who doesn't fit in with the general culture of his country and is asserting his identity, and I, stupidly, by following the procedures of this British burocracy, was unequipped to have the sensitivity of asking him about these things. Who's to tell me not to follow my own instincts and intuitions? (which actually happen to be better!)
But I knew I wasn't there to show any solidarity with his political stand so I defended myself through purely statistical argument. I said to him, "Listen, the majority of Iraqis are Muslim. All those that have come here are Muslim. But the important point thing is that I personally don't have anything against Muslims." And he nodded as if to say, "So you're agreeing with me". And I continued to feel a little uncomfortable.
"So you see, I'm not being prejudiced here in the way you thought I was. Because yes, it's merely a statistical probability, and I have no negative feelings about it either way. I'm just filing in the form."
"Are you a Muslim?" He asked.
"Me? No. What's that got to do with it?"
"It has everything to do with it. Are you a believer?"
And his question annoyed me because I was losing the time I had left to interview people and if I had problems to sort out I was going to have to meet with my bosses, who only assessed my work by the actual length of the sessions. So I told him,
"No, I'm not a believer" and he immediately added,
"And if you're a non-believer then you assume that all religions are a made up fantasy, an elaborate superstition, don´t you?"
And I had to answer him with care because I could see that I was dealing with someone difficult, astute, capable of reasoning, but stubborn and misguided, happy to waste my time. To be honest, I didn't want to argue.
"Yes, I have my own beliefs about religion, naturally, but I don't judge people by their religion and I've known very intelligent people who are believers and also stupid people who are atheists, but please, can we move on, otherwise if you need help I'm not going to have enough time..." But he interrupted me:
"-It seems to me that you think there are believers who are intelligent despite the fact that they are believers, and stupid people who despite being stupid are atheists"
I was getting quite annoyed by this point and I lent back in order to listen to his little arguments, which isn't to say they were bad, but this wasn't the time - he wasn't gaining anything from this and anyway he was completely wrong.
"...Anyway", Zaid went on, "intelligent people are influenced by science and think religion is less important. And you assumed I'm from the Middle East and because of that, I'm stupid and a believer"
"Look, I promise you, I didn't assume you were stupid. Just that you were a Muslim, and I was wrong there. It was an error and I corrected it so let's move on. What was I supposed to have done anyway? What question should I have asked you?
"You should have asked, 'Do you have a religion?' "
"Ok, I'm sorry."
What a pain this guy is, I thought, and I got ready to finish the rest of the questionnaire as quickly as possible. Time was moving on and the managers would be complaining that I was too slow. Of course an English person on the desk would have said from the start "This is about your religion, not mine, so let's have an answer". But here I was with all these digressions and this smart Alec with his idiot face. So I said to him,
"Ok, let's start again. Do you have a religion?".
And without waiting for his reply I put a cross in the box that said 'non-believer'. I was happy that this point had been resolved. But then he replied:
"Yes. I am a Muslim".
So that was Zaid. He liked an argument and he was good at it. And no presumption was correct. He had already defeated me twice, intellectually, but in an unfair fight because I had nothing to do with the design of these proformas. I asked him to consider better use of his time - which wasn't unlimited - and said I did want to help him: what was it that was bothering him? And he looked at me as if to say Let's see what you're going to come up with now.
The next question was about languages. No chance of messing this one up. No way he could lark about this time. He was an Iraqi. But he was good at arguing (if somewhat inappropriately), and so this is how I asked him about language:
"Languages that you speak. Arabic and English?"
"I don't speak Arabic"
Don’t fuck about with me, I thought. This guy is Iraqi and he's gonna tell me he doesn't speak Arabic? In Iraq they speak Arabic and this one even speaks English. So how is that possible? I felt trapped: It could be that in some villages in northern Iraq, in Kurdistan, they don't speak Arabic but this guy speaks like he's educated and his English isn't at all bad. So, I was a bit intrigued, but I carefully followed his previous 'lesson', almost like I was playing his game:
"Sorry. 'What languages do you speak?' ", I asked him.
"Kurdish and English"
"Ok, sorry. I just assumed you must speak Arabic"
I was trying to apologise so as not to fall into another diplomatic incident with Zaid, now that I could see what a difficult type of person he was. On the other hand, I was thinking: this is happening to me because of the way I am. It wouldn't be like this with someone else in my place because his prejudice would have been cut short from the very start and this Zaid guy would have found himself at the mercy of the Institution. In any case, an English colleague would have just said to him the complaints form is over there on the right, there you go. Or he'd have refused to deal with him, and that would've been that. And here I am trying to negotiate with his prejudices. It's not by chance that my sessions were always the longest. But hey, I carried on regardless in my own style - which was, nonetheless, detrimental to me. I continued:
"Very sorry. I thought that schools in Iraq taught in Arabic"
"Yes, they do speak Arabic in Iraqi schools"
"Ah! So you didn't study in Iraq?" I asked, hoping that would clear up the mystery.
"Yes, I studied in Iraq. School and University"
His answer intrigued me because here he was telling me more than what I'd asked for, when up to now he'd always shown himself to be very sparing in the information he gave out. Clearly he did want to talk, though I didn’t want to argue. But still I couldn't resist asking him:
"So the teaching isn't in Arabic?"
"Yes, the schools and universities are in Arabic", he said, without further comment, as though it were all completely logical.
"But yours weren't in Arabic?" -there was nothing but that left for me to ask.
"Yes they were in Arabic. I studied in Arabic."
"Then why do you say you don't speak Arabic?"
"Because... I don't speak Arabic because I don't want to."