The Truth, for Goodness Sake

And then Shirzai come out with his second local proverb, the import of which stayed with me for weeks.  "Kill me," the governor said.  "But don't put me out in the sun."

Better dead than exposed.  It was a notion that cut to the core of the worst cultural clash I confronted in this land I had adopted: its utterly incomprehensible relationship with the truth.  Words were not all that important, it seemed, since people lied so systematically.  And yet words were terribly important, since they outlasted deeds; so the battles that counted were about getting the last word.  I could not make it compute.  To me words were precious and weighty--but only in their power to communicate the truth.  For the truth, once communicated, was a potent force for good.  So I thought.

The governor repeated his kind invitation.  "Any time, day or night," he effused, "if you have something to say to me, you come here.  If I'm asleep, slap me on the ass and wake me up." [1]

I'll have some things to say about Sarah Chayes' book, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban, but the above passage so fit into the OA&L bin, "Conflict, Culture, and Language" I thought to rush the process and give it play.

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1. Chayes, Sarah.  The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban.  p. 391.  New York: The Penguin Press, 2006.

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Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim

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