Essay: See

Protesters outside the White House. Photo: Greg Foster

I first visited the White House in 2005. George W. Bush was president and I received an invitation that year from the office of then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to the White House Iftar, but that was not why I stood just outside the gates of the home of the U.S. president. I turned down that invitation.

I was instead there as a tourist. And there sitting just outside the gates was a man in an orange jumpsuit, his hands tied behind his back, with a hood covering his head and a sign in front of him saying “Stop torture.” It was his protest against the extraordinary renditions by the United States of Muslim men from Afghanistan to countries where they would be tortured either by local security forces or CIA agents. Already, the news of waterboardings and other types of torture were defining the Bush administration’s “War on Terror.”

I wanted to chat with the man and thank him for his protest, but before I could, I saw what appeared to be a school trip of white children and white adults approach the White House gates and a girl among of them, of about 10 years of age, walked up to the man in the orange jumpsuit, read his sign, and asked him “Do you hate President Bush?”

The man shook his hooded head and replied “I don’t hate President Bush. I hate what he does.”

One of the adults with the group of children, a man who appeared to be in his forties, whisked the girl away from the one-man protest.

“Thank you for protesting torture,” I told the man in the orange jumpsuit. “I’m from Egypt where torture is systemic and I really appreciate what you’re doing. It’s especially important because the U.S. props up our dictator, knowing that he tortures and violates human rights all the time.”

“Go and tell him that!” the man in the jumpsuit replied, meaning the man who whisked the girl away.

And because I like trouble, I went looking for the man.

What a luxury to think that your government will always work for your benefit. What an utter delusion to so naively trust the powerful.