So the other day I went to Alan Drew’s presentation.  He talked about his book called Gardens of Water. It’s a very powerful book about two conflicting families who live two completely different lives. There are two families who live in Istanbul living in the same apartment complex. One family is American.  The other is Muslim Kurdish. There is strong tension between the two. One is Christian and the other was Muslim. The Kurdish family is opposed to American’s because they supply the Kurd’s enemy with weapons. Anyway, he wrote about a very  important message from the book that I would like to share.

“There are so many reasons, Sinan canim,” his father said. “Many complicated reasons that make no sense. People are afraid to lose things-power, land, oil, money- and all these people- the Turks, the Iraqis, the Iranians-think we’ll take those things away from them”. “I don’t understand.” “You will”, he said. “But for now, before it becomes confusing, remember one thing. None of these people are your friends- not the Arabs, not the Turks, and not the Americans.” “I don’t understand. The Americans are far away, across the ocean.” “No, they’re not. They’re in the guns the Turkish paramilitaries fire, they’re in the money they give to dictators like Saddam Hussein, they’re even in the ground, pumping out the oil.” His father smiled, but not a happy one. The Americans are never far away” (Drew 146-7).