As a child in the 1980s in Washington, DC, Christmas was the time when my Catholic school life was replaced by an incredible magic. It wasn't so much a gift as the idea that reality was temporarily suspended and replaced by something more inspiring – which I think is one of the reasons why I persisted in believing in Santa Claus until I was 10 years old.
Of course, my childhood was fortunate in the capital of the United States, the imperial capital that continues to this day. racism and economic inequality that governs life in the so-called “land of the free.” Although I was well aware of such domestic issues growing up, I knew little of my country's contribution to global suffering; in my birth year of 1982, for example, Washington lit up Israel is attacking Lebanon which killed thousands of people.
Closer to home, the decade of the 1980s was marked by US aid right wing mass in Central America, they are all in a good quest to make the world safe from capitalism. The boredom of Catholic school was my biggest complaint in the world meant that I was doing better than most people – which became clear when I left the US in 2003, at the age of 21, in favor of a nomadic lifestyle. which led me to experience the fallout of US errors from Colombia in Vietnam.
Now I'm 42 years old, and I didn't have high hopes for Christmas when in mid-December I boarded a plane from Mexico to DC, where my parents had recently returned to live – following their long time abroad. the death of my father last year. This year, it wasn't just my father's absence that seemed to put a damper on the festivities. The potential for incredible magic would seem to be effectively neutralized by the negative nature of the world as well The killing of Israel with the support of the US which continues in the Gaza Strip, where almost all of the population has been forcibly displaced.
Meanwhile, the transformation of Christmas in America into an influx of Amazon trucks only leads to apocalyptic economic stability and the reduction of humanity to an endless series of financial exploits.
And yet, ironically, my first sense of vacation here in DC came from such an interaction, when a Sudanese driver who worked for my mother's company gave me a hug.
From the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the man – we'll call him Alsafi – showed his interest when he saw my “Free Palestine” sweats when he came to pick me up. Also 42, he worked as a human rights lawyer in Sudan – itself no stranger to systematic and mass killings forced migration – before fleeing the country in 2013 after several rounds of arrest and torture.
When he arrived in the United States, however, Alsafi was convinced that the American dream was not what it was cracked up to be. Not only was he always found to be racist, he had quickly grown weary of the pressure selling that has become a substitute for life itself. He too was now plotting to leave the country. Needless to say, we had a lot to talk about.
A few days before Christmas, Alsafi invited me to dinner at a low-key Ethiopian restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, just across the bridge from DC. I spent one month in Ethiopia in 2016; Alsafi spent several months in 2013 between fleeing Sudan and immigrating to the United States. Habesha beer from Ethiopia is ingenuity After carrying piles of lentils and green vegetables, I heard the details of Alsafi's Sudanese experience.
Inside a prison, he was blindfolded and beaten as the torturers kept ordering him to move to a corner of the cell. He stumbled around looking for a corner, but to no avail. “It was funny,” he said to me with a real laugh. “When he took off the blindfold, I saw that there was no corner in the room. It was circular. “
Alsafi was not a fan of driving, but had to spend long hours to support his family in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, where he fled. The ongoing violence in Sudan. On the return trip to my mother's home in DC, she pointed out places she knew better than I did: the Pentagon, the Watergate hotel, a patch of homeless tents that Alfafi had informed me existed as well. He was forcibly evacuated for “security” reasons when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did so in July arrived at the US capital to make a crime of murder.
There was something wonderful about our mutual disbelief, and the evening ended with another hug in front of my mom's house — a lobby that now had a huge Christmas tree and an ever-growing pile of Amazon delivery boxes. Alsafi left, and I was left with the reminder that even in a capitalist society there are people out there – as magical as it gets.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect Al Jazeera's influence.